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Hooray Henry!

Written By: - Date published: 6:04 pm, November 7th, 2016 - 55 comments

Paul Henry is to leave TV3. Did two pairs of tits lead to him getting the arse?

David Cunliffe announces his retirement from politics

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 1st, 2016 - 335 comments

David Cunliffe has announced that he will not be standing for Parliament at the next election.

Rigged

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, October 29th, 2016 - 97 comments

Maybe Donald Trump’s claims that the election results are going to be rigged deserve more consideration.

ISIS Crisis

Written By: - Date published: 5:10 pm, October 27th, 2016 - 84 comments

Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee says our training mission to Iraq is undergoing a transformation. We were warned when the troops first went that the mission was always intended to be looser than Brownlee publicly claimed at the time. And so it has turned out to be.

Fabian Event – 5th Labour Government – 30 October Auckland 1pm

Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, October 27th, 2016 - 4 comments

All are warmly invited to hear Sir Michael Cullen, Hon Margaret Wilson, Hon David Parker, Mike Williams, and Dot Kettle reflect on the experiences of Helen Clark-led three-term Labour government – its achievements and its legacy and discuss its lessons for the future. Sunday 30 October 1pm-5pm Owen Glenn Centre, Auckland University, Grafton Road. Please register here.

US Election Discussion Post 27/10/16

Written By: - Date published: 8:59 am, October 27th, 2016 - 54 comments

Today’s post for all random comments and links on the US election.

Blogs and Activism

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, October 26th, 2016 - 63 comments

What contribution can a blog make to activism?

Darren Watson 2 John Key 0

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, October 21st, 2016 - 140 comments

The Court of Appeal has ruled that Darren Watson’s Planet Key song should not have been banned during the 2014 election campaign.

Clinton vs Trump: Debate 3

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, October 20th, 2016 - 191 comments

We’re almost there, folks! The third and final presidential debate kicks off this arvo. Will Trump turn it around? Will Hillary bother turning up? Will Fox News beome a legitimate news outlet now that they’re allowed to run a debate? All will be revealed at 2 PM this arvo.

Heck Yeah! Hekia Parata to Leave Parliament

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, October 19th, 2016 - 80 comments

Hekia Parata is to leave Parliament next year. The bad news is that she is probably going to stay on as education minister till then.

Fifth Labour Govt – Challenges and Lessons

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 pm, October 18th, 2016 - 7 comments

Michael Cullen and Margaret Wilson will speak at the Fabian Society Seminar “5th Labour Government – Lessons from a time of Challenges” at Owen Glenn Centre, Auckland University, Grafton Road on Sunday October 30 from 1-5pm. Mike Williams, Dot Kettle and David Parker will be on the panel. Everyone welcome to discuss and debate. Guaranteed to be interesting – details inside.

National’s HCNZ cash problem

Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, October 15th, 2016 - 13 comments

On Thursday National announced a really big budget cash surplus but it became apparent that Housing Corp has a really big cashflow problem.

There is no surplus

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, October 14th, 2016 - 125 comments

In Year Eight of this National government, the idea of a budget surplus is a joke. They’ve promised it for nearly a decade. They’ve fiddled the books. The truth is, there is no surplus.

RIP Helen Kelly

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, October 14th, 2016 - 42 comments

Helen Kelly, NZ’s most prominent trade unionist, has died. A battler to the very end, Helen will be greatly missed.

Trump continues to get massive popular traction – why?

Written By: - Date published: 5:05 pm, October 11th, 2016 - 129 comments

After Trump’s worst week in the campaign so far he attracted a capacity ~8,000 strong crowd to hear him speak in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., including thousands of women. What’s going on? Maybe it’s the fact that a hundred million Americans are essentially flat broke in an economy that the MSM repeaters keep insisting is recovering well, and anti-establishment feelings are running very, very high.

Water and community

Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, October 10th, 2016 - 10 comments

In coming together around a common need to protect water and land, community forms.

Clinton vs Trump; Debate 2

Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, October 10th, 2016 - 235 comments

Round 2 of the Presidential debates. Trump is on the ropes, can Clinton land the knockout blow? Certainly, there’s a lot of Republican Party grandees hoping Hillary puts them out of their misery. Seconds out at 2PM, NZ time.

UPDATE: Obama nailed Trump’s real issue a few minutes ago; it’s insecurity. Video in post.

UPDATE 2: LIVE STREAM now in post.

Trumped

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, October 8th, 2016 - 173 comments

It looks all its over for Donald Trump. On the eve of the second Presidential debate, his polling has tanked, the Russians have come out in support of him and his team have run out of money for TV ads. Plus, truly awful video has emerged overnight of him admitting sexual assaults. Has there ever been a worse candidate? And will he still be the right’s candidate in a month’s time?

UPDATE: Trump says he will be a better man. Pearl Jam sue.

Don’t despair

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 7th, 2016 - 134 comments

It’s year 8 of a National/ACT government and things are looking pretty bleak. And it’s really, really easy to spin down into a spiral of bleakness and anxiety. But we can make it through.

NRT: Targets for everything but poverty

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, October 4th, 2016 - 5 comments

No Right Turn on National’s refusal to set any child poverty targets, when setting targets are the way the operate – as exemplified by the target they set the same afternoon on wild kiwi.

The middle vs the centre

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, October 2nd, 2016 - 42 comments

The notion is there’s a left/right continuum and people are smoothly spread across it in a kind of a bell curve. The implication is there’s a big chunk of voters out there who think the same way politically. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

Out of the mouths of babes

Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, September 29th, 2016 - 15 comments

Watch five-year old Brook Blair give it to Theresa May about homeless people. Got the right answers too. Brilliant!

Clinton vs Trump; Debate 1

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, September 27th, 2016 - 274 comments

The first Presidential kicks off this arvo. Who will win? Do we care? Should we care? Stay tuned Standarnistas, it’ll be a doozy!

A Constitution

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, September 26th, 2016 - 31 comments

Absolute h/t to Ovid who linked to proposals for a written Consitution for Sir Geoffrey Palmer this morning in Open Mike. The SpinOff 1. New Zealand should become a republic. 2. The Head of State should reflect New Zealand’s national 
identity, culture and heritage, and should be appointed for a term of five years on […]

Dear Herald you can do better than Rodney Hide

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, September 25th, 2016 - 248 comments

Rodney Hide continues to provide extreme analysis free right wing ramblings courtesy of the Herald.  Is it time for them to reintroduce a left wing columnist?

Brendon Bonner supports Living Wage

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 pm, September 22nd, 2016 - 17 comments

Red/Green/Independent Brendon Bonner is a candidate for the Southern Ward in the Wellington City elections. PSA staffer and declared socialist, he would like Wellingtonians to know that he too supports the Living Wage. His campaign video is here and a list of the policies he supports is here. More information on Facebook.

Delivering the Green New Deal

Written By: - Date published: 3:40 pm, September 18th, 2016 - 3 comments

London-based macro-economist Ann Pettifor will speak on this topic at Wesley Church, 75 Taranaki Street, Wellington, on Tuesday 20 September at 5:30pm. Ann is a member of the Green New Deal Group, whose proposition  is designed to power a renewables revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs and rein in the distorting power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities. All welcome; more info inside.

Parliamentary Services is snooping on MPs’ emails

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, September 14th, 2016 - 123 comments

It appears that Parliamentary Services is monitoring MPs emails.  And not just for things such as spam and viruses.

The manipulation of burglary statics

Written By: - Date published: 8:52 am, September 11th, 2016 - 36 comments

Reporter Eugene Bingham who broke the story on how Papakura police were doctoring crime statistics by recoding burglaries as other offences two years ago has written about how his attempts to get to the truth of the matter has effectively been thwarted by the police.

Rally for Democracy

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 10th, 2016 - 14 comments

Details of the Rally for Democracy event in Auckland today.

Key finally admits there is a housing crisis but says it is all Labour’s fault

Written By: - Date published: 8:35 am, August 30th, 2016 - 32 comments

John Key has used some very dodgy figures to claim that the housing crisis was worse under Labour than it is now.