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It is time for Trump, English and Little to give us an idea on what their policies will do for employment and the rights of workers.

Open Mike 13/01/2017

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The Trump Dossier

Buzzfeed’s release of the Dossier suggesting that Russia has considerable leverage over Donald Trump has caused ructions the effects of which will be felt for months.

Trump’s First Press Conference

You have to say he is not afraid to take on the heavy mob. A very direct attack on Big Pharma – a US version of Pharmac? A very direct attack on the armaments industry’s star program the F-35 fighter-bomber and its cost overruns. Then there is the intelligence community and the mainstream news media.  Read  the transcript for yourself.

Open Mike 12/01/2017

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Obama’s last speech

Tired of jokes about Trump and golden showers?  Want to read a real political speech?  Well here is the text to Barak Obama’s last political speech as POTUS.

Open Mike 11/01/2017

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The CIA Director confirmation hearings

Mike Pompey is Donald Trump’s chosen head for the CIA.  He is someone who believes in the mass collection of all metadata and combining it with all publicly available information.  Are we going to see the unprecedented destruction of rights of privacy?

Refining that dog whistle

Bill English has used a proposal for timing of his Waitangi speech to wrongly claim that he is being silenced.  And most of the media bought it.

Open Mike 10/01/2017

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Spy vs Spy

It is MAD.  In the frenzy leading up to  Trump’s inauguration, we have the extraordinary spectacle of the CIA interfering in the US election by accusing the Russians of interfering in the same election. The CIA used only to interfere in other people’s elections. On the serious side this intervention means the war party hasn’t given up yet, no matter what Trump may say.

Open Mike 09/01/2017

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Wikileaks unravels

In the space of a day Wikileaks managed to complain about another entity leaking information, threaten to dox pretty well every reporter, delete the tweet and then sound like Donald Trump.

Open Mike 08/01/2017

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Open Mike 07/01/2017

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The Centrelink fiasco

In Australia the Turnbull Government is implementing a policy that will demand in 12 months at least 200,000 Australians repay benefits they were entitled to because of faulty data mapping.

A word of thanks

Robert Guyton deserves many thanks for the series of posts he recently wrote for the Standard.

Open Mike 06/01/2017

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Pathological consumption

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a free trip to the landfill and a subscription to the end of the world as we know it.

Some lighthearted banter

Peter Leitch has hired Michelle Boag to deal with publicity issues caused by his comment that Waiheke is a white man’s island.  She has not helped.

The Standard Summer

We’re taking some time out for the holidays. Hope you are able to do the same – enjoy! Open Mike will continue, but other posting will be low volume if at all.

Open Mike 05/01/2017

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