Open Mike 21/12/2016

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Of Leaks and Hacks

Maybe the Russians weren’t coming. Or we must believe that “KGB chief Vladimir Putin put Inspector Clouseau in charge of Russian security and left him to get on with it.” George Washington discusses the evidence. Fodder for the net-savvy

Open Mike 20/12/2016

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Daily Review 19/12/2016

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Crushed Collins to ACT?

What next for Collins? Burning ambition, a significant personal following, no future in National. Time jump to ACT? She must fancy her chances of taking over that pretend party and building it up to a “kingmaker” role.

Open Mike 19/12/2016

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Open Mike 18/12/2016

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Denial in Politics

There’s a lot of it around. The Democrats and their media and spook allies are in a complete lather over Putin’s supposed personal influence in the US election. Confident of victory and its spoils up till midday on election day, the Clinton team are incapable of assessing just what a debacle of a campaign they ran, still less what they need to do now. Lessons abound.

To protect whistleblowers…

One of the claims made by Edward Snowden was that there were no effective channels in the NSA to whistle blow to. This claim appears to have been spectacularly validated thursday with a POGO report that the NSA’s Inspector General, its final whistleblower protector, has been suspended for retaliating against another whistleblower.

The first Trump ripple

Donald Trump’s telephone call with the Taiwanese president has created a response which it seems clear he did not anticipate.

What Paula is proud of

Apparently it’s “getting homeless people into homes”. Given the ongoing explosion of homelessness, just think how much scope she has to make herself proud next year…

Open Mike 17/12/2016

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Daily Review 16/12/2016

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Weak Cities

Current governance structures for our cities that rely on corporate management are proving to be ineffective and are not delivering the sort of result our democracy needs.

English honeymoon over already

The English honeymoon came to an abrupt end yesterday as the new PM copped an earful in Kaikoura. And bad goes to worse as Brownlee loses his rag (again). Key would have handled it better.

Open Mike 16/12/2016

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Daily Review 15/12/2016

Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

McCully is going

Murray McCully has announced that he too is standing down from politics at the next election and his removal as a Minister this week appears almost inevitable.

Housing? A National mess

3 stories from Checkpoint yesterday that add up to a picture of National’s response to housing: waste on unacceptable temporary housing; empty state houses where they’re needed most; and vilify anyone who dares complain.

Taxing multinationals

In March the Nats were still rejecting the idea of a crackdown on multinational companies’ tax avoidance. But there has been – in large part due to the work of Matt Nippert in The Herald – a partial back-down. Another Labour policy adopted!

Open Mike 15/12/2016

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Daily Review 14/12/2016

Daily review is also your post. This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Don’t forget to be kind to each other …

Lotu-Iiga is going

Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga has announced that he will stand down from Parliament at the end of the current term.  He will be a loss to National.