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
On Aleppo.
Steven Joyce believes that doing something is the same as not doing something.
Auckland City Mission is calling for donations to meet Christmas demand. You can donate here.
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Bill’s National is out of steam already.
A Turkish journalist writes about the “post-truth” collapse of human rights in Turkey, and warns “western” readers that the same thing is happening to them.
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.
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Bill English has announced his cabinet reshuffle.
Stuff this morning: “Lord of the Rings actor says NZ tourists shocked by polluted ‘sewer’ Middle-earth”
Robert Guyton continues his series on life in a Riverton Food Forest.
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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.
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.
Donald Trump’s telephone call with the Taiwanese president has created a response which it seems clear he did not anticipate.
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…
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A scapegoat for the failure of the Nats’ first “social bonds” programme has been found. Turns out it was the fault of government officials! Shocker!
Andrew Little has undertaken a minor reshuffle of the Labour caucus.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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!
Jay Kuten writing in the Wanganui Chronicle: “Most of these folks couldn’t reliably run a bath.”
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NoRightTurn: The police’s illegal raid on Nicky Hager’s home has got even more expensive
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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.
A depressing feature in The Herald this morning explores the exploitation of migrant workers. The same pattern as the private sector’s treatment of foreign students. This paints a shameful picture of New Zealand. Greed has made us forget who we were.
