Hard News: The Uses of Dotcom
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Also: what on earth would the Greens have to offer in votes in a Coatesville electorate race? Seems silly.
Or East Coast Bays, come to that. For a seat Murray McCully held at the last election with a 14,000 majority and over 60% of the party vote, certain commentators seem obsessed with all kinds of bizarre shenanigans.
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Did you float a claim of shabby journalism without even watching the story about which you floated the possibility of being shabby?
YMMV, Graham, but I think when you’re accusing a political party of trying to game an extradition request for electoral advantage but bury the explicit denial from one of the alleged parties two-third of the way into the story? Well, when it comes to law you’re way above my pay grade. But as a matter of good journalism, “shabby” is putting it politely IMO.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
fundamental journalistic standards.
In countries where journalists working for major outlets are expected to have standards, you might have a point.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
The assumption is that National would be able to herd most of those 14,000 voters into the yards of whatever party they wished to favour*
Look! I made a sheep metaphor
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
Key has the art of dismissing or changing the question mastered, but doing so would not help Cunliffe. “Why won’t you answer my question David? Why?
”George: How about this
"I can't tell you anything about that,
But what I can tell you is this".....
But what I can tell you is this......
But what I can tell you is this...(insert any words that dont make sense)
count how many times Key uses that get out of jail card. -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
Or East Coast Bays, come to that. For a seat Murray McCully held at the last election with a 14,000 majority and over 60% of the party vote, certain commentators seem obsessed with all kinds of bizarre shenanigans.
Indeed. Would Murray McCully really go that quietly as political pundits would have us believe? The Welly Central Nats never seemed to fully recover from Mark Thomas having the rug pulled out from under him by the top brass, and I'm pretty sure said pundits would have learnt that lesson by now.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
The assumption is that National would be able to herd most of those 14,000 voters into the yards of whatever party they wished to favour*
M’kay – ask Grant Robertson how that played out in Wellington Central. Along with the truly bizarre Dotcom/Norman/Cunliffe threesome nobody has been able to explain to me, I won’t have what Paddy Gower and the rest of the Press Gallery are having, thank you.
Indeed. Would Murray McCully really go that quietly as political pundits would have us believe?
He wouldn't, and neither would one of the larger and better-heeled electorate organizations the National Party has. The prospect of your popular local MP getting monstered hardly puts donors in that election year giving mood.
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Nothing equivocal (“this is pure speculation”) about 3 News' graphic in this piece.
Gower loves ‘gotchas’ so greatly it’s all he can see. -
Alex Coleman, in reply to
"The outright denial is at 2:24 in the video linked to."
Doesn't make it into the text story at the link though.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Wellington Central? Eh?
Grant Robertson has won the last two elections fair and square in a regular contest, as did Marian Hobbs before. Grant could even have survived the loss of all the ~5,700 Green party voters who didn't support James Shaw. (The interesting thing is that many *National* party voters must have given their electorate votes to Grant rather than Foster-Bell. I assume this is the liberalism / tax dodging conflict manifesting itself, or the sheer repulsiveness of the National candidate).
Morever, any shenanigans in Wellington Central (or any Labour/Green/Nat contest) would make absolutely no difference to the composition of parliament. If Grant lost, he'd be a Labour list MP for the Wellington area and National would be +1 electorate, -1 list. -
Graeme Edgeler, in reply to
I assume this is the liberalism / tax dodging conflict manifesting itself, or the sheer repulsiveness of the National candidate).
Or, you know, people like Grant and think he did a good job for Wellington Central over the previous 3 years.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Nothing equivocal (“this is pure speculation”) about 3 News’ graphic in this piece.
Good grief.
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Rich:
Grant's been involved in Wellington Central campaigning long before he became the MP, and you don't need a masters in political science to see Labour wasn't hurt by National's support and local organization getting seriously hurt by the "Bolgering" of Mark Thomas. (And even under MMP, it's pretty hard to win an electorate when you don't have a solid ground game.) I think I can speak with some authority on that last part, because I was there to see it happen. Anyone in the National Party who thinks doing that all over again in East Coast Bays is a good idea needs a good clout in the ears.
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Richard Aston, in reply to
Look! I made a sheep metaphor
You can lead a sheep to water
But you can't make it, metaphor -
Christopher Nimmo, in reply to
(The interesting thing is that many *National* party voters must have given their electorate votes to Grant rather than Foster-Bell. I assume this is the liberalism / tax dodging conflict manifesting itself, or the sheer repulsiveness of the National candidate)
12.7% of them, as opposed to 3.7% the previous election - seems more likely to be a personal endorsement of his performance than anything else. It would be hard to attribute the rise to "sheer repulsiveness of the National candidate" when the previous National candidate was Stephen Franks...
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Yes, they have form for trying to foist wierdos on us. Why they thought the intelligent, liberal electorate of Welly Central would vote for Franks escapes me.
Possibly no mainstream nats want to run in a marginal seat, where losing is considered to be a personal failing. (Losing in ones opponent's safe seats being an accepted rite of passage for rising politicians).
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Woah. John Armstrong tees off on the Greens like he has the secret papers outlining their cunning deal with Dotcom. Which he, of course, does not.
He also says this:
Unfortunately, Labour's leader David Cunliffe was equivocal yesterday about ruling out special treatment for Dotcom.
Which Cunliffe absolutely fucking did not at any point say. To quote from the 3 News story headlined Labour 'won't intervene' in Dotcom extradition (the title is kind of a clue):
But Labour leader David Cunliffe says while the Greens are "perfectly entitled to their own position", his party is "not inclined to intervene in the judicial process in any way".
What part of that is not clear? WTF is Armstrong on about?
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Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
WTF is Armstrong on about?
Ha! John Armstrong is blinded by John Key's aura?
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
But if Labour gets in and Dotcom subsequently gets to the end of the classic legal path, then Cunliffe's government will be under an obligation to "intervene" by reviewing all aspects of the situation and deciding whether to extradite. It's not like a trial where the courts' decision is final (barring pardons). The government becomes part of the process (unless they change the extradition laws, which they could of course do).
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
But if Labour gets in and Dotcom subsequently gets to the end of the classic legal path, then Cunliffe’s government will be under an obligation to “intervene” by reviewing all aspects of the situation and deciding whether to extradite.
I don’t think it’s a semantic split end to say that’s not an “intervention.” No matter who wins the next election, the Immigration Minister has a long-standing statutory obligation to assess all extradition requests.
I’m with Russell – Cunliffe should have chosen his words with more care in the first instance, but this has passed through silly and had landed on farcically obtuse. Unless there’s porn star hard evidence to the contrary, it’s long past time to take DC and Norman at their word.
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Jesus wept. Just saw the PM on Prime news, Soper let him get away with saying the Greens would ride over the authority of the courts and blah blah.
It's times like this when I remember how apt the description is of pol. journos as being like watching five yr olds play rugby.
Just blindly running after whoever has the ball, all in a big bunch with all of them excited but unsure of quite why except EXCITING!
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Jesus wept. Just saw the PM on Prime news, Soper let him get away with saying the Greens would ride over the authority of the courts and blah blah.
Hear that noise? It's the sound of a dentist making a fortune when I grind my teeth down to the gum line.
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Gower's blog. Russel Norman needs to have a long, hard think:
The Kim Dotcom brain fade is back, but this time it's the Opposition that can't recall.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman had a blank on crucial details of his mansion meetings, and Dotcom has claimed to 3 News he's being blackmailed to get out of politics.
"I can't remember whether I contacted him or he contacted me," says Dr Norman.
Yes, that's what's called brain fade. Dr Norman went up to the Dotcom mansion twice, but when asked who organised it he had a memory blank.
"Whether he called me or I called him first I really don't remember. I don't think it's a big deal," says Dr Norman.
Fucksake.
Down the page: claims from Dotcom he has received blackmail warnings about going ahead with the party.
Politics be cray.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Andrew Geddis, who actually knows what he's talking about, comments on this.
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Because once you are in power, even on matters that you feel really, really strongly about, you need to be able to pretend that you are coming to decisions with a mind that is amenable to change based on the facts before it.
That's government.
And with all due and sincere respect to Andrew, we've got to start at least expecting a bit better. Taking Dotcom out of the equation (please), Judith Collins already has on her desk Brother Bernard McGrath's extradition to Australia to face 252 sexual abuse charges. She better have a LOT more on her mind than "that's government" because this shit got real a very long time ago.
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