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March 18, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 18 March 2025

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

Seven years, 9 project managers and $1.1m before running out of money (hooray!).

The problem is that police officers have suffered serious cuts deploying road spikes to stop fleeing drivers.

The obvious solution is to supply heavy leather gloves. That solution does not seem to have been considered.

Words fail me.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/545124/police-stick-with-old-road-spikes-after-years-of-issues
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March 18, 2025 8:01am
- kowtow
  
  Window fitters wear special gloves , so do butchers etc
  
  How hard can it be ?
  
  I wonder if the Commissioner or minister shold be held accountable under Elf and Safety laws.
  
  And why haven’t te media reported each and every incident like they do for school lunches .
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:37am
  - pdm
    
    Surely this is an Operational Matter.
    
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    March 18, 2025 8:57am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      I think this is an educational matter. Lack of it!
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:30am
- lastmanstanding
  
  I predict China will invade Taiwan around 1 October 2029. It will be 80 years since the CCP took control of the country. The Chinese are big on numbers and anniversaries. Think the Olympics 8pm on the 8th day of the 8th month of the 8th year of the new century. By then America will have a new President not Trump. The CCP will count on Amercia not taking any action or only token action. By that time Xi will be around 77 yo and will want the “reunifcation” to be part of his legacy. I doubt the CCP has military eyes on any other country they dont need to. They can get want they want by economic means without the cost of a military invasion.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:06am
  - RoboRob
    
    In the next four years their population will continue to shrink and their economy will implode. They have finally admitted that their population is shrinking, which means its likely even smaller then they are saying. Likely they will not be in the position to launch a military offensive. The victors of wars are (almost) always the countries with bigger economies.
    
    If they were going to launch the attack, late last year was the time. Now their ‘allies’ are weak (Rusia and NK) and they have a cognisant president in the US (regardless of what you think of his personality and policy).
    
    Unless Trump screws up the economy bigly or the US gets involved in another major conflict, they wont attack during his term.
    
    My hope is that China is too weak post Trump to risk a war.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:22am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      As long as weak Dems don’t get back in then it shouldn’t happen
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:54am
  - kowtow
    
    We’re big on numbers and anniversaries too.
    
    It appears to me that our Administrative State is determined to ditch our parliamentary sovereignty for co governance /partnership by or on February 6 2040 .
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:46am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I doubt I will be around then – 83 y/o in May. So best of luck to all who are still living in Ayo-tear – a – rower in 2040..
      
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      March 18, 2025 10:31am
      - pdm
        
        94 in April 2040 so it will be touch and go for me.
        
        Then again 2030 may be beyond me
        
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        March 18, 2025 11:20am
  - Mod88
    
    It will definitely happen under Xi’s leadership thereby fulfilling the pledge of his Father. They’re big on that too.
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:02am
  - Keith White
    
    “Nice Three Gorges Dam you got there. Shame if something happened to it while you invade a neighbouring country.”
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:04am
    - pdm
      
      KW are you suggesting The Dam Busters may be on the job again?
      
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      March 18, 2025 11:21am
  - rjay
    
    All of those are reasons for there to be an invasion. Same reasons as when Argentina took on the Falklands. Lots of males that need disposing of to reduce unemployment, economic boost from military production, increase in patriotism, etc.
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:13am
  - Philview
    
    That story the other day about those large landing craft being built was interesting. The military experts saying they would be sitting ducks if they were used in Taiwan. It did make think they could be used against a country like New Zealand. Would we offer any fight back if those things landed on our beaches?
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:31am
    - sirknz
      
      Throw some school lunches at them while some guys in gang regalia do a stompy dance and they would turn tail…
      
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      March 18, 2025 11:42am
    - imalwaysright
      
      “Would we offer any fight back if those things landed on our beaches?”
      
      They wouldn’t bother with landing craft or beaches.
      Just park up in Wellington, walk over to the Beehive and tell them they are no longer in charge.
      Shots fired = zero
      
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      March 18, 2025 12:12pm
    - Bevan
      
      They were not really landing craft, they were classified as a barge. The intended use is to create a pier on the opposite beach to allow for rapid reinforcement. Before they can be used, a secure beach head would need to be established.
      
      That kind of thing is irrelevant to NZ’s context as the likelihood of an invasion force large enough to invade and hold NZ would be significant. If that would ever to come about, it would be part of a much larger war and countries like, japan, Sth Korea, Philippines, Australia would likely have already have fallen – NZ would likely have surrendered as well in that case. ,
      
      Also, China would be able to significantly impact NZ and a lot of surrounding countries by closing off the Sth China Sea or the Malacca Strait – ours and a lot of other economies would be wrecked as a result. Another option would be a air and naval base in to Solomon’s where they could interdict trade ships. All those things are likely to be easier for them to achieve than a direct invasion of NZ.
      
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      March 18, 2025 12:26pm
  - Colville
    
    lastman…
    
    Explain to the class how China gets an invasion force across 150kms of water without USA allowing them to do so.?
    
    It is 100% certain that more than one USA nuke sub is in that water all day every day … nuke armed and conventional…
    
    Are they just going to allow it? I say no.
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:33pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Chain mesh gloves for the stupid ones.
  Bought longer ropes 12M to 18M. Still get injured when the spikes are 12M away? Common sense does not seem to be that common. They are spikes, not scalpels. Keep hands away from the pointy bits.
  This is a reply to NMTB
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:28am
- Simon
  
  “The obvious solution is to supply heavy leather gloves.”
  
  Nothing stopping the police getting their own gloves. Army personnel purchase their own kit all the time. Says more about the police and drop in standards. The decline is real
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:40am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Something Health and Safety could have told them.
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:32am
    - imalwaysright
      
      H and S are like doctors. They tell you what’s wrong, but they rarely have an opinion on how to avoid it.
      
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      March 18, 2025 1:00pm
  - PeeJay
    
    Not sure I agree with Army or Police having to buy their own kit out of their own pocket. If it’s required for the job, should be supplied.
    
    Actually, have an interesting example of this with local cops.
    
    One of my friends does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The class has several cops, all paying for this from their own pocket. These cops are apparently really irritated that official training standards for violent confrontations have become so pathetic (apparently there was a big change in training around the BLM stuff in the US), and the dangers of the job are now so real, that the only way they can feel safe is taking these classes so they can protect themselves whilst on the job.
    
    Good that they are paying for this, not sure they should be paying for this from their own pocket though.
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:45am
    - Simon
      
      Jiu Jitsu is lame. Not going to protect anyone from a 3 inch blade. There are better methods to learn.
      
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      March 18, 2025 1:05pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        Like what?
        
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        March 18, 2025 6:37pm
- imalwaysright
  
  They should take a set to a local engineering workshop. Problem would be solved over smoko for the price of a few pies.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:01am
Cassandra

An excerpt from Creative NZ’s strategic plan: “Te waka hourua, our organisation, is powered by people with different skills, experience and worldviews, coming together to carry out our work and achieve our goals. On our journey, we liken Creative New Zealand to a waka hourua – a traditional double-hulled sailing vessel, used to navigate great distances. The two hiwi (hulls) of the waka hourua are bound together by kīato (crossbeams), with the papa noho being the space between the hiwi. The waka hourua helps us recognise that in much of our work, different perspectives, worldviews and approaches exist. Both hulls are essential – each has equal standing and is bound to the other, and there’s much to be gained from exploring our differences in the papa noho. Reaching the future we want requires us to strengthen our waka. This means continuing to implement Te Tiriti o Waitangi in our work, supporting the arts and ngā toi Māori. It means remaining committed to serving our arts community and Aotearoa New Zealand.” After reading this tosh I’m starting to think that the Maori Party’s wishes for seperate systems might be a good idea after all.
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March 18, 2025 8:03am
- Blog-aholic
  
  If that is all that Creative NZ can come up with then they clearly aren’t very creative….thats drivel plai and simple……furthermore it clearly ignores all the other cultures in NZ. Sanctimony + Ideology = Woke.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:13am
  - kowtow
    
    The “creativity” is how they’ve managed to funnel money to the chosen people.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:40am
- Gravelroad
  
  How fab Cassandra.
  Do you think there would be any chance that Creative NZ might be interested in the ship that brought some of my ancestors to NZ – landing in Lyttleton on 25th October 1851?
  Would they care to know about the sailing ship Canterbury’s voyage from England and the conditions on board?
  Or why the people made that arduous journey.
  Or what they achieved once they got here?
  No .
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:19am
  - artemisia
    
    One of my ancestors also made that journey, and brought with him a small flock of Romneys. That became a large flock, first sheep in the district he settled.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:53am
    - Gravelroad
      
      The Canterbury set sail from England on Friday, June 27th, 1851 and arrived in Lyttleton on October 25th, 1851.
      Men, women, teenagers, kids and babies spent four months in a sailing ship, many of them accommodated in cramped, dank “steerage “ conditions with no privacy – just to get here.
      They brought new ideas, plants and animals with them.
      For a better life.
      The now much maligned “colonisers”.
      
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      March 18, 2025 11:18am
  - Burtland
    
    CreativeNZ creates its own narrative – even Captain Cook got excoriated
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:28am
- Tarquin North
  
  If it’s any help, I would never go offshore particularly into uncharted waters in a catamaran of any sort and I really wonder if ancient Maori ever did.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:19am
  - rouppe
    
    Or did deliberately. Or whether they had a choice.
    
    I was in Gisborne 2 weeks ago. Walked up Kaiti hill where there was a mural depicting the journey taken.It said that they started from Hawaiiki the location if which was unknown precisely but likely to be in French Polynesia.
    
    OK.
    
    Then they said they used Matariki which points south to help with their navigation which went to the Cook Islands, then the Kermadecs, then NZ. They also said they followed the migration paths of tuna.
    
    I thought Matariki was visible in the north-east, not south.
    
    It is true that those points are roughly a straight line from there to here. Unfortunately they are not in a southerly direction, it is in a south-western direction. Do any fisherman on this blog know where the tuna are on any given day just by looking at the ocean? As far as I know they might swim near the surface but generally are not at the surface, visible to the naked eye. How can you follow them?
    
    I still have the questions:
    * Why would you leave a place as idyllic as French Polynesia?
    * Why wouldn’t you stop when you got to the Cooks?
    * Why would you pick a south-westerly direction even if you could reliably maintain it? Why not direct South (easier)? Why not South east? Why not any direction? Maori could not fix their position, so exploring of a type like the British, Spanish, French or Dutch is not credible.
    * How could you reliably find the Kermadec Islands which are literally a speck in the South Pacific Ocean?
    
    I dunno…
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:39am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Finding NZ may have just been pure luck.
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:55am
      - Tarquin North
        
        I think you might be right on that one. Anywhere near the Kermadecs is a very bad place to go boating, I’ve heard all sorts of stories about volcanic vents firing off randomly all around that area and the odd eruption from time to time, so an area best avoided. Not having a compass and not knowing if you’re destination even exists and if it does how long it will take you to get there wouldn’t fill me with confidence and doesn’t sound like an inspiring trip to prepare for. I’d rather stay at home wherever that may have been.
        
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        March 18, 2025 10:20am
      - Don Beckett
        
        I think it was to the original explorer, Kupe. He left from Hokianga to return.
        “deliberately. Or whether they had a choice”
        They now know that Hawaiki is the island of Raiatea in southern French Polynesia. According to Howard Morrison, theie tribe was kicked out because they kept steeling from the other tribes.
        Nothing changes, it seems. 🙂
        
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        March 18, 2025 10:39am
      - Unity
        
        I understand David Rankin, a Maori Elder from up North, said that Maori came here on a tidal drift. I wonder how many missed NZ and went on to Antarctica?
        
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        March 18, 2025 1:10pm
    - James Stephenson
      
      Why would you pick a south-westerly direction even if you could reliably maintain it? Why not direct South (easier)? Why not South east? Why not any direction?
      
      Choice of direction would be down to knowledge of prevailing wind and currents – do the work to travel against them and then worst case, they carry you home again.
      
      How could you reliably find the Kermadec Islands which are literally a speck in the South Pacific Ocean?
      
      The Pacific Ocean has long regular swells which diffract around land masses and interfere in characteristic patterns that allow the presence of land masses to be interpolated. Also, things like clouds and sea birds can be seen while land is below the horizon – Viking sailing instructions to get to Greenland, told helmsmen to keep Iceland just below the horizon to the North.
      
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      March 18, 2025 10:44am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Good points JS
        I watched a scientist on this subject. He said that our ancestors may have had the ability, to varying extent, to have an intrinsic knowledge of global position. Similar to pigeon navigation ability.
        However, like any sense that isn’t used, it may have atrophied in most of us.
        We still however retain left and right handedness. This indicates that one side of our body is stronger than the other. Apparently the main benefit of this, in ancestral days, was if we wandered off from our village we would naturally walk in a circle and end up back home.
        
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        March 18, 2025 1:17pm
- Simon
  
  Sounds like core National party
  
  The Wellington Clown Show wants the working class to fight China to preserve this.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:41am
- John Loveridge
  
  What a load of bloody drivel.
  
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  March 18, 2025 6:14pm
pdm

Cassandra an impertinent question.

If separate systems were put in place would Rawiri Waititi still be able to go to Bunnings or Mitre 10 to buy his special David Seymour trimmer?
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March 18, 2025 8:09am
- kowtow
  
  Ryan Bridges on radio yesterday made out that Seymour needs to have a sense of humour over this.
  
  I think NZ needs to wake up to how the Maori party is normalising violent rhetoric in our political discourse ( as was Peeni Henare) and how the media largely ignores or minimises that very disturbing development .
  
  btw the Greens do it too with their “river to sea” chanting.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:18am
  - Ghost
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    They’re not the only one, Seymour has done the same
    
    “In my fantasy, we’d send a guy called Guy Fawkes in there and it’d be all over, but we’ll probably have to have a more formal approach than that”.
    
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    March 18, 2025 8:24am
    - herb1
      
      Context seems to have eluded you
      
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      March 18, 2025 8:37am
      - Ghost
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        I know this blog is full of hypocrites who will not hold their person to the same standards as others.
        
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        March 18, 2025 8:42am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Judgemental, much ?
        
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        March 18, 2025 10:41am
    - RoboRob
      
      Is Davids comment not in realtion to closing down a government department? Quite different to a threat of personal violence, even if in jest.
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:24am
      - Ghost
        
        Seymour’s comments wasabout blowing up a government ministry. Which is why those who worked there and the pacific islanders where outraged by it. But no one here has the ability to hold their own side to the same standards.
        
        How about the maori party joke about blowing up an act office, national office, everyone here would be attacking him.
        
        Both comments are unacceptable use of violence, except on kiwiblog.
        
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        March 18, 2025 9:46am
      - pdm
        
        `Quite different to a threat of personal violence, even if in jest.’
        
        I never had Rawiri Waititi down as someone who did humour.
        
        He always seems such an offended fellow.
        
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        March 18, 2025 11:28am
    - kowtow
      
      It’s not the same .
      Seymour’s was irony , as he said himself and is clearly implausible . That Maori party fellow’s call is not implausible .
      
      All sane NZers must be concerned about this repeated use of violent rhetoric in our political discourse.
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:33am
      - Ghost
        
        Nope. It’s the same, except to the hypocritics on this blog who refuse to hold their side to the same standards as others.
        
        If a maori mp made the comment Seymour did you’d all be attacking him for it.
        
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        March 18, 2025 9:41am
      - kowtow
        
        ‘If a maori mp made the comment Seymour did you’d all be attacking him for it.’
        
        Doh!
        
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        March 18, 2025 9:49am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        I posted on the MSM article first yesterday, I had 66 thumbs up, and still receiving some today, not one was a scowling face.
        
        I posted Wiatiti should be bounced from parliament, and it was supported by many mss as my people
        
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        March 18, 2025 9:59am
    - Grunter
      
      Ghost – you are correct – of course, you deliberately(?) forgot to add, Seymour later apologised for this comment and admitted it was wrong even though it was obviously his attempted humour.
      
      Both politicians were wrong. One apologised, one didn’t.
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:35am
      - G the giant from Dunedin
        
        Waititi won’t even answer questions, and media took it down as soon as outrage induced at the left
        
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        March 18, 2025 10:00am
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      I agree with you – that wasn’t one of Seymours better contributions.
      
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      March 18, 2025 12:23pm
    - alloytoo
      
      You realize that Guy Fawkes failed? Only someone who doesn’t know that could view that as a threats. But then you wouldn’t understand the comment at all…
      
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      March 18, 2025 2:13pm
      - Ghost
        
        I actually think dpf was correct in the post the other day about derangement. We see it often on this blog from people who lack the fortitude to hold their people to the same standards.
        
        abandonment of previously held principles, a willingness to excuse behaviour they would condemn in any other context.
        
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        March 18, 2025 3:15pm
  - Souvlaki
    
    Ryan Bridge seems to actively dislike ACT…he’s a Luxon fan
    
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    March 18, 2025 8:26am
    - G the giant from Dunedin
      
      He was always a leftie as far as I was aware, he seems to have moved to the centre during the last shambles and may well be a Bat supporter now. How that is a bad thing god knows
      
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      March 18, 2025 9:14am
      - Gravelroad
        
        Mr Bridge now works for newstalkzb does he not?
        I suspect he might have needed to make a few adjustments to his views (while talking on the wireless, at least) in order to get that job………..
        
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        March 18, 2025 9:59am
      - RoboRob
        
        When on TV he was always the most right wing of the hosts. Similar to Paul Henry back in the day. Never thought of him as a lefty. That said the mark of a good journalist is not being able to place their political leanings.
        
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        March 18, 2025 11:05am
      - PeeJay
        
        @Gravelroad.
        
        Spot on. While some presenters do seem to have bias regardless of the organisation (John Campbell is clearly an out and out leftie regardless of who he works for and I doubt anyone could ever doubt the political views of Hosking), I think there will be a large number of presenters that change their tone to go with the political direction of the organisation.
        
        Good example of this is Heather du Plessis-Allan. Prior to her time on Newstalk ZB drive time slot, she definitely came across as a bit of a lefty in her TV3 days. However, if you formed an opinion of her political bias based on her time on Newstalk ZB only, you’d probably see her as centre, maybe even centre-right and on some days, veering pretty close to ACT.
        
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        March 18, 2025 12:01pm
  - Paulus
    
    Maori contining daily forward, show the endemic movement towards viloence, as we see with little children, not necesarily of Maori descent, uging that continual violence, calle Haka, as taught at School/Kura.
    One of the first things many primary school children want to do is the Haka as encoiuraged by the so called Teachers.
    Beats Reading, Writing, and Maths too !
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:04am
  - Colville
    
    kowtow.
    I wonder how Ryan Bridges would view Seymour saying he wants to see all Māori “mowed down”?
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:39pm
- Cassandra
  
  PDM: Provided he’s got cash and a valid passport and his car is registered, but I’d prefer he went to the Maori shop. After all, it’s his system.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:23am
- Simon
  
  Another impertinent question.
  
  If Maori are sovereign, like National claim, can Maori enter other arrangements with other foreign governments ?
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:43am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “…can Maori enter other arrangements with other foreign governments ?”
    
    Fortunately, other governments live in the real world and would piss themselves laughing.
    But here, in the land of the long white benefactor, anything goes….
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:14am
Gerrit

With a separate system in place, will Maori only expenditure come from Maori only taxation? Maori taxes would contribute to the general fund for common infrastructure like roads, rail, water, etc.

Is there enough cash flow in the Maori community to pay the taxes that keep the Maori only hospitals, schools, etc. funded and functioning?
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March 18, 2025 8:21am
- Yabster
  
  and of course if they think didn’t cede Sovereignty then as Prebble says there’s no contract/Treaty- so Ngai Tahu will have to pay back it 5 or 6 final settlements- sounds good to me….
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:15am
  - Burtland
    
    special legal exemptions from taxation has them believing they are sovereign
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:42am
- imalwaysright
  
  The only people the self anointed Maori gravy train grifters hate more than their white benefactors is other Maori, especially those that could do with some help.
  If they ran their own economy it would be a bloodbath within a month.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:35am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  No, and no.
  
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  March 18, 2025 10:09am
- PurplePen
  
  There’s a difference between sovereignty and being lord of all you survey on your own land and chief of ‘your’ people on your own land. The latter is essentially what ToW article 2 was. Not sovereignty. It’s been twisted by the usual elite.
  
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  March 18, 2025 2:00pm
- alloytoo
  
  And what about the Maori who want to opt out of this system?
  
  I mean they will be the first to realize it can’t work, and more importantly it will work worse without them in it.
  
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  March 18, 2025 2:18pm
Ghost

Trump declares the pardons are void

The “Pardons” that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.

Truthsocial
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March 18, 2025 8:35am
- Bridgenag
  
  what did joe know?
  an interesting wedge issue on presidential power
  
  https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/what-did-joe-know?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:41am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Even if Joe physically signed the pardons he would still know nothing.
    The lights were not on.
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:19am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Steve, I would say, the lights are on but nobody’s home. 🙂
      
      Witness his many vacant stares.
      
      11 4
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      March 18, 2025 10:45am
      - Raphael
        
        the wheel was spinning but the hamster was dead
        
        13 0
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        March 18, 2025 11:26am
- Matt Long
  
  Biden has released a letter signed by Autopen completely rebutting Trump’s allegations, also stating he was actually totally fully aware of what pardons he was signing, and that this letter is absolutely totally not written by someone else, and he totally doesn’t have dementia.
  Strangely the letter was postmarked South Africa, where Hunter Biden is hiding from US authorities.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:47am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Biden has released a letter signed by Autopen completely rebutting Trump’s allegations that his executive orders were not signed by autopen controlled by others.
    
    Oh the irony.
    
    Compares with:
    
    “The counterfeiter was convicted of counterfeiting and after a plea deal, got to stay put of prison if he paid a $1M fine. Which he duly did, In counterfeit notes.”
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:52am
  - sungsamning
    
    President Trump said he is going to look into Hunter’s 18 Secret Service agents. He was speaking from the Kennedy Center.
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:46pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  If they were not sign they are not legal. I had to sign a paper and swear on the bible yesterday for my mother’s probate to her estate. If I didn’t do this it is not legal, very similar I would have thought, an automated signature has no legality
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:18am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    In our country, important documents not only have to be signed but a non-related (professional) person has to witness the signature and sign that it is in fact authentic. It’s crazy that those documents could be signed without witnesses.
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:49am
    - JackRabbit
      
      It is classic man in the middle attack. Trump claims the autopen has been hijacked and the hijacked autopen writes back saying it isn’t.
      
      It is rather like man in the middle attacks where an invoice from a supplier or solicitor in a land deal case has a bank account change. So you email the supplier or lawyer to verify the bank account change is legit, and the email response is that it is.
      
      The altered invoice occurred in the first place because the invoice issuers email was compromised, so the confirmation reply email was also compromised.
      
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      March 18, 2025 12:00pm
  - rouppe
    
    My contract renewal documents (before I retired) were all signed by auto pen on DocuSign.
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:44pm
- Frank the tank
  
  Trump will likely now know the current cognitive (or lack of) ability of Biden. He is calling out Biden. I fear this isn’t going to end well for the Dems.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:19am
  - Bevan
    
    Depends if he is being sarcastic or not.
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:57pm
- Scott
  
  I actually think this is a huge scandal. Could it possibly be that the president of the United States was not really the president? That he sat at the desk, even that only sometimes, but he was not in reality the president?
  
  If it wasn’t Joe Biden calling the shots, who was it? Many would point to Obama who stayed behind in Washington when he has a beautiful home in Hawaii. Many would point to Jill Biden whose role was crucial in managing and caring for her aging and increasingly infirm husband. Many would point to prominent staffers around Biden.
  
  But however you look at it this is a major scandal. I would argue that he was never the president. And all the pardons need to be looked at because the pardon power is invested only in the president.
  
  And the media covered this all up. However much we hate the media we just can’t hate them enough.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:27am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    That is what they are suggesting, they are saying on Fox that it appears someone e else was running the show using the auto pen
    
    13 3
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    March 18, 2025 10:03am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Jill running the circus with Obama being the puppeteer.
      
      10 4
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      March 18, 2025 10:25am
      - pdm
        
        Yep SO – I have said all along that Mrs Biden liked being Mrs President or perhaps more accurately the de facto President.
        
        8 3
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        March 18, 2025 11:34am
    - cmm
      
      There are many reasons to kick Biden in the nuts, but using the autopen is not one of them.
      
      Many presidents have used autopens without it being a reason to become hysterical.
      
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      March 18, 2025 4:55pm
  - Raphael
    
    He wasn’t even sitting at the desk. Most photos and videos of Biden in the Oval office were on a set.
    
    https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2025/03/12/new-use-for-bidens-fake-oval-n4937825
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:08am
  - JackRabbit
    
    Scott, it is clear Biden had, among other things, a sub-dermal implant to take instructions from someone who was black, and was watching him from a live feed.
    
    Biden statements such as “I was the first black president.”
    
    (‘tell then I was the first black president.’)
    “I was the first black president.”
    (‘not you dummy, me’)
    
    Biden moving to leave the stage to his left (our right), when the entry and exit was to his right (our left).
    
    (‘now move to the left to exit the stage’)
    Biden moves stage to his left (our right).
    (‘Jesus Joe, my left, your right’)
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:42am
  - Local Miller
    
    It’s been demonstrated that all the “pardon” documents were signed with the autopen. While the use of the autopen by a president is very loosely regulated, convention has it that it should be used for general administrative documents or repetitive signing only, and only in the presence of or with the express (written) approval of the president. Additionally, it is expressly stated that the autopen must not be used for pardons.
    At least one of the Pardon Attorneys was suspended and walked out the door under escort, which implies she was involved in some nefarious stuff. I think there’s a lot about to come out regarding this.
    There’s also the incident of Biden being interviewed and asked about an executive order he signed, which he vehemently denied doing. At the time it was put down to his poor memory, but now it looks like he really may not have signed it, and it was done behind his back with the autopen.
    
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    March 18, 2025 12:07pm
- sungsamning
  
  I was just over there. Its easy to navigate. The block button is excellent. You can also remove comments added to stuff you have posted.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:57am
- Allan
  
  Doesn’t matter, autopen or not they are valid.
  
  Valid that is if he was cogniscent of them.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:54am
  - MCōs
    
    I get all sorts of stuff on a continuing basis not hand signed that I would ignore at my peril.
    Rate demands, insurance renewal notices, jury summons (well, I did)
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:46pm
kowtow

The Herald have stopped describing Grenon as “Canadian” but he’s still a “billionaire”.

Now that financial status is ok as a descriptor ; how about ‘millionaire” for so many others . Heads of “charities” , trusts, boards etc

Or like their current fad for tribal affiliations is it only done when it suits a particular media agenda .
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March 18, 2025 8:43am
- Gravelroad
  
  The use of “Billionaire” as a moniker in a report by the msm is intended to infer that person as shady, selfish and too rich.
  Adding several “tribal affiliations” to a person’s name is intended to depict that person as noble, special and separate from mainstream NZ society.
  That’s what we have come to.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:09am
  - RoboRob
    
    They used to say ‘millionaires and billionaires’, especially the socialist Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately it came out that they were all millionaires themselves, inc Bernie, so now its just billionaires.
    
    I will also add that beloved communist Bernie has spent almost his entire life in public ‘service’ of some kind. It is amazing how someone can become so wealthy in such comparably lowly paid jobs.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:32am
    - David George
      
      The Herald often describe people as “Rich Lister”; usually the persons wealth has nothing to do with the story. It’s typical of the envy and resentment of the small minded “them and us” types. Socialists!
      
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      March 18, 2025 10:09am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Anyone who owns their own house mortgage-free in Auckland is a millionaire. Which is pretty normal for anyone in their 50s+.
        
        Being a millionaire ain’t what it used to be.
        
        12 0
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        March 18, 2025 10:27am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      The difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is three zeros, and as zeros have no value there is no extra cost.
      AOC.
      
      9 2
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      March 18, 2025 10:29am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    They say “Billionaire” like it is a bad thing.
    
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    March 18, 2025 3:50pm
- MCōs
  
  Ricardo Menéndez March has been in NZ for far longer than Grenon, but people on this forum insist on calling him Mexican.
  
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  March 18, 2025 12:01pm
  - kowtow
    
    Only we’re not talking about this forum , the comment is directed at the heraldwho I don’t recall ever described him as a Mexican , when for the sake of consistency perhaps they should have.
    
    9 2
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    March 18, 2025 12:30pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      They call him a Mexican Because he was born in Mexico – Der.
      
      7 1
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      March 18, 2025 2:22pm
  - alloytoo
    
    I suppose the question is, does March hold dual citizenship?
    
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    March 18, 2025 2:21pm
    - MCōs
      
      Here’s his phone number 0800 7273 6282 from the parliamentary web site.
      Give him a buzz
      
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      March 18, 2025 3:53pm
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        I’d rather dowse my head in a bucket of acid
        
        1 0
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        March 18, 2025 5:37pm
  - Jethrod
    
    Member for Acapolco.
    
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    March 18, 2025 6:58pm
slightlyrighty

Can you imagine a society where politicians who support the leader are so devoted to that leader that they want to classify not supporting that leader as a Mental Illness?

What sort of society would do that? What country would even propose such a law?

Well, The US apparently.

https://www.newsweek.com/minnesota-senate-republicans-trump-derangement-syndrome-mental-illness-2045600
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March 18, 2025 8:45am
- bennerg
  
  I’m seeing TDS not so much as a paranoia about Trump and his team, but more the result of a realisation of by the individuals of their personal inadequacy and inability to come up with anything sensible to counter the current Republican agenda.
  
  Seems common sense is winning now, and while it may take a while, the Democratic Party will reform, and hopefully with an agenda nearer to the center of politics, rather than centered on the outlying issues, and with a clear out of the old guard in their safe and financially $ecured, tenured positions.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:17am
  - sungsamning
    
    Hopefully the consequences of the USAID and ActBlue scandals will sink the Dems for good.
    
    6 6
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    March 18, 2025 9:59am
  - MCōs
    
    TDS has nothing to do with the American Democrats when it’s applied at random to anyone critical of trump in NZ
    
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    March 18, 2025 12:53pm
    - alloytoo
      
      Those people in NZ might well be American Democrats.
      
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      March 18, 2025 2:24pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Not sure that TDS is a mental illness, but it sure is a mental condition.
  The Dems response is MAGA is a “cult.” Well if it is then the cult has millions of followers.
  
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  March 18, 2025 10:39am
- All_on_Red
  
  Slightly
  Lots of context missing – like how Minnesota Dems are behaving in the State Senate…
  They are not happy and are being pathetic and also breaking the Senate Rules
  The Republicans in bringing forth this Bill is just poking them and exposing the Dems for the losing morons they are
  TLDR v- you need better sources
  But well done parroting the Narrative
  ‘Good boy, good boy’
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:59am
  - Mike
    
    Ah, the “we’re only joking” excuse.
    
    7 3
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    March 18, 2025 12:24pm
  - All_on_Red
    
    I think a better question to look at is why a white Governor, a white Secretary of State, a white retired judge, and an overwhelmingly white Democratic caucus combine to try to prevent the first black Speaker of the House in Minnesota history from taking office.
    
    6 2
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    March 18, 2025 12:52pm
    - Mike
      
      Delmuth’s initial election was invalid, but she has now been legitimately elected speaker. I don’t know why you would try to characterize opposition to the initial election as racist.
      
      2 4
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      March 18, 2025 1:50pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        She is now but the Democrats went to Court, where the Court agreed to vacate her and the Dems did everything they could to stop her taking the Seat.
        Including not turning up for work.
        Only due to pressure from the GOP did the Dems cave.
        Do try to keep up.
        ‘Good boy, good boy’
        
        2 4
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        March 18, 2025 2:15pm
      - Mike
        
        Thanks for withdrawing your characterization of events.
        
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        March 18, 2025 5:25pm
Cassandra

Dr Madeline Shelling is a Maori expert on food insecurity; quoting a mother of two: The inequity is like so f*ing obvious. You can go to those rich areas and have access to good kai. You come out South [Auckland], there’s no access to good food. You have access to what you’re supposed to have access to, which is McDonalds, fish and chips, KFC and the liquor stores. That’s normal, so you grow into this life that is all you know.
My sisters haven’t been to Grey Lynn, but if they did, they’d be like “where’s the McDonalds,” you know. It’d be so foreign. It’s the system achieving what it was set up to do.”

A Quick Look at Google shows 5 Pak’n’Saves, 4 Woolworths and a New World in South Auckland, plus 14 greengrocers. Takeaways followed the market, not the other way round. Dr Shelling believes that the State should feed all Maori children. As I understand the benefit system we already do.
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March 18, 2025 8:45am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  Well she’s completely wrong. No decent areas have any “kai” at all, let alone “good kai” We have food. And of course with people like Dr Shelling, it’s never about taking responsibility, it’s always about blaming someone else for your ineptitude.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:52am
- Matt Long
  
  There’s a McDonald’s in Grey Lynn, and seven more locations within five kilometres, sounds like the lady is interviewing her mind and keyboard.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:58am
  - pdm
    
    Matt – the mind might be empty.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:31am
  - graham
    
    If she can’t use Google to find the various McDonald’s, KFCs, and other takeaways around Grey Lynn, I’d say she’s not doing a great job at interviewing her keyboard either.
    
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    March 18, 2025 9:37am
  - greybeard
    
    I am not agreeing with her, but I think what she is trying to say is that if a South Auckland relly of hers was to go to up-market Grey Lynn , their first instinct would be to seek out McDonalds or KFC, as that is their “normal” practice in South Auckland.
    
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    March 18, 2025 10:46am
    - wsk12345
      
      Well lucky them rhst they can afford for that to be their normal practice.
      
      I have to buy groceries, think about meals and cook them because I’m not as well off as these beneficiaries.
      
      12 1
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      March 18, 2025 11:27am
      - PurplePen
        
        Agree. It’s not cheap to eat at all those big box fastfood places.
        
        6 0
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        March 18, 2025 2:10pm
- Swifty
  
  She’s like the screwballs who wish to blame and hold accountable Coca-Cola and McDonalds for their customers who throw away on the street their wrappers and empty bottles.
  
  Or wanting to sue out of existence firearms manufacturers because some people criminally misuse their products.
  
  The older I get the more I believe society is so ill-served by our elites and academics who positively refuse to hold people accountable for their own behaviours.
  
  They treat people like children, not responsible for what they do, and go after companies as easy targets.
  
  The damage these elites do is extraordinarily large.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:05am
  - Burtland
    
    society has become infantile
    
    people spend half their life killing the imaginary enemy on their phones, its even become olympic e-sport – they race F1 cars but cant drive a real one
    
    the kids worship anyone who can win a medal doing a quadruple backflip with five twists on a snow board and when they try it themselves end in hospital and acc – and then they film it for entertainment on reality TV
    
    we celebrate the games industry hitting $500M – a complete waste of human capital
    
    so much for dragging people out of poverty – for what?
    
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018960652/gaming-industry-hits-half-a-billion-dollars-in-revenue
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:10am
- keepcalmcarryon
  
  Maori own half the fisheries and have customary rights over more.
  If iwi are choosing profiteering over feeding all Maori or even employing their own people on their boats, then that is obviously by their own choice.
  Iwi could solve Maori food insecurity instantly.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:38am
  - greybeard
    
    And housing. The Treaty settlements would comfortably house every person claiming to be a maori.
    
    16 2
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    March 18, 2025 9:52am
    - Ghost
      
      No they wouldn’t. $2.6 billion has been paid out as of 2023, now work out how few houses you will get for that.
      
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      March 18, 2025 10:04am
      - rjay
        
        10000 houses minimum given that the land is already available.
        
        9 0
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        March 18, 2025 10:23am
      - Ghost
        
        Must be really cheap houses..
        
        You will get 5,200 houses valued at $500,000
        
        1 9
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        March 18, 2025 10:36am
      - wsk12345
        
        Do they need a mansion? No reason why not to build terraced townhouses or apartments on Maori land. I saw such a development recently on Maori land – interestingly they don’t face the same limitations building on Maori land as we do on ours.
        
        10 1
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        March 18, 2025 11:31am
      - Ghost
        
        You wont get a mansion for $500,000
        
        https://mortgages.co.nz/what-does-it-cost-to-build-a-house-in-nz/
        
        2 5
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        March 18, 2025 11:39am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Well the land would be free so at a Build Cost of $4000 psqm you could get a nice single level three bed two bath of around 125 sqm for $500k
        Not a Mansion but certainly a good sized family home
        
        12 1
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        March 18, 2025 11:54am
      - Ghost
        
        Yeah, the above links prices do not include land costs or fees. There is just no way you could house all Māori comfortable on the treaty payouts. You couldn’t even house all the Māori living in Auckland for that. Comments like greybeards might look appealing to some but they are false
        
        2 7
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        March 18, 2025 12:31pm
      - greybeard
        
        Just remember, most of the payouts were done years ago when houses and land were far cheaper than today’s prices. Many maori should have benefitted years ago from the settlements.
        
        9 2
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        March 18, 2025 12:46pm
      - Ghost
        
        No. I know it’s nice to make up claims but there is no way the treaty settlements would do what you pretend they would. It’s nowhere enough money to do that.
        
        1 4
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        March 18, 2025 12:59pm
      - rjay
        
        You’re just looking to house the homeless proportion of Maoridom who I presume would welcome anything that is warm and dry.
        
        5 0
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        March 18, 2025 12:48pm
      - cmm
        
        If you really, really need a place to stay you will settle for a $500 tent. If you want a mansion, here is one for $650.
        
        My family of 4 lived for 3 months in something smaller when we were “between houses” in 2013 and survived fine – even May frosts in the Canterbury foothills.
        
        https://www.torpedo7.co.nz/ascent-family-tent-i026030-ascent-blue
        
        1 1
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        March 18, 2025 4:46pm
      - Ghost
        
        Greybeards false claim is that the treaty settlements would give everyone who claims to be Māori a comfortable home. Nothing about homeless or living in a tent, but every Māori.
        
        2 1
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        March 18, 2025 5:13pm
    - MCōs
      
      There are 1.1mil minimum people of Māori descent in NZ and Oz. At around two per house that’s half a million approximately homes.
      That’s $5000/dwelling
      
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      March 18, 2025 11:15pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  “My sisters haven’t been to Grey Lynn” – lol!
  
  Try catching the bus, 80%+ subsidised by ratepayers.
  
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  March 18, 2025 10:30am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  “As I understand the benefit system we already do.”
  Obvious she wants both. Gimme gimme gimme.
  
  7 1
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  March 18, 2025 10:47am
- James Stephenson
  
  It’s a while since I lived over that side of town, but it always seemed to me that the best supermarket seafood selection was Pack & Save in GI, don’t see how that fits with her apparent hypothesis.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:48am
  - alloytoo
    
    best prices that store too.
    
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    March 18, 2025 2:29pm
- cmm
  
  There’s a beach where those that need “kai” can catch kai moana like the old people did.
  
  Making a huge pot of vege soup + bread will cost you less than $1 per meal. That is way cheaper than the $5.99 per meal for KFC nuggets or similar.
  
  Of course both of these will require the hardest step of all – getting off your arse and actually doing it.
  
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  March 18, 2025 4:52pm
- Dave
  
  ”It’s the system achieving what it was set up to do.”
  
  Ahh, that mysterious system keeping people down, and the passive voice too with those mysterious, unidentified setters-up. In some other countries, they would be the Joos. Here’s Eddie Murphy uncovering the hidden racial truths of America.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LeJfn_qW0
  
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  March 18, 2025 6:43pm
BeaB

RNZ is a constant assault on the nation’s IQ but they have outdone themselves with the dimwit they have sent to report on Winston Peters’ trip to Washington. And amidst all her uneducated blather she kept calling top officials ‘Trump loyalists’. What does this mean’. Did we ever hear about Biden loyalists?
She tells us Peters seemed ‘quite chuffed’ and he got NZ’s point of view across. Gosh.
And he’ll be heading home to report to the Coalition!
Is this the best RNZ can do?
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March 18, 2025 8:52am
- slightlyrighty
  
  Like it or not, the current administration in the US are the legally elected representatives.
  
  Regardless of how you, me or the government think about this, these are the people that we have to talk to if we are to engage with the US.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:16am
- RoboRob
  
  Yes. They dont want to give a none Labour government any praise and they cant stand Trump and the republican party.
  
  Lucky we fund this impartial news.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:37am
- Burtland
  
  RNZ sends a communications cub with Winston Peters to Washington
  – says it all really
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:33am
Bridgenag

From Sky.au news….. People objecting because ghastly gang members deported
More than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang have been deported from the United States to an El Salvador prison after President Donald Trump invoked a rare wartime act.
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March 18, 2025 9:04am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Gets me why so many Americans are against deporting these killers and rapists. They are illegals, they should not be there. Even Judges try to rule against it.
  Is the hate of Trump that bad? I say charge this lot for harbouring illegal alien criminals.
  
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  March 18, 2025 10:58am
  - newview
    
    They are illegals Steve. Some out of the thousands will be killers and rapists but you don’t know how many and neither does Trump. You are just parroting him. I don’t have an issue with sending them back by the way.
    
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    March 18, 2025 3:28pm
  - MCōs
    
    Alleged killers and rapists
    Former President Duterte of the Philippines will be standing trial in the Haig for ordering the summary executions of 30,000 alleged drug dealers and users including anyone who was standing round at the time.
    At least he’s getting due process, which those alleged Venezuelan alleged killers and rapists are denied.
    Could be anyone pulled off the street for all you know
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:30pm
- Gravelroad
  
  Why are they objecting?
  Why are the democrats and their judiciary so keen to keep these illegal violent gang criminals in the US?
  Is it something to do with the illegal drugs trade? Keep the people dependent on ketamine?
  Serious question.
  
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  March 18, 2025 12:30pm
Paulus

Yes, she is quite the best that we can pay for.
So nickels and dimes are the rule in our so called media.
She is actually appaling, but cannot see any better.
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March 18, 2025 9:07am
- pdm
  
  Probably got to travel Business Class though and stay in a 4 or 5 star Hotel..
  
  Makes it all worth while.
  
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  March 18, 2025 9:32am
sirknz

Is it them again Yogi?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360618812/police-search-man-wanted-connection-burglaries

It’s always them Boo Boo.
14 2
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March 18, 2025 9:33am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Bring back Maggie.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:00am
- imalwaysright
  
  To save the cops the trouble of going through the charade of finding him and getting him to court with a solid case against him, just get a judge to publically announce his sentence of 6 months home detention.
  
  That’s all that’s going to happen anyway, lets face it.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:32am
sungsamning

https://dailycaller.com/2025/03/16/united-states-customs-border-protection-awards-first-border-wall-contract-donald-trump-second-term-granite-construction-rio-grande-valley-texas/
First Border Wall Construction Contract Of Trump’s Second Term Announced.
The first border wall contract of President Donald Trump’s second term, valued at approximately $70 million, was announced Saturday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said it awarded the contract, worth $70,285,846, to the Watsonville, California-based Granite Construction Co., mandating the company to erect “approximately seven miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas, within the U.S. Border Patrol’s (USBP) Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector.”
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March 18, 2025 9:48am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Shit, that’s $10M per mile.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:03am
  - imalwaysright
    
    $10M. You could get a km of NZ bike lane for that sort of money…
    
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    March 18, 2025 11:35am
    - Colville
      
      Auckland waterfront WALKING path was recently binned , price was $26mil for 800 meters. $32mil/km, $52mil per mile.
      
      Now that is spendy!!
      
      4 1
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      March 18, 2025 1:46pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        It’s the Rio Grande valley – maybe there are a lot of high banks or whatever rather that flat accessible land like much of the river.
        
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        March 18, 2025 2:30pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Gulp
        
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        March 18, 2025 2:30pm
  - sungsamning
    
    That’s not cheap. DOGE should have a look at their contracts.
    
    2 3
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    March 18, 2025 1:56pm
    - MCōs
      
      That Granite Construction Co. people are probably mates of Elon.
      
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      March 18, 2025 8:14pm
sungsamning

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/03/16/report-the-reason-why-wh-ignored-judges-order-requiring-planeload-of-gang-members-to-turn-around-n2186736
Report: The Reason Why WH Ignored Judge’s Order Requiring Planeload of Gangbangers to Turn Around.
As we’ve been reporting, President Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act against members of the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang and promptly put over 200 of them on a plane to be taken to El Salvador. While the flight was still in the air, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered a temporary restraining order preventing the deportation of any Venezuelans—and he also demanded that the plane turn around and return the gangsters to the U.S. (Attorney General Pam Bondi has already appealed the ruling.)
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March 18, 2025 9:49am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Trump ignored it. The illegals were offloaded in El Salvador on Sunday.
  Trump 1 – Judge 0.
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:11am
  - sungsamning
    
    Yes, the plane was out of US air space when the dudge’s order arrived.
    
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    March 18, 2025 1:57pm
    - MCōs
      
      Bit more complicated than that
      
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      March 18, 2025 3:26pm
      - fernglas
        
        Much more complicated. The judge made an oral order requiring the US based controller of the flight to turn it around. Despite what the DoJ is arguing;
        1) An oral order has the same effect as a written order
        2) The order is effective against the US administration who were in control of the flight.
        
        Trump may be in for a shock when some of the substantive appeals against his executive orders get to the Supreme Court. Most of the current adverse rulings have been interim orders designed to preserve the status quo until the legality of the substantive order has been tested. But with, say, the executive order which sought to reinterpret the constitution over birthright citizenship, he may find that a conservative Supreme Court, with a heavy weighting of judges who favour an originalist approach to constitutional interpretation, will not be as pliable as he thinks. Then the shit will truly hit the fan
        
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        March 18, 2025 6:22pm
- kiwi_chileno
  
  Trump has also designated the Tren de Aragua as a terrorist organisation acting at the direction of the illegitimate Maduro regime.
  
  Chile says it has good evidence that Venezuela’s Interior Minister ordered the murder last year of a Venezuelan dissident who had asylum in Chile. (The Minister has also been implicated in a 2017 plot to assassinate Marco Rubio, now US Secretary of State.) TdA members have been arrested and fingerprints place a Venezuelan intelligence office at the crime scene https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article299042200.html
  
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  March 18, 2025 4:22pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Peter Williams Substack.
Taxpayers’ Union Boss sued for Defamation.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-159170883?
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March 18, 2025 10:02am
- RoboRob
  
  They should call her bluff and go to court. I suspect the legal threat is just an attempt to silence them, although I dont doubt she has plenty of dosh.
  
  Dont worry about a legal team, the TPU should save the money and defend themselves. If Earl Hagerman couldn’t win a defamation against Andrew Little there is no way Melaine Marks will win this, especially as no one is debating the facts.
  
  I will also remind casual observers that the small staff of Melaines organisation include her three children and best friend. Most of the expeses were for wages. Just reporting the facts 🙂
  
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  March 18, 2025 11:15am
  - Phronesis
    
    I would be very surprised if he had much in the way of personal assets.
    
    What this story needs is more oxygen and it looks like the Streisand impersonator at the centre of it is going to give it just that.
    
    8 1
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    March 18, 2025 12:21pm
  - artemisia
    
    The 4 Restore Passenger Rail protesters used their days in court to bring climate change into proceedings in a big way, even though it was not relevant to the charge. A few mill for whale music, that would go down a treat with taxpayers.
    
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    March 18, 2025 7:27pm
- Notsofast
  
  Ron Mark seemed a decent guy. I wonder if he is on speaking terms with his appalling daughter.
  
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  March 18, 2025 1:13pm
  - RoboRob
    
    Strongly suspect he is and will also add she is a nice person too. I suspect the lure of the Maori gravy train became too much.
    
    2 1
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    March 18, 2025 2:12pm
- alex Masterley
  
  There appears to be a threat to sue in the post.
  Whether proceedings have been issued is unknown.
  
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  March 18, 2025 2:50pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Tucker Carlson on Deportations, Epstein Files & Dictators – Pt. 1 | Episode 1 – 03/17/25
Discussion on Dan Bongino as Deputy Director of the FBI. This is a man who detects lies very easily.

https://rumble.com/v6qrs9c-tucker-carlson-pt.-1-episode-1-031725.html?
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March 18, 2025 11:24am
- NothingLeft
  
  I used to enjoy his stuff on Fox, and some of his long form interviews even now, but ever since he claimed he was physically attacked by a demon – and seeing some of his reporting on foreign goings-on that I know in detail- I just can’t take him seriously on a lot of subjects and tend to tune him out.
  
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  March 18, 2025 3:59pm
Ghost

On a positive he got jail time. I have no doubt we will hear of this man again. Shame it couldn’t be 6 years for each survivor

A former Destiny Church youth leader who sexually abused several young boys has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Kiwa Hamiora-Te Hira plead guilty late last year to a number of sexual violation and indecent assault charges.

Article
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March 18, 2025 1:54pm
Jack5

David Seymour in a street address today announces an ACT campaign to contest local body elections up and down the country:

https://youtu.be/vFOv2M0Degw?si=tHJrzuK-S34vZhQ0
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March 18, 2025 3:02pm
MCōs

I watched a Thai documentary the other day centred around Thais and their lives in NZ. I haven’t checked their numbers, but the claim was made that 30% of Auckland’s population is Asian.
On the other hand there was nothing about so called Māorification.
However
Hospitality business owners and tradies grizzling about being undercut by newly arrived Chinese operators
The restaurant owners they talked to were very aware of the regulations and taxes pertaining to their business
2 1
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March 18, 2025 3:10pm
Jack5

Carnosic acid, found in rosemary and sage, may help Alzheimer’s sufferers, if experiments with mice are an indication.

Scientists at the the Scripps Research Institute in California have used the acid to lower inflammation in the brains of mice – a trigger for Alzheimer’s, reports the “Dailly Mail’.

Maybe a long shot, but folk may have suspected something similar in Shakespeare’s time, as this quotation from “Hamlet” may indicate:

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance…”
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March 18, 2025 3:52pm
- Mike
  
  I believe that’s a reference to rosemary as a symbol of remembrance, rather the any supposed remedial efficacy.
  
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  March 18, 2025 5:29pm
Sparrow

Can someone explain what would be the advantage to a nation of 1.438 billion to enter into FTA with a nation of 5.223 million at the bottom of the world other than to screw them !!
Winston has been proved right when stating that a FTA with China would reduce wages and destroy local manufacturing.
2 4
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March 18, 2025 5:11pm
- Colville
  
  The right of tens of thousands of young males to leave India and come here. 2nd sons have no prospects in India.
  
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  March 18, 2025 8:05pm
MCōs

Polar bear with TDS
https://x.com/ojoelsen/status/1901662146158538839?s=46&t=XZLqGbhN-xeYzprhTaktsg
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March 18, 2025 7:13pm
Ghost

Looks like tomorrow is the day. Strange, im sure someone was claiming here the other day this wasn’t going to happen……. Posting fake stories as usual…..

President Trump announced he will release 80,000 pages of unredacted files Tuesday about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, after promising on the campaign trail to declassify the documents.

Article
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March 18, 2025 11:20pm

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