The NY Post reports:

P’nut the Squirrel, of internet fame, has been euthanized after the pet was seized by New York state earlier this week, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation.

The seven-year-old gray rescue squirrel, commonly referred to as “P’Nut” on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, was put to death, along with Fred the raccoon, so that the animals could be tested for the presence of rabies, according to a statement from the agency obtained by WETM.  

He had the squirrel as a pet for seven years. The government raided his house, searched it for five hours, and then killed P’Nut. All because of an anonymous complaint from someone in Texas.

This is why we should be wary of giving too much power to governments.

The hysterical smears continue. Some on the left live in a fictional world where only organisations they agree with are grass roots organisations, and when an organisation succeeds they disagree with, their minds are so limited they think it must be due to overseas big money.

Funnily enough they never scrutinise the organisations they like. Action Station doesn’t even publish annual accounts because they are a company.

The FSU was created because Auckland’s Mayor claimed he blocked two Canadian speakers from being able to speak at a Council venue. Then Massey deplatformed Don Brash and support grew, and thanks to the efforts of so many on the left, support keeps growing for the FSU as we see weekly examples of attempts to sack people for their political opinions.

As I understand it the FSU has around 70,000 supporters on their mailing list. And over 10,000 have donated to the FSU. You can’t get more grassroots than that. But Greg can’t actually deal with the possibility that the FSU is a successful grassroots organisations, so he resorts to conspiracy smears.

Some on the left don’t understand that the Internet has allowed ordinary New Zealanders to organise and support causes they believe in. Whether it be Taxpayers’s Union, Groundswell, Free Speech Union or Hobson’s Pledge – they all get the vast bulk of their funding through thousands of small dollar donations from ordinary New Zealanders.

I previously blogged on how the Electoral Commission referred Te Pati Maori to the Police for not filing their annual financials statements by 30 June 2024, as required by law.

Their party secretary is Lance Norman (a manager in one of the Tamihere organisations) and I wonder if he realises the personal risk he is at.

S210J(2) of the Electoral Act says:

A party secretary is guilty of a corrupt practice if the party secretary, without reasonable excuse,(a) provides the Electoral Commission with annual financial statements for the party after the late period; or
(b) fails to provide the Electoral Commission with annual financial statements for the party.

The late period is 15 working days from the deadline, so 21 July 2024, which we are three months past. So Mr Norman could be charged with a corrupt practice, not just an illegal practice.

And what is the penalty?

either or both a term of imprisonment not exceeding 2 years or a fine not exceeding $100,000

The fine might not be a concern as he could be reimbursed for that, but if I was Mr Norman I’d be very worried about the possibility of jail time, unless he has a reasonable excuse for not providing the party’s financial statements as required by law.

Tama Potaka announced the appointment of Richard Prebble, Ken Williamson and Kevin Prime to the Waitangi Tribunal.

Some people think the Tribunal is a judicial body, but in reality is is appointed by the Government of the day. 19 of 20 members have a maximum term of three years, so in one term of Government the Government will appoint 95% to 100% of the members.

Those who claim the Waitangi Tribunal, not Parliament, should decide what the Treaty means should reflect that this can mean the Government of the day can decide, by simply appointing members with a particular viewpoint.

On Wednesday we will get most of(but not all) of the US election results. In the post I’m going to go through the various forecasts and predictions. There will be some further polls in the next 48 hours, but they are unlikely to move the averages much.

US House

Is 2022 the Republicans won a majority being 222 to 213 of the 435 House seats, flipping control. However the polls had them winning by a larger margin, so they underperformed to the polls.

Since then, the Republicans have dropped to 220 seats, just two above the 218 needed to control the chamber.

538 and DDHQ have the Republicans slight favourites to retain control, as does the Polymarket prediction market. The naysayers are The Economist at 45% and Race to WH at 30%.

The actual seat projections are as close as you can get. You need 218 for control and 538 and DDHQ has them on 218, and Cook on 221. Others have them just missing out with The Economist on 216 and Race to WH on 213.

This indicates that not only is control as close as you can get, but whichever party wins may have the slimmest of majorities, which will make life very hard for the Speaker.

The Senate

The Democrats hold this 51 to 49. In a 50/50 tie the Vice-President’s casting vote determines control.

All forecasts are for the Republicans to win at least 51 seats. 538 has this at 90% probability, DDHQ 74%, Economist 71%, Race to WH 65%. Polymarket betting is at 79%.

All models project the Republicans winning back the majority with 51 or 52 seats.

538 has the Republicans 99.9% likely to flip West Virginia where they have a 38% lead and 91% likely to flip Montana with a 7.5% lead. This gets them to 51, so would be a huge upset to fall short.

No other seats are forecast to flip but the Democrats only have probabilities of 53% in Ohio, 69% in Wisconsin, 72% in Pennsylvania and 76% in Michigan. It is quite possible one of those four will flip also, making it 52 to 48.

While the Republicans will be glad for a majority, no matter how small, they should be doing much better. The electoral map is the most favourable in a generation and terrible candidate choices have allowed the Democrats to remain ahead in seats where they should lose, especially Arizona.

Governors

Only 11 of 50 Governors are up for election. The only toss up is New Hampshire which has the Republican candidate up by around 2%. If they retain this, 27 of 50 states will be governed by Republicans.

State Legislatures

Republicans control 57 state chambers, Democrats 41 and two are bipartisan.

10 chambers could flip. They are:

• Arizona House – held by Republicans 31/60
• Arizona Senate – held by Republicans 16/30
• Wisconsin Assembly – held by Republicans 64/99 (large boundary changes as gerrymander gone)
• New Hampshire House – held by Republicans 197/400 (388 filled)
• New Hampshire Senate – held by Republicans – 14/24
• Alaska House – bipartisan 23/40
• Michigan House – held by Democrats 56/100
• Pennsylvania House – held by Democrats 102/203
• Minnesota House – held by Democrats 70/134
• Minnesota Senate – held by Democrats 33/66 (1 vacancy)

Overall 28 state legislatures are controlled by Republican, 20 by Democrats and 2 are split.

If you take Governors into account, you have:

• Republican trifecta 23
• Democrat trifecta 17
• Split 10

The aim is to get the trifecta.

President

All six aggregators have Trump ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. That doesn’t mean he will win them, just that ni matter which way you aggregate the polls, he is ahead. The leads of 0.7% to 2.3% are all within the margin of error and the normal polling error in a presidential election.

That gets Trump to 268 electoral votes – one short of a tie. Pennsylvania looks to be the critical state. He leads on average by 0.3%, ranging from 0.3% behind with one aggregator to 0.7% ahead with another. This is the state to watch.

Michigan and Wisconsin have Harris ahead by 0.9% and 0.4%. Still very close. Trump could win all seven swing states – as could Harris.

Four of the six sites have Trump forecast to win 287 to 251. One has him 297 to 241, and one has Harris 270 to 268.

In terms of probability, Trump’s chances range from 49.8% to 53.4%. This is as close to a toss up as you can get.

It will all come down to which demographics turnout better than the polls predicted.

This is the final update, unless there is a November surprise. I’ll have a live-blog from midday on Wednesday.

The Taxpayers’ Union said:

Te Pāti Māori MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer managed to spend $39,209 on flights over just three months! And, thanks to some social media investigation work, it was evident that rather than flying to Hamilton, Ms Ngarewa-Packer had been serving constituents holidaying in Hawaii on your dollar.

We asked for more details – it’s taxpayer money after all – BUT were told by Parliamentary Services to get lost!

I don’t know if the Hawaii trip was paid for by taxpayers, but it would explain the $39,000 spending on flights in just 13 weeks.

This is the social media post that has the TU wondering if this is the cause of much of the $39,000 bill. Looks like a hard working trip.

So WCC after years of appalling satisfaction ratings from residents has decided that they best way forward is to stop asking residents if they are happy with the Council!

The conventional wisdom based on the polls is Trump is favoured to win the election. But a new poll out in Iowa has shocked the status quo assumptions.

The poll for the Des Moines Register has Harris ahead of Trump by 3% – 47% to 44% in Iowa, driven by a surge in female support for Harris.

In September the same poll had Trump ahead by 47% to 43% and in June Trump was 50% to 34% for Biden.

Breakdowns are:

• Men: Trump +14%
• Women: Harris +20%
• Under 35s: Harris +2%
• 35 – 54: Trump +8%
• 55+: Harris +12%
• Rural: Trump +20%
• Towns: Trump +9%
• Suburbs: Harris +23%
• Cities: Harris +28%
• Republicans: Trump +84%
• Democrats: Harris +97%
• Independents: Harris +7%
• 2020 Trump voters: Trump +85%
• 2020 Biden voters: Harris +89%
• 2020 non voters: Harris +3%

Now this is only one poll, and all pollsters can have an outlier poll., It may well be an outlier, and all kudos goes to Anne Selzer for publishing an outlier, as it is suspected many US polling firms herd their polls towards the average in the final weeks.

Selzer’s Iowa poll is regarded as very very credible by professionals, as she has often published polls seen as outliers, which turned out to be very accurate. She has been polling Iowa since 1987, so for 37 years.

Their record is:

• 2020: Final poll Trump +7%, Result Trump +8%
• 2016: Final poll Trump +7%, Result Trump +9%
• 2012: Final poll Obama +5%, Result Obama +6%

Also in 2008 she was the only pollster to predict Obama beating Clinton in the primary, and has often had Senate polls which have benefited outliers to other polls, but proven accurate.

So if this was any other pollster in any other state, you would almost ignore it. And it is more than possible the poll will be wrong. It is almost unthinkable that Trump will lose a state by 3% which he won by 8% in 2020. But it is quite possible Selzer has picked up a surge of support for Harris by women voters, than has not been reflected elsewhere.

It will be a fascinating election night on Wednesday.

Graham Adams writes:

The news early this month that a Pakeha patient asked not to be treated by Asian staff at Auckland’s North Shore Hospital and that the hospital complied was quickly and roundly condemned by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and health-worker unions. Many of the public, too, criticised the patient’s request as blatant racism.

While the code of consumers’ rights states, “Every consumer has the right to express a preference as to who will provide services and have that preference met where practicable”, the clause is presumably intended to resolve individual personality clashes between patients and the nurses and doctors looking after them, not a blanket refusal to be treated by a swathe of ethnic groups coming under the umbrella term of “Asian”.

The request was blatant racism, and I think the hospital should have told the patient that if he doesn’t like the race of his medical staff, he is welcome to go elsewhere.

What went unremarked in the furore, however, is that the idea that patients might want to have medical staff who look like them and whom they feel comfortable with is officially sanctioned at the highest levels of the health system. Both Auckland and Otago medical schools run extensive race-based, affirmative-action programmes to do exactly that.

It’s an interesting point. The rationale is that patients may feel more comfortable with someone of their own ethnicity.

If a patient asked for a doctor of a specific ethnicity, as opposed to a doctor not of a specific ethnicity, would that also be unacceptable?

There has been some discussion that NZ may follow other countries with the dominant major parties fading over time, to be replaced by more extreme ones. I thought it would be useful to look at the combined vote share for National and Labour under MMP.

• 1996: 62%
• 1999: 69%
• 2002: 62%
• 2005: 80%
• 2008: 79%
• 2011: 75%
• 2014: 72%
• 2017: 81%
• 2020: 76%
• 2023: 65%

I don’t see a trend there. The 2023 result was greater than the first three MMP elections. It is quite possible support for the two major parties will never get back to high 70s, but that is not to say it will drop further.

Kemi Badenoch has been elected the 19th leader of the UK Conservative Party. She is the 4th woman and 2nd non-white to lead the party, while UK Labour have had 19 white male leaders in a row. This of course has not stopped a Labour MP calling her a white supremacist in blackface!

Here’s some facts on Badenoch:

1. Her name is Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke and she married Hamish Badenoch, hence her name of (Olu)Lemi Badenoch
2. She is 44, making her the 4th youngest leader
3. She was born in London, but lived outside the UK in Nigeria and the US until she was 16
4. She has a Master of Engineering degree
5. She gained a law degree while working as a software engineer
6. She voted for Brexit
7. She has been an MP for only seven years
8. Has has been Secretary of State for International Trade and Business & Trade
9. She cites economist Thomas Sowell as a major influence
10. She is a strong opponent of critical race theory
11. She is a gender-critical feminist
12. She once said 5% to 10% of civil servants are leak and agitate against Ministers, and should be in prison
13. She has three children, aged from five to 12.

Nate Silver has written an interesting post giving 24 reasons why Trump could (not will) win. He is making the case it is not Kamala’s to lose, but hers to win, as so many factors favour Trump. His 24 are:

1. Electoral College bias favours Republicans
2. Inflation hit 9.1%
3. Voters perceive the economy as poor
4. Incumbents are doing badly globally
5. Populism works, ie is popular
6. Massive rise in in illegal immigration
7. Harrius has not explained her flip flops from 2019
8. Cultural vibes shift right as reaction against wokeness, crime, Covid-19 response
9. Voters think economy was better under Trump
10. Democrats have less dominance with racial and ethnic minorities
11. Young men feel lost and shifting right
12. Biden sought to be President until he was 86, neutering concerns over Trump’s age
13. Harris inherited Biden’s campaign staff
14. Undecideds may break against a female candidate
15. Trust in media continues to fall which makes it hard for legitimate critiques of Trump to get through
16. Trump is a con man, and is effective at convincing people he’s on their side
17. Democrats are university elite who have poor instincts for public appeal
18. Democrats rely too much on January 6, which was terrible, but ultimately not successful
19. World has been more unstable in the last four years
20. Israel-Hamas war has split the Democratic base
21. More left leaning third party candidates than right leaning
22. Elon Musk is campaigning for Trump
23. The assassination attempts on Trump help him
24. Harris is running on vibes, not a clear vision

An excellent and insightful list.

Richard Reeves at Politico writes:

Contrary to progressive belief, young men are not turning into a generation of misogynists. Support for gender equality continues to rise, including among men under 30. The problem seems more to be that many men simply don’t see much recognition of their issues, or even of their identity, on the political left.

If the Democrats are the “women’s party,” as one party strategist claimed, it might not be surprising that men are looking in another direction. The official party platform lists the groups it is proud to serve; women are listed but men are not. There is a new Gender Policy Council in the White House, but it has not addressed a single issue facing boys or men.

As I blogged in 2018, boys and men fare badly in numerous areas of education, health, and crime etc.

When problems are neglected, they metastasize into grievances. And grievances can be weaponized in service of reactionary goals. The solution, then, is almost comically simple: Don’t neglect the problems.

The mistake being made on both sides is to see gender equality as a zero-sum game; that to do more for boys and men means doing less on behalf of girls and women.

Absolutely. We should have a Minister for Men, just as we have a Minister for Women. That is because men and women do need different things from the health and education systems (and men are doing much worse in them).

The author proposes some policies for the US, including:

• Recruit More Male Teacher
• Flexible School Starting Ages
• Expand Career and Technical Education
• Promote Apprenticeships
• Support Community Colleges
• Establish a Male Suicide Prevention Task Force
• Create an Office of Men’s Health
• Cover Male Contraception
• Set Public Health Targets for Men
• Increase the Share of Male Mental Health Professionals
• Equal, Independent Paid Parental Leave
• Reform Family Law for Unmarried Fathers
• Introduce a Nonresident Parent Tax Credit

I’d love to see one or more NZ political parties go into the next election with a men’s policy.

A guest post by Sparticus Abundare:

Prompted by the 73 Oil shock, France built 62 Nuclear power stations from the mid 70s to the mid 90s. Now their CO2 emissions are half that of their neighbours and if it wasn’t for the distractions of all that cheese and wine they would be smoking it in an energy starved world. 

In the 50s 60s and 70s NZ built out a fantastic Hydroelectric power grid that’s done our country proud, It enables us to boast about our 85% renewables grid, and until recently provided us with cheap power for things like Aluminium smelters and Paper mills, Stuff that’s not Cows or Sheep or trees

Today the building out of the electricity grid is at least partially in the hands of the “private sector” Their brief is to ensure power generation sufficiency. The cheapest power is now wind and solar, there incentives are to maximise returns, not to build serious durable reliable power stations.

Renewables are cheap and can be built out like lego, but they are intermittent. They don’t work when the wind doesn’t wind or the sun doesn’t sun and they need replacing every 20-30 years. 

To extend Chris Popoffs metaphor, wind and solar are the Narcissistic father of power supply. On a sunny windy day they spark up, flooding the grid with power, crashing the price, saying “Hey look at me, I’m bloody good, surplus power everywhere, aren’t you lucky I’m around”. Then on a still cold night they are nowhere to be seen, and all the old faithful’s, Coal, Hydro, Geothermal run breathlessly to fill the hole left by the absent narcissistic father who’s not around when he’s needed most.

All those that have swallowed the Kool aide and actually believe the renewables propaganda, are now paying the price, just look at the electricity prices in the UK, Germany and California. Once you get to about 30% wind and solar the grid becomes unstable, and everything goes third world.

I say let’s trash sufficiency and aim for abundance; we can even do it under the guise of saving the planet. Let’s do away with crappy little bicycle lanes, Carbon markets, Farmer burp taxes, and put tax money into electricity abundance instead. Cheap and abundant energy is a strategy that would make NZ prosper.

Imagine the manufacturing jobs that would be possible here, were power prices down around the lowest in the world.

We have Hydro Stations consented and ready to go, Gas, somewhat crippled by our past dear leader, but hopefully still has legs, and Geothermal has the potential to double or triple its contribution. The power all three provide is baseload, they would stabilise our grid and make it cheaper in the long term.

Then there is renaissance nuclear power, exploding everywhere. Theres 60 plants under construction worldwide with a further 110 planned. The 60 under construction will produce ten times New Zealand’s current generating capacity. 

It’s fascinating to look at the build out of Nuclear, by country. Theres 2 being built in the UK, 1 in France, China 31, India 7, Egypt, Turkey & Russia 4 each, Bangladesh & Korea 2 each, Argentina, Slovakia and Iran one a piece. This is how the west fades, not from Invasion or revolution but from outdated dogma and sclerotic bureaucracies unable to get out of their own way.

It makes sense to hang back a little and see what system is best, there’s a lot out there, but planning for and installing base infrastructure for Nuclear now, could be resource well spent

France has let its nuclear fleet degrade, captured by the anti-nuclear zeitgeist of the late 20^th century. It was only running at 50% capacity when Russia cut the gas supply to Europe. Let’s not be captured by the de growth zealots, lets not believe that things would be better if we just consumed less. Let’s be like Bob the Builder, “Can we build it, YES WE CAN”. 

Radio NZ reports:

A skin cancer expert is calling for sunscreen to be made cheaper – either by removing GST or offering it on prescription – to reduce New Zealand’s sky-high melanoma rate.

University of Otago skin cancer prevention researcher Dr Bronwen McNoe told Midday Report’s Charlotte Cook that sunscreen was significantly more expensive in New Zealand than in Australia.

The two countries shared the world’s highest melanoma rate, and New Zealand had the unenviable record of the world’s highest death rate from skin cancer.

McNoe said she supported any initiative that reduced the cost of sunscreen for consumers, including the current petition demanding the removal of GST.

No, no, no, no, no. The moment you start treating the GST as a way to decrease prices on things you approve of, and increase prices on things you disapprove of, you destroy the simplicity of the system and massively increase compliance costs.

If the barrier to sunscreen use is price (of which I am not aware of any quality research), then you deal with that through Pharmac, or subsidies. You do not wreck the GST system.

Save the Kiwi announced:

Kiwi feathers collected from across the US and Europe will soon be winging their way home in a repatriation effort between the United States of America and New Zealand.

Why?

We have 70,000 Kiwis in NZ, and lots of feathers. I want us to spend money saving Kiwis, not flying a few feathers back to NZ.

I could understand if they were something rare or extinct like moa eggs, but kiwi feathers are neither.

Jeff Bezos writes:

In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists and the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom, often just above Congress. But in this year’s Gallup poll, we have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now the least trusted of all. Something we are doing is clearly not working.

Let me give an analogy. Voting machines must meet two requirements. They must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from and just as important as the first.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. 

I agree with Bezos that endorsements do not affect how people vote, but they do affect how people view the newspaper or institution that endorses. This has actually been scientifically tested and validated.

I would also like to be clear that no quid pro quo of any kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was consulted or informed at any level or in any way about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp, the chief executive of one of my companies, Blue Origin, met with former president Donald Trump on the day of our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like to frame this as anything other than a principled decision. But the fact is, I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand. Even Limp didn’t know about it in advance; the meeting was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion otherwise is false.

I think that the timing in this case was coincidental, but that doesn’t mean the decision wasn’t influenced by the fact that Trump has said he will punish enemies, and endorsing Harris would get Bezos on the enemies list. There is a principled rationale for the decision, but the reality is that Bezos didn’t want Trump to target him (again). That will of course incentivise Trump to try and use his power even more to punish people who don’;’t supplicate themselves to him – because he knows it works.

It’s one thing to celebrate pensioners being wounded, but to do so while asserting you are a peace activist is really quite exceptional.

An excellent report by the ERO on chronically absent students, being this who are absent for more than three weeks every term. So this isn’t kids who have a week off for sickness, or a week off on an overseas holiday. It is kids who are attending less than 70% of the time – missing 12 weeks a year.

Some key details:

• One in 10 students (10 percent) were chronically absent in Term 2, 2024, double the level of 2015
• Students who are chronically absent are four times as likely to have a recent history of offending
• 55% of students chronically absent do not achieve NCEA Level 2 and 92% do not achieve UE
• Only 43 percent of parents and whānau with a child who is chronically absent have met with school staff about their child’s attendance.
• One in five school leaders (18 percent) only refer students after more than 21 consecutive days absent
• Only 22 schools make up 10 percent of the total chronic absence nationally, so under 1% of schools make up 10% of chronic absences.
• Students in schools in lower socio-economic areas are six times more likely to be chronically absent but there are 95 schools in low socio-economic communities with less than a 10 percent rate of chronic absence (so it is a factor, not an excuse)

The cost to the kids, and society, of such high rates are massive.

Note that lockdowns only occurred in 2020 and 2021. However in hindsight the decision to close schools was a very bad one, as it normalised non-attendance.

The Herald reports:

Young Labour has published an open letter urging the Government to follow Australia’s lead and stop Candace Owens entering the country.

The conservative US commentator and Trump supporter has caused controversy with her views questioning the Holocaust, and criticising feminism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and trans people.

She is booked to deliver a speech in Auckland next month — and had been expected to continue to Australia until she was refused entry. Tickets were selling for between $95 for general admission and $1500 for a VIP package with a pre-show dinner, champagne reception and meet-and-greet.

Australian Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the country’s national interest would be best served with Owens somewhere else, as she could “incite discord in almost every direction”.

An appalling decision from Australia, and one we should avoid.

I do believe Owens is clearly anti-semitic and says many terrible things. I find her a pretty contemptible person.

But if people want to go pay money to hear her in person (or challenge her) they have the right to do so.

Also banning her will just make her more popular and in demand.

Young Labour President Ethan Reille disagreed, and called on the coalition Government to deny Owens entry to New Zealand.

“Her views are not merely just controversial, but they are dangerous. So we do have an obligation to be protecting our communities from that kind of rhetoric that empowers divisive movements. So it is our view that allowing her a platform would fail to uphold our core values.”

Some pro-Palestinian activists are seem as divisive by many. What Young Labour really means is that views they disagree with should not be allowed in.