Tuesday, July 05, 2022




Incompetence and corruption now rife in New Zealand under a Leftist government

On a famous occasion in 1981, the New Zealand approach to justice was described as an "orchestrated litany of lies". The stain would now seem to have spread widely

The question has long been whether basic stupidity has underpinned so much of our politicians’ and administrators’ decision-making – or something more insidious.

Parliament’s Maori Affairs Select Committee, for example, is distinguished by the aggressive rudeness with which it confronts those attempting to raise awareness of wrongful claims made by those with fingers in the till of racial preference. The contrast with the enthusiasm of most of its members when greeting Maori-identifying submitters, apparently often known to them – or with tribal affiliations – has become scandalous.

It is not just this committee. The 18,300 signature petition calling for the Marsden Point Oil Refinery to remain operational has been buried by Parliament’s Petitions Committee, dragging its heels in this typical failure of our democratic processes. No public submissions were called for, nor have groups knowing the importance of keeping the refinery operational been offered any opportunity to make submissions. Despite the volatile global oil market – with increasing costs and shortage of supplies – verbal submissions by two groups were not heard until six months after the petition was presented to Parliament. The refinery, with production stopped, is being dismantled. New Zealand is no longer able to process its own oil to keep essential services running – with a potential energy crisis worldwide.

Whether this is sheer folly – or basically a subversive government white-anting this country – is a legitimate question.

That we are in decline is obvious. With a nationwide shortage of doctors and many practices no longer able to accept new patients, some New Zealanders wait weeks for consultations. In the cities of Invercargill and New Plymouth, for example, those already not enrolled in practices cannot gain access to a GP.

Our hospitals are in a state of crisis; emergency departments past capacity; and people treated in corridors with no medication until they are placed in wards. Increasing numbers of staff report burnout and wait times are becoming longer. New Zealand has fewer intensive care hospital beds per capita than nearly every other country in the OECD. Pharmac, the government agency deciding which medications can be funded, is itself grossly underfunded. Eighteen anti-cancer drugs available in Australia are not available here.

The question of whether we have enough hospital beds is interesting. I recall two major Auckland hospitals being closed two decades ago. A partial rebuilding of Auckland Public Hospital by no means compensated for the loss of beds involved. I found this puzzling, given our growing population, but light was thrown on the thinking behind this decision when GPs were subsequently approached with extra funding to more closely analyse their patients – for example those smoking, or at risk with diabetes and other conditions supposedly treatable at primary level. The theory was that the more general practitioners’ patients were scrutinised for underlying health problems, the more these could be managed early – without recourse to hospital treatment. I found this quite incredible, as the more patients were investigated, the more chance there was of uncovering underlying problems – increasing the number needing specialist consultations and hospital treatment. In other words, the burden on hospitals was probably going to increase – not decrease.

And now, with the apparent prospect of a food shortage worldwide – although New Zealand should be well placed as an agriculturally productive country – the selling of prime agricultural land to those planting pine plantations to eventually replace fossil fuels is folly. So is the ridiculous, punitive decision to now tax farmers for the supposed contribution of their livestock to global warming.

Moreover, the fanatical Climate Change Commission and Ministry for the Environment have both confirmed that the current emissions reduction targets have been envisioned to go much further, requiring farmers to help offset warming produced by other sectors of the economy. The damage to this vital industry will very likely drive many out of business. Yet there has not been a single scientific model of agriculture’s warming effect made publicly available.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck? Revelations that close relatives of Minister Nanaia Mahuta – her sister and husband – have received government contracts, and are able to act in an advisory capacity have raised eyebrows, with the mainstream media preferring to not stir the pot on this issue – hardly new. For several decades now, handouts to the hierarchies of local tribes have regularly seen the money distributed among close relatives. I recall one brave Maori woman objecting that the money paid to her tribe for health-related issues ended up in the pockets of those buying themselves a farm. She was told her objection had no basis.

Meanwhile, the attack on free speech continues, with Ardern continuing to virtually rub fed-up New Zealanders’ noses into reminders of the appalling attack on the Muslim mosque in Christchurch. This has served her very well in relation to confiscating New Zealanders’ guns and promoting new legislation attacking hate speech. That it was an Australian who committed this atrocity is conveniently passed over.

Equally odd is the fact that although anyone with a tenuous connection to this country – and committing a crime in Australia – can be deported back here, the perpetrator of this attack has not been returned to his own country. Why not? The conclusion reached is because this has become useful political capital. That Ardern is also destroying her own is interesting.

Appointing the controversial Labour party speaker, Trevor Mallard, to a diplomatic post overseas has caused outrage. This is the same Mallard, viewed as a bully, who sprayed protesters outside Parliament with water and had songs played over a loudspeaker, and whose wrong accusations of rape had New Zealanders paying for his settlement. Equally problematic is Ardern’s appointing Professor Joanna Kidman of Victoria University to her new Centre of Research Excellence for Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism that will ‘focus on understanding diversity and promoting social cohesion’.

Kidman is regarded as an extremist, with a left-wing blogger describing this appointment as ‘insane’. Foremost in numerous attempts to silence others, she recently tweeted about the statue of Sir George Gray in Auckland – ‘nice example of historian-as-bigoted-dick-head to add to the pile of sixty-twelve million reasons why 99 per cent of university historians should have a curfew and ankle tracker’. She sounds perfect for Ardern’s purposes.

***************************************************

Post-Roe, Left Suddenly Remembers What a Woman Is

The radical left is in disarray after the Supreme Court decided Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, ruling that there was no constitutional right to an abortion.

Angry protesters filled the streets and stormed the conservative justices’ residential neighborhoods, hellbent on getting so-called abortion rights back for … women?

That can’t be right.

The radical left reminds us daily that women aren’t the only people who can get pregnant. Biological women who say they’re “men” can get pregnant, they say, as can those who say they’re “nonbinary.”

And besides, biological men can be women, too, these days.

But as Roe fell, the sea of protest signs outside the court referred not to “birthing people” or “people who menstruate,” but instead to women, losing their rights, or politicians trying to control women’s bodies.

Gone were the endless lectures about the dozens of genders the left makes up. Instead, biological reality set in.

That would be the same biological reality that had, up until recently, been ignored by those situated in the left’s highest echelons.

Earlier in June, before Roe was overturned, Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said she had a responsibility to all “menstruating people in Michigan” during a Zoom event.

In May 2021, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., tweeted, “Every day, black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain,” alongside a video of her testimony, in which she repeated the phrase “birthing person.”

And infamously, during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to become a Supreme Court justice, federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson declined to define what a woman is. “I’m not a biologist,” she insisted, in response to a question from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

Women get pregnant, give birth, and tragically, get abortions. And the overturning of Roe represented a very real change to how women could deal with pregnancies.

That’s not to say there weren’t true believers trying to spread the gospel of gender ideology around the court. But many protesters recognize that women alone have the capacity to get pregnant. And they’ve adapted their messaging to reflect that truth.

That leads to an obvious question: Why did it take Roe getting overturned for the left to acknowledge the obvious reality that women and men are different?

The answer is that it didn’t. The left didn’t suddenly wake up and realize they had been living a lie. They’ve known the whole time and cynically used gender ideology as a tool to club their political opposition and to virtue-signal.

While there are those far-out ideologues who think there is legitimately zero difference between a Lia Thomas-type “woman” and a real woman, far more likely is that these types of people are a disproportionally powerful minority that drives the narrative for the rest of the radical left.

Whether through fear or empathy, those left of center felt obligated to play into the “trans women are women” fantasy. But now that the stakes have been raised so sharply, the polite veneer of tolerance for this nonsense has faded away.

The left knows that men and women are different, and realizes the average American is aware of that fact, too. How can the left fight for women’s rights if they can’t even define what a woman is?

The demise of Roe also provides a vantage point to strike a coup de grace against gender ideology.

While conservatives must continue to cultivate a culture of life across the country, it’s also worth using some of our resources to buttress the reality that only women can get pregnant.

It’s a tough needle to thread, and we can’t give the left too much leeway to say abortion is exclusively a women’s issue.

The fathers whose children are slaughtered at Planned Parenthood clinics and lose out on their sons who are never born mean that, yes, men are affected by abortion, too.

But obviously, abortion impacts women more than men. And that’s why this is such a terrific opportunity. The left is stuck both ways.

Conservatives can point to the left’s inability to accurately define what a woman is as proof they’re out of touch with the American people—not just on abortion, but on reality as well.

By forcing the left to acknowledge there are fundamental differences between the sexes on the issue of abortion, the stranglehold gender ideology has on America in other spheres also grows weaker.

Conservatives can follow up our monumental victory for life with a one-two punch on the weird gender stuff.

The left is losing ground every day. With each loss, they hopefully will be forced to move back toward normalcy.

If we must keep fighting the left, I’d rather fight a left that at least knows what a woman is.

*********************************************

Liberal ‘Tolerance’ on Display After Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that outlawed state anti-abortion laws and federalized an issue that, for all but the last 50 years of our history, was decided by the states.

Critics falsely claim that Roe “legalized” abortion, when pre-1973 abortion was legal in the states where a majority of the population resided. It is now falsely claimed that Roe’s reversal “outlaws” abortion, when—again—this latest decision places that legal abortion decision back in the hands of state lawmakers and their voters.

Interestingly, the justice who wrote Roe, Harry Blackmun, expected the ruling to have limited effect and never intended for it to be construed as giving women a “right” to an abortion, let alone one on demand and up to and including the third trimester.

We know this because years after Blackmun’s death, his personal writings became public. Blackmun, a former general counsel for the Mayo Clinic, wanted doctors to determine what Blackmun anticipated would be rare instances in which an abortion would be medically necessary, as determined by the woman’s doctor.

In 2005, the Los Angeles Times wrote about the release of Blackmun’s private papers in an article called “Roe Ruling: More Than Its Author Intended.” Staff writer David Savage wrote:

Blackmun proposed to issue a news release to accompany the decision, issued Jan. 22, 1973. ‘I fear what the headlines may be,’ he wrote in a memo. His statement, never issued, emphasized that the court was not giving women ‘an absolute right to abortion,’ nor was it saying that the ‘Constitution compels abortion on demand.’

Blackmun wrote that abortion “must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician” based upon a doctor’s consideration of “all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the patient.”

If there is any doubt that the court expected Roe to change little about abortion, the day of the Roe decision, Chief Justice Warren Burger said, “Plainly, the court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortion on demand.”

After the Roe reversal, protests erupted all across the country, with the largest in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles—all of them cities in states with virtually zero probability that their lawmakers will pass laws restricting abortion.

On social media, some called for the assassination of Justice Clarence Thomas. Neil Mackay, a Glasgow Herald journalist in Scotland with 24,000 followers, tweeted, “If I was a woman in America, I’d burn the Supreme Court to the ground.”

Anticipating Roe’s reversal two months ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said, “This is about controlling women.” Never mind some polls showing that a greater percentage of women are pro-life than men, including a 2015 Vox poll that found “women are slightly more likely than men to describe themselves as pro-life.”

President Joe Biden condemned the Roe reversal, but as recently as 2006 he had a very different view: “I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it’s always a tragedy. And I think that it should be rare and safe. And I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.”

The Mississippi law the Supreme Court considered in striking down Roe made abortion illegal after 15 weeks. But in France and Italy, for example, elective abortion is lawful up to 12 to 14 weeks. Great Britain allows abortion up to 24 weeks, but requires the authorization of two doctors.

In a debate during the 2020 presidential contest, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., rejected making abortion illegal at any stage during pregnancy, a position held by other leaders in his party. But a 2021 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found 80% of Americans think third-trimester abortion should be illegal.

The Supreme Court never should have federalized the issue of abortion and has now properly returned it to the people and to the states.

******************************************************

The Moron Blames Gas Stations for Rising Prices - Thomas Sowell Eviscerated His Argument

First, it was Trump. Then, it was Putin. Now, President Joe Biden has a new scapegoat for rising gas prices — the gas station owners themselves.

“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril,” Biden wrote in a tweet on Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.”

Many businessmen, economists and common-sense Americans were quick to call Biden’s tweet out for what it was.

Included among the president’s critics was Washington Post owner and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos himself. However, none of these voices debunked Biden’s argument quite as well as famed conservative economist and philosopher Thomas Sowell.

For years and years, angry leftists have blamed rising prices on “greedy” business owners. Sowell spent much of his life debunking such arguments in a series of columns, books and other written works.

Many of those writings apply so perfectly to Biden’s recent comments, it’s almost as if they were written in response to the president himself.

In a 2006 column, Sowell castigated California Senator Barbara Boxer for fallaciously blaming oil companies for rising gas prices when, in fact, the rise in prices was the result of the natural economic forces of supply and demand.

Replace “Barbara Boxer” with “Joe Biden,” and the following quotes apply perfectly to today.

“The real irony is that it has been precisely liberals like Barbara Boxer who have been the chief obstacles to increasing the supply of oil because they are dead set against drilling for oil in more places and against building more refineries,” Sowell wrote.

“When you refuse to let supply rise to meet rising demand, why should you be surprised — much less outraged — when prices rise?”

Another great example of Sowell’s work came in the form of a 2007 column in National Review titled “The ‘Greed’ Fallacy.”

“Every time oil prices shoot up, there are cries of ‘greed’ and demands by politicians for an investigation of collusion by Big Oil. There have been more than a dozen investigations of oil companies over the years, and none of them has turned up the collusion that is supposed to be responsible for high gas prices,” Sowell wrote.

At the time, oil prices dropped, posing an important question — why would oil executives all of a sudden become less greedy?

“Now that oil prices have dropped big time, does that mean that oil companies have lost their ‘greed’? Or could it all be supply and demand — a cause and effect explanation that seems to be harder for some people to understand than emotions like ‘greed’?” Sowell wrote.

****************************************

My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

*****************************************

No comments: