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187 COMMENTS

  2. I am really sick and tired of the race card being used. If anyone has a go at me now I am going to use the same tactic… You have just done/said this because I am white.. You are only picking on me because I am white. In saying that I have to think why would they not take what this communist government gives them? They must know its a communistic gravy train for them and anyone with even an eighth of a brain must know it cannot go on, the money has to run out sooner rather than later.
    They have the begging bowl out at any opportunity and why not? The government gives to them far more than if they didn’t beg and p[lay the race card. As a group we European/NZ people don’t know how to beg and play the race card that is being used. Time we started. And it’s time for all New Zealanders to realise what a total fuck up this ptpm really is.

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    • Fascism has a repeatable playbook.

      in 1930s Germany everything was the fault of the capitalist-Jews
      in 2020s NZ everything is the fault of the capitalist-Whites.

      Once you start looking for similarities it is terrifying how the Left is actually playing by Hitler’s rules.

      Interfere with elections – check
      Demonising one part of society to create a focus for hate – check
      Harnessing irrational fear of a nebulous unknown to create national hysteria that can only be solved by a charismatic communicator leader – check
      Restrictions on freedom of speech – check
      Burning books – check
      Anti-Christianity – check
      Subverting the media for propaganda purposes – check
      Posing with children for photo-ops whenever possible to soften the image – check
      Brain-washing of the young, so that as society ages there is an increasing number of unquestioning devotees to the great leader – check

      We are watching history repeat itself. democracy isn’t important to Labour anymore, they’ve got to where they wanted to get to. They just need to wriggle past 2020 and a decision will be made at some point that elections aren’t necessary “we can dismiss”.

      Just remember that 93% of Germans voted for Hitler.

      In Hitler’s Germany they ended up gassing and burning the capitalist-Jews just a few short years after that 93% landslide. Whitey!

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    • Lizziep, this will end when Whitey starts making Treaty of Waitangi claims ,afterall we are meant to be partners in this process.
      Every time an Iwi puts forward a proposal to build something make an objection, would these troughers dare to say “te tiriti is only for Maori ” ?

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  3. The unintended consequences of things Green and socialism.

    The millions being made from cardboard theft

    Getting all your cardboard recycled may often seem like a pain, but there is big money to be made from all this so-called “beige gold”. And sadly this is attracting criminals around the world.

    Thieves are making a fortune from stealing used cardboard that’s been left out to be recycled, and selling it on. This means that legitimate recycling firms, and the city and other local authorities who take a cut from their sales, are missing out on tens of millions.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53724620?at_medium=custom7&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_custom4=13318456-DD71-11EA-A088-CA0D3A982C1E&at_custom2=facebook_page&at_campaign=64&at_custom3=BBC+News&fbclid=IwAR1n9MeCjqNwRfQWKd2-_7muk7sJq8bsSzxkd1YsekEnsrJidi8BOWiI_xA

    Now who would have thought? Stealing used cardboard.

    Mr Moreno adds that national police forces are now increasingly targeting the problem, particularly Italy’s. Meanwhile, several media outlets have reported on the problem in the US, which has been prevalent in New York and California.

    Both Democrat states with mafia controlled wharves.

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  4. Another successful Trump policy without going to war.

    US seizes millions of dollars of Iranian fuel bound for Venezuela
    The US says it has taken control of four Iranian fuel shipments bound for Venezuela in the largest-ever seizure of its kind.

    About 1.1 million barrels of fuel were confiscated “with the assistance of foreign partners”, according to the Justice Department.

    Washington said the shipments violated US sanctions.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53783179

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  6. The election fraud “I told you so” post

    Well last night, in response to the one (sigh – the single, solo. sole) question from the patsy Press Gallery about the election (THE most pressing issue for the majority of the country) one fucking question. Covid Cindy dropped the first breadcrumb about subverting the electoral process.

    She said “And of course, as part of their normal and reasonable preparation for the General Election, the Electoral Commission have looked at how the General Election can be held under lockdown” [Not a verbatim quote but pretty damn close].

    Auckland lvl 3 extended to the end of the month, no campaigning possible with half the country’s population! Daily Covid update party political broadcasts for Cindy – locking out any media coverage for Judith.

    Well I’ve been saying for months now that this was coming here in May and here in June.

    If a total nobody like me, with no media connections or networks or resources at all can see this was coming – the real question is why can’t our supposed media do their jobs on this issue. Puts paid to the fiction that NZ is one of the least corrupt countries in the world – all I see is gigantic corruption everywhere I look.

    What a disgrace.

    It seems to me the only thing Judith can do is play the Trump card and get free wall to wall media coverage by trolling. Is she brave enough to do it?

    Trump got hundreds of millions of free media coverage by saying outrageous things sprinkled with important policy that his base wanted to hear – Judith could do the same

    Imagine the outrage, the howling, the screwed up faces of outrage if Judith announced

    “Jacinda is working for the Chinese Communist Party – they don’t hold free and open elections either”

    the complicit media would leap to get a camera in front of Judith’s face, every time she did a facebook post it would be worldwide news.

    Trump pivoted the attention away from Hillary on to himself. That was all that was needed to energise his base.

    Politics changed in 2016. The left will do anything (ANYTHING) to stay in power.

    You have to fight fire with fire and beat them in the gutter. Judith has the mongrel in her to win that fight, will she do it?

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    • The video is misleading.
      In realistic human coughing the particle sizes are typically as follows: 8–14 μm (small particles), 57–68 μm (medium particles) and 96–114 μm (large particles).
      Smoke, on the other hand, is an aerosol, with much smaller particle sizes, averaging around 0.25 μm.

      So, masks can help catch the grosser particles people cough (assuming that the mask is correctly worn and fits), but they won’t stop smoke and other aerosols. If the virus is riding on aerosol-sized particles, then a simple mask won’t be effective.

      Also, the eyes have mucous membranes that the virus can pass through to enter the body.

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  9. Ardern has ordered additional concentration camps, for perfectly healthy people, who fail her tests.

    This has placed further strain on the soldiers who have to manage the camps and keep over a million people under house arrest.

    Police are also stressed, as they are deployed to subjugate the bread lines, target dissidents, and brutalise beach walkers.

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  10. Good morning, what a beautiful day in the Waikato! Hope everyone is the same around this gorgeous wee country of ours? It is a shame what is happening but after watching the post Alice put on last night I have renewed hope!! It’s well worth the time to watch. The opposition to the ‘new world order” is building. Good people will prevail. 👍👍👍

    Thanks for posting Alice
    Lengthy video but worth watching. Exposing the covid scam with Prof. Dolores Cahill.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgXb74Gnv1c

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  14. Our young girl next door neighbour just walked past wearing a mask – very hip, changes her hair colour about every week – in the middle of the South Island in a small country town. Did I say she is by herself, luckily she is only about 17 so will not get to vote for her messiah this year.

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  16. Please can we earn a living. A plea to control freak Cindy.

    Coronavirus: Butchers urge the Government to allow them to open during alert level 3 lockdown
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/coronavirus-butchers-urge-the-government-to-allow-them-to-open-during-alert-level-3-lockdown.html

    Independently-owned butcher shops in New Zealand are urging the Government to consider them as essential services as Auckland’s COVID-19 lockdown continues.

    Retail Meat New Zealand wrote a letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday asking her to reclassify independent butcher shops as ‘essential services’.

    “Our butchers are committed to operating safely with strict hygiene, physical distancing, contactless selling, and the use of the NZ COVID Tracer app. They can implement all the same processes that local dairies have followed throughout the alert levels,” the letter says.

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  18. Is the National Party campaign launch going ahead ?

    I hope this is more wide spread than the MSM realise. My wife got her hair cut yesterday and her hair dresser is gay guy in his early 30s –you would expect him to be a Labour or Green voter since we are Wellington. The conversation got onto the change to Level 2 quite quickly and then once he realised my wife was not in the Jacinda fan club he opened up and they had a great conversation. He is totally pissed off with the Government and what they have done.

    So last night I looked at the evening “have your say” equivalent section of BFD. There were a number of comments along the same lines on there. People knowing tradies who said they always vote Labour but will not this time. They have had enough which I think is interesting because from what I hear tradies are still very busy so they are not talking “from the hip pocket”.
    Lets hope there is a real silent majority out there.

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    • There is supposedly a poll out that contradicts that – that for the first time small business owners are pro-Labour. I don’t believe it but the media has been using it as propaganda for Dear Leader.

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  19. Good to see Durham is making progress. The accused ex-FBI man is clearly very young so presumably was very low on the FBI totem pole. Will more senior FBI be charged before the US election on 3 November?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6skTR9qMd4
    Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty in first criminal case arising from Durham

    Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review into the origins of the Russia investigation

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  22. Judith is choosing her words very carefully. Clearly she doesn’t want to give the Labour trolls any ammunition. She is interviewed after Chippy dances on a pin.

    Coronavirus: Collins promises border staff will be tested for COVID-19 under National, calls existing efforts ‘pie-in-the-sky’
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/coronavirus-collins-promises-border-staff-will-be-tested-for-covid-19-under-national-calls-existing-efforts-pie-in-the-sky.html

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    • “Global liberalism” breaking down to a Balkanization, tribalization, on the basis of “nation, culture, custom, ethnicity and race”.

      Each in turn as they rise to the top to be attacked, eaten by their own liberalism

      Will it be civic-nationalisms, or ethno-nationalisms.
      We can see how this works in NZ with unifying “civic”, 1 Law 4 All,
      Or more of an “ethno”, which seems to be in demand which leads to neo-segregation but ultimately also their power & control.

      How will it pan out in NZ?

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  29. With thanks to Muse.

    “The paranoia is in bloom, transmissions will resume
    They’ll try to
    Push drugs to keep us all dumbed down and hope that
    we will never see the truth around.”

    “Another promise, another scene another package lie
    to keep us trapped in our greed
    With all the green belts wrapped around our minds
    And endless tape to keep the truth confined.”……..

    I like this song. Unfortunately it is now a reality.

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  30. This is why Cindy wants the election in September. Can’t hold the economic pain dam back much longer.

    Coronavirus: Wage subsidy unsustainable, ‘incredible economic pain’ inevitable – economist
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2020/08/coronavirus-wage-subsidy-unsustainable-incredible-economic-pain-inevitable-economist.html

    The new outbreak of COVID-19 is a “reality check” for already struggling businesses and tough decisions are looming, according to Infometrics senior economist Brad Olsen.

    “We could be looking at $1.6b less spending happening across the country over the next few weeks. For Auckland, you’re talking 250,000 workers who can’t operate at alert level three,” he told Newshub Nation on Saturday.

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  31. LMFAO!!
    Die!!

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  32. So Chippy’s changed his story. Yesterday he was saying it had been hard to get everyone working on the border tested, because many didn’t want have the swab, and they weren’t required to. Today, his message is that the government was misled about the amount of testing going on at the border, and he’s very frustrated and disappointed.

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  33. I have been thinking about this lack of testing of workers around the border –both airports and shipping ports.

    There is another way to look at it. Given the lack of testing to catch infected workers and because we have not had major out breaks going back to them it shows that these people who are in the most likely places to catch this “highly infectious” virus have not gone home each night to spread it around, you have to ask how bad or infectious this virus actually is. How many people going through the very weak quarantine areas are positive? ( I do not know the answer to that)

    It also shows this panic lock down by Ardern and Bloomfield is the most corrupt political move, we all know it to be.

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  34. Different outcomes for the politically powerful. US court finds Hillary Clinton has nothing to answer for.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp3TKp6QWxU
    Tom Fitton reacts to appeals court overturning Hillary Clinton deposition order

    Judicial Watch hopes to appeal the ‘terrible outcome’ and hold Hillary Clinton and the State Department accountable under the law, says Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.

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  37. How many border/quarantine workers tested have come back positive? Have they been spreading the virus due to not previously being required to be tested?

    Coronavirus live updates: Seven new cases, new testing record
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/coronavirus-live-updates-on-new-zealand-s-new-covid-19-outbreak-august-15.html

    A total of 54 people linked to the cluster, including family members of infected individuals, have been moved to quarantine facilities.

    All tests have come back negative from those at the Morrinsville Kingswood rest home that two positive cases visited.

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  39. From Australia
    Something I think a lot of people will find very interesting.
    Clive Palmer, a true patriot, did something that could have helped all of Australia. He bought 32 million doses of Hydroxychloroquine in the fight against the China Virus. He didn’t do this for any political reasons. He did it because he truly wanted to help. This was robbed off the people, because 5 days after he bought this, and gave it to the drug administration, thinking they would do the right thing by the people, it was made illegal to prescribe for any ailment in Australia.
    The medical terrorists have now put a gag order on any doctor that speaks out about it and threatened nurses and doctors with their jobs. No one had to die. But the pharmaceutical companies have pushed their toxic soup called, vaccines and denied the people sound health care and a chance to end this.
    Hydroxychloroquine has proven, in numerous peer reviewed studies, posted in the most prestigious medical journal, arguable, in the world, the Lancet. But the one piece of research the Acting Chief Medical officer, Dr Paul Kelly uses to to claim it doesn’t work, was retracted from the Lancet because of false and misleading research.
    So I ask Dr Paul Kelly where did you get your information that backs your claim that hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work? And furthermore, who is the jury you speak of that made this so. You stated in your press conference with Scott Morrison that ” The jury was out it doesn’t work” when asked the question about hydroxychloroquine. So please, I am intrigued to know where you got this information from or are you deliberately ignoring all the numerous peer reviewed papers and doctors, nurses, GPs epidemiologists and the like that are saying the efficacy of this drug would prevent and dare I say it cure this Virus…
    I call you out and await a sound and solid response.
    In good faith and honour to the people. You owe the good people of Australia an answer. Lives have been lost for no reason. I think you are required to come forward and tell the people.
    🙏🙏🙏
    Forget about the fact that it was Clive Palmer for a moment. I wonder who ended up with all of this life saving treatment.
    This post is copied.
    If you continue to vote for The Liberal and Labor parties You are an accessory to manslaughter at the very least.

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    • ” it was made illegal to prescribe for any ailment in Australia.”
      I wonder if this is accurate –what about the people who were already taking it for lupus a rheumatoid arthritis? What about people who took it for malaria?

      Either way the bureaucrats need to “hung drawn and quartered”. It could have done wonders in the Victorian aged care homes (and in other states) if it was given as a prophylactic. No one will be held accountable, as usual.

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    • If the opposition parties are any good, they will pick up on these alegations of Acting Chief Medical officer Dr Paul Kelly putting the interests of pharmaceutical companies ahead of the people of Australia and make something of it. It would be a rather bad look, if shown to be true.

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  42. Up to 6000 people require mandatory testing for Covid-19 at Ports of Tauranga

    As part of the Government’s roll-out of testing for Covid-19 at all ports, the Ports of Tauranga today said up to 6000 people who have been through the ports since Wednesday would need to be tested.
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/up-6000-people-require-mandatory-testing-covid-19-ports-tauranga

    Anyone who has been at the Port of Tauranga since 11.59 pm on Tuesday is required by law to get tested for Covid-19.

    This testing would help determine whether the virus may have come to New Zealand from the port and maritime community, the port said.

    This included everyone who has worked at the port, including shipping agents, stevedores, cargo delivery drivers, contractors, suppliers of goods and services, classification societies, government agency employees and any crew members who may have come ashore.

    Port of Tauranga Chief Executive Mark Cairns said the port was working with the Bay of Plenty DHB to provide testing facilities on-site.

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  45. Food is the ultimate control weapon. New Zealand is, of course, incredibly fortunate that we can easily feed ourselves especially if we would only stop the insanely wasteful and destructive policy of poisoning our valuable and prolific wild game resource. Here’s the latest from China, a country which absolutely relies on vast imports of food and is completely unable to feed itself:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfddicUblZ0

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    • Japan too relies on foreign animal feed grain and soy beans, amongst other foods. Japanese farmers are mostly pensioners.
      According to the 2015 census, the average age of people primarily engaged in agriculture has increased by 7.2 years over the last decade to 67. The situation is particularly advanced in the highland and mountainous regions of Japan, where over 70% of farmers are aged 65 or older. Currently the average rice farmer works only 1.65 acres (whereas the typical American farm is 160 times larger).

      It’s a major problem. Do you throw your rural communities under the bus to keep Amerian farm lobbies happy? (Japanese rural communities are not in the best of health in the first place…)

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      • Cities are full of consumers who feed on the productive sector like bacteria. They contribute nothing.

        Farming is the source of civilisation. Let the human filth of the woke cities starve and die.

        I would feel as much wiping out a city as I would wiping down my bench top.

        Pol Pot was filled with mercy compared to my view of large cities.

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        • Kea,
          There are three forms of production: primary, secondary and tertiary. Farming is primary production.
          I take it that you do not live in a city? (That would be the kakas, not keas, at least in Wellington.)

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  50. Millie Weaver or ‘Millenial Millie’ a reporter for Infowars was arrested today along with her husband.

    Infowars reporter Millie Weaver ‘arrested’ mid-premiere of her whistleblowing investigation into ‘shadow government’
    https://www.rt.com/usa/498072-millie-weaver-documentary-arrest-shadowgate/

    She made a documentary exposing the people behind the autonomous patrol robots, computer vision software, tracking and tracing systems, forecasting tools, predictive policing, crime hot spot analytics and more.
    What is most revealling is the worldwide reach and implementation of this technology.
    This doco also shows how a judiciary can be selected through selective modelling.
    This video is being banned.
    The choice to know is yours.

    What They Don’t Want You To See.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSkJEL6iEoM

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  51. There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak.
    Producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but they will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

    Aldous Huxley.

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  53. This really is a painful situation. Totally unnecessary.

    Global Lockdowns Set To Plunge 100 Million Into Extreme Poverty

    “With the virus and its restrictions, up to 100 million more people globally could fall into the bitter existence of living on just $1.90 a day, according to the World Bank. That’s “well below any reasonable conception of a life with dignity,” the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty wrote this year. And it comes on top of the 736 million people already there, half of them in just five countries: Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Congo and Bangladesh.”

    The report notes that the impact of the lockdown on the poor in countries like India was “so abrupt and punishing” that their Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, begged for forgiveness.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/global-lockdowns-set-plunge-100-million-extreme-poverty

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  55. The E.O Trump signed targetting people traffickers, early on in his presidency, has not lost it’s momentum.

    Greatest President/World leader ever!!

    Romania Extradites Human Trafficking Kingpin to US

    The accused “is at the top of a network of international human trafficking [gangs operating] in Romania, Mexico and the US,” said Vela from Bucharest airport, minutes before the plane that would escort the man to justice took off.

    https://balkaninsight.com/2020/08/14/romania-extradites-human-trafficking-kingpin-to-us/

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  56. Looks like peope are telling Hipkins and co to naff off. Good on them. Essential item in antr now should be a 18V Grinder. Sorts out pesky council padlocks and other stupid restaints.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12356827

    Are councils fucking Nuts? Since when can a fucking Basket Ball hoops give you Corona Virus FFFFS

    The council has followed all government advice and closed facilities to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in our communities.

    “Playgrounds, skate and bike parks are closed; people must stay off outdoor exercise equipment, away from basketball hoops and off park benches.

    “Yet we’re still hearing that playgrounds are alive with children, families are using on-park equipment and park benches are all being used.

    “We have closed all but around 200 public toilets – these remain open for workers that still need to carry out essential services.

    “These rules are in place for your health and wellbeing, it’s important to follow them.”
    Filipaina said Muriwai Beach had been one area affected by the behaviour.

    Auckland Council has had reports of queues of cars more than 2km long at Muriwai Beach, influxes of people using toilets, padlocks and chains cut on closed gates (for example at Coast Road in Muriwai, Cornwallis and along Scenic Drive in the Waitākere Ranges).

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    • At the same time the CoL government of Ardern’s insist that local govenment councils increase the rates, before they will give some grants to those councils.
      Then some of those councillors also believe that is what they should do in any case. 🙁
      Remember them at the next election, and those executive staff.

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  58. Fuck you Labour. Lying treasonous scum. Untold thousands upon thousands
    of good men and women gave up everything they had, spilt their blood and
    sacrificed their lives to stop the evil that is communism and fascism.
    Yet you filthy, sick corrupt vermin spit on them and the NZ flag because
    you want to advance your political careers and curry favour with ruthless
    sub-human creatures who want to destroy all that remains of freedom and
    democracy.
    All of you should be ashamed and disgusted with yourselves.
    But you won’t be. You are too corrupt and arrogant.
    There will be a price for you to pay. The bill is on it’s way.

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  59. Is Chippie, who is the Minister of Health, in charge and responsible for this whole border/quarantine shambles saying that he and his officials have been let down? No Chippie, you, Megan Woods, David Clark and Bloomfield are responsible for letting down the public. We have been asking questions since March. It’s not that hard but you have left bloody great obvious holes in the system.

    Coronavirus: Kiwis react with anger at revelations of lack of testing at border
    https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/08/coronavirus-kiwis-react-with-anger-at-revelations-of-lack-of-testing-at-border.html

    Six of the new cases are linked back to the Auckland cluster, but one remains under investigation. The source of the outbreak remains unknown.
    Related News
    Watch: Michael Morrah’s exclusive report.
    ‘It beggars belief’: Nearly two-thirds of Auckland’s COVID-19 border staff hadn’t been tested a week ago
    Chris Hipkins and Judith Collins on Newshub Nation.
    Collins promises border staff will be tested for COVID-19 under National

    But the extent of the failure at our border – specifically around testing – is growing clearer each day.

    “It has not been happening at the rates that, A, we have asked for, and B, we were told was happening,” Health Minister Chris Hipkins said on Newshub Nation.

    As recent as a month ago, New Zealanders were assured.

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  62. Allister Heath. Telegraph 12 August
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/12/swedens-success-shows-true-cost-arrogant-failed-establishment/

    So now we know: Sweden got it largely right, and the British establishment catastrophically wrong. Anders Tegnell, Stockholm’s epidemiologist-king, has pulled off a remarkable triple whammy: far fewer deaths per capita than Britain, a maintenance of basic freedoms and opportunities, including schooling, and, most strikingly, a recession less than half as severe as our own.

    Our arrogant quangocrats and state “experts” should hang their heads in shame: their reaction to coronavirus was one of the greatest public policy blunders in modern history, more severe even than Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, Suez or the ERM fiasco. Millions will lose their jobs when furlough ends; tens of thousands of small businesses are failing; schooling is in chaos, with A-level grades all over the place; vast numbers are likely to die from untreated or undetected illnesses; and we have seen the first exodus of foreigners in years, with the labour market survey suggesting a decline in non-UK born adults.

    Pandemics always come with large economic and social costs, for reasons of altruism as well as of self-interest. The only way to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease, in the absence of a cure or vaccine, is to social distance; fear and panic inevitably kick in, as the public desperately seeks to avoid catching the virus. A “voluntary” recession is almost guaranteed.

    But if a drop in GDP is unavoidable, governments can influence its size and scale. Politicians can react in one of three ways to a pandemic. They can do nothing, and allow the disease to rip until herd immunity is reached. Quite rightly, no government has pursued this policy, out of fear of mass deaths and total social and economic collapse.

    The second approach involves imposing proportionate restrictions to facilitate social distancing, banning certain sorts of gatherings while encouraging and informing the public. The Swedes pursued a version of this centrist strategy: there was a fair bit of compulsion, but also a focus on retaining normal life and keeping schools open. The virus was taken very seriously, but there was no formal lockdown. Tegnell is one of the few genuine heroes of this crisis: he identified the correct trade-offs.

    The third option is the full-on statist approach, which imposes a legally binding lockdown and shuts down society. Such a blunderbuss approach may be right under certain circumstances – if a vaccine is imminent – or for some viruses – for example, if we are ever hit with one that targets children and comes with a much higher fatality rate – but the latest economic and mortality statistics suggest this wasn’t so for Covid-19.

    Almost all economists thought that Sweden’s economy would suffer hugely from its idiosyncratic strategy. They were wrong. Sweden’s GDP fell by just 8.6 per cent in the first half of the year, all in the second quarter, and its excess deaths jumped 24 per cent. A big part of Sweden’s recession was caused by a slump in demand for its exports from its fully locked-down neighbours. One could speculate that had all countries pursued a Swedish-style strategy, the economic hit could have been worth no more than 3-4 per cent of GDP. That could be seen as the core cost of the virus under a sensible policy reaction.

    By contrast, Britain’s economy slumped by 22.2 per cent in the first half of the year, a performance almost three times as bad as Sweden’s, and its excess deaths shot up by 45 per cent. Spain’s national income slumped even more (22.7 per cent), and France’s (down 18.9 per cent) and Italy’s (down 17.1 per cent) slightly less, but all three also suffered far greater per capita excess deaths than Sweden. The Swedes allowed the virus to spread in care homes, so if that major failure had been fixed, their death rate could have been a lot lower still.

    My guess is that only half of our first-half collapse in GDP would have happened under a variant of the Swedish model. This means that the other half – some £250 billion – was an unnecessary cost caused directly by the lockdown itself. The decision to shut everything down, rather than to impose and promulgate extensive social distancing, hygiene measures, ubiquitous PPE and testing, means that we have wasted a quarter of a trillion pounds worth of GDP, as well as needlessly ruined the education of millions of children and cancelled the health care of hundreds of thousands of adults. I suspect that this immense, unbearable additional cost saved very few additional lives, and that almost all of the gains came from social distancing, not the lockdown.

    Some of the lost GDP will be recovered; the intangible costs of lockdown – the cancelled weddings and sporting events, the failed IVF cycles, the time not spent with family – will remain with us forever.

    This is a catastrophically high price tag for the British state’s systemic incompetence, the uselessness of Public Health England, the deep, structural failings of the NHS, the influence of modelers rather than proper scientists, the complacency, the delusion, the refusal to acknowledge that the quality of the British state and bureaucracy are abysmally poor.

    Even more depressingly, a Swedish approach was always unrealistic in Britain. Panic and hysteria were the only possible outcome when the failure of the system became apparent. I’m not seeking to absolve Boris Johnson of blame, but he would have found himself in an impossible situation had he sought to ignore the official advice, and he inherited few, if any, working levers to pull.

    So what now? How should Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, reboot the economy? Sweden, once again, is a role model. After decades of socialist decline from the early Seventies, the Swedes slashed the size of their state (though it remains too big), liberalised their economy, reformed their schools along market principles and scrapped their counter-productive wealth tax.

    They learnt that the state cannot drive prosperity: only the private sector can do that. The Tories used to understand this: Sunak needs to take inspiration from Tegnell, and push for a Swedish, liberal approach to saving our economy, trusting individual initiative, not resorting to a top down, Whitehall-knows-best attitude. HS2 and green projects are not the answer. The Conservatives will only survive their handling of Covid if they don’t also botch the recovery

    4

    0

  64. In an earlier post I
    said there are no real journalists
    in NZ anymore. And there aren’t.
    If there were, there would only be one question
    they would ask the bitch parading as Prime Minister:
    “When are you going to stop lying?.”

    3

    0

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