Written By: lprent - Date published: 8:54 am, January 11th, 2021 - 21 comments
Reading the effect of the Wednesday riot at the US Congress has been interesting. The Trump position has as usual been as infantile and self-adsorbed as all of his disaster of a presidency has been. The Republican politicians have been been more nuanced. But it looks to me like they would like to not rely on cheeseburgers to stop Donald Trump running again in 2024.
Sanctuary 2.1.1
Yes, and the state of our Navy ought to be a national scandal and a matter in urgent need of remediation.
High attrition and chronic skills shortages means we have two aging frigates with barely enough sailors to fully crew one of them to combat readiness, ships spending long periods in harbour due to manning issues, while the RNZN s poor spending of limited funds (Politicians in NZ largely leave the purchasing decisions to public sector technocrats. The NZDF has a very poor procurement record, look at the EH-101 helicopters, the P-8 purchase and the money wasted on the LAVs) means that the four inshore patrol vessels that only came into service in 2009 have basically been a giant waste of public money, pretty much just swinging on the anchor since around 2012.
millsy 2.2
Muldoon refused to devalue the NZ Dollar under the instructions of the incoming Labour government, instead proposing a joint statement ruling out devaluation. However he backed down after his cabinet or caucus threatened to, in the case of the former, resign en masse/ask the GovGen to sack him and in the case of the latter, remove him as leader of the National Party. There are conflicting rumours. He was fine with going, he just didnt want to devalue.
Adrian 3
I very much doubt that Trump has the codes. In his last unhinged weeks Nixon’s red button or phone ( I can’t remember which ) was apparently hooked up to a cupboard in the WH kitchen, it could ring but nobody could hear it. As I recall it was in a book or interview with a senior military person about 20 years ago. The American military might be a lot of things but the very senior people are not stupid.