The Daily Blog Open Mic – Tuesday 14th March 2017

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openmike

 

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. CNN & FOX yesterday showed that the Clinton campaign also had constant wide contact with the Russians, so why aren’t the Democrats’ being also investigated now??????.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/12/politics/peskov-on-gps-cnntv/index.html

    Even Chuck Schumer and other key top members of Clinton were seen actively around the Russian Diplomats in video footage.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/12/politics/peskov-on-gps-cnntv/index.html

    (CNN) — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday that Russia is being demonized, and that it was impossible for his country to have interfered with the 2016 election, despite US claims.

    Peskov, who has been a spokesman and top aide to Vladimir Putin for almost two decades, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he was sorry for the many controversies surrounding Russia’s connection to the Trump campaign and its role in effecting the outcome of the US election.

    Saying he didn’t know where to begin with all the allegations, Zakaria began by asking Peskov directly if the Russian government had “any collaboration or serious communication back and forth with Donald Trump’s campaign during the election campaign last year.”
    “The answer is very simple, no,” Peskov replied.

    “The fact that Russia is being demonized in that sense comes very strange to us. And we are really sorry about that,” he added.

    What’s more, he said, America was “self-humiliating” by admitting that a foreign country had the power to intervene in its election process.

    “America,” Peskov said, is “a huge country, a country number one, the most powerful country in the world, with a very, very stable political tradition and you say that a country can easily intervene and easily influence your electoral process. This is simply impossible.”

    Sources: FBI investigation continues into 'odd' computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization

    Related Article: Sources: FBI investigation continues into ‘odd’ computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization

    Russia’s stance on this is simple, he said.

    “We will never let anyone to put his nose in our domestic affairs, but we’re quite reciprocal in that attitude when it comes to other countries.”

    Asked by Zakaria what he made of the fact that “all 16 United States intelligence agencies say they have high confidence that Russia tried to alter the outcome of the elections in the United States,” Peskov said he had not seen anything “trustful.”

    “We have never seen any evidence,” he said.

    “What we have seen in open, a public part of a report by one of the agencies, special agencies, of the United States, and I would humbly say that it’s not a paper of a high quality in terms of being really trustful,” he said, referring to the heavily censored January intelligence report into Russian cyberhacking activities during the 2016 campaign.

    Russian ambassador asked if met with Trump

    As for Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions twice ahead of the US election, and is considered by US intelligence sources to be one of Russia’s top spies, Peskov said Kislyak was simply doing his job.

    “He was talking about bilateral relations,” Peskov said.

    “He was talking about what is going on in the United States so we have a better understanding in Moscow. This is what is being performed by every ambassador of Russia abroad, every ambassador of the United States abroad, including in Moscow.”

    Challenged by Zakaria as to whether Kislyak had any similar meetings with Hillary Clinton, Peskov was vague.

    “If you look at some people connected with Hillary Clinton during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,” he said.

    However, he was keen to emphasize, “There were no meetings about elections — electoral process … in no way should it be presented as interference in electoral process.”

    Anyone who might assume otherwise, he said, was simply looking at the situation “with intent to demonize Russia.”

    Asked his thoughts on the first weeks of the Trump administration, Peskov said his boss, President Putin, had found President Trump pragmatic, but also expressed some concern.

    “We don’t have a proper understanding of perspectives of future of our bilateral relationship,” he said.

    “We certainly would expect our contacts to be more frequent, more in-depth, in order to sit and then talk to each other to try to understand, because we had quite a significant pause in our bilateral relations,” he said. END.

    NEXT FOX RELEASED THIS ALSO TODAY.
    “We are losing potential by blaming everything on Earth on each other.”

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/13/clinton-contacts-also-met-with-russian-ambassador-putin-aide-says.html

    Clinton contacts also met with Russian ambassador, Putin aide says

    By Adam Shaw
    Published March 13, 2017
    FoxNews.com

    Speaker Ryan: We have an encouraging score from the CBO
    A claim by Vladimir Putin’s spokesman that people associated with Hillary Clinton also met with the Russian ambassador is the latest detail to cause problems for Democrats who blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for meeting with the same official last year.
    It was immediately denied by a former Clinton campaign spokesman.
    Dmitry Peskov said on CNN Saturday that Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s job is to meet with officials on both sides of the political aisle, and to foster “bilateral relations.” He said people associated with Clinton during the presidential campaign met with him too.
    “Well, if you look at some people connected with Hillary Clinton during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,” Peskov said. “There are lots of specialists in politology, people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.”
    However, former Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill told Fox News Monday night “it’s not true, which is why they’re using the word “probably” is my guess.”
    Sessions faces sustained criticism from Democrats after two 2016 meetings with Kislyak were revealed in the press. The biggest issue for Sessions was that he claimed in his Senate confirmation hearing he did not have communications with Russian officials. Some Democrats accused him of perjury.
    While Sessions defended his statements, he agreed to recuse himself from any campaign- and Russia-related investigations.
    Some Democrats, though, went further and suggested the meetings themselves were out of the ordinary. It didn’t take long for Kislyak’s many past meetings with members of both parties to come to light.
    After House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., denied having met with the ambassador, Politico unearthed a 2010 photo showing a meeting of congressional lawmakers and then-Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev. Pelosi and Kislyak were present.
    Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also tweeted that she had “been on the Armed Services Com for 10 years. No call or meeting w/Russian ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call members of Foreign Rel Com.” This turned out not to be true after online sleuths found a 2013 tweet in which she said: “Off to meeting w/Russian Ambassador.”
    McCaskill’s 2013 meeting involved 10 senators, of both parties. They were appealing to Kislyak for Moscow to reverse its blockade of U.S. adoptions of Russian children.
    Democrats have noted that none of the Democratic meetings revealed to date were one-on-one, and that the main issue with Sessions is he denied Russia contacts at the confirmation hearing.
    Sessions has said he was answering in the context of campaign-related discussions. He has since sought to clarify the record.
    Adam Shaw is a Politics Reporter and occasional Opinion writer for FoxNews.com. He can be reached here or on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

  2. Not only does a company owned by ex league player Matthew Ridge not pay workers what they are legally entitled to in wages, holiday pay etc, migrant labour was employed! Migrant workers in NZ have the same legal rights in employment as any worker does.

    However that said, why were migrants employed in the first place, when there are plenty of Kiwis out of work who would jump at the chance of employment? But of course, they would want at least minimum pay and conditions, something scurrilous rat bag employers are very much against!

    Shame on Ridge and his ilk!

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11818032

    • They employ immigrant workers because they know they need an income to survive, especially under ridiculous visa conditions imposed on them (such as tying their work visa to a specific employer, and imposing fees -INZ and consultants – to make any change, which they cannot afford)

      The arsehole employer eases his/her conscience by thinking they’re doing the immigrant employee a favour, and often by thinking ‘if I had to go through it – so should they’. Afterall (/sarc), “I didn’t get where I am today without …..” etc.
      That cycle is now well ingrained

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