The Daily Blog Open Mic – 5th January 2025
Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.
The Editor doesn’t moderate this blog, 3 volunteers do, they are very lenient to provide you a free speech space but if it’s just deranged abuse or putting words in bloggers mouths to have a pointless argument, we don’t bother publishing.
All in all, TDB gives punters a very, very, very wide space to comment in but we won’t bother with out right lies or gleeful malice. We leave that to the Herald comment section.
EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist abuse, homophobic abuse, racist abuse, anti-muslim abuse, transphobic abuse, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird Bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/583164/woman-waited-11-hours-at-wellington-hospital-s-emergency-department-was-not-seen-by-doctor
…The woman, who RNZ has agreed not to name, said she had been experiencing severe abdominal pain and fevers for about 24 hours, she rang Kenepuru Hospital who advised her it was best to go to Wellington Hospital.
She arrived at the emergency department about 12.30 pm on 1 December, talked to reception and saw a triage nurse, she said.
“Throughout the waiting time, I was experiencing severe spikes of pain, so I’d go back to the triage to get pain medication, and they would get signatures to give me pain medication, and I would go back to the triage person to follow up around time.”…
She became “visibly upset” and “frustrated” after 10 hours waiting, she said, at which point staff asked if anyone had talked to her about her blood test results…
She said she left with her husband shortly after 2am the following morning, after being told it wasn’t clear when she could be fully admitted into the hospital.
The woman said she tried to “push through the pain”, and on a work trip to Christchurch the next day, started to throw up and went to a 24 hour surgery.
She said she was soon after transferred via ambulance to Christchurch Hospital where she said she had a range of tests, including CT Scans, further blood and urine tests.
[Hospital explanation and apology] December 1 was one of the hospital’s “busiest days in recent years”, she said, and when the woman arrived at ED just after 12.30 pm, occupancy was at 145 per cent.
“…this only got worse through the day, up to 256 per cent at some points”.
“When the hospital inpatient service is also over capacity this impacts on our ability to move those who require it, into inpatient wards. Both situations affect our ability in ED to see patients in a timely manner,” Mitchell said.
Health NZ’s target is for 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours by 2030.
Capital and Coast has the second worst performing ED in the country for this target, achieving the six-hour target only 50 per cent of the time, according to Health NZ’s latest July to September 2025 results.
A Cabinet Paper released last year seeking budget approval for a refurbishment of the site, said Wellington ED’s services couldn’t meet demand, and had a constraining layout meaning one in ten patients didn’t wait to see a clinician, and one-third of patients were being treated in corridors, rather than cubicles…
What NZ has come to under this horrible government which is worse than the other awful governments we have had. We want to upgrade to better, we are being defrauded by con artists pretending to be politicians. What sort of stupids are NZrs?…We are the best is the answer.!!! We are not a third-world country!
Well 2andhalf perhaps, step in ladies and gentlemen; going down ,1st floor – basement. Thank you for your attendance, have a good day……
Denmark urges Trump to cease threats to take over Greenland.
https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-maga-post-greenland-donald-trump-us-politics-venezuela/
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/dcc/former-dunedin-mayor-jules-radich-dies
Sad for Mr Radich’s family and Dunedin. He was only 71 and put up some good years of fighting for Dunedin Hospital rebuild for one. A statue in the Octagon? There aren’t too many real spirited citizens around in this country now, to be drawn from those born here and straining to keep the good this country can be; the strain gets too much often. (I think Celia Lashlie as one of the very worthy). But many of the incomers have more gumption than old Kiwis. Apparently real Kiwis don’t have good eyesight, and proceed by smell. What pieshop our citizens are being drawn to, one has to guess at.
A thought crosses my mind that the good people tend to die early while far too many of the managers and business owners who speculate drift on, grinning like gargoyles.
President Nicolas Maduro and wife Cilia Flores are due in the New York Federal court before for their arraingment on drugs and firearms charges, midday Monday New York time, 5am Tuesday NZ Time.
President Madjuro and Cilia Flores Madjuro will be appearing before Judge Alvin Hellerstein
Alvin K. Hellerstein was nominated by President Bill Clinton to be a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on May 15, 1998
Maduro and Flores have not been able to hire an attourney to represent them because it is illegal for any American to receive money from a person or country sanctioned by the US government, so will likely have a court appointed attourney to represent them.
Walter Joseph “Jay” Clayton III will be the prosecutor, nominated as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) by President Donald Trump, Walter J. Clayton III is the state’s lead prosecutor in the case of the State vs President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores Madjuro on narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges.
A wild card with an interest in the case, could be New York
civil rights lawyer Ramzi Kassem.
With a long career in law and policy, Ramzi Kassem served as a senior policy advisor for immigration on the White House Domestic Policy Council under former President Joe Biden, and has just been appointed as the top legal counsel for the City of New York by Mayor Mamdani.
Kassem has a history of defending high-profile and controversial clients. Kassem served as the lead lawyer for Ahmed al-Darbi a Saudi national, held without trial for 16 years in notorious Quantanamo Bay detention facility. Due to Kassem’s intervention and advocacy al-Darbi was given a court hearing in 2017 and in a plea bargain was convicted on terrorism charges and repatriated back to Saudi Arabia.
Ramzi Kassem said, “While it may not make him whole, my hope is that repatriation at least marks the end of injustice for Ahmed… He had 16 long and painful years in captivity.”
Ramzi Kassem also represented Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia University student. Khalil was arrested by ICE for allegedly leading antisemitic campus demonstrations. Khalil has since been released, though his legal case is still ongoing.
Other main players with an interest in the case;
Kathy Hochul – The Governor of New York
Kathleen Courtney Hochul is an American politician and lawyer who has served since 2021 as the 57th governor of New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Hochul is New York’s first female governor.
“This morning I was briefed on the developments in Venezuela with Nicolás Maduro, following President Trump’s flagrant abuse of power by acting without congressional approval. New York is home to a vibrant Venezuelan community, and I stand with families here and abroad in their hopes for a better, more stable future. While there are no credible threats to New York at this time, State Police are coordinating with our partners in law enforcement to monitor the situation and keep New Yorkers safe,” Governor Hochul said on X.
Zohran Mamdani the Mayor of New York
Mamdani has called the illegal kidnapping of President Madjuro “an act of war”