By Olivia Pierson
[First Published on Insight at the BFD 1/8/19]
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If only television satire shows existed in NZ as they once did, it would make the world of politics less absurd. Having a collective laugh is a great antidote to the serious nonsense that politics throws in our faces every day. In fact, it’s probably the only antidote.
 
Anyone who came of age during the ‘80s and ‘90s could turn on the telly and be entertained by a slightly saner and much less PC world – a world where McPhail & Gadsby, Spitting Images and the Billy T James shows subjected absolutely everybody to light-hearted ridicule which, aside from just being amusing for the sake of fun (remember that word?), also helped to keep our politicians and our broadcasters a little more realistic and humble. 

Here’s a classic example. During late Prime Minister David Lange’s notorious rejection of ANZUS, David McPhail and Jon Gadsby came up with this little number set to music: “There is nothing like a nuke, nukes are number one. Nothing better for a gook, than a 95 mega tonne.”

​It’s not hard to imagine the outrage, the firings, the sponsorship withdrawals and the endless crawly apologies if something like this hit TV screens today.
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Consider this slap-stick interview with David McPhail acting as Winston Peters, called “Ask the Bastard.”  Comedian Jon Gadsby opens with: “Good evening and welcome to Ask the Bastard - and never has this programme had a more appropriate guest.”

Also on the topic of Winton Peters, this little gem was thrown together when Jenny Shipley became NZ’s first female Prime Minister after ruthlessly rolling Jim Bolger, inheriting a fragile coalition with NZ First:  It’s titled “The Godmother - coming to a disintegrating coalition near you.
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Who could forget feminist Marilyn Waring being taken off by David McPhail in a hilariously silly song with a gaggle of other female MPs:  “With six of us in Labour, though I sing a different tune, Ruth Richardson’s in National but she’ll be in Labour soon.  And though we are divided by our different politics, we all agree that male MPs are just a pack of… members.”
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Notoriously masculine Helen Clarke, NZ’s second female PM, and her finance minister, Michael Cullen, got the satire treatment as they’re avoiding the press in a cupboard somewhere inside parliament:

M.C “It’s a note.” 
H.C “Well read it.”
M.C “I can’t it’s in Maori.”
H.C “Well give it to me, I’m bi..”
M.C “Hmmm?”
H.C  Bilingual!  Good god, you know what this means?”
M.C “What?”
H.C “The great helms-person has lost his rudder. We’ll have to come out.”
M.C “What?”
H.C “Of the cupboard… I’ll appeal to her as a woman.”
M.C “That won’t work Helen, you don’t appeal to me as a woman.”

The late Billy T James relentlessly played to Maori and English stereotypes by poking fun at colonials and natives, from Captain Cook’s amusing arrival onto the shore:
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…to Otara’s state-housing Home Improvements: “Chur… if you wanna know more about this product, just write to Full Frontals, Maori Parts, Private Box, Rotorua.”
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The latest attempt at political and social satire in NZ fell totally flat with Jeremy Wells’ Eating Media Lunch.  Lefty political correctness sucks all humour out of comedy and little News Boy just isn’t funny. 

The weird, post-modern climate of today is ripe for some hilarious satire - blue and green-haired lesbians, transgender teens on transitional drugs, folks becoming utterly hysterical because a Christian sportsman says some sinners are going to hell.  Then there’s the ridiculous spectacle of our current PM swanning around in a Muslim headscarf and still trying to hold a coalition together with a baby on her hip - and I don’t mean an older Winston Peters. 

​What about the current leader of the opposition who likes to pronounce his name as Soy-man?  There is a recent ad of Bridges being portrayed as a used-car salesman with atrocious speech (which is exactly the way Soy-man does speak), but it was deleted by the Greens for being “in poor taste and lowering the tone of debate.” Listen to them!  Making the ad then pulling it to try to sound virtuous! However, Stuff is still showing it. And it’s funny. We know Stuff wouldn’t be showing any piss-take of Jacinda, who offers endless material for satire by just being herself.

It’s totally hypocritical of the Greens to talk about “lowering the tone of debate” when Golriz Ghahraman and Marama Davidson have already made it their habit to keep the tone of debate in this country down at its very rock-bottom by pulling the racist/sexist card every five minutes. There’s a good laugh to be had right there.  

I detest this puritanically dour “no-humour-please-we’re-Kiwis” attitude. This is not Who We Are. 

Bring back the satire! Poke fun at everyone! 

Oh the fun that could be had!  

What a sad lost opportunity for us all, as we live out our lives together on this little island paradise trying to be so poker-faced about everything.  It’s a giant bore and I resent that PC has murdered humour on our air-waves.  That particular crime is squarely the fault of the Left.
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If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer"

By Olivia Pierson
[First published on Insight at the BFD 26/7/19]

After watching Robert Mueller’s utterly humiliating testimony before Congress yesterday, I can now see why he did not want to testify, but rather, was threatened by Democrats such as Jerry Nadler, with a subpoena if he failed to do so.  Who needs enemies when these are your friends?
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This was meant to be the giant Democratic “Trump-card.” 
 
This testimony of Mueller’s was hailed by Democrats to be of such importance, to publicly describe what was in the famous report which bears his name, that all hopes of the impeachment of President Trump were riding on it: for either collusion, conspiracy or obstruction of justice. None of these hopes were proved factual.

The whole affair was an epic fail.

Robert Mueller was so detached from the facts in his report, which have led to this testimony, that it is obvious that he was nothing more than a figure-head of the Special Counsel prosecution, which must mean that it was driven by the aggressive Andrew Weissman.  Either that or Mueller is suffering from a malady where his memory and fact-recall were just not in normal operation. 
 
Did the Democrats know that this may be the case?  This is the real question in play and what everyone is now pussy-footing around, for if they used an ageing man so shamelessly, then even I cannot fathom the depths of their lack of humanity.

I don’t wish to be unkind. I also don’t wish to unduly speculate on the medical condition of a man I do not know. So to put it kindly, it appears that Mueller allowed himself to be used by those who sought to overthrow the current presidential administration through nefarious means. This debacle is on the Democrats, who forced Mueller into this testimony because they felt his written report to the Attorney General – and the American people – was not good enough.  This desperation from Dems just beggars belief!

During the hearing, Representative Michael Turner placed this squarely in the consciousness of the American people and also to Mueller himself.  Turner made the case clearly that not even the Attorney General could “exonerate” President Trump.  It is simply not a function of the AG to do so, he doesn’t have the power and neither does the Special Counsel.  In order to show how the media infect and colour this issue in the fake-news media, Turner referenced the CNN headlines which were being brandished around the United States during the hearing,  “Mueller: Trump was not exonerated.”

Mueller did not even seem to know what Fusion GPS was, the PR company which Hillary Clinton, through the DNC, hired and paid for, enabling British MI6’s Christopher Steele to throw together the Russian-inspired Steele Dossier on President Trump.  This is utterly stunning, for it was the whole basis of the Russia collusion narrative – on which the FBI sought, and were granted, Fisa-warrants for spying on Trump’s election campaign, Trump’s transition team after he won the election, and then Trump’s presidency.

As knowledge of the breadth of deceit over these happenings unfolds, it will become clear that even Watergate will pale in comparison to what has taken place in the U.S since 2015.

This testimony of Mueller’s has actually provided the current Attorney General and Republican Congress with a real impetus to now go after the operatives, that is, the Democrats, who truly did collude with Russians and Ukrainians in order to influence the 2016 Presidential election, while they hysterically pointed a finger elsewhere.  It’s the very definition of the term “projection.”

Clip your seatbelts firmly in folks, this issue is now just getting started and it will go to the very top of the anti-Trump intelligence agencies, run at the time by: Jim Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper – and the Messiah himself, President Barrack Obama.

I can’t help but think that Robert Mueller the Third, a nominal Republican, through either friendships or misguided loyalties, allowed himself to get pulled in to the dark dealings of America’s most corrupt actors, which muzzled his ability to be honest and forthright, but instead  saw him flail around in vain looking for some truth to anchor himself and his reputation to. 

If not that, then the man is now in the throes of mental deterioration which may be well known to those closest to him.  Either way, as Victor Davis Hanson pointed out on the Ingraham Angle last night, he is reminiscent of King Theoden from the Lord of the Rings, the king who knows full well he is about to be defeated and killed but rides towards his fate in full acceptance of what his choices have yielded.


If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer"