The Kennedy Curse has struck again…and you don’t have to have the blood either, just marry it.

The estranged wife of Robert Kennedy Jr has been found dead in her New York home after an apparent suicide.

Mary Kennedy, 52, who had four children with the son of assassinated Democratic candidate and former attorney general Robert Kennedy, was reported to have hanged herself in a barn at her home in the wealthy Westchester County.

Her family confirmed her death in a statement issued by a lawyer. It said: “We deeply regret the death of our beloved sister Mary, whose radiant and creative spirit will be sorely missed by those who loved her.

“Our heart goes out to her children who she loved without reservation. We have no further comment at this time.”

The news of Mrs Kennedy’s death was broken by Radar Online. A source told the website: “There was an EMT [Emergency Medicine Vehicle] vehicle outside the home about an hour ago.”

The couple was married for 16 years before divorcing in May 2010. She was arrested on suspected drink driving charges three days later, and reports also emerged that a complaint of domestic violence had been made and withdrawn, allegedly after two of the couple’s children got into a fight.

Andrew Little is exceedingly dim. Considering that he is a lawyer you would think when faced with litigation you would STFU. That is a lawyers usual advice.

Instead the legal genius that is Andrew Little decides what he will do when faced with defamation action is to throw even more defamatory allegations around.

”She’ll have all the things she has done in her political career that are contradictory to her claim that she is above and beyond reproach.”

Little said people had come forward to him unsolicited about her conduct as a lawyer in Auckland.

”Whether that sort of stuff gets put into a defamation court case, who knows, but she won’t want to go to trial and be under the spotlight.

James Delingpole could well have the Headline of the Year:

…Geldof seems to have fallen victim here to Bono syndrome: the delusion that his saintly outreach work among the world’s poor and oppressed somehow renders him beyond the realm of ordinary mortals.

CRAIG THOMSON has declined a request from the Victorian police to nominate the people he claims tried to set him up with prostitutes.

Officers from the Victorian fraud and extortion squad, who are investigating Mr Thomson over allegations he misused union funds on prostitutes and made cash withdrawals in excess of $100,000, contacted Mr Thomson this week asking him to provide information about his claims.

Mr Thomson’s lawyers, Holding Redlich, yesterday formally declined a police request that he provide a statement or nominate those he claims were involved in trying to frame him. Instead, Mr Thomson informed police that he will nominate certain people in his speech to Federal Parliament on Monday.

Following the Trevor Mallard play of never saying anything that he might be sued for outside the house in case he gets caught out lying and making shit up.

Next Thomson will be hiding in Parliament to stop being served with court papers.

Peter Dunne goes on a rant about the Conservative Party, maybe because they are so much more popular than United Future.

United Future’s Peter Dunne has lashed out at the Conservative Party, branding it “seriously extreme and nutty”.

Then he starts putting the boot in.

“Any relationship with the Conservative Party … suggests it’s going to be dogma on one side versus pragmatism on the other side, and I think it’s a pretty unhealthy mix.”

Mr Dunne believed the party had “little tolerance” for alternative views.

“It’s a real moral jihad; it would be smacking, not just resisting any change to the abortion laws, it’s tightening the abortion law, it’s anti-prostitution, you name it, the whole suite of agenda items.”

So Colin Craig responds with a very, very subtle play, making Peter Dunne look like an intolerant bigot against the Conservative Party.

Mr Craig said he was happy to meet Mr Dunne when next in Wellington. ”He should probably get to know me and … let’s have informed comment.”

Maybe Peter objects to people who don’t take Tobacco Money.

This was one of the greatest political videos of all time…utterly devastating and the result of a judiciously timed leak designed to do the most damage.

It is still being played out as Police investigate:

THE Australian Federal Police have moved to a full-scale investigation of the leak of damaging video footage of Kevin Rudd repeatedly swearing and banging a desk, which helped trigger February’s leadership spill.

The federal police at first said it was not investigating the leaked video, which showed out-takes from a recording made within the prime minister’s office during Mr Rudd’s leadership, which were anonymously uploaded on YouTube.

Later, the federal police said it had received a referral and was ”evaluating the information provided”.

The woman applying for a job in a lemon orchard in Keri Keri seemed to be far too qualified for the job; given her arts and education degrees from Auckland University and her jobs as a social worker and school teacher.

The foreman frowned and said,

“I have to ask you this: Have you had any actual experience in picking lemons?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have!” she replied.

“I’ve been divorced three times, owned two Lada’s, supported the Warriors, the Blues and the Black Caps and I voted for Len Brown.”

¹⁰ A single rebuke does more for a person of understanding
than a hundred lashes on the back of a fool.

The ever watchful Keeping Stock was watching Breakfast yesterday and spied a rare appearance of former Labour candidate Daljit Singh. We know all about Daljit Singh. He is still awaiting court for his electoral fraud charges from 2010.

So why the interest? Well; on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme this morning, a chap by the name of Daljit Singh appeared, representing the New Zealand Supreme Sikh Council. And we have to say this; he bore a striking resemblance to the Daljit Singh pictured above.

Interestingly, Mr Singh was talking about proposed changes to the immigration laws, which will affect applications under the family category. We wonder whether TVNZ was aware of the “other” Daljit Singh, especially given the numbers of people reportedly living at certain South Auckland addresses, many of whom claimed to be family members!

Very interesting that Daljit Singh has the nads to front television when he is up on such charges….then again he was a Labour candidate. Only Winston Peters has more front that than them.

Jordan Carter is once again putting himself forward for the policy council of Labour.

Here is his email begging for a vote and here is his CV/brochure.

So here we have Jordan Carter campaigning on an explicitly left ticket.

Let’s take a closer look…

“I’ve held that role for the past three years”

Yeah, and how did policy work out at the last election, Jordan? Was that a triumph you’re seeking to better this time around.

“we need bold, left wing policy in 2014″.

Really, that’s his pitch? Understand clearly that a vote for Carter on policy council is a vote for Labour to shift further left than it was last year.

“I also want us to be, and become, a party that welcomes debate about ideas and the future.”

“Be and become” eh? I think I see what you’re trying to fudge there Jordan. How about you think about being a party that welcomes debate.

No doubt Chris Trotter and Martyn “DBD” Bradbury will blog forth in support.

Late yesterday I received a communication from the liquidator that informed me that based on the information that I had provided him from the files I have that a digger and truck had been recovered.

Now this is where it gets interesting.

The Digger and Truck were recovered from Whakatane from an innocent party who is now thousands of dollars out of pocket and now has no digger or truck.

They were a Isuzu FXZ1400 TRUCK and ZX 50u Excavator (similar to this image)

The vendor to the man from Whakatane was a Kevin Ries (ex Carl Storm and Dan Blomfield) who had filed off the Engine and chassis numbers.

Here is Kevin Ries CV as prepared by Matt Blomfield in 2008 two years before the digger and the truck went missing. Note the letterhead.

The victim had put up his boat as the purchase price. It was a Bayliner 6.8 metre with Volvo inboard/ outboard. This was valued at $40k for the swap. The Truck and Digger had a combined value of about $33k. I know where this boat is too.

The last person seen with the Digger and Truck was Matt Blomfield when he rang the recovery agent to say he had located them some two years ago. They disappeared a short while later.

As you now know they have been recovered and contrary to the evidence I supplied yesterday they were not stolen by unknown parties they were in fact converted by people who were known associates and trusted confidantes of Matt Blomfield for a boat which is currently in the possession of a relative of Matt Blomfield.

I am not sure what the actual legal situation for Matt Blomfield is with this or what possible crimes have been committed. Conversion is certainly one that springs to mind, as is filing a false police complaint.

The digger and the truck issue is just the tip of the iceberg with the Storm Group.

Here is a plan orchestrated by Mike Alexander of Knight Coldicutt whereby it is outlined how the assets of The Storm Group and associated entities were going to be dispersed to to evade creditors post Carl Storm’s bankruptcy and how Matt Blomfield was to benefit from these machinations.

I will post more on The Storm Group and how the plan panned out in future posts.

Blomfield Files: The Summary Storm

Judith Collins has done what she promised and filed her defamation suit in the High Court. Trevor Mallard is going to play hide and seek as he tries to avoid being served.

Justice Minister Judith Collins has initiated High Court defamation action against Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little but the two Labour MPs remain defiant, saying the case is unlikely to make it into the courthouse.

Ms Collins in March said she would sue the two MPs and Radio New Zealand for comments they made during an interview on the state broadcaster which linked her to the leak of a sensitive email to her from former National Party president Michelle Boag.

The High Court at Auckland yesterday confirmed proceedings against Mr Mallard and Mr Little had been filed on behalf of Ms Collins. However in a further sign Ms Collins has decided against suing Radio NZ, the broadcaster was not named in the papers.

Mr Mallard late yesterday confirmed he’d received a letter from Ms Collins’ lawyers Morrison Kent informing him proceedings had been filed and asking him to co-operate in allowing papers to be served on him.

“I see no reason to co-operate in what is clearly a vexatious action.”

He did not believe a full court hearing on the matter would eventuate.

He must be planning on settling then if it isn;t going to court…that is if he has the stones to allow himself to be served.

The other, sadly, involved more unexpected action by the Commerce Commission, with the effect of destroying wealth belonging to NZ KiwiSavers, people with money in funds, and direct investors.

This was in regards to Sky TV entering into deals with Telstra, Vodafone and Telecom over whether this might impact on competition on pay TV. (this after they cleared Sky TV going into partnership with one of its competitors on the grounds it wasn’t a big deal).

SkyTV are partnering with the companies that give it more options with the distribution of its content in anticipation of the big fibre rollout. Unsurprisingly, SkyTV want to ensure they get exclusive rights with the broadband retailers they partner with. This has caused the Commerce Commission to wade in and sniff around.

It’s a nonsense concern, because thanks to the Government rolling out fibre (in concert with Chorus) it will be cheaper than ever before for a new entrant to come to NZ, and offer set top boxes that plug into fibre connections for entertainment. Who needs expensive broadcast equipment anymore? It would be cheap for a new entrant to offer a broadband/fibre based TV package to consumers. (Just don’t mention how the Commerce Commission is going to disincentivise broadband users by artificially forcing down old copper prices!)

Sky TV’s shares were down by over 7% yesterday, or around $150 million in shareholder value lost.

Add to that the $180m of value lost in Chorus after the Commerce Commission unexpectedly proposed dropping copper wire broadband pricing by a large amount (and also involving the subsidising of rural users by town users), and you now have over $330m that got wiped away in the last two weeks – all thanks to the unexpected actions by a Government organisation.

If the National Party professes to respect property rights, then it’s now high time for the government to step in and re-write the Commerce Commission’s frameworks and guidelines, so as Bryan Gaynor so rightly put in the other day, the interests of shareholders and investors in NZ companies are considered in the mix as well.

Looks like Milliband Minor has finally got his act together.

Ed Miliband’s new policy chief is backing demands for an “immediate” referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union

Outflanking the Tories on the right makes life very difficult for David Cameron and the liberal elite who believe the European Project is crucial for all sorts of things like world peace and trade. The British people are a lot more skeptical, and having hammered the Germans twice in the last hundred years aren’t that afraid.

As for the cheese eating surrender monkeys, they haven’t been a threat since about 1870.

Paul Henry has quickly set about upsetting the Aussies:

But it was a perfect opportunity for Paul Henry, one of the hosts of Ten’s new breakfast program, to show off his paces…

“Paul Henry: But I was thinking you could broaden it out. I mean if this is all about saving money you could broaden it out. Why not criminals? Not murderers, but low level criminals. You could – the gaols could be smaller and you could put them in homestay situations. The mentally ill.

Andrew Rochford: Paul, you …

Paul Henry: The mentally ill could go into homes

Andrew Rochford:… this is a classic demonization of asylum seekers.

— Channel Ten, Breakfast, 3rd May, 2012

Comedy all the way. Henry’s been imported from New Zealand specifically, it seems, to kick Australian television’s political correctness in the goolies…

Andrew Rochford: But you volunteer for this. So obviously if you’re stretched, and you’re struggling, you don’t have the room, you’re not going to say yes to a refugee to come round and live in the linen cupboard.

Paul Henry: Some, some – oh that’s a good idea. That’s a good idea, 300 bucks a week for the linen cupboard. You could put – you’d want to get the linen out, wouldn’t you? Otherwise (inaudible) ‘oh, these sheets are dirty. Ergh’.

Andrew Rochford: Oh Paul! You just always have to take it one step too far.

Paul Henry: ‘Don’t ask. These towels… (sniffs) oh no, don’t ask. We’ve got someone living in the linen cupboard kids, just don’t go in there.’

— Channel Ten, Breakfast, 3rd May, 2012

Sick eh? What’s sicker still is that Henry’s bosses at Ten will be delighted that their struggling little breakfast show has featured on Media Watch. If they’d had any shame, they wouldn’t have hired him in the first place.

A tradesman allegedly caught by TV3 cameras committing an indecent act at a customer’s home was granted name suppression when he appeared in court today.

The carpet cleaner at the centre of a hidden camera sting by the Target consumer affairs show appeared in Manukau District Court this morning on charges of burglary and wilfully accessing a computer.

He was bailed to reappear on June 6, TV3 reported.

More charges could follow.

Meanwhile TV3 continues to keep blocking copies of the video appearing on Youtube. Why don’t they just put up their own video and cash in?

UPDATE: The video is now up on Live Leaks

Yesterday Hone Harawira would have us believe that children would die because parents couldn’t  afford a maximum of 11c per day for prescriptions.

Now Clare Curran is claiming that the government will have TV blood on its hands:

The NZ Herald has video coverage here of last night’s event which began with pallbearers bringing in the coffin of TVNZ7. Worth a watch.

The death of public television will be at the National Govt’s hands.

She talks like there was never any public television before TVNZ7 and there will be none after….and she speaks like it is a bad thing. Hardly anyone watches TVNZ7.  Labour just can’t stop itself from promising to spend money we don’t have.

And finally we have Helen Kelly’s CTU claiming:

The Council of Trade Unions says the changes to industrial relations laws being considered are the worst attack on workers’ rights since the 1990s

And here was me thinking that 90 day trial period were the worst thing ever for workers:I.

 “The largest step backwards in workers’ rights since 1990.”

Between wilfully killing children, assassinating public television and now screwing over the workers I can see why Labour is rocketing ahead in the polls as we chat.

A Wairarapa mother is angry her son was given only instant noodles to eat while in custody at Masterton Police Station for more than 40 hours.

Callum Mahupuku, 20, was taken into police custody at 8pm on Saturday when he allegedly breached his bail conditions by drinking beer.

He said the only food he was offered between his arrest on Saturday and being released on Monday afternoon was instant noodles, often without any flavouring, and one time soaked in cold water.

“It was gross, I didn’t even eat it. I didn’t eat at all on Saturday,” he said.

His only other sustenance until his release at 2.30pm yesterday was several cups of Milo.

“It’s stupid,” he said.

So this mother is upset her little boy was fed noodles in jail. Shouldn’t she be ashamed he is a dick and breached bail conditions?

And why did this one-sided journalist not bother to vox pop the people of Masterton, who will be delighted this little shit was take off the streets on Saturday night.

Red Radio allowed this scumbag and his mother the oxygen of publicity this morning. Shame on them too.

This is true irony:

But where I feel most let down is that Cameron had led us to believe that his favourite album was The Queen is Dead, by The Smiths. That was an excellent choice, partly because it is a work of towering genius, partly because the Smiths are arguably the best band of their generation, and partly because it was fun to hear of the appalled reaction when those unreconstructed multi-millionaire old Lefties Morrissey and Marr were given the news. A furious Marr even tried to ban the PM from liking his music and promised that, as he (Marr, not Cameron) hates the Tories so much, he would get the Smiths back together if the Prime Minister undertook to resign.

And your stack shoes….

Thanks to his trademark stack heels, the diminutive outgoing leader scored one small but significant final victory against the man who ousted him from office after just one term: he appeared a whisker taller.

But Mr Hollande instantly regained the upper hand by shooting him a steely look, chillier than the Spring morning breeze, before striding into the 365-room palace that will be his home for the next five years.

Does there come a time in life when you just give up on your appearance? Hillary Clinton set tongues wagging when she was photographed makeup free and uncoiffed in Bangladesh last week. For one of the world’s most powerful women to attend an official engagement decidedly ”au naturel” was newsworthy in itself but it drew global attention because Clinton has long been known for her ultra-groomed image. Since before her First Lady days, she has consistently presented what is a very American look – heavily made up and groomed to the last hair. Glam even. What prompted the new underdone look? Was it her punishing schedule (as Secretary of State she’s racked up visits to 22 countries already this year) or, at age 64, has she just got different priorities? Maybe she just doesn’t care any more?

There may be a clue in her response to CNN’s questions about her makeupless appearance. ”You know, at some point, it’s just not something that deserves a lot of time and attention,” Clinton said. ”I’m relieved to be at the stage I’m at in my life right now. If others want to worry about it, I let them do the worrying for a change.”

¹⁷ The path of the virtuous leads away from evil;
whoever follows that path is safe.