Posted by Blogger Name. Category:
Candidate Idol
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Cash for citizenship
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Citizenship
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Corruption
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GIMP
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Internet Party
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Kim Dotcom
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Labour Party
According to the Herald, Kim Dotcom will be standing for Parliament in 2017; check the headline out:
Now whether John Weekes is a real Herald reporter or not, or whether he's ghost-writing for David Fisher, we reckon that this is a red herring story to end all red herring puff pieces.
The reason that Dotcom can't stand for Parliament this year is that he is not a New Zealand citizen. We've come to the conclusion that the Immigration New Zealand staff who bowed to pressure from Dotcom's immigration consultants made a serious mistake, and Dotcom should never have been granted New Zealand residence.
Judge Holden, Edward the Confessor, Rex or whatever he calls himself today will try to tell you that Jonathan Coleman approved Dotcom's residence. He didn't; the decision was made by senior INZ staff, after threats from Dotcom's agent that he would take his investment, his bat and his ball and sulk off somewhere else if residence wasn't granted by a certain date. In hindsight, INZ should have told Dotcom to take his money and bugger off.
Soon after residence was granted, Dotcom was convicted of insider trading offences in Hong Kong. That alone leaves him as highly likely to be ineligible for citizenship. But then there's the small matter of charges against him in the USA.
All things being equal, by 2017 the US Department of Justice will have secured Dotcom's extradition to the US to face serious criminal charges including racketeering and money-laundering, not to mention criminal copyright violations. If he is convicted of these charges, he will be facing serious jail time, and no one will be bringing him a special mattress.
Of course a change of government might see Dotcom escape extradition to the USA, but that would be a very contentious political decision, underpinned by a strong whiff of corruption. For a Labour/GIMP Justice Minister to override a court decision in such an overtly political case (Dotcom being the founder, funder and visionary of the Internet Party) would be unprecedented in our memory, which goes back to the Holyoake era.
If Kim Dotcom is extradited, the Internet Party will cease to function; it's as simple as that. The party cannot exist without the Large German Gentleman's money. Its "Candidate Idol" yesterday was farcical, and the sight of hip-hop artist King Kapisi competing for a salaried position was a real irony, given Megaupload's alleged serial ripping off of the music industry, and the legal action that leading recording labels are taking against Dotcom.
If there is a change of government in September, if Kim Dotcom becomes a New Zealand citizen and if he stands for Parliament in 2017, New Zealand will have seen a genuine Cash for Citizenship scandal involving corruption at the highest levels. Is that acceptable?
