Entries for 'Selected News Articles'

U.S. and British officials were deeply suspicious of this outfit, observing that the AASF – though backed by singer (ands Communist Party member) Harry Belafonte and actor Sidney Poitier – had links to a Kenyan nationalist leader….

...these laws were passed primarily to restrain politicians from being reckless with public resources, not to restrain the private sector....

Bishops from California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah began their "ad limina" visits to the Vatican with prayers for courage in defending religious freedom and in sharing faith in the risen Lord.

Tibet's spiritual leader says China's 'totalitarian' policies sparked Tibetan self-immolations....

• HSTA: “You Cannot Expect Better Results”
• Inouye, Akaka, Hirono, Hanabusa: "Hawaii is making Significant Progress"

The annual Rich States Poor States report is out. Hawaii ranks 15^th for economic performance and 46^th for economic outlook.

His trips there are allowed under a half-century-old law called the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961. The post-Abramoff 2007 law that tightened congressional travel rules did not cover these MECEA trips....

Days after the Hawaii Senate Committee on Judiciary and Labor replaced anti-dogfighting language from a House bill designed to deter dogfighting with a broad range of regulations for dog breeders and pet stores, the Hawaii State Senate is expected to vote on the new measure ....

Immediately after the launch, South Korea issued an order urging residents near the inter-Korean border to seek shelter to protect themselves from any debris that might fall from the rocket, Yonhap said....

US Army retiree Rosie Fualaau Tago Lancaster, who will be making a second bid, and Aumua Amata Radewagen, who has entered numerous times, will be challenging the incumbent congressman Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin....

No one except Faleomavaega knows which demands had been 'met,' as Bahrain today remains governed by an undemocratic monarchy which tortures and imprisons its citizens with impunity....

At the conference, Defendants agreed that substantial questions of constitutionality require the convening of a three-judge court....

At present, the new biorefinery is expected to churn out five barrels a day...thanks to ... the $25-million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant that made the project possible....

For some 400 years before European settlers arrived, ancient Hawaiian societies caught as much fish as modern fishers or more - without fishing the reefs to depletion....

As of the end of February, the Hawaii GOP had $29,000 in the bank in federal funds and was carrying over $100,000 in debt.

An investigation by the inspector general of the General Services Administration found rampant abuse of an employee awards program of the agency’s Pacific Rim region, the same region that has come under fire for spending more than $800,000 on a Las Vegas training conference for 300 employees. 

Unlike most states, Hawaii taxes working-poor families deeper into poverty, and it charges them higher tax bills than all but four other states....

A zero score would indicate that the Member of Congress approved every spending proposal and opposed every pro-taxpayer reform....

We are left to guess the initial refining partner – though it is not difficult to surmise that Tesoro has been the test partner to date, and presumably would be the first to license and deploy the process....

The Mormon vote in Laie is reminiscent of the margins that Democrats often pull in inner-cities. It’s pretty stunning.

...even the most basic attempts at experimentation have to wait endlessly for federal approval and many are rejected....

Last year, as the government of Bahrain violently suppressed an Arab Spring protest movement, an unlikely champion of the small Gulf nation emerged on Capitol Hill in Washington: Democratic Rep. Eni Faleomavaega, the delegate from American Samoa....

Private health insurers generally don’t limit hospital coverage ....

Three interceptor ships near Japan and the Philippines, as well as U.S.-based interceptors, are ready to shoot down the North Korean missile if space-, land-, and sea-based sensors determine its flight path is targeted at the United States or U.S. allies....

Only six agencies responded that in order to track cell phones, they must first get a warrant or have probable cause: County of Hawaii, Hawaii; Honolulu, Hawaii; Wichita, Kan.; Lexington, Ky.; Lincoln, Neb.; and North Las Vegas, Nev....

Will House Republicans save Hawaii's Prepaid Health insurance law from Abercrombie's effort to destroy it? 

The Hawaii state legislature has taken dead aim at NAFTA and the provisions it requires of the state, and the protections it affords Canadians who make cross-border investments in vacation rental properties….

Hawaii banks and Hawaii’s housing sector largely avoided subprime lending....  But Hawaii’s political leaders are working to change all of that. 

“In my interview, they actually suggested I run for office as a Republican and then convert to the Democratic Party,” Thielen said.... “One person on the committee asked, ‘Would you bring your mother into the Democratic Party?’”

...he did not want to leave his medical colleagues at the hospital short-handed.  "He didn't eat (on shift), he didn't pee, he wasn't going to say 'I need to take an hour off to go to therapy,'" said Mrs. McCaddon....

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When the wheels start coming off this project, as they undoubtedly will, we predict that many fingers will be pointing at your agency....

Scalia: 'We're not stupid'...

The labor dispute is not to blame for all delays, however. The state has the ability to connect student achievement data to graduates of teacher-preparation programs, but it has not....

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Kahuku is 3rd on this list of junk-grade US DoE loans and loan guarantees.

Ormat is Hawaii’s leading geothermal developer.... But a US House committee report shows that Ormat benefitted from its close ties to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and profited from a potentially illegal $98.5M bailout of an Ormat geothermal project in Nevada.

...no Hawaii governor can unilaterally furlough teachers or any Department of Education (DOE) employee since they are under the Board of Education’s (BOE) jurisdiction....

Determined to provide Hawaii residents and businesses with an alternative means of travel between the islands, Governor Lingle worked with Democrat House Speaker Calvin Say and then-Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, to convene a special session of the Legislature....

...$20,291 to husband's lawfirm, and an additional $10,310 paid to Hirono: Grand Total: $30,601....

...a total of seven employment-based lawsuits against HDOT presently filed in state or federal court, at various stages of litigation, some involving workplace violence in one form or another. Also, there are Workers’ Compensation claims filed as a result of workplace violence at different stages of that process....

$8.5 billion for military construction, down 29 percent ...

SB2492 regulating ownership of intact dogs is set to go before a Hawaii House committee today.

Disgraced former Obama “green jobs czar” Van Jones made an appearance in Hawaii last night in which he ripped on the “American fantasy” and called for socialistic approaches to wealth redistribution, while castigating Obama opponents as America-haters ....

"A potential new champion of progressivism is Mazie Hirono...." -- In These Times 

Olympia Snowe showed her importance to the Senate's pro-choice firewall when she voted against the Blunt Amendment. After she retires her most likely GOP successor on this issue is Hawaii's former governor, Linda Lingle.

The UK Daily Mail asks: Does Kamaoa point to the future of Britain's Wind Farms?

In the Aloha State, when big feeds and free drinks are involved, controversy is close behind....

The Holy Grail for many cargo interests shipping by ocean in the domestic Hawaii and Guam trades is an unrequited generational quest to find a way to take advantage of the existing mainline Trans-Pacific container carriers passing regularly Westbound by the islands ....

Many of Faleomavaega’s antics are recounted elsewhere in this blog but just to give an example, after the killing of Osama Bin Laden Faleomavaega rose up on the House floor to demand that President Obama and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta apologize to native Americans for using “Geronimo” as a code word in the operation. Needless to say, he was ignored. Many think he is nuts.