Congressional Delegation

there are now more Republican minorities in the Senate (South Carolina’s Tim Scott, Florida’s Marco Rubio, and Texas’s Ted Cruz) than Democrats (New Jersey’s Robert Menendez and Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono).…

...step forward and demonstrate that we were listening and paying attention to his lessons on leadership and humanity (because you know he is watching us).... 

Angry comments were plastered on Abercrombie's Facebook page following the announcement of his decision Wednesday, with some predicting he would be a one-term governor....

“This does not make any logical/political sense, so therefore it must be personal.” --Washington Post

"For me, personally, I believe global climate change is real, and it is the most urgent challenge of our generation," Schatz said.

...the sudden loss of Senator Inouye would be similar to the sudden and complete loss of Hawaiian Airlines....

Pending the election, the governor shall make a temporary appointment to fill the vacancy by selecting a person from a list of three prospective appointees submitted by the same political party as the prior incumbent....

Hawaii had three major industries: tourism, the military, and Sen. Dan Inouye....

Boylan said the letter is Abercrombie's to release. But he confirmed it was Inouye's "last wish" for Hanabusa to succeed him.

Inouye died of respiratory complications at 5:01 p.m. EST (12:01 HST) Monday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his office said....

• Senate: TAG Extension – Motion to Waive
• House: Suspension Authority
• House: Epinephrine Inhalers – Suspension
• House: Defense Authorization – Motion to Instruct

Daniel Inouye has been hospitalized since Thursday after suffering a fainting spell before a vote in the U.S. Capitol....

Senators, speaking anonymously, said the panel has lost power in recent years under Inouye, 88, who took over the chairmanship after Democrats pressured Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to relinquish the post in 2008....

The loss of Senate Seniority will not completely sink Hawaii and Alaska’s economy, but it will definitely have a big impact....

• Senate: Disability Treaty – Ratification
• Senate: Defense Authorization – Final Passage
• Senate: Russia/Moldova Trade Relations – Final Passage
• House: Energy Efficiency – Suspension
• House: Global Internet Governance – Adoption
• House: Amending Language in Federal Law – Suspension

•             Senate: Sportsmens Access to Federal Land – Motion to Waive

•             Senate: Disability Treaty – Motion to Proceed

•             Senate: Defense Authorization – Amendment

•             House: STEM Visa Program – Final Passage

...there's significant evidence that there was a different dynamic going on, and one that didn't follow the sort of liberal/conservative dimension that we tend to focus on....

“Tulsi is a pure devotee. She is a little plant, a Holy Basil…. You don’t just leave, you are totally black banned if you leave."

HR1681 decertifies any adoption or foster care agency which does not assign children to same sex couples....

According to OpenSecrets.com, over $123,000 has been diverted from her campaign to Hanabusa’s own accounts since 2011.

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

“The President has stated unequivocally that he will veto any legislation containing earmarks, and the House will not pass any bills that contain them,” Inouye said in a statement. “Given the reality before us, it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law.”

The move also comes after House and Senate Republicans have agreed not to seek earmarks for the two years of the 112th Congress.

Apparently Hirono is catching hell from her Obamabot base.  So she sent this email out today.... 

The GAO is in the “design phase” of preparing the audit plan. US Interior Department official Tom Bussanich, who was in Majuro last week for the Development Partners Meeting, said GAO officials had an “entrance conference” with him last month to start the audit process.

Citizens Against Government Waste: Rep. Abercrombie’s latest outrage is to slip a provision (Sec. 2833) into the House version of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act that would double the construction costs of relocating 11,600 U.S. troops from Japan to Guam.... OpenSecrets.org lists the Hunt Building Company, which is headquartered in Texas and would be one of the prime builders of the facilities on Guam, as among Abercrombie’s top five campaign contributors in the 2007-2008 election cycle. The Hawai`i Free Press reported on August 4 that Hunt has contributed at least $32,500 to Abercrombie’s re-election since 2002.

As a hippie transplant from Buffalo, Neil Abercrombie was in the late 1960s and early 1970s involved in a scandal over tearing down military facilities--fighting to drive the ROTC out of what 1960s anti-American war activists called “the shacks” on the UH Manoa campus.

Four decades later, as a Congressman, Abercrombie could become embroiled in a scandal over building up military facilities--steering construction contracts of a military base on Guam towards a major campaign contributor.

UPDATE Aug 4: Hannemann commercial "Abercrombie is a follower"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defends:  "Neil Abercrombie was an outstanding member of Congress and he will be an outstanding Governor."

Abercrombie campaign responds: Neil’s Record in Congress

In his response, Abercrombie said that his opponent "spins facts."

"Congress.org is a Republican front organization that rates me in the same category as Sen. Daniel Inouye," he said, referring to Hawaii's longtime senator.

For the record, Congress.org is not —and has never been — a "Republican front organization." We are a news and information site run by the CQ-Roll Call Group, which also publishes CQ Today and Roll Call. Like those publications, we strive to be neutral and objective.

It is easy to portray the anti-immigration sentiment as coming entirely from the political Right. But the environmentalist Left is also a big part of the anti-immigration effort. Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a leading anti-immigration group, played a key role in two failed attempts to take over the Sierra Club in 1998 and again in 2004. FAIR and its offshoot, Numbers USA, advocate not only an end to illegal immigration and deportation of all illegals, but also reduced levels of legal immigration....

Hawaii Representatives Neil Abercrombie, D-HI, and Ed Case, D-HI, (first and second Congressional districts, respectively) both voted on December 16 to keep the felony provision in the bill. Case then voted to approve HB 4437 as a whole while Abercrombie voted against it. Case has close ties to the environmentalist Hawaii Nature Conservancy: his sister Suzanne Case is their Executive Director.

The US Senate Judiciary committee is now considering the so-called Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed by the House April 29, under the sponsorship of Rep John Conyers (D-MI) and 120 other Representatives. Dubbed the “Thought Crimes Prevention Act” by some House Republicans, HB1913 includes pedophilia as a protected sexual orientation.

Prior to approval by the whole House, a party-line 10-13 vote of Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee April 23 rejected a proposal by Republican Rep Steve King (R-IA) “to define the term `sexual orientation' as used in the bill to explicitly exclude pedophilia.” Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, an open lesbian, called the amendment, “unnecessary and inflammatory."

Big Island Rancher Larry Mehau, resplendent in a dazzling white “Akaka for Senate” campaign T-shirt, welcomed over 100 Hawaii County Democratic activists to a campaign rally at his Big Island ranch on Sunday, Aug. 27, for U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-HI.  Several of Hawaii’s Political Candidates Show Face Including Congressional Candidates Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz and Gubernatorial Candidate Randy Iwase....