At DOI Hearing, Grassroot Institute Disputes Department's Authority to Recognize a Hawaiian Nation
Hawaii Teachers 3rd-Best Paid in USA
Janet Grace–Waikiki HD22 Designated A Top House Race
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted June 23, 2014
Video: Shifting the Jones Act Tide
Voters Look to Small-Business Owners for Guidance
Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted June 23, 2014
Hawaii No Tsunami Threat from Rat Island Quake
McCorriston: "All reasonable People Can See Hawaii isn't Benefited by Health Connector"
SA: Hawaii's small insurance carriers have distanced themselves from the state's troubled health insurance exchange after determining it has added no value to the market and instead resulted in higher costs.
Hawaii Medical Assurance Association, UHA (University Health Alliance) and Family Health Hawaii have decided against participating in the online marketplace, known as the Hawaii Health Connector, created by the federal Affordable Care Act.
The state's two largest insurers — Kaiser Permanente Hawaii and Hawaii Medical Service Association — are participating in the Connector, and they control about 98 percent of the market. The large insurers have said the new law, commonly known as Obamacare, is increasing their costs, a sentiment that is echoed by the smaller companies.
"So far it's been the Unaffordable Care Act," said Bill McCorriston, a lawyer and president of HMAA. "It's added to our expenses, even not being a member of the Health Connector."
"The passage of the first year has done nothing to encourage us to participate in the future," McCorriston said. "In fact, all reasonable-thinking people would see that Hawaii really isn't being benefited by a Health Connector."
Background: Congressional Delegation Blocks Obamacare Exemption to Avoid “Awkward Political Narrative”
read ... Small isle insurers shun Connector
OHA, Interior Department--Miasma of Frustration and Anger
CB: There is little doubt that the varied entities leading these efforts, whether OHA, the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, or now the Department of Interior, largely continue to miss the mark. Efforts have used corralling, rather than educating, as the primary mechanism to uplift the people.
The community continues to beg for educational opportunities on this issue. Those requested have been systemically rebuffed. There is absolutely no justification for denying Hawaiians an opportunity to become fully educated on their history so they can make informed decisions about their future.
I imagine a miasma of frustration and even anger will cloud these upcoming public meetings. It will diminish the opportunities these forums provide. With a week’s notice prior to the start of public hearings, the Department should expect nothing less. They deserve the frustration they will face.
They surely cannot believe they could create an environment of free, prior and informed input with only a week’s notice.
CB: The Coming Debate on Federal Recognition for Native Hawaiians
read ... Not Even Watson can make a case for this
Ige Campaigns Against Kakaako condos as OHA Plans Comeback for Next Year
SA: ...Ige, who is running against Abercrombie in the Democratic primary, has started to shape a campaign theme that Abercrombie is too cozy with special interests, including real estate developers behind the high-rise boom in Kakaako.
The state senator has said that the Abercrombie administration has not addressed public concerns about rapid growth in Kakaako, and he opposes residential high-rises on OHA land near the waterfront.
"I'm open to considering alternative solutions that enable the preservation of Kakaako makai as publicly accessible open space without residential high-rises," Ige said in a statement.
OHA has asked the Legislature for the flexibility to pursue limited residential development in Kakaako makai so the agency can get full value from the land received in the settlement. The legislation would undo a 2006 state law that prohibited residential development near the waterfront and killed a project planned by Alexander & Baldwin.
But resident-led groups such as the Save Our Kakaako Coalition have protested OHA's plans, and lawmakers could not agree on a final draft of the legislation in conference committee before the session adjourned in May.
Garett Kamemoto, an OHA spokesman, said OHA remains interested in residential development on the land but will likely evaluate its approach before the next session of the Legislature opens in January.
read ... Gov hopefuls oppose OHA Kakaako condos
Today is Deadline for Abercrombie to signal bill vetoes
AP: Those potential vetoes must be announced on Monday.
A spokesman for Abercrombie says the governor is compiling a list of about a dozen bills that he intends to reject.
Abercrombie has until July 8 to sign bills into law. But he has to give lawmakers advance warning so they can take action if they choose to override a veto.
read ... Deadline for Hawaii governor to signal bill vetoes
PRP Consultants Worked on Caldwell Campaign
ILind: ...Washington, D.C.-based media consultant Martin Hamburger, San Francisco-based pollster Ben Tulchin, and opposition researcher Jason Stanford, who hails from Texas.
It prompted me to wonder whether this trio had done work in Hawaii previously.
I turned to the data regarding campaign expenses reported by Hawaii candidates from 2006 through the end of 2013 (available online via the Campaign Spending Commission or data.hawaii.gov).
It turns out that they were involved in just two campaigns, both during the 2010 election, two years prior to their work with PRP.
The two candidates: John White, now executive director of PRP and the group’s public face in the attacks on Cayetano, and Mayor Kirk Caldwell, whose campaign benefited from the weakening of Caytano’s candidacy as a result of the well-funded negative campaign....
read ... Caldwell
Governor’s Travels: Island Trips, Economy Travel and Obama
CB: ...Gov. Neil Abercrombie stuck close to home to start the new year, taking only one off-island trip in January, according to the latest round of travel records obtained by Civil Beat.
But in February, his state-sponsored traveling picked up with a few flights to the neighbor islands and a week on the mainland.
In all, the governor made three trips to the Big Island, one to Maui and one to Washington, D.C., during the first two months of 2014. Total cost to Hawaii taxpayers: $14,635.
By comparison, Abercrombie ended 2013 by going on eight trips in November and December, costing roughly $20,000....
Unlike other states, the governor’s travel records are not readily available in Hawaii, which makes it hard for the public to know where he is going and what the purpose of the trip is in order to evaluate whether it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars.
Civil Beat first requested Abercrombie’s travel records and related expenses in June 2013. We wanted the records dating back to the day he took office, Dec. 6, 2010.
The governor’s office said it would cost $1,016 for that information. The cost included an estimated 6.5 hours that staff believed it would take to find the records, 47 hours to review them and redact anything confidential, and $71 to copy an estimated 1,420 pages at 5 cents per page.
read ... Hard to Access
Anti-GMO Propaganda Recycled as Legitimate 'News'
KE: ...the recent Cascadia Times article on seed company pesticide use — rehashed in The Garden Island, though TGI staffer Chris D'Angelo did no original research or verification of his own — is nothing more than the standard propaganda now regularly served up by the anti-GMO/anti-"big ag" forces.
As I reported last November, the Media Consortium is funding a series of supposedly independent articles about “pesticide-based pollution, GE food, corporate influence and other important topics” here on Kauai. The Cascadia Times article is the latest.
So far, every report published has reiterated all the same stuff, including the Cascadia Times piece, which also compared pesticide use on Kauai to the mainland.
The reporter came to the alarming conclusion — dutifully and unquestioningly regurgitated by TGI's Chris D'Angelo — that the seed/chem companies are applying restricted use pesticides here at a much greater rate than most mainland farms. But Dr. Steven Savage, a former manager of research at DuPont and a former professor at Colorado State University whose research is cited in the Cascadia Times article, contends the reporter misinterpreted data.
One example is the restricted use pesticide chlorpyrifos, which is applied in much higher quantities to California crops like walnuts, pecans, sweet potatoes and asparagus than Kauai seed corn, according to Savage.
The Cascadia Times article also compared unlike figures, including the total amount of land leased by seed companies today to the total amount of harvested cropland in the U.S. in 2012. It also extrapolated annualized pesticide use on Kauai by using several months of data reported by the seed companies, which they say is not representative of yearly use. That figure was then compared to mainland pesticide data from 2009.
In short, the article used shoddy “research” to achieve sensationalized results. But that didn't prevent Huffington Post, The Progessive and other like-mined media outlets and blogs from lazily reprinting its findings without question, just like TGI.
And just like the other Media Consortium articles, the Cascadian Times piece quotes only those who tout the party line.
read ... Musings: Appreciatively
California company plans $13M wind farm on Big Island
PBN: A California company is planning to build a $13 million, 3.3-megawatt wind farm in South Kohala to power the eight water wells in the area operated by Hawaii County's Department of Water Supply, which is one of the biggest power consumers on the Big Island.
The Lalamilo Wind Farm, which will consist of five 660-kilowatt wind turbine generators, will be developed by Lalamilo Wind Co. LLC, a firm that lists Richard Horn as one of its investors.
Horn is no stranger to Hawaii, as he once was in the running to develop a wind project on Maui about a decade ago.
Lalamilo Wind Co. anticipates that commercial operation of the 126-acre project may begin in the first quarter of 2015 with an 18 month construction schedule.
The developer and the county recently submitted an environmental assessment for the project.
About two years ago, the county sent out a request for proposals looking for interested developers to design, build, own, operate and maintain the wind farm, which was originally built in the 1980s, but went out of commission in 2010.
read ... California company plans to build $13M wind farm on Hawaii's Big Island
High Cost of Living Puts Hawaii 46th on Retirement List
NYT: Hawaii ranked as the fifth-worst place to retire, according to a recent report by Bankrate.com.
Bankrate said that if it weren't for the sky-high cost of living, Hawaii would be one of the best states in the country for retirees.
"Its remoteness, popular beaches, wildlife and culture make America's 50th state a top tourism destination," Bankrate said in its report.
But, Bankrate.com cautioned, Hawaii is also tough to afford, especially for anyone on a fixed income.
"The Council for Community and Economic Research, which tracks consumer prices around the country, found Hawaii to be the most expensive state in the country for retirees," Bankrate.com said.
A loaf of bread, for example, costs an average of $2.80 in Honolulu, according to the council's 2013 analysis. That's $1.30 higher than the national average. The city's gas stations charged an average of $4.19 a gallon last year, compared with a national average of $3.44. And a trip to the beauty parlor costs an average of $52 in Honolulu, about $18 higher than the national average.
Bankrate.com looked at several factors in determining which states offer the best quality of life for retirees, including local weather, cost of living, crime rate, health care quality, tax burden and well-being (a measurement from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index that quantifies how satisfied residents are with their surroundings).
The five best states for retirement were South Dakota, Colorado, Utah, North Dakota and Wyoming. Popular retiree spots like Florida and Arizona don't even make the top 10. The five worst states for retirement, according to the report, were New York, West Virginia, Alaska, Arkansas and Hawaii.
According to a report this year from Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, 57 percent of baby boomers say they plan to move to a new home in retirement. (Attention Realtors: That's a lot of missed business thanks to taxes, Energy Scams, and the Jones Act.)
read ... Cost of living spoils Hawaii’s retirement rank
As Obama Surrenders Iraq to AlQaeda, Veterans Anger Rises
SA: Jerry J. "JJ" Aguirre, a former Marine with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, out of Kaneohe Bay, fought house to house in Fallujah in 2004, getting grazed across his back by a bullet in the process.
Eight Marines from the battalion were killed in a suicide car bomb attack; 26 more and a Navy corpsman died in the crash of a helicopter in a sandstorm; and 11 others were killed — most in Fallujah.
Those deaths appear to have been for nought now that the Iraq is devolving into sectarian violence, Aguirre says.
The current crisis in Iraq "kind of pisses you off, it really does, because a lot of guys, men and women, in all branches, gave their blood and guts, heart and soul, and sacrificed a lot, just to see this transpire," he said....
Former Lance Cpl. Aguirre, of North Carolina, said that with ongoing sectarian strife between government-backed Shiites and opposing Sunnis, "you knew it (conflict) was going to happen eventually, but wow, I guess it was just little small pieces here and there, and it's just gotten bigger and bigger."
He added that "it's kind of like those guys (U.S. troops) died for nothing … especially with everything erupting."
Aguirre, 32, supports very limited action in Iraq....
read ... The rest which consists of Democrats blaming Bush for Obama's surrender
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