March 18, 2010 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

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Thursday, March 18, 2010

March 18, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 1:34 PM :: 7419 Views

LINK>>>CBN News: Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona's Bold Faith for Hawaii (Video)

LINK>>>Maui TEA Party protest against Obamacare Thursday

LINK>>>VIDEO: Obama says “Louisiana Purchase” will help with “Earthquake in Hawaii”

LINK>>>Hawaii DoE: Cost of waste, fraud, and corruption between $191M and $431M per year

LINK>>>Birtherism: Hawaii Legislature set to "fuel the fire"

SB: Don't raise the GET

The probability of a veto is causing legislative leaders to hesitate in putting forth the tax increase, out of concern that they could not gather enough votes to override it. The only redeeming aspect of the proposal is a measure that would make it less regressive by including an earned-income tax credit to shelter Hawaii's lowest wage earners.

The state is in this predicament because public employee unions have refused to accept hourly wage cuts, a strategy made effective by labor contract "evergreen" clauses allowing terms of the previous contracts to continue indefinitely as long as negotiations drag on. The alternative under new union contracts has been the same hourly wages, Furlough Fridays and layoffs.

Proposed Barrel Tax Increase Will Hike Hawaii Gas Prices and Electricity Rates

The heads of Tesoro are considering whether to keep the Kapolei refinery open or cut back on operations and only import crude oil to Hawaii. Chevron, which manages the only other refinery in Hawaii, also is considering cutbacks. If either company eliminates or reduces its operations, economists say there would be immediate and noticeable cost increases at the gas pump and on Hawaii electricity bills. Hawaii consumers already pay the near highest gasoline taxes and highest cost for electricity in the nation.

With this industry already teetering economically, House members introduced House Bill 2421, a “barrel tax” or “carbon tax bill”, which will increase the tax on unrefined petroleum by $1 per barrel. Their reasoning, they want to discourage Hawaii’s “dependence” on fossil fuels through taxation and encourage renewable energy use and creation.

Call to serve the public (HGEA cuts blamed for plague of frogs)

(One frog shows up in Manoa and suddenly it is front page news demanding legislative action.)

There's a proposal in the House to restore about 30 agricultural inspectors lost to budget cuts. Is this worthy of support? Yes, unless you're a coqui frog.

(The frog was probably planted in Manoa by Clayton Hee.)

DHS chief blasts legislative budget cuts: Director says state could lose federal money if services are reduced ($73M wasted to save a few HGEA jobs)

In a letter sent yesterday to the Senate Ways and Means Committee, DHS director Koller blasted the budget measure approved by the House Finance Committee, which she said would result in millions of dollars in cuts. Koller wrote that the House version would prevent the state from spending more than $73 million in federal funds next fiscal year and cut the Child Welfare Services budget by $23 million, or 52 percent….

Koller asked in her letter that the Senate restore cuts made by the House. She said the current measure would block the state's ability to spend millions in federal funding and force the state to tap into limited general funds.

"This is the rainy day when we must take advantage of every opportunity to switch state general fund expenditures to federal funds," Koller wrote. "This is the time to spend more federal funds, not less."

"She seems dead-set on firing people who provide direct services," Oshiro said. "Her decisions of setting up a new welfare eligibility program by shutting down all of the walk-in offices, having welfare applicants use the Internet for services, terminating case workers, I find that reckless." (So its all about saving the HGEA.)

WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT: Koller: State’s “horse-and-buggy” system is labor-intensive, costly and slow

Obamacare: Hawaii Tribune-Herald scammed by “Cancer-stricken” Obamabot

From Big Journalism: Organizing for America (formerly Organizing for Obama) has a Health Reform Action page which encourages members to write a letter to the editor….Despite the warning not to use the talking points verbatim on the OFA site, letters containing these exact talking points are now appearing in newspapers across the country. The line about the new study appears in a letter sent to HTH.

LINK to bogus letter>>> Hawaii Tribune. Best line from bogus HTH letter: “If I go on like this, I will die soon from cancer.”

Isles warned over medical marijuana (former cocaine dealer calls warning “repugnant”)

WAILUKU - Hawaii could see an increase in crime and other economic fallout if it legalizes medical marijuana dispensaries and softens medical marijuana laws, two Los Angeles police officers warned Wednesday.

"It's so bad in L.A.," said Sgt. Eric Bixler of the Narcotics Division of the Los Angeles Police Department. He said law enforcement officials there deal daily with the effects of California's Proposition 215, which allows patient caregivers to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal medical use. People driving while smoking, and teens buying marijuana at dispensaries to resell on the street are just some of the problems caused by the law, the officers said.

Sen. (and former cocaine dealer) J. Kalani “Powdernose” English, who was among the lawmakers to introduce bills to loosen restrictions on marijuana, said his bills were different from California's….English objected to the summit, saying the meeting only represented the views of medical marijuana opponents and was based only on the views of the Los Angeles Police Department. He felt that event organizers should have invited people with a variety opinions for a real dialogue about the issue. (Right, like we really believe there are 10,000 doped up glaucoma patients on Maui and we want to listen to their bs stories AGAIN.)

"This whole thing is repugnant," he said. "What they are trying to do is skew what we are trying to do here."

There are already around 6,000 medical (sic) marijuana patients (sic) in Hawaii….

DOPER HQ: www.dpfhi.org

Honolulu councilman Rod Tam votes to censure himself

"The problem isn't political. The problem isn't the contingency fund. The problem is Rod Tam. Rod Tam has no one to blame but himself for this," said Councilman Charles Djou.

"Everyone smiled when he announced he was running for mayor," Boylan said. "This is a fellow who called for naps in the afternoon and wanted to institute the siesta. Rod has done his best to make a joke out of himself. And when he's caught using city funds for his own purposes, he says council members shouldn't have a fund that they can use improperly. It's absurd. He's not going to be mayor, of course."

Tam, a former state legislator, could run for the House or Senate but would likely face an incumbent , Boylan said.

Honolulu will ban tents, carts in parks

The Council voted 7-2 to pass Bill 7, which requires permits before people can erect tents in parks and other city facilities, and Bill 10, which prohibits the use of shopping carts in the same areas.

ADV: Honolulu to restrict tents in parks to keep out homeless campers

SB: Council approves tent ban for parks

ADV: A leaner bank is better than no bank

Hawai'i remains one of the most "underbanked" states in the nation, with a relatively small number of financial institutions competing for business and a relatively high number of households with no accounts or limited access to banks.

First Hawaiian Bank and Bank of Hawaii dominate the state's financial industry, controlling 61 percent of the market in 2009, up from 59 percent in 2008, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

At 14 percent, Central Pacific Bank remains an important player and a competitive one….

ADV: Central Pacific Financial rise continues

No surprise, the ADV does not mention this: After Call From Senator Inouye’s Office, Small Hawaii Bank Got U.S. Aid

Sen. Inouye's earmarks have helped Hawaii

A minion defends her lord.

Hawaii revving up to era of electric cars: But hurdles remain in goal to put thousands of plug-ins on Isle roads

"It's no longer theory, or some science fiction thing," said David Rolf, executive director of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association, which helps sponsor the annual new car event. "The dream becomes reality."

Nope, its still just a dream…but here is something—unconstitutional in Hawaii--that could make it real: Fueling the (Nuclear Power) Technological Revolution

DNCC: Despite His Claims in TV Ad, Charles Djou’s Been Serving Corporate Special Interests – Not Honolulu Families

Check out the sounds the barking Democrat attack dog makes and watch to see which media lap dog starts repeating them.

Smoking bill moves ahead (Another day, another ban)

Believing the bill is an attempt to "legislate common sense," Yagong voted against it even though his father is a cancer victim.

State House moves bill to analyze light rail for Maui

Maybe it is the legislature that needs to be analyzed….

The Biggest Dump in the World: Enviros launching their latest scam—war on plastic

The world’s biggest rubbish dump keeps growing. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch – or the Pacific Trash Vortex – is a floating monument to our culture of waste, the final resting place of every forgotten carrier bag, every discarded bottle and every piece of packaging blown away in the wind. Opinions about the exact size of this great, soupy mix vary, but some claim it has doubled over the past decade, making it now six times the size of the UK. (Same kind of emotional hype used to launch global warming scam, ozone hole scam and all the others….)

This global problem is the motive behind the Plastiki, a 60ft, 12-ton catamaran built from 12,500 recycled plastic bottles, which embarks on its maiden voyage from San Francisco this week. The brainchild of David de Rothschild, (a rich guy, no surprise here) the flamboyant British banking heir and environmentalist, the Plastiki will sail right through the middle of the Garbage Patch as part of a campaign to help make more people aware of the Pacific’s threatened communities and of the damage our waste is doing to our oceans.

REALITY: THE VOYAGE OF THE JUNK