HB1297: State-Recognized Indian Tribe for Hawaii
Hawaii Legislature Obamacare Heavy
Lassner: In Spite of Trump’s Reversal, UH Remains Committed to Putting a Tranny in Every Bathroom
DPS Report: UPW Has Been Shielding Child Molesting Prison Guards since 2003
SA: Investigators working in the Hawaii correctional system were able to substantiate more cases in which corrections staff sexually abused inmates during 2015 than cases where inmates sexually assaulted one another, according to a new report released by the state Department of Public Safety.
That report marks the second consecutive year the corrections system reported it had substantiated more sex assaults of inmates by staff than by other inmates….
The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed to address sexual abuse and sexual harassment in prisons and jails, and Hawaii’s facilities underwent audits from 2013 to 2016 that concluded all of Hawaii’s eight correctional facilities under the Department of Public Safety comply with the 2003 federal law.
The one exception is the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility in Kailua, which houses juveniles. HYCF is part of the state Department of Human Services.
Keopu Reelitz, public information officer for DHS, said in a written statement that officials at the youth prison have been consulting for the past year with the United Public Workers union about the effect of the PREA requirements on union members.
The union has accepted a state policy dealing with PREA but is still consulting with the state on issues related to training required by the federal law, she said.
Among the changes the state must make at HYCF to comply with the federal law are upgrades in the youth prison’s video surveillance system, she said. Reelitz said the department expects HYCF will finally meet the requirements of the federal law next year.
(NOTE: The privately-run prison in Arizona is in full compliance with PREA and has been since the beginning. Therefore anybody calling for return of prisoners from Arizona is advocating increased sexual abuse of inmates.)
read … Staff abuse outnumbers inmates’ for second year
Prisons Have Become De-Facto Lunatic Asylums
SA: >> One of the most basic principles of correctional management is proper separation of inmates by gender, security risk, mental health need, program need, etc. It would be nice if the numbers in each of these categories matched the capacity of individual housing units, but in reality, this doesn’t happen.
As a result, some OCCC units may operate under capacity, while others may hold three times the number they were designed for. In effect, overcrowding is worse than represented by the numbers.
>> Jails and prisons nationwide have become de facto mental institutions and elder care facilities. They were not built to serve this population. Living units have been retrofitted to accommodate these needs. As a result, some of the most secure housing is not available to house inmates who present a security risk, forcing minimum-security housing to be used for medium-custody inmates.
>> Facilities struggle to provide basic mandated services such as health care, exercise and food service. Neighbor island facilities cannot properly separate inmates with mental health needs. Food preparation and distribution is a thrice-daily challenge. The nurses have a crushing workload, as inmates — many of them homeless — enter with a myriad of health challenges.
>> OCCC, with 17 living modules scattered throughout the property, is terribly inefficient. Each of the units requires that ACOs be present 24/7, 365 days per year. Additional ACOs are needed to supervise inmate “movements” from one point of the maze-like facility to another. Food service workers deliver three meals per day to each of these units. It is no surprise that OCCC, with one of the highest staff-to-inmate ratios in the country, is very expensive to operate.
Some advocate reducing the inmate population rather than rebuilding our facilities. This is unrealistic. We cannot escape the toxic conditions in our facilities by releasing inmates UNLESS we are willing to unduly risk the safety of our community.
read … Mental Health Institutions
Souki’s Suicide Run: I only Have 28 Votes for Killing off Expensive Oldsters
Borreca: …Parsing how his 44 House Democrats will vote is both higher mathematics and an art form for Souki.
Right now he is tallying up the votes for Senate Bill 1129, which would allow a terminally ill person to get a prescription for medication to be self-administered to end the patient’s life.
Souki voted for a similar bill when it passed the House in 2002 and now he is doing all he can to have the bill become law.
“This has to do with compassion. Pain is not a birthright,” Souki said in an interview.
Still Souki goes back to his vote tally bible and ticks off every possible Democratic vote against the bill that needs 26 votes to pass.
“We have 44 members — 30 up but even this … it could go down to 28,” he predicted.
It will be a close vote. Legislators will get little political benefit….
read … If Souki’s tallies are right, medically-assisted-death bill could boost insurance company profits
Cool Schools: 791 Units Short of 1,000
SA: The Department of Education has awarded more than two dozen contracts totaling $43.5 million to install just over 500 air conditioners that would get the state halfway to its goal of cooling 1,000 classrooms, a new status report shows.
But the state is still a long way from completing projects. While the DOE has put out air-conditioning bids for 1,107 of the state’s hottest classrooms, as of this month contractors have installed just 209 units while 672 units have been ordered.
Amy Kunz, the department’s chief financial officer, assured Board of Education members last week that the department is on track to finish the $100 million initiative by June 30 — six months after the governor’s original target date.
The “cool schools” effort launched in January 2016, when Gov. David Ige promised to cool 1,000 classrooms by the year’s end following a summer that saw record-high temperatures. But the project faced setbacks after initial proposals came in significantly over budget amid the state’s construction boom.
read … Cooling schools: AC installation goal only partially reached
Ala Moana TOD pushes affordable housing aside to expand tourist area
SA: Eight high-rise towers — including four with hotels — in the works as part of transit-oriented development (TOD) near the envisioned rail line hub in Ala Moana will bring the area a lot more tourism-oriented lodging than affordable housing.
Stretching from the Hawaii Convention Center to Ala Moana Center, the Kapiolani building sites will likely grow the Waikiki tourism footprint, with the city’s multibillion-dollar, 20-mile rail line eventually shuttling visitors to destin- ations ranging from Chinatown to Kapolei.
Developers are snapping up the opportunity to build luxury condo and hotel structures near the proposed Ala Moana Center station, and the city is looking forward to a lucrative revenue flow….
read … Double Waikiki
SB419: Require draft sign-up for UH Admission
SA: Senate Bill 419 would require males (biological or otherwise?) between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for the selective service upon enrolling in a state-supported college, including community colleges, education centers, or any branch of the University of Hawaii.
The bill would also make it necessary for young men to register for the draft to be eligible for state financial aid in the form of loans, scholarships and grants, as well as for state employment. The measure was introduced by Sens. Gilbert Keith-Agaran (D, Wailuku-Waihee-Kahului), Kaiali‘i Kahele (D, Hilo) and Clarence Nishihara (D, Waipahu- Pearl City).
The bill passed the Judiciary and Labor Committee Friday on a 3-0 vote, with two abstentions. Voting in favor were Keith-Agaran, Sen. Karl Rhoads (D, Downtown-Nuuanu-Liliha) and Sen. Laura Thielen (D, Hawaii Kai- Waimanalo-Kailua)….
(B-b-but what about the trannies?)
read … Bill would require draft sign-up for college men
Zuckerberg Shakedown: Star-Adv Wants Greenmailers to Appreciate its Reporters More
Cataluna: One day in January, Andrew Gomes had stacks of paper spread out on the floor next to his desk. There were so many documents, and he needed the extra space to organize his research. Those pages were filled with dense legal terms, tiny but crucial points on maps, long genealogies that he read out loud to himself to better understand.
Gomes’ painstaking reporting led to the story that took on one of the richest men in America and triggered immediate changes and long-term repercussions. Gomes was the first to report on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s attempt to use what is known as the quiet-title process to compel owners of kuleana land parcels within his 700-acre Kauai compound to sell their land to him. All those documents. So many phone calls. Big, complicated concepts he had to figure out and then write about in a way that made sense for readers who might not have a grad-school understanding of property law or Hawaiian history.
And when his story hit the front page of the paper on Jan. 18, along with a follow-up piece later that week, it set off a tsunami of reports, repackages and reactions across the globe. The story of Zuckerberg’s lawsuits against Native Hawaiian landowners was covered by national and international news outlets including Forbes, CBS, Vanity Fair and USA Today. Facebook was inundated with protests. People who didn’t know they had claim to the kuleana parcels found out because of those original stories.
A clip from Al Jazeera Media Network on Facebook takes Gomes’ original reporting and repackages it with great drone video behind Zuckerberg’s now infamous stone wall and interviews with angry kuleana landowners. It has been viewed more than 3 million times. It never mentions where they got the story, though there are brief shots of a few pages of documents. The reporter would have no story without Gomes’ reporting….
read … A reporter’s work can still move mountains
Anti-GMO Crony Capitalist: That which You call sacred is not, That which We call sacred is
MN: …The mayor’s recent remarks in a “Hawaii News Now” interview were his most blatant act of disrespect of Mauians to date. Denying Hawaii’s host culture its historical traditions and declaring Christianity to be the law of the land was not only a violation of the spirit of separation of church and state, it was also a violation of Maui’s Countywide Policy Plan.
Adopted by Ordinance 3732 in 2010, the plan lists countywide goals and objectives under Section A, with the second bullet point specifying “Preserve Local Cultures and Traditions.”….
read … Respect for host culture in Maui County ordinance; religion is not
‘Indivisible’ Obama Operatives Finally Corner Trump Lovin’ Gabbard
HNN: …The "Congress on your Corner" gathering in Waianae came a day after critics complained about her accessibility.
One attendee urged Gabbard, D-Hawaii, to push for more transparency from the White House: "If there's a cancer in the presidency we need to know, so what are you going to do about getting Donald trump to release his tax returns?"
Constituents also fired off questions surrounding Gabbard's controversial trip to Syria in January, when she met twice with dictator Bashar Al Assad.
"Did you vet these men before you allowed them to arrange your trip to Syria?" an attendee asked.
It wasn't always easy for Gabbard to get a response in.
At one point, Gabbard said, "I'm trying to answer your question ... you can speak for me or I can speak for me."
There's been growing concern from some about Gabbard, and that frustration has been building for weeks after some say the representative hasn't made herself available to answer constituent questions.
"It's important. She's our voice in the House and we would like to know where she stands," said (Indivisible operative from Kailua) attendee Huiwen Leo.…
read … Trump Love
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