April 12, 2010 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

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Monday, April 12, 2010

April 12, 2010 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 1:34 PM :: 10713 Views

LINK>>>Poll: Djou tied for lead in Congressional race

LINK>>>Is your church ready to vote May 1-22?

LINK>>>HB444: Civil Unions supporters continue push for gay marriage

Hawaii tax plan raises $75M less than hoped (Homeowners Association tax dropped from plan)

(News from inside the legislature’s secret negotiations.)

SB: The bill spares exemptions for condominium maintenance fees, ship repair and aircraft maintenance. Also taken out of the bill were new taxes that would have been levied on high technology development grants, hotel employee management firms and property owned by labor unions.

The Legislature held a rare Sunday night conference committee meeting because it is rushing to put all the controversial tax bills in place for a final vote this week. The timing is crucial because it would force Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the measures she dislikes now.

That would then allow the Legislature to override Lingle's vetoes without coming back into session this summer for a special veto-override session, something lawmakers try not to do during an election year. If lawmakers wait until the end of the month to pass the bills, Lingle, according to the state Constitution, would have 45 days to veto the bills.

(Now what? GE Tax? Sen Kim says “Its not on the table.” But this is all going on in secret.)

ADV: Hawaii tax plan raises $75M less than hoped

SB: Committee preserves tax breaks

LINK>>>SB2402

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Revised Akaka bill unsettles Isle GOP

Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona, a Native Hawaiian and the likely Republican candidate for governor, broke with Lingle and is supporting the Democrats' amended bill with reservations.

But the GOP's platform committee, which will write the agenda Aiona runs on, is hedging its support for the Akaka bill.

The GOP's confusion mirrors perplexity in the broader community about what to make of this rewritten bill that was sprung by surprise just before House and Senate action after months of secret negotiations.

The Akaka bill would change life in Hawai'i in profound ways and confer enormous power on a relative few, but there's been little clear explanation of how it would work, who brokered the deal and who benefits from the revisions.

Here’s a clear explanation: Reservation for a Broken Trust

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Focus on HSTA, Lingle tells rally

More than 100 people showed up at the state Capitol last night to protest public school furloughs and several vowed to continue their sit-in at the governor's office this morning. In 3-page letter, she calls protest group's demands 'misguided'.

SB: Dancing out an SOS

Full Text: Lingle to SoS Protesters: DoE selected furlough schedule to “maximize disruption to the school calendar”

Atheists, Gays push City, State to Tax the Church? (No separation of atheism and state?)

The city and state have launched investigations into whether two religious organizations running O'ahu retreat centers are paying appropriate taxes on those operations.

Both tax-exempt organizations, the Roman Catholic Church of Hawaii and the Sisters of Sacred Hearts, use the centers for internal purposes, including housing for religious personnel and staff offices….

The decisions to investigate were made last week after the Hawai'i Citizens for the Separation of State and Church, a loosely organized group of individuals, filed complaints with the city, state and federal governments over possible tax evasion by the two retreat operations.

(But what about the separation of atheism and state? This should be of paramount importance because states that are officially atheist murdered over 100M people in the last century.)

PFLAG-O'ahu, a support group for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and others, recently received a price quote for a proposed 50-person conference at St. Stephen, according to (convicted thief) Michael J. Golojuch Jr., event coordinator for the group. In the written quote, the center offered PFLAG a kama'āina package of $189 per person for two nights of accommodations and five meals. Private suites cost an additional $10 per person per night, the offer said.

A conference room with "spectacular mountain and ocean views" was available for $325, the quote said.

If the church were only renting the center to Catholic groups, the rental income could be considered related to the church's tax-exempt purpose, according to Washington, D.C.-based tax lawyer Marcus Owens, a former Internal Revenue Service official.

(So Golojuch and PFLAG are part of the set-up to attack the Catholic Church and seize its property.)

Photos: Golojuch stealing campaign signs

Nominees for regent face confirmation hearings tomorrow

For the three vacancies on the board, Lingle nominated current regent Chuck Gee, a former dean of the Travel Industry Management School; Maui resident and former Silicon Valley businessman Ronald Montgomery; and Matthew Williams, who is getting a dual master's in business administration and nursing at UH-Manoa.

SB: Women rip Lingle over male selections (Senate Dems intend to kill these nominees in order to force Lingle to nominate servants of Inouye.)

SB: Settlement rightly favors Maui players

Three Baldwin softball players, their parents and Coach Joe Duran, who said the school principal and athletic director threatened to fire him if he pressed the issue, filed a lawsuit in federal court last month.

If such threats to Duran were made, he could go forward with confidence. Five years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title IX protects whistleblowers from retaliation when they complain about sex bias against others. A girls' basketball coach in Alabama had been relegated to gym teacher after complaining that a high school gave the boys' team better conditions than girls were given for playing and practicing.

(Instant justice for the politically correct now becomes instant and profitable retaliation for the politically correct.)

ADV: Trash pact with HWS reeks

With the support of some City Council members, administration officials and their lawyers are exploring possible escape hatches in the contract. Good. It's high time the city gave HWS a hard deadline to ship the trash….

The proposed budget for the coming year includes $10 million for the Hawaiian Waste Systems deal. Finding another use for that money would be a snap.

Changing mindsets key to reducing plastic bottles, residents say

More eco-propaganda designed to wash your brain….

LIHU‘E — Ever walk into a grocery store and buy a plastic water bottle?

“Do you really know what you’re doing?” asks Kaua‘i Surfrider’s Fred Voigtel. (We’re smarter than you. We are “enlightened, conscious, and progressive.” Bow to your masters.)

“For example, once a plastic water bottle is created, it never biodegrades, he said. ‘Every bit of plastic ever made still exists.’” (Apparently Voigtel doesn’t know what fire is.)

Environmental activist Judie Lundborg said she is concerned about the safety of bottled water versus tap water.

The profit-driven motive is “very troublesome,” she added. (Long live Socialism!)

The companies are selling a product which is contained in a plastic bottle made with synthetic materials and “some degree of petroleum” which is a “derivative of oil,” Voigtel said. (The horror!)

It is no coincidence diseases and cancer are so prevalent in a plastic-addicted society, Harder said. (We’re all going to die!)

They’ve even got a propaganda movie to really wash out your brain: “TAPPED” will be playing at 6 locations on Kauai. They expect to create a legion of mind-numbed idiots to show up a public hearings and demand plastic bottle bans & bag bans. Visit www.tappedthefilm.com – a member of the Clinton Global Initiative—shhh, don’t mention the Kazakh uranium deal--(Expect to see this on Maui, Hawaii, and Oahu soon, its been all over mainland activists meets for the last year.)

(And remember, do not think of “waste-to–energy” it is the one kind of recycling the enviros are trying to make you forget because it allows you to live without interference from them.)

REALITY: Save The Plastic Bag

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With biofuels, burning of cane may go up in smoke

The last private cane plantation being gradually lured into the hands of the government-funded and directed biofuel scam.

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Council confronts nonprofit cuts

Mayor Charmaine Tavares in March proposed a $530 million spending plan for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins July 1. Council members have until May 31 to approve a balanced budget.

For the past month, council members have heard from dozens of nonprofit directors, employees and clients begging that funding for their programs be maintained or even increased, saying the difficult economy has only made their services more essential.

Several testifiers have noted that cuts to county grants will likely result in layoffs at many nonprofits, further adding to the county's high unemployment and placing even greater demand on existing social services.

Maui County has at least 160 grants dedicated to nonprofit programs and services that range from providing hot meals to shut-ins and shelter to abused women to educational programs for toddlers; promoting small businesses, agriculture and festivals; collecting beach trash; and combating invasive species.

(The Democrats can’t afford to employ their activists any more.)

Big Island hospital to cut 13 workers

The North Hawaii Community Hospital said it is laying off 13 full- and part-time workers to cope with continued operating losses.

Hawaii losing some enchantment as wedding site for nonresidents

The statistics come as Hawai'i's No. 1 economic driver, the tourism industry, continues to try to claw its way out of the recession. Weddings account for a sizable — though not formidable — portion of overall tourism figures. Of the 6.5 million people who visited the Islands last year, nearly 2 percent (108,882 people) were to-be-married couples and their immediate family members. Those figures don't include other wedding guests, including friends of the couple.

Industry experts also point out that destination weddings to the Islands bring in much more money per visitor than a vacation alone. An average wedding costs anywhere from $15,000 to $50,000, not including airfare, lodging and other incidentals. And the married couple often sticks around for the honeymoon.

Also, most weddings for Mainland and foreign visitors have 30 to 50 guests.