TOMORROW April 22 is voter registration deadline for Special Election -- register >>> here
LINK>>>Mainland Dems’ new ad attacking Djou: “Completely False -- again”
LINK>>>Mayoral Candidate Prevedouros joins GOP
LINK>>>Emergency Powers: Bill banning gun seizures sent to Lingle for signature
Civil-union backers seek to resurrect bill
Gay-rights activists say they want the House to bring back House Bill 444 for another vote. The bill would give gay and lesbian couples the same rights, state benefits and protections given to married couples.
Yesterday a dozen supporters staffed information tables in the Capitol basement to discuss the issue and quietly lobby.
If the Legislature rejects HB 444 this year, Adams says civil-union supporters will work to change the members of the Legislature.
"What we have to do is methodically replace legislators until we can make that happen," says Adams.
But civil-union supporters have also energized their opponents.
The Hawaii Family Forum staged a huge rally at the Capitol that drew the support of Mayor Mufi Hannemann and Catholic Church officials in January. Thousands attended the rally, and organizers encouraged the crowd to elect candidates who opposed civil unions.
Civil-union activists, meanwhile, have targeted the state Democratic Party convention to get new supporters. Adams said many supporters were selected as party precinct officials and will be delegates to the May 28 convention in Waikiki.
"We have a real presence now," Adams said. "We have raised people's consciousness and we will be back."
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Obama stomps Inouye in Dueling fundraisers: Abercrombie beats Hanabusa 6-1 as Dem donors are “sucked dry”
From KITV: More than 1,500 people bought tickets for the fundraiser in the Monarch Room of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, according to an Abercrombie campaign spokesman. Tickets ranged in price from $100 to $1,000 each for the event, netting the campaign several hundred thousand dollars, the campaign spokesman said.
The sister of President Obama, Maya Soetoro-Ng, introduced Abercrombie on stage…. (Kobayashi and Cayetano were there also.)
Another political fundraiser happened at the same time Tuesday night, also in Waikiki. It was for fellow Democrat State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa who’s running in the special election for urban Honolulu's seat in Congress.
Her campaign said about 250 supporters attended the event in the Coral Ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, raising at least a piddling $62,000.
Among Hanabusa's supporters attending the fundraiser was John Waihee, who served as Hawaii's governor from 1986 to 1994.
Privately, some Democrats complain they're being “sucked dry” of campaign donations because there are so many open seats this year for governor, lieutenant governor, congress, and Honolulu mayor. (So sad. There just aren’t enough old boys left to lord it over the rest of us.)
Many Democrats are vying for these seats, putting donors in the uncomfortable position of either choosing sides or donating to more than one candidate for the same office, to cover their political bases during a recession when few people have extra money to spend.
SB: Isles need Abercrombie's passion, Soetoro-Ng says
KHON: President Obama's sister rallies for Abercrombie
"Change is coming to Hawaii! No more inside deals for those who contribute to campaigns, no more political insiders are going to be running this state," said a straight-faced Neil Abercrombie, (D) for Governor. (Is he predicting his own defeat?)
REALITY: Neil Abercrombie 2009: A year of corruption
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SB echoes DCCC: Charges accumulate in Djou ads
The only mention of the determination that the DCCC’s first ad is false comes in this paragraph 8 sentence:
“Djou's ads coincide with mailers that highlight the "false" declaration of the DCCC's first ad and also take a swipe at Case and Hanabusa.”
BTW--The SB is part-owned by Ed Case’s uncle, Dan H. Case.
Escalate: “The ad buy was for $55,480.”
REALITY: Mainland Dems’ new ad attacking Djou: “Completely False -- again”
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Tea Party activist is first GOP candidate for Hawaii lieutenant governor
Candidates aligning themselves with the Tea Party movement, are heating up Republican primary races across the country as they take on more established GOP office-seekers. Many are newcomers to politics. King has unsuccessfully sought a state House seat three times.
"The education of our children is the most important thing, we can't really solve the education problem unless the economy is strong and we really need to solve the economic problem, get people back to work and also create more efficiency in government, so people know their tax dollars are being well spent."
ADV: GOP candidate files for Hawaii lieutenant governor
LINK>>>http://adriennesking.com/
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Your tax increases at work
78% of increases in tax revenues since 1998 have gone to feed HGEA, UPW, etal.
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ADV: Loan could make UH-West Oahu a reality
Gene Awakuni, West O'ahu chancellor for the past five years, oversaw West O'ahu's conversion to a four-year bachelor's degree program in 2007. For more than 30 years, it's languished in portable buildings in a corner of Leeward Community College where, Awakuni said, it can never fulfill its mission….It's time for Hawai'i to deliver on UH-West O'ahu's promise, made 30 years ago, to help create an educated, highly skilled workforce for the 21st century.
(Wasn’t that a promise to deliver for the 20th century?)
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Kawaihae Harbor expansion stymied by coral: What once was destroyed must be preserved
DLNR awarded Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co. a contract for the $4.7 million project's first phase in July 2008. A month later, DLNR's Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation for a second time applied for a Department of the Army permit. DOBOR Administrator Ed Underwood claimed vague federal regulations regarding reef protection have delayed the project and "make it almost impossible to build harbors."
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Accord reached on ban of shark fins
Restaurants that make shark fin soup would have until July 2011 to use shark fins in their inventory as of this July.
Under the agreement, which now goes before the full House and Senate for final approval, the administrative fine for the first offense would be $5,000 to $15,000; the fine for a second offense would be $15,000 to $35,000 and commercial marine licenses and fishing vessels would be subject to seizure and forfeiture; and the fine for a third offense would be $35,000 to $50,000 and up to a year in jail along with possible seizure and forfeiture of commercial marine licenses and fishing vessels….
Shark finning is (ALREADY) illegal in Hawai'i.
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Honolulu's park recreation programs may get slashed: Recreational activity funds may be eliminated to help balance budget, Garcia says
Garcia, the budget chairman, said he has received a slew of calls and e-mails from park program users — from ballroom dancers at the Ala Wai Golf Course Clubhouse to swimmers at the Mānoa Recreational Center Pool to soccer coaches from around the island, even a barber shop quartet.
He anticipates a large number of parks program supporters will show up for today's meeting. They'll be joined by supporters of the Royal Hawaiian Band, which has collected more than 4,300 supporters online on its Facebook page in less than two weeks, as well as those who support the Neighborhood Commission, the Office of Culture and the Arts, and the city Office of Economic Development.
Garcia has warned that those programs and agencies may also be cut if a large chunk of transient accommodations taxes is taken away from the counties by the Legislature to balance the budget.
Why these programs? READ>>>Washington Monument gambit
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Hawaii Co Council defers measure to fund repairs of private subdivision roads
First, the Legislature would have to change state law to allow the county to award fuel tax money to nonprofits for use in maintaining private roads.
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Complete furlough plan unavailable: Frustration wraps up Kauai budget review
“Today I think I spent two and a half hours of getting almost nothing,” Council Chair Kaipo Asing said at the end of the meeting.
The council had added an extra day of deliberations to discuss the two-day per month furloughs proposed by the Carvalho administration. But county Administrative Assistant Gary Heu couldn’t present the council with a completed furlough plan because both workers’ unions involved in the process haven’t reviewed it yet….
Pressed for furlough alternatives, Heu told the council that the solution would be the “800-pound gorilla” sitting in the room, a reference to increasing property taxes to make up for the rest of the budget.
(Council Circus designed to make it impossible to consider furloughs--arranged by HGEA.)
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Hawaii teen whiz creates new math formulas
In the mid-1st century A.D., Heron of Alexandria devised a formula — Area = SQRT(s*(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)) where s = (a+b+c)/2 — for determining the area of a triangle, as defined and limited by the theorem of triangle inequality. (600 years later, Alexandria was enslaved by rampaging Islamic imperialists. It is no longer a center of intellectual pursuits.)
While these basic understandings, and a host of related formulas, have proved reliable (if challenging to the left-brain deficient), in Liu they sparked a curiosity and, later, a sense of challenge.
Liu, who came to Hawai'i from Taiwan two years ago, said she suspected that she could find simpler ways to describe triangle inequality. And so, for the better part of one year, she read as much as she could on the subject and experimented with different approaches….
(She goes to St Andrew’s priory—tuition $12,000—which is about the same per-pupil expense as the DoE. In Hawaii intellectual pursuits have fallen victim to the HSTA.)
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London TIMES: NATO investigates defence threat from wind farms
Nato has begun an investigation into British findings that wind farms make overflying planes invisible to radar as military chiefs fear a security threat from the rapid spread of the turbines.
The US has been attending tests by Britain’s Air Warfare Centre after it made the surprise discovery that the energy plants create blind spots in air defences.
Renewable energy campaigners have been stung by a spate of last-minute objections from the Ministry of Defence to proposed new wind farms in northeast England and the Scottish Borders.
Nato’s alarm about this potential Achilles’ heel against airborne terrorists or invaders is disclosed in evidence, seen by The Times, for a planning inquiry.
The MoD is now objecting routinely to all wind farms within line of sight of radar stations, irrespective of distance. There is currently no known technical solution.
Star-Bulletin coverage on same story: Military supports wind power despite radar worries
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Hawaii unlikely to pass bond plan for clean-energy home loans
Republican Gov. Linda Lingle and several majority Democrats believe the bond-financing program would help homeowners overcome the cost barriers to converting to clean energy systems. Homeowners would be eligible for loans that would be repaid through assessments on their county property tax bills.
But counties have questioned the administrative costs of the program and the Mortgage Bankers Association of Hawaii is concerned that the loans would be placed ahead of first mortgage liens on properties in the event of defaults. The association has warned that prioritizing the clean energy loans could lead to higher mortgage interest rates for borrowers in counties that participate in the program.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the government-sponsored mortgage financiers — are concerned about White House support for the concept nationally because the clean energy loans would have priority over mortgage liens.
(No surprise here. This is just another Obama scam to undermine the housing market by rendering mortgages unaffordable and threatening lenders with bankruptcy.)
Jeff Mikulina, the executive director of the Blue Planet Foundation, said the bond-financing concept, known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, is being tested in several other cities and counties and has been praised as innovative by the White House and the Harvard Business Review.
Mikulina said he does not understand why Hawai'i would not move forward given the bipartisan support from Lingle and several Democrats. Others in the environmental community have suggested privately that Lingle's involvement — the Republican governor highlighted the idea in her State of the State speech in January — has colored the way some Democrats have looked at the bill….
(No surprise here. Democrats are willing to chuck an opportunity to trash the mortgage industry in exchange for short-term political gain.)
Scheme laid out by White House: www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/PACE_Principles.pdf (see page 6)
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Anti-'birther' bill moves forward
A proposal aimed at stopping repeated requests for information from so-called "birthers" might also shut out legitimate information requests by the public, says a University of Hawaii professor opposed to the measure.
An amended version of Senate Bill 2937 advanced out of a joint House-Senate conference committee yesterday and now faces a final vote in each chamber. The bill says government records are open to public inspection unless access is restricted or closed by law.
Government agencies would not be required to respond to follow-up requests for information if, after a "good faith review and comparison," the subsequent request is deemed duplicative or substantially similar to a previous request.
Agencies also would not be required to respond to subsequent requests if the pending request had been responded to in the past year or if the agency's response to the request would remain unchanged.
LINK>>>SB2937
RELATED: Birtherism: Hawaii Legislature set to "fuel the fire"
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'Local jobs' bill might backfire
In 1978, Hawaii's Legislature enacted a law that required applicants for state or county jobs to be Hawaii residents. Lawmakers wanted to discourage people from moving to Hawaii out of fear they would deplete state resources not vote straight-line Democrat.
When two Floridians applied for jobs with the city and were rejected because of their nonresidency, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the state law in federal court in 2005. Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett defended that law by citing a study finding that nonresidents hired for government work under exemptions of the law were two times more likely to quit. However, District Judge David Ezra overturned the law in 2006 after calling it "a troubled one with a troubled history."
Lois Perrin, the ACLU's Hawaii legal director who argued the previous case before Ezra, concedes that the 80-percent bill is likely to survive a constitutional challenge because of "the current economic climate." She suggested to the Legislature that the bill have a life of only five years because of the temporary condition. That degree of caution seems warranted — although it is not included in the bill Lingle is asked to sign into law.
Bunda: Pro-'local' measure helps more than construction workers
LINK>>>SB2840
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Honolulu Civil Beat makes online debut
EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar's new online news service goes live today with a new name, a subscription plan and about a dozen employees.
Website: http://www.civilbeat.com/ “We are building a new civic square for Hawaii….” And what is the agenda of those who control this new civic square? See these three articles. . .
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