Akina: Where is the "Forensic" Audit OHA Trustees Promised?
Rate Hikes Coming: Matson Christens Big Overpriced Inouye Boat
The Verified Complaint In Equity: The Declaration Of Independence
The 1840 Hawaiian Constitution and the Fourth of July
Who Has Freedom and Who Doesn’t?
MW: …we cannot force even chronic homeless into mental health and addiction programs. We have multiple-arrest criminals turned loose. Sidewalk hawkers aren’t busted by cops afraid to violate ‘free speech’ rights. Child Protective Services has to proceed with ‘you-violated-my-rights’ care. And the Frazier Institute ranks Hawai’i 45th among 50 states in economic freedom because of our high rents and taxes….
read … Midweek Pg 8
Don’t forget the sunscreen today
SA: …When out in the sun on this Independence Day, don’t forget to lather on the sunscreen. It’s vital protection for your skin against harmful ultraviolet rays, so it’s a good habit to adopt in our tropical climate….
read … Skin Cancer
HGEA Endorses Mercado Kim for Congress
SA: …Hawaii’s largest union, representing more than 42,000 government workers, endorsed Donna Mercado Kim today for the congressional seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.
“Donna has been a fighter throughout her career. Now she’s prepared to take the fight for working people to Washington D.C,” said Randy Perreira, executive director of the Hawaii Government Employees Association, in a press release. “We believe Donna will stand up for middle class Americans and will represent Hawaii well.”…
CB: Donna Kim’s Misleading Attack On Her Opponent
read … HGEA Endorsement
Elle Cochran Bought n Paid for by Maui Developers
MN: …Just read Mayor Alan Arakawa’s piece about how campaign-spending reports don’t match up to County Council Member Elle Cochran’s rhetoric (“Our County,” June 15). Arakawa can be cantankerous at times but he does his homework it seems. Not only was the councilwoman wrong about his contributions but also her own.
I see she does not shy away from contributions from developers as her reputation would suggest. Goodfellow, Dowling and The Mills Group are all listed as giving her money. Mills built The Shops at Wailea and Maui Lani, very interesting since the whole sand-mining issue was centered around Maui Lani….
read … Spending reports don’t match Cochran’s rhetoric
Cochran seeks to extend Central Maui moratorium on sand mining
MN: …Council Member Elle Cochran said Monday that she plans to seek an extension to the Central Maui sand-mining moratorium, which expires July 19.
The six-month moratorium, which the council passed in January, was supposed to allow time for the county to complete a sand analysis and to pass new laws regulating sand mining — neither of which has happened yet….
After televised news reports (after 30 years) of mining of Central Maui inland sand (brought the mining to the attention of the usual activist-types, it was instantaneously shut down….)
read … Cochran seeks to extend Central Maui moratorium on sand mining
Maui: Professional managing director proposal deferred
MN: …A proposed charter amendment to reorganize the county’s executive branch by incorporating a professional managing director to run the county’s daily operations was deferred by a County Council committee Tuesday, which likely means it will not be on Nov. 6 general election ballot.
Struggling with time constraints and a lack of a quorum, council Policy, Economic Development and Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Yuki Lei Sugimura asked members if anyone wanted to make a motion to put the matter up for a vote Tuesday.
No motion was made, so Sugimura deferred the item.
The committee considered meeting again on Thursday and Friday after the Fourth of July holiday today, but there were not enough members for quorum on those days. Sugimura initially had set a Tuesday deadline for the committee to recommend amendments to the full council for two required readings by Aug. 23 to make the November general election ballot.
The committee also deferred three other proposed amendments — to establish the Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency and a Department of Land Management and deleting the requirement of council approval to remove the director of water supply….
read … Maui: Professional managing director proposal deferred
As LG Tsutsui Never Showed Up for Cabinet Meetings
SA: …Hanabusa prompted the candidates’ exchange about Tsutsui’s role by telling Ige during the forum: “Our friend Shan Tsutsui, who by the way is in the audience today, had asked you time and time again for different work that he could do to help in your administration, and you basically didn’t give him work to do, so in frustration Shan resigned, and I think we’ve lost a great talent the government had because of it.”
“My question is, Governor Ige, why? Why wouldn’t you give Shan the work to do?” she asked.
Ige replied that Tsutsui was included in his Cabinet and was invited to every Cabinet meeting, and “do you really want to know how many meetings he came to? He came to zero meetings. He never thought it was important, I’m not sure.”
Ige said he spoke to Tsutsui on several occasions, and “every single project that he asked to work on I approved, and you know, if he would come to the Cabinet meeting, he would see all the different things that we were working on. We were working on homelessness; I asked him if he wanted to get involved in homelessness; he was not interested.”…
read … Not Interested
The U.S. has borne the Jones Act long enough
FW: …A century of evidence shows that the Jones Act has failed in its main objectives, and as The Cato Institute’s recent overview of the Jones Act asserts:
"The protected domestic shipbuilding industry has a captive market from which it benefits handsomely and seeks to preserve by promoting fallacious arguments about the law’s necessity to national security, while the vast costs are dispersed across the economy in the form of higher prices, inefficiencies, and forgone opportunities that few people can even tie to the cause."
Understanding the full implications of the Jones Act is complicated, as it reaches into a variety of sectors and interests. There are no less than 16 congressional committees and 6 federal agencies that have some form of oversight authority on the Jones Act. Yet full repeal anytime soon seems unlikely because of the intransigence of incumbent interests, regulators, and politicians inured to the privileges of a system that benefits a concentrated and well-organized few….
read … The U.S. has borne the Jones Act long enough
Hawaii Hospitals Short on … Oxycontin?
KITV: …"It could be patient suffering from trauma, injuries from an accident, or an accident of some sort," Dr. Howard Klemmer, Queen's Medical Center ER physician said.
Doctors at the Queen's Medical Center, and others around Hawaii, no longer have a number of common medications to help.
"We're experiencing some shortages with injectable pain medications," Klemmer said.
He added pain medications are important to keep patients out of distress, so they can make rational decisions about their healthcare - instead of only focusing on the pain.
But morphine and other opiate-based medications are especially hard to find, not just in Hawaii, but across the country.
"Some of the injectable medications for blood pressure, heart rate control are also limited," Klemmer said.
Even simple items like saline are in short supply.
Klemmer said the drug shortage is just a nuisance and hasn't affect patient care at Queen's, so far.
He and his ER staff use alternative medications. Different drugs vary in effectiveness, duration and have side effects than doctors and nurses may not be used to seeing. Which gives everyone one more thing to think about, during a life and death emergency. …
Part of the reason for the shortage is because Pfizer, the largest manufacturer of generic injectables in the U.S., ran into problems at a number of its plants - including the one that made the Epi-pen. Repeated violations resulted in a drop in production.
"The one that was worrisome to us was the Epi-pen, These are critical medications for people who suffer from anafilaxis," he said.
Now the company has depleted all stocks of certain pain medications and other important drugs. Not only will they be out for the busy summer months, the shortage is expected to stretch into next year.
While periodic drug shortages have happened before, doctors and pharmacists are bringing the issue to light because this time around it has been more drastic.
"I've been practicing emergency medicine for 25 years now, and the last 6-7 years have been the worst that I've ever seen as far as shortages," Klemmer said. …
read … Maybe They Should buy it on the street
Low Quality Academics Make UH Manoa Students 6th Most Unhappy in USA
HNN: Released in The Best 382 Colleges 2018 Edition, the Princeton Review ranks UH-Manoa as no. 6 for "Least Happy Students."
…when it came to academics and quality of professors, students were harsh in their ratings, giving the school scores in the mid 60s and low 70s.
The survey also highlights the relatively low four-year graduation rate at UH-Manoa.
In 2017, it was 34 percent, which isn't ideal but still far higher than the 17 percent UH-Manoa had in 2010.
The five-year graduation rate last year was 53 percent….
In recent years, students have dealt with rising tuition, a backlog of campus maintenance, and harsh living conditions in on-campus facilities. …
read … Low Quality
Calling All Cronies: ‘Solar without a roof’ program set to debut
SA: …Hawaiian Electric Cos. announced Tuesday that it will begin accepting applications July 11 to develop what it calls “community-based renewable energy” solar farms on Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Hawaii island.
Approved developers would be able to enlist Hawaiian Electric ratepayers anywhere on the same island as a solar farm in the program to buy a share in the project that entitles the ratepayer to a credit on their monthly bill for 20 years….
read … Calling all Cronies
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