Two Maui Men Sentenced for Racially Motivated Attack on White Man
Congressional Delegation Calls on IRS to Exempt Red Hill Assistance
How One Dentist Stays in Hawaii
Applicants Wanted for State Ethics Commission
Foreclosure Suit: 'Way too long, way too confusing'
SB151: Hawaii lawmakers considering police reforms
Hawaii Cult Leader behind Mainland Child Kidnappings?
DB: …Jason and Jennifer Veras had been together since high school. “We were a loving family. We were a happy family. We barely had any issues throughout our 23 years in a relationship,” Jason said. “Until she brought Liana Shanti into our family.”
Everything changed soon after Jennifer started following a mysterious online guru who has built a following of women around the world, teaching them to cut ties with their “family cult” and to save their children from a ruling class of evil reptilian creatures who created the COVID-19 “scamdemic”…
Jennifer came home, took the boys, and left. Jason said Jennifer didn’t tell him where they were going or how long they would be gone….
… After three weeks, Jason said, Jennifer finally let him FaceTime his kids—as long as he didn’t ask them any questions about their location or plans. He could see they were in a barn, wrapped in blankets. He tried to engage with them but they barely spoke. “They kept looking around at other people behind the camera,” Jason told The Daily Beast. “They looked very, very scared… It looked like they were being held hostage.”
When Jason tried to ask them questions, the call ended abruptly. He couldn’t reach them again for weeks….
On Instagram, where Liana Shanti has 22,400 followers, her avatar and selfies present her as an ageless, airbrushed nymph-like model. Click the stories and you’ll see a barrage of posts often covering QAnon-adjacent beliefs like satanic child sex trafficking, the Luciferian agenda, aliens, reptilian overlords; advice on how to detach from your “family cult;” and vile accusations against her perceived enemies—all mixed in with uplifting self-help memes and advice on juice cleanses and coffee enemas. Zipping through her stories is a dizzying carousel of wellness, fantasy, bigotry, and horror….
Liane Wilson—a 51-year-old mother of two who lives in a Hawaii suburb—started posting online as Liana Shanti in 2012, a few months after she filed a class-action lawsuit against her previous employer, Wyndham hotels and resorts.
According to her lawsuit, Wilson was an outstanding timeshare saleswoman who faced rampant sexual discrimination and harassment. She alleges that when she reported workplace misconduct, the HR director suggested she wear turtlenecks, and her boss told her she could either “party with the boys,” or stay quiet and keep getting a big paycheck. The lawsuit claims Wilson was wrongfully terminated after she complained about discrimination to a company vice president….
Liana has never posted videos of herself, though she used to post videos from her world travels—including Paris, London, and Bali. But she recently had to stop globetrotting. In November 2019, she was arrested for a felony—concealing assets in a bankruptcy filing. (The Hawaii District court filings list the plaintiff as “Liane Wilson aka Liana Shanti.”) She spent a night in jail and later pleaded guilty. As a part of her five-year probation, she was ordered to hand over her passport, and can only leave Hawaii with permission from the federal court….
R: One of many ex cult members coming forward explaining their experience while in LS cult.
S107: Liana Shanti - Human and Child Trafficker
read … The Mysterious ‘Sisterhood’ Tearing Families Apart
Bribe: Oahu homeowners to possibly receive one-time property tax relief
KHON: … This tax relief would be a one-time tax credit of $300, amounting to roughly $45.5 million applied to property tax bills before distribution this summer ….
(CLUE: A little opium to make you forget you will be paying the higher taxes next year and every year after.)
read … Oahu homeowners to possibly receive property tax relief
Council Bill 4 -- 14% Tax on Taxing transient vacation units
SA: … The Honolulu City Council’s Committee on Budget voted unanimously Tuesday to pass the latest version of Bill 4, which proposes two taxation tiers for transient vacation units — or TVUs — at a threshold of taxable value up to or in excess of $800,000. Previously proposed city legislation would have seen tax rates for TVUs increased to those levied on hotels at nearly 14%.
According to the city, short-term rentals or vacation rentals are permitted only in resort-zoned areas and in two specific apartment-zoned areas on Oahu. There are two types of short-term rentals: bed-and-breakfast homes and TVUs, the latter also known as whole-home or unhosted rentals with a maximum of two adult guests allowed per room. To be legal on Oahu, the operators of TVUs must register their properties with the city or face fines.
The full Council is expected to review Bill 4 for possible adoption March 15. If approved, the measure would not take effect until July 1, 2024. At Tuesday’s meeting, Andrew Kawano, director of the city Department of Budget and Fiscal Services, said the measure’s effective date had to be pushed back to July 2024 because the city still has to go through the next tax assessment period in order to set tax classifications for TVUs….
Work on Bill 4 follows 2021’s Bill 40, which established a 3% TAT on visitors staying at hotels or short-term rentals. That same year, the Legislature ended sharing portions of the state TAT through which the four major counties received a total of about $130 million annually, with Honolulu getting 44%, or about $45 million. The measure passed by state lawmakers allowed the counties to recoup those funds by implementing their own TAT.
Under Bill 40, revenue from the TAT was to be split among the city’s general fund, Honolulu’s rail project and support for parks, beaches and other natural resources affected by tourism. The city’s 3% TAT is in addition to the state’s 10.25% hotel tax….
GRIH: Proposed new category for ‘transient vacation’ rentals would burden residents
read … Council bill for taxing transient vacation units advances
Legislative Agenda:
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