SAVE Act: Should Akaka Tribe be able to Arrest, Prosecute, and Imprison Non-Tribal Members?
Potemkin Village, Hawaiian Style?
Obama Quest for Free Trade Gets Resistance from Hawaii Congressional Delegation
Utilizing the Tax System to Track the Economy
Abercrombie, Inouye, Chu huddle with Green Energy Scammers, Enjoy Test Bed
Obamacare Preview: Hawaii Cancer patients denied Chemo over drug shortage
Mililani resident Deborah McDonald receives chemotherapy treatments every three weeks to keep at bay the cancer that doctors predict could end her life in two to five years.
Unbeknownst to McDonald, 48, the dose of a specialized chemotherapy drug she uses was cut by 75 percent due to a nationwide shortage of critical cancer drugs.
The shortage -- which includes antibiotics for severe infections, anesthetics for surgery, and pain medications -- is affecting Hawaii patients and in some cases has become life-threatening when drug regimens are changed or delayed. The situation also has driven up the cost of drugs in short supply because of price gouging by gray-market wholesalers.
(This entire problem is caused by Medicare’s price controls on these products. Eliminate the price controls and the shortage will end immediately. But instead, The Obama is doubling down on socialism sending his police to raid pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors.)
President Barack Obama issued an executive order Oct. 31 directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to "broaden reporting of potential shortages, speed up regulatory reviews that can help prevent or respond to shortages," as well as "examine whether potential shortages have led to illegal price gouging or stockpiling."
"Shortages of pharmaceutical drugs pose a serious and growing threat to public health," Obama said in the order. "The number of prescription drug shortages in the United States nearly tripled between 2005 and 2010, and shortages are becoming more severe as well as more frequent."
(And Obama’s disastrous attempts to control the free market are also becoming more and more frequent. What a coincidence!)
LA Times: About 200 medications are on the FDA's drug shortage page. Sometimes manufacturing problems are to blame, but economic issues also play a role
read … Medicare Price Controls create Predictable Result
Cataluna: Audit the DoE
Break a classroom window and lift a bunch of old computers from a public school and you'll probably get some time in jail. But if you work at a public school and, in the course of your job, steal thousands of dollars that should be going to educate the kids, no worries. Chances are you'll serve less time in jail than Rod Tam.
In the last year, there have been three mind-blowing cases of Department of Education employees accused of stealing large amounts of money from their schools….
There has been discussion in the community about having to institute greater accountability and safeguards within the school system, which leads to hand-wringing and sighing about all the budget cuts that have made financial audits and internal oversight difficult to come by. But even without nit-comb accounting, wouldn't tens of thousands (or, in the Waipahu case, hundreds of thousands) of dollars be noticed? Get some eagle-eyed Safeway store detectives in there because some major clues are going unnoticed.
There might also be a discussion about the ramifications of stealing from a school. Perhaps the penalty should be greater than just "oh da shame," because right now, it sure looks like you can do the crime and do no time.
Related:
read … Audit the DoE
Falun Gong Chase Communists out of News Conference
“We want everyone to step up,” said Falun Gong practitioner Chen Yingting from Taiwan “We’d like to use this opportunity during the APEC to let the world leaders know the terrible things the Chinese communists are doing.”
On Nov. 10, they got the point across pretty well.
A couple of Falun Gong protestors spotted Shui Junyi, a well-known host of the Communist Party’s mouthpiece broadcaster CCTV, walking around inside the Sheraton hotel. They followed him to the Moana Surfrider, where the Communist Party’s news center is set up for its APEC coverage. They waited. Soon, Wang Jun, China’s managing deputy minister of the Ministry of Finance, showed up. Wang sat down with Shui for a news conference, surrounded by reporters from AP, Reuters, and Chinese media.
As Wang Jun was giving his opening speech, a Falun Gong practitioner standing behind him unfurled a large banner protesting the persecution of Falun Gong. Then, Ge Lifang, a petitioner from Shanghai, unfurled another banner that read: “Chinese Communist Party: please return the property that you have snatched.” Two more Falun Gong practitioners pulled out a banner saying “Falun Dafa is good.”
Chinese officials at the scene appeared to be mortified. Shui quickly wrapped up the interview and took off. Wang, abashed, was not far behind.
CB: Chinese Journalists Won't Report on Falun Gong Protests
read … The Truth Hurts
Waikiki for APEC: “There are snipers in there everywhere”
…for Nepochatov, the hassles were too much. On Friday night, a short walk from Kalakaua Avenue to the Ilikai Hotel, where she's staying, turned into a nearly two-hour ordeal because of restrictions in place for Obama's arrival at the Hilton Hawaiian Village next door. She had her sleeping 17-month-old baby, Isabella, with her.
At one point, she was told by an armed agent that she couldn't take a shortcut through a park because "there are snipers in there everywhere," Nepochatov said.
Alabama resident and first-time visitor James Neveu, 47, who is on a two-month work assignment in Hawaii with his wife, Genevieve, 46, was among those who criticized the security measures as unorganized. A drive of less than five miles from the Iwilei Costco to the Ilikai took 31⁄2 hours Friday afternoon, partly because Neveu was rerouted several times by security. Normally, that drive would take about 15 minutes in light traffic.
When the Neveus went to a Hilton swimming pool to visit friends, agents used metal-detecting wands to search them.
The security hassles, he said, contributed to his souring on Hawaii. "I'm never coming back here, never, ever," Neveu said.
read … Never Coming Back
Obama loses support Even at Punahou
It must feel good to be president of the United States and be in Honolulu. Welcome home, Mr. President -- we got your back …. (Just another objective journalist on the job at the Star-Advertiser.)
Hawaii still leads the nation in President Obama approval ratings. Although even here in the Aloha State, the Obama brand is losing a bit of its luster.
The most recent Hawaii public survey, the Oct. 20 Public Policy Poll, put Obama at 56 percent approval. Back in March, the Hawaii-born president was at 64 percent.
Fellow Punahou School grad Lowell Kalapa, president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, recalls attending a recent Punahou gathering, and getting the feeling that the Obama swoon is over.
"Even in this state, there has been some disillusionment," Kalapa said.
"Yes, we are all in love with him because he is a homegrown kid, but there was a real division of the house," Kalapa says.
At this gathering, Kalapa said, the baby-boomer generation, those closer to retirement, were not supportive of Obama. Those who have seen the crashing stock market slice into their retirement plans are now not looking with favor at the president.
"They don't like his handling of the economy. Those who are young, those who just graduated a few years back, they are still gaga over his call for change, but all the hopes and dreams of his forward-looking administration have been dashed," Kalapa said.
read … Even Punahou is Sick of Obama
Maoists, Perfessers Protest APEC
New law will speed business travel to Asia
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Travel Cards Act enables U.S. business and government travelers that have been screened, are not security risks and have an APEC card to obtain expedited visas, use the same customs lanes as air crews at airports and take multiple trips to most of the other 20 APEC nations for three years without having to get a new visa each time.
Participating APEC nations include Australia, Brunei, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Taipei, Thailand and Vietnam, according to the APEC website.
Obama also announced the country's commitment to bilateral "trusted traveler" cooperation agreements with the Republic of Korea and Singapore that could translate into more visitors to Hawaii from those countries.
The program will allow eligible U.S., Korean and Singaporean citizens to clear immigration and customs faster using automated border gates.
read … Trusted Travelers
500,000 Oxycodone in 3 months: Pill Mill Operator Opens Clinic on Kauai
former Florida “pill mill” owner has made Kaua‘i his new home and place of business.
World-champion wakeboarder Darrin Shapiro opened Kaua‘i’s only opioid-prescribing and marijuana card-issuing pain management clinic, run by Dr. Sian Evans, in June. That same month, a pain clinic Shapiro owned in Florida was raided in a coordinated, multi-agency effort between a Central Florida drug enforcement task force, the Health Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation….
In addition to the raid on Pain Relief Orlando, agents raided a second clinic on June 3 called Pain Relief Center of Orlando, Inc., also run by Jummani, and owned by Shapiro’s mother, Angel Shapiro.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Shapiro said in a recent interview. CorporationsWiki links Darrin, Angel and Darrin’s father, Lew, to the Pain Relief Center clinic.
In an on-camera news interview at the scene of the raid, Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent Supervisor Tom Foy said, “These two facilities — the one here (Pain Relief Orlando) and the one on Woolco Way (Pain Relief Center of Orlando) — are probably the worst in the state, maybe in the country, to the point where Dr. Jummani in a quarter has prescribed over half a million oxycodone pills.”
If Jummani prescribed more than 500,000 pain pills in one quarter as investigators assert, and the average office visit resulted in a prescription for 120 pain pills, as undercover officers found, that means Jummani may have seen more than 4,000 patients in only three months, or an average of 70 per day. At $175 per office call, that’s nearly $3 million per year just in appointment fees. This does not include potential profits on the pills.
Read … Another Dope Doctor Arrives
Soft-on-Crime Crowd pushes to Let Criminals out of Prison
We can easily improve our corrections system without more money, and without building a new Maui prison, (it’s a jail, not a prison) by redistributing what we already spend in wiser ways.
Hawaii currently spends around $200 million a year on imprisoning about 6,000 people, about 2,000 of whom are in a private prison in Arizona.
Many, including Gov. Neil Abercrombie, realize it is "dysfunctional" and harmful for rehabilitation to incarcerate people thousands of miles from Hawaii.
(The words “HOPE Probation” occur nowhere in this column. The Maui jail is very important to expanding use of HOPE Probation.)
Related: Judge Steven Alm: Justice Reinvestment and the future of HOPE Probation
read … Incarceration system needs overhaul
Gay Travelers Throbbing, Excited over Hawaiian Civil Unions
On New Year’s Eve, if all goes according to plan, hundreds of LGBT couples will say, "I do," on Waikiki Beach as fireworks ignite in the sky over Honolulu. Arlei Patterson and her business partner Nancy Wilder of Arlei Style, an event planning business, are organizing Union of a Lifetime, which they’ve been working on for a year.
The three-day event will begin with a sunset rehearsal dinner featuring Hawaiian barbeque. Couples will honeymoon New Year’s Day before finalizing official paperwork January 2 and celebrate with a reception afterwards, said Patterson
read … Giant circle …
Star-Adv: Food Security means more Pork to Eradicate Porkers
Finally, the symposium also gave a platform for Suzanne Case, executive director of the Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, to underscore an important point: Food production cannot be secure without abundant water, and threats to the state's watershed -- such as invasive species that destroy native foliage that entraps rainwater -- compel Hawaii to become more vigilant against pests at port inspections. (Pig eradication, more HGEA jobs.)
These operations would be more effective and efficient by establishing more joint federal-state inspection programs throughout the islands. (Pork, quick while Inouye is still around.)
If nothing else, the drumbeat for food security is beginning to grow a little louder as APEC comes to a close. (They are having aural hallucinations.)
The core message -- that a healthy agricultural industry is a boon to trade and essential to a healthy planet overall – (is an empty and vacuous truism which lulls people to sleep and therefore) bears repetition and must guide policy throughout the Pacific. It should resonate in Hawaii as deeply as anywhere. (because when the people are asleep, we can do anything we want.)
read … Ag research should be a top priority
Star-Adv gives yet another Dive Operator a Chance to Attack Aquarium Collectors
“The big question is whether the aquarium trade will consider banning itself for the greater good of Hawaii, its people and reefs. Could DLNR host a meeting to discuss that possibility? DLNR speaks for the executive branch, so the governor could achieve quickly those rules that would take far longer to establish as laws through the legislative process.”
Sure, just as soon as diving tour guides ban themselves. Fair is fair.
read … Curtail isle aquarium fish collectors
Oregon Newspaper Profiles Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope
Eugene Bible College, affiliated with the Open Bible Church, was struggling financially when the opportunity arose for New Hope to buy out the school, which operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.
With new ideas, enthusiasm and $2.75 million from the sale of a camp in Hawaii, Cordeiro and New Hope have revitalized the college. Enrollment is up 65 percent since New Hope took over. Thanks to donations, every student receives a free iPad.
“Repainting buildings, adding offices, ‘rebranding’ the school, the whole campus is a credit to him,” says LeLaCheur, who says New Hope is seeking a more “contemporary, consistent, welcoming” image.
In the interest of slowing down, Cordeiro will, next year, hand the presidential reins to Guy Higashi — president of the Hawaii campus and part of New Hope for 16 years — though he will become the college’s chancellor.
“I want to do less and coach more,” he says, meaning developing leaders.
read … Cordeiro