Hundreds Celebrate Court Decision Upholding Traditional Marriage
A Stroke of Judicial Sanity on Marriage
Heritage: Federal Court Upholds Marriage in Hawaii
Memo to Mitsunaga: If it’s a fact you’re squeaky clean…do you really need the services of Michael Green?
Kaiser: 30% of Hawaii Doctors Refuse Medicaid Patients
LNG could ease Hawaii’s high energy costs
Access to Justice Room Opens August 10
Early Voting Ends Today
The idea that Aloha Spirit makes politics here less nasty is nonsense
CB: “The idea that there’s an Aloha Spirit that makes politics here less nasty is just nonsense,” said Neal Milner, the former longtime political science professor at the University of Hawaii. “Politics here was a very high stakes game for years.”…
Andy Winer is a senior advisor on Mazie Hirono’s campaign for the U.S. Senate. He said there’s a “fine line you have to walk” when running attack ads on the islands.
“Historically, there’s been a reluctance in Hawaii to run some of the types of negative ads that are much more common on the mainland,” Winer said. “You will have, in general, more of a negative reaction to negative campaigning here a lot more than you will in other places.”….
He said there’s a difference between straight attack ads and comparative ads. The latter tend to get more positive reactions, he said, particularly if they are based in fact and focus on a person’s record.
“I tend to believe that (an ad) has to be well-sourced,” Winer said. “You have to put something out that’s true or at least be able to make the argument that it’s true.”….
On Wednesday, her campaign spokesman Lenny Klompus said via email that Lingle would object to ads about her opponent that were false.
"We can expect millions of dollars of vicious third party attack ads to hit the airwaves right after the Primary," he said. "The public outrage to these false and misleading ads will be very vocal and will be responded to very passionately by Hawaii voters.
"If one of these groups came into our state with dishonest messages about her opponent, Governor Linda Lingle will publicly ask them to stop their advertising."
read … Negative campaigning, a How-to Guide
Cayetano Out of Hospital, PRP Ads Back Up
PR: White issued the following statement Wednesday:
“We are heartened by news that Governor Ben Cayetano’s condition has improved and he will be resuming his campaign. We had set aside our political debate during his hospitalization. But with his return, we will resume our political campaign to remind voters to focus on the facts and the pay-to-play culture that existed during the Cayetano administration. This has been a hard-fought campaign, and we will rejoin Ben Cayetano in the political battle.”
Cayetano has his own new radio ad pushing back against the attack ads. His supporters also have decried the negative attacks, with prominent fundraiser Dennis Mitsunaga taking out ads of his own against White and PRP.
read … Back in the Battle
Gay-Atheists All Get Decision Wrong the Same Way
There is no ‘ban’ on gay ‘marriage’ in Hawaii. When one tries to invent a new family structure with zero historical antecedent out of thin air, it is dishonest to refer to the non-existence of this structure as a ‘ban’. The use of the term ‘ban’ reinforces the lie that creating new family structures is a civil rights issue. These articles are not from a news service. Each was ‘independently’ written. But the nearly identical headlines show an agenda at work:
AP gets it right: US judge denies gay marriage challenge in Hawaii; says people, lawmakers should debate issue
So Does CP: Traditional Marriage Upheld in Hawaii Court 'for Good of Society'
Rail Opponents form New Environmental Coalition
CB: It’s easy to associate “environment” with only tree huggers. But the more over-arching definition of "environment" covers the aggregate of our surroundings. It’s imperative that we educate and fully embrace “environment” as defined above, in its broadest sense.
If we define “environment” as such, and many of us do, then it’s very easy to understand why former Governor Ben Cayetano is causing “strange bedfellows” to lie together in the same bed, like that of the new ad-hoc Hawaii Environmental Coalition.
Hawaii has many pressing “environmental” issues, including the Honolulu Rail Transit Project. The public’s vexations towards the assaults on Hawaii’ environment go deep into the na'au. The list of assaults on the environment is long.
read … Assaults on Hawaii’s Environment Unite 'Strange Bedfellows'
HART to increase rail seating
KITV: The original plan had 38 seats per car, and will be increased to 48 seats per car. There will be two cars per train.
read … Another Change Order?
The big election matchup: Robo polls vs. traditional political surveys
ILind: Just this week, Civil Beat reported Ed Case holding a slim and statistically insignificant lead over Mazie Hirono in the Democratic Primary for U.S. Senate. It’s too close to call, according to the Civil Beat polling results. But the most recent polling by the Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now put Hirono ahead by a comfortable margin.
The same divergence showed up in Civil Beat’s poll showing Tulsi Gabbard with a “decisive 49 percent to 29 percent lead” over former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in the hot 2nd Congressional District race. The other guys reported Hannemann with a double-digit lead.
We’re not talking small differences here. These are pretty major conflicts between the reported results of the rival pollsters. Add in some survey results reported by the candidates themselves, and it gets ever more interesting….
Depending on which way the actual votes break, there could be big lessons for future polling strategies.
read … The big election matchup: Robo polls vs. traditional political surveys
Success is Failure: False Killer Whale Count Triples, EarthJustice Lawyers Still Attack Commercial Fishermen
CB: More false killer whales are swimming in Hawaiian waters than previously thought, but longline fishermen are killing them at higher rates, according to a long-anticipated federal stock assessment released this week.
Environmental groups say the study should prompt the government to finally implement a plan that would simultaneously protect fishing interests and false killer whales. The fishermen are going after ahi, but the whales like ahi too, and get hooked….
The draft marine mammal stock assessment report shows the number of false killer whales in Hawaiian waters has more than tripled — from 484 to 1,503 — since the previous survey almost a decade ago, said Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity….
The number of "takes," or accidental deaths, the fishing industry can cause annually while maintaining a sustainable level of false killer whales was increased in the survey, to nine up from two.
Full Text: 2012 Marine Mammal Stock Assessment Draft
read … Fate of False Killer Whales At Stake With New Report
Judge Perkins Releases Knife Wielding Lunatic to Attend Windward Community College
SA: The victim of a vicious attack on Koko Crater said he's "disgusted" by a court decision this week that will allow his assailant to attend college classes unsupervised.
Nicholas Iwamoto, 26, was stabbed 18 times and thrown from the crater rim by Benjamin Davis on Feb. 1, 2009. He broke his neck in the fall and fractured his skull. Although Davis was acquitted of attempted murder by reason of insanity, the state ordered him into the custody of the Hawaii State Hospital so he could receive mental health treatment.
On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Richard Perkins ruled that Davis could attend English classes without supervision at nearby Windward Community College.
Davis will be in classes twice a week for four hours….
read … Soft on Crime
Make it easier to vote absentee
SA: In its defense, the elections crew has been up against a difficult challenge this year. Because of reapportionment, and all the legal challenges that delayed the final maps, the county clerk's offices had far less time than usual to check and recheck how voters were reshuffled into different districts, said Bernice Mau, Honolulu's city clerk.
That problem probably couldn't have been prevented, but as it's symptomatic of a redistricting process that happens only once a decade, it should not be a focal point of an elections post-mortem.
Neither should the dysfunction experienced in the Kona elections office signal a need to reorganize the polling operations statewide under a single agency, as former Gov. Linda Lingle has proposed. The problems there are, as Lingle observed, serious: last-minute changes in procedures for drop-offs of absentee ballots, staffing turnovers, office closures.
But as Mau rightly observed, those problems seem to have arisen from the inexperience of staff and are being corrected with the counsel of the state Attorney General's Office. It's doubtful that installing the operation under a single bureaucracy would help if, as Mau asserts, communication among state and county agencies is going well.
related: Vote By Mail: “Tool of choice for voter fraud”
read … Absentee
‘Occupy’ Morons Allowed to Block Entrance to HPD HQ All Day Wednesday
SA: The protest was peaceful. Just after the police headquarters opened at 7:45 a.m., a single protester sat with a sign in front of the metal detector at the entrance to the main police station.
Another protester waved to motorists passing by on Beretania Street at a tent erected on the sidewalk in front of the police station.
Wednesday evening, a protester claimed he was assaulted by a police officer who pushed him aside at the entrance about 6 p.m.
read … they are being treated as superior beings
Temp Worker Quits Hawaii Election Office, Predicts Disaster
BIC: Acting Elections Administrator Arlene Boteilho is said to be out indefinitely on sick leave with a doctor’s note and Debbie Kaahanui, one of the few Civil Service employees that staff the Hilo Elections Division who is in charge of voter registration, is out sick until after the Primary Election, sources say.
Ku’i Kama, meanwhile, a temporary worker through Altres Staffing who worked for the 2008 and 2010 elections, (translation: Pat Nakamoto’s crony) submitted her resignation today. This evening she offered insight to Big Island Chronicle as to exactly how dysfunctional it is under the direction of Hawaii County Clerk Jamae Kawauchi and how concerned she is that the Primary Election Saturday will be a “disaster.”
Reality: Hawaii County Election: It’s the Girlfriend, Stupid
read … Temp Know it all
VIDEO: Hawaii County Council district 8 race
BIVN: Long time legislative assistant Karen Eoff is a 32 year resident of Kona and is currently the Legislative Assistant to Councilman K. Angel Pilago. She’s facing a 20 year resident of Kona, boat captain and war veteran Charles Guccione.
District 8 encompasses North Kona, and includes Honokohau, Kealakehe, and the airport. It goes north to Puuanahulu and even includes part of the Waikoloa beach resort. It does not include Waikoloa Village, which falls under the new district 9….
Guccione says he will bring common sense to the Hawaii County Council, while Eoff ….
watch … Hawaii County Council district 8 race
While Politicians Babble about agriculture, Professional Dairy Farmer Comes to Big Island, Doubles Herd, Production
PBN: More than six months after acquiring Island Dairy and renaming it Big Island Dairy, Idaho dairy veteran Steve Whitesides says he is in the process of more than doubling the amount of milk cows to 2,000 at the 2,000-acre leased property along the Hamakua Coast about 30 miles outside of Hilo.
This influx of cattle will boost production at the largest commercial fluid milk dairy in the state to 15,000 gallons a day.
Whitesides, who owns Whitesides Dairy in Idaho, hopes to start construction by the first of the year on another facility that will accommodate its projected growth. The project should be completed towards the latter part of next year.
He also will be hiring about 10 more people at his current operation, which employs 22 workers.
(One entrepreneur is worth more than 1000 posturing candidates.)
read … Dairy production ramps up on Hawaii’s Big Island
Thanks to Fishing Ban, Monk Seal Births Tumble to Record Low
SA: A record low 105 Hawaiian monk seal pups were born in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands this year, a worrying sign for a critically endangered species declining at an annual rate of 4 percent, federal scientists said.
This year's births were the lowest since record-keeping began three decades ago (the previous low of 119 was marked in 2009) and compares with nearly 200 pups born in the islands in 2002….
The seals are struggling as fewer than one in five pups born there reaches adulthood. In contrast, more than 80 percent of the seals born around Kauai, Oahu and other populated islands live to be adults.
Seven out of the 31 pups born at French Frigate Shoals this year were killed or injured by sharks. A small group of Galapagos sharks began attacking baby seals at this atoll in the 1990s, and this behavior still wipes out a large number of seals there each year. The sharks swim into shallow waters to take bites out of recently weaned pups resting along the beach.
As Explained: Monk Seals Dying in NW Hawaiian Isles Because of Fishing Ban
read … When humans don’t eat sharks, sharks eat seals
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