Maui TEA Party Leaders to Testify Before Congress
Neighborhood Board Election Results Announced
Filipino Veterans Equity Act Celebrates 20 Years of Pretending
Former Hawaii Judge Suspended for 'Misappropriation of Client Money'
Report: No Economic Recovery for Hawaii Youth
Aloha for Oklahoma
Senate Briefing on Hawaiian Homelands Audit
Mercado Kim Threatens Investigation Because Son not Admitted to Richardson Law School
HNN: State Senate President Donna Kim Tuesday denied allegations by UH President MRC Greenwood that Kim threatened to hold hearings into the UH William Richardson School of Law when Kim asked Greenwood last spring about whether UH had received her son's law school application....
Kim said she did not pressure Greenwood or threaten to hold hearings during the phone conversations which Kim described as friendly calls during which she was checking on her son as a concerned parent. (Translation: Greenwood is telling the truth.)
Kim said she called Greenwood last spring to ask whether the UH law school had received an application from her then-22-year-old son Micah, who was then working in Washington, D.C.
Greenwood told Hawaii News Now Kim was upset that her son hadn't heard if he'd gotten in or not, when other law school applicants had already been notified.
"And she was quite upset and angry over what she considered to be the incompetence of our law school admissions people," Greenwood said."And I think her exact words were; 'If I don't get the exact answers I'm expecting, you can expect to be answering these questions in front of the legislature next year. And I said whoa, whoa, whoa, let's just find out what's going on here."
It turns out Kim's son had not applied to the UH law school, even though he had lead his mother to believe he had. (LOL! Kid lies to mom. Mom turns state inside out.)
"Her son had not applied," Greenwood said." And I had the pleasure of telling the senator that. She was not very happy but she did hang up and say, she did call back and said my son will call to apologize."
"This is something between a mother and a son, holding him accountable for something that he implied to me," Kim said. (Translation: Kim admits Greenwood is telling the truth.)
UPDATE Statement by Senate President Donna Mercado Kim May 23, 2013:
“The inquiry regarding the status of my son’s application, in my opinion, was not a violation of the State Ethics Code or Senate Rules. The inquiry was made in my role as a concerned mother from home. There was no possibility of influence because I was simply calling to see whether his application was received and the call was made after the notification for admission went out. My call to the President was an inquiry on whether or not I could get this information and I told her I would understand if I was not able to. The bottom line is no application was submitted and there was clearly no influence in the school’s decision-making process.”
read ... Senate president disputes Greenwood's version of phone calls
Mercado Kim's Son Accepted to UH Law School This Year
SA: Kim said Greenwood called her back and informed her there was no application from her son on file with the law school. Kim said her son later explained that he did not apply, but had said he applied to appease her. Micah Aiu has since been accepted to the law school and starts later this year.
UHPA: Recent bad news aside, UH is Hawaii's best hope
read ... Accepted Year After Lying About Applying
Disaster: Council sets aside $300,000 for homeless tent city
KITV: Honolulu City Councilman Stanley Chang wants to create a city-sanctioned homeless camp somewhere on Oahu and his idea appears to be gaining traction among colleagues. Bill 12, which maps out the city's capital improvement budget for the upcoming fiscal year, includes $300,000 to plan and design homeless camp facilities.
"It would need to be sizable, because you would need to have sanitation facilities (and) you would want to have the social service providers, such as drug and alcohol treatment (and) job training," Chang told KITV4. "You would (also) want to have security, so that people who are working could leave their belongings and then go to work."
"We would have a parallel idea today," explained Chang. "There are a lot of chronically homeless people who are not necessarily good fits fop existing shelters, whether because of a substance abuse issue, a mental health issue (or) maybe because they have a pet."
Chang has yet to pick a site for the proposed camp, and bringing the idea to fruition will likely take another year or longer. City spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said Tuesday that Mayor Kirk Caldwell is not necessarily opposed to a city-sanctioned homeless camp, but noted that Chang's proposal utilizes general funds, while the mayor's Housing First action plan uses Community Development Block Grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
read ... Council sets aside $300,000 for homeless camp
Hirono: Foreign Tourists Must be Fingerprinted
SA: Honolulu Airport will be among the airports required to fingerprint foreigners leaving the United States under an amended immigration reform bill, U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono’s office confirmed Tuesday.
Hirono (D, Hawaii), a member of the Judiciary Committee, voted in favor of an amendment, authored by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah Monday, that would require foreigners leaving the country through any of the nation's 30 busiest airports to submit to fingerprinting, part of an attempt to strengthen security....
Nathan Click, a Hirono spokesman, said...“Honolulu would likely be part of the group that establishes it in six years.”
read ... Amendment requires foreigners leaving Honolulu Airport to be fingerprinted
Hawaii agency taking comments on Honolulu rail survey work for another week
PBN: The state of Hawaii is taking public comments on the archaeological survey work for Honolulu’s elevated-rail project until May 30.
The survey reports for the four phases of the rail project are available on the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s website, and comments can be directed to the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
HART is awaiting SHPD’s approval of the survey before it can proceed with construction. Work on the $5.16 billion project from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center was halted in August because of a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling. HART was ordered to complete the survey work for the entire project before construction could resume.
read ... Comments
Civil Beat: Day Three of Ala Wai Canal Coverage
UNITE HERE, Teamsters, UFCW, Reject Obamacare
TH: The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) — a 1.3 million-member labor group that twice endorsed Obama for president — is very worried about how the reform law will affect its members’ healthcare plans.
Last month, the president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers released a statement calling “for repeal or complete reform of the Affordable Care Act.”
UNITE HERE, a prominent hotel workers’ union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters are also pushing for changes.
In a new op-ed published in The Hill, UFCW President Joe Hansen homed in on the president’s speech at the 2009 AFL-CIO convention. Obama at the time said union members could keep their insurance under the law, but Hansen writes “that the president’s statement to labor in 2009 is simply not true for millions of workers.”
Republicans have long attacked Obama’s promise that “nothing in this plan will require you to change your coverage or your doctor.” But the fact that unions are now noting it as well is a clear sign that supporters of the law are growing anxious about the law’s implementation.
AP: New scandal in Sebelius fundraising
Read ... Labor Breaks Ranks
Boylan: Impeachment Sets Stage for Republican Ascendancy
Boylan: Early in the 1998 impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, it became clear that he would never be convicted. But his affair and his bald-faced lies to conceal it dominated the final two years of his presidency, contributing mightily to Vice President Al Gore’s loss in his 2000 bid for the presidency.
Nixon’s 1974 impeachment and Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon’s Watergate sins helped put Democrat Jimmy Carter in the presidency two years later. The word “impeachment,” justified or not, with or without conviction, has become a powerful weapon in the blood sport that now characterizes our national politics.
Benghazi is a “twofer” for Republican partisans. If it leads to impeachment proceedings, it weakens the Obama presidency and damages former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2016, on whose watch the Benghazi attack occurred. Republican consultant Karl Rove’s super pac, American Crossroads, is already running an attack ad accusing Clinton of a coverup.
Impeachment on grounds of using the IRS for political purposes could hurt Democrats even more in 2014 and 2016. It fuels the NRA-GOP-fed paranoia wisdom about a national government out to take our hard-earned money and enslave us all. And we all fall within the reach of the IRS.
read ... About the Future
Political Correctness 'Outs' Warriors
Shapiro: They weren't thrilled when former UH head football coach Larry Price changed his squad's name to Rainbow Warriors because he thought it more manly.
They were aghast when football coach June Jones changed it to just Warriors, apparently because he didn't like the way the rainbow symbol had been embraced by liberals and gays.
It was predictable these fans progressive activists would become infuriated use leverage when Jay resolved the inconsistency by requiring UH teams in other sports to drop the Rainbows name.
The original name came from an actual rainbow over Manoa, not a political symbol.
The politics are interesting, however. The Rainbow name that was shunned barely a decade ago because of the diversity it symbolized is now being embraced by officialdom precisely because of the diversity it represents. Times and attitudes surely have changed. (Translation: Inouye is dead. The gays are in charge now.)
read ... Bow before your gay lords
Hawaii Pro Bowl in doubt for 2015
KITV: Goodell: There is interest in having Pro Bowl mainland as early as 2015
AP: Bay Bowl: San Francisco to host 50th Super Bowl
read ... Thanks, Neil
UHWO Stiffs Tokai Univ on Land Deal
HNN: GRIH President Kelii Akina interviewed ....
read ... Comment from Grassroot Institute
Big Wind Coming Soon To An Electric Bill Near You!
CB: Last week, your electric bill went up approximately thirteen cents per month. On May 15th the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) quietly gave a green light to the recovery of over $4,000,000 in Big Wind “study” costs from HECO ratepayers through the Renewable Energy Infrastructure Program (“REIP”).
To be exact, the amount is $4,405,142, (slightly less than HECO’s CEO Connie Lau’s annual salary in 2012) since, in addition to $3.9 million in study costs, the utility will pay itself $101,873 in “carrying charges” and $391,345 in “revenue taxes.” This means that each of you will pay HECO back to the tune of an additional 13 cents per month on your bill for the next three years, assuming you use the average of 600 kWh per month.
read ... Paying for the Scammers to Scam us
Oahu electric rates fall to lowest level since December
SA: The bill for a typical household using 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month is $199.59 in May, the utility reported. That’s down $3.53 from $203.11 in April, and is the lowest since $193.38 in December....
Hawaii’s electric rates are by far the highest in the nation. The average statewide residential rate was 36.58 cents per kilowatt-hour in February, according to the latest data available from the Energy Information Agency. That was more than triple the national average of 11.61 cents per kilowatt-hour. The state with the next-highest electric rate after Hawaii was New York, where households paid 18.89 cents per kilowatt-hour in February, according to the EIA.
read ... We're Still Number 1
Solar Scammers to Bulldoze Trees in Kau
WHT: But he questioned plans to convert 18 3-acre lots in the development into 250 kilowatt hour photovoltaic farms. Oahu-based Solar Hub Utilities LLC filed last year for building permits to construct the photovoltaic panels.
Lambert said the proposal, which he learned about through a notice in a Ka‘u newsletter, raised a few red flags for him and his Ranchos neighbors.
For one, he wondered why the company wasn’t buying the lots at the bottom of the subdivision. Instead, a number of the lots are at higher elevations, where they have more vegetation, including ohia trees, and less direct sunlight.
“What are they going to do with these lots?” Lambert said. “Are they just going to doze them?”
He also questioned why a solar farm was allowed on the lots, which have an agricultural zoning and land use classification.
That, Planning Director Bobby Jean Leithead Todd said, is something county residents can thank state legislators for.
read ... About Solar Panels that will be stolen soon
Honolulu nightclub owner arrested, again
HNN: Michael Miske Jr., 39, was booked Tuesday morning on charges of second degree assault and second-degree criminal property damage stemming from an incident last December.
Miske is part owner of the M nightclub at Restaurant Row and the owner of Kama'aina Termite Company.
Police say the assault happened in Honolulu on December 15, 2012.
According to a police report, Miske along with another suspect, caused substantial bodily injury to the victim, a 40-year-old man. Police say Miske also caused damages exceeding $1,500.00 to the victim's property.
Police say a 41-year-old woman was also assaulted when she attempted to intervene.
Miske was arrested in January for allegedly striking an NFL Pro Bowl player in the head with a champagne bottle. Miske has pled not guilty in that case.
Miske's record includes 10 convictions and six felonies, including credit card fraud, theft, kidnapping and assault.
read ... How does this guy have a liquor license?
Kauai school custodian arrested on campus for drug offenses
SA: William Arthur was arrested May 8 in the parking lot of Waimea Canyon Middle School and charged with promoting a controlled substance near a school and possessing drug paraphernalia.
Police said Arthur was caught during school hours with more than 27 grams of marijuana in his vehicle along with marijuana cigarettes, an undisclosed amount of cash and other related items.
read ... Another Day in the DoE
The Shack Waikiki Defendants Beat All Charges
SA: Brady told the jury during the 10-day trial that after The Shack Waikiki opened in 2008, Winward, a silent partner who held an 8 percent interest in the business, started taking increasing control of the restaurant. In September 2010, Brady said, Winward forced partner Andy Lindberg to give up his 51 percent share in the business for no compensation.
Green told the jury that Lindberg gave up his interest because Winward was threatening him with legal action for not turning over financial records that showed Lindberg had secretly diverted money from the Waikiki restaurant to other Shack restaurants he owned on Oahu. In return, Winward promised not to hold Lindberg liable for any financial wrongdoing.
Brady told the jury that after Lindberg was out of the way, Winward and Swanson, whom Winward had hired as part of his security team, started targeting Brendan Burchfiel, who held a 40 percent share of the business.
Brady showed the jurors two security videos from inside the restaurant. One shows Yoshino assaulting Burchfiel on the dance floor of the restaurant in November 2010, and the other one shows Winward punching Burchfiel during a meeting in the restaurant's office in July 2011.
Brady told the jurors that Yoshino attacked Burchfiel at Winward's direction to intimidate him. Brady also said Yoshino told Burchfiel several weeks later that the assault "wasn't his call."
read ... Michael Green does it again
QUICK HITS: