Entries for August 2012

 Both resolutions will be heard in the City Council today, Wednesday....

With insiders playing sabotage games, Jamae Kawauchi comes to the 'non-government people' for help with the November elections....

Nominations are now being accepted for an At-Large seat, a Hawai‘i County seat and a Maui County seat. Regents Michael Dahilig, Barry Mizuno and Artemio Baxa currently hold these seats, and their terms will expire on June 30, 2013....

One of the necessary beginning points is this principle: The Constitution of the United States, too, has become the heritage of all the citizens of Hawaii.

When a Hawaii Supreme Court opinion starts off waxing poetic about "Na Wai Eha" you don't need to read the remaining 88 pages to know what the ineviatable result will be....

Abercrombie today announced the release of more than $92 million for priority Capital Improvement Projects (CIP) throughout the University of Hawai'i ....

Chris Manabat has highlighted his six years as a staffer at the State Legislature...he neglects to mention is that he served as an office manager for his mother, Rep. Rida Cabanilla....

...there's significant evidence that there was a different dynamic going on, and one that didn't follow the sort of liberal/conservative dimension that we tend to focus on....

Similar to health maintenance organizations (HMOs), ACOs are designed to bring hospitals, physicians and insurers together to reduce health care costs ....

Under rules proposed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), some working-class families would be unable to afford family coverage offered by their employers, and yet they would not qualify for subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act....

GASB considered changes to address this issue. Recently, it approved a slate of reforms for this exact purpose, yet their changes could actually make things worse by omitting essential changes....

They have also increased the proportion of outlays gobbled up by administrators, says The Economist....

In what most people now view as a setup, the next thing that happened was a committee staffer called the police to "control Berg" ....

The Nominating Committee of the Hawaii Supreme Court is seeking applications from qualified attorneys wishing to serve as members of the Board of Bar Examiners (BOE).

‘Impossible lack of diversity’ reflects ideological intimidation on campus....

She sponsored 49 bills between her election in 2006 and 2012, and zero have been passed into law.* We ask the people of Hawaii to join us to ‘do the math’. It all adds up to zero.”

What happens to our society if we lose all electricity? A new TV show premiering next month, Revolution, will explore that question....

The Brady Center claims Hawaii’s strong gun laws have helped Hawaii achieve the lowest gun death rate in the nation.

Honolulu hosts 55 of America's 81 living Medal of Honor recipients this fall at the 2012 Medal of Honor Society Convention. Recipients from World War II up to the current conflict in Afghanistan will be in attendance.

The rating has been withdrawn because Moody's believes it has insufficient information to support the maintenance of the rating....

The invitation was extended to all of the major Primary candidates weeks in advance of Primary Election day, and was accepted promptly by Governor Linda Lingle....

Residents of Hawaii, Utah, and South Dakota were the most likely to be "thriving" in the first half of 2012 based on how they rate their lives today and their expectations for their lives in five years. Residents of West Virginia and Maine were the least likely to be thriving.

Medicare.gov is publishing quality-of-care and patient- satisfaction information on more than 4,000 hospitals around the country that participate in Medicare and Medicaid.

...

The state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) today released the 2011 edition of the State of Hawai‘i Data Book

Taxpayers will lose even more on the auto bailout than previously thought, as the Treasury has just revised its estimate upward to $25 billion. This may still underestimate the losses to come....

The program will allow CCPIT to refer interested Chinese clean energy investors and developers to the Hawai'i State Energy Office in the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) to facilitate the matchmaking process with clean energy project partners in Hawai'i in need of capital or development partners.

The radio spots are island specific and feature local community leaders from each County. The spots will be airing through the General Election in November.

After this long and difficult struggle we are told that all criminal charges are dismissed, even though some of the accused had already pled guilty....

Wyoming was the only state that ranked worse than Hawaii in patient safety during surgeries....

Obamacare has already "ended Medicare as we know it."

"I am in the process of fact finding to determine if your Office of Elections adhered to proper and legal election procedures and whether or not our voters were denied their right to vote."

Last night...our opponent immediately turned to name calling and finger pointing to define us. But that is exactly what is wrong with politics today. There are too many politicians who just want to point out problems and too few who want to find solutions.

That's the number of American people who approve of the job that Congress is doing, and my opponent is one of the ‘12-percenters,’" Governor Lingle said.

Following a decisive Primary Election victory, Governor Linda Lingle, candidate for Hawaii’s open U.S. Senate seat, today announced that she has accepted invitations to appear in 18 debates and forums in the 86 remaining days before the November 6 General Election....

We ran a great campaign. Truly a people's campaign. We were and are an 'ohana in every sense of the word, united in a passion for a more open, honest and inclusive government.

Two precincts' cans arrived unsealed. The receiving team members say that that's been a consistent problem over the years, especially with Kona.

Between 1999 and 2002 Hanabusa short changed the Hawaii ERS--launching today’s multi-billion dollar Hawaii pension crisis. Now she’s lining up with the most unpopular politician in Hawaii—Neil Abercrombie—in support of his efforts to gut the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act.

Criticism aimed at the highly touted high-technology tax credits has now been confirmed by the state’s Auditor....

"Our way of life is being threatened because of the failure of D.C. politicians like my opponent. They failed Hawaii and they failed America. She failed us," said Governor Linda Lingle.  "She put her political career and her party ahead of the people."

2012 Primary Election Results Statewide

At Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell's direction, Alaska's major oil and gas producers and pipeline company TransCanada have shifted focus from a big pipeline to the Lower 48 to one leading to an LNG export plant in Southcentral Alaska....

Polling locations in the Counties of Maui, Kaua'i and Honolulu will close at the 6 p.m.; polling locations in Hawai'i County will close at 7:30 p.m.

Governor Lingle will address the media about the General Election campaign and discuss her vision for Hawaii’s future.

"...we didn't expect the state's two highest elected officials would throw mud so early, especially when it's so easy to prove their statements are false...."

The front-page correction published Aug. 1, highlighted in yellow above the fold, identified Bishop as the alleged source of an error in a July 26 newspaper story about Hawaii County’s distribution of voter information “yellow cards.”

“I have held hundreds of town-hall meetings in my district explaining why we have to take bold reform steps, and I’ve found treating people like adults works.  All those ads pushing elderly woman off the cliffs don’t work anymore if you lay out the problem.”

We will honor you, our fellow citizens, by giving you the right and opportunity to make the choice:

• What kind of country do we want to have?
• What kind of people do we want to be?

...ensure you vote for candidates who will continue to bring a pro-freedom and pro-gun agenda to the Hawaii State Legislature and Washington, D.C....

Yesterday, I joined my former congressional colleague Brian Baird (D-WA) in an extended interview with the Washington Post. Brian and I discussed whether Congress can still compromise.