We were contacted in early March by the parents of a fourth grade student in Hawaii regarding a local school’s policy that discriminated against religious speech....

Abercrombie in 2009 asked Hawaii to gamble its entire public-sector and private-sector economy on a promise of “Green Jobs” from a "former" communist Czar whose nervous breakdown was healed by a tree-sitter named “Butterfly.” Now they're teaming up to launch a State-owned Bank backed by your tax dollars.

Union Bank served as Administrative Agent and Joint Lead Arranger. Other Joint Lead Arrangers include Bayern LB, Rabobank and Siemens Financial Services. CIBC and CoBank also participated in the financing.

The once proud and comparatively wealthy Cubans are now among the poorest in the hemisphere, definitely the least informed and, consequently, the least free. 

SB755 SD2 HD1 exempts all state projects from Chapter 343 requirements and environmental oversight ....

Olympia Snowe showed her importance to the Senate's pro-choice firewall when she voted against the Blunt Amendment. After she retires her most likely GOP successor on this issue is Hawaii's former governor, Linda Lingle.

Numerous evolving bills, including SB 2927 SD 2, SB2873, SB2012 and HB2154 HD2, will exempt state and county government actions and development from Hawaii’s laws ....

The HSTA and the Abercrombie administration have fallen into name calling and finger pointing....This is a sure sign that a deal is in the works and they are both in on it.

Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, will release his budget blueprint today .... 

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The Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom is being held Friday, March 23 at noon, outside the Prince Kuhio Federal Building 300 Ala Moana Bl, Honolulu.

The UK Daily Mail asks: Does Kamaoa point to the future of Britain's Wind Farms?

In the Aloha State, when big feeds and free drinks are involved, controversy is close behind....

Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act - Vote Passed (74-22, 4 Not Voting)

The Senate passed this $109 billion bill that would fund transportation programs and projects for the next two years. It is unclear at this time whether the House will pass a two or five year bill.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on its constitutionality, bringing this intolerable act to the forefront of the American mind once again and reminding the country that the issue of Obamacare is by no means settled....

The Holy Grail for many cargo interests shipping by ocean in the domestic Hawaii and Guam trades is an unrequited generational quest to find a way to take advantage of the existing mainline Trans-Pacific container carriers passing regularly Westbound by the islands ....

Another 600 construction jobs were lost in the Honolulu area between January 2011 and January 2012, a 3 percent decline, according to an analysis released by the Associated General Contractors of America ....

Yoshioka’s statement in the Final EIS, “… traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today without rail …”

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 Thus, even purportedly green activity could be "development" after all, even if it involves a native Hawaiian fishpond....

SB2123, SB2576, SB2579 are before the Senate Judiciary Committee ....

Shown on Molokai March 14 and 15--will this must-see film come to your local theater?

Only one firearms bill remains alive, HB679 HD1, providing limited immunity from the state "absolute liability" statute to NRA Instructors....

Many of Faleomavaega’s antics are recounted elsewhere in this blog but just to give an example, after the killing of Osama Bin Laden Faleomavaega rose up on the House floor to demand that President Obama and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta apologize to native Americans for using “Geronimo” as a code word in the operation. Needless to say, he was ignored. Many think he is nuts. 

At 7:22 p.m. ET, with about 18% of total ballots accounted for, the former Massachusetts governor had a substantial lead with more than nearly 20,000 votes -- or 83% of the votes....

The obvious purpose, they say, is for North Korea to test the latest version of a missile with a range that could deliver a small nuclear warhead as far as Hawaii, Alaska – or even the US west coast.

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In some cases, constituents have come to believe that they are entitled to many of these programs and services, that is until they realized how much they are paying for these services.  Such is the case in public housing ....

Total Delegates: Romney 9, Santorum 5, Paul 3

The award recognizes the year’s most notable offense for keeping the public in the dark....

The beginnings of a construction recovery that we had anticipated failed to materialize last year.... the much ballyhooed plans for large, ongoing public sector spending fizzled.

Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney is sparing no effort to win votes in the U.S. territories and commonwealths ....

"Governor Romney's wins over the same period in Wyoming, the Northern Marianas, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and American Samoa have helped expand his delegate lead, pushing closer to the nomination."

After having served in Afghanistan, after serving with real American heroes, I know that the problems and issues facing our community and our country can be fixed through solid leadership and by each and every one of us coming together to do our small part. 

• Romney: 4548
• Santorum: 2589
• Paul: 1975
• Gingrich: 1116

• Michelle L. Drewyer
• Kirstin Hamman
• Adrianne N. Heely
• Adriel C.S. Menor
• Lloyd A. Poelman
• Douglas J. Sameshima

Chief Justice Mark E. Recktenwald today appointed Shirley M. Kawamura and Paul B.K. Wong to the District Court of the First Circuit (Oahu).

Counters will be at work today on sister isle provisional ballots. Those results are expected to be available this evening.

This week, The Heritage Foundation's Rob Bluey obtained a four-page strategy memo that outlines a White House-coordinated campaign to force an unwilling public to accept Obamacare.

“We’ve gone into this business with the thought that there was going be a renewable energy mandate in this country and there has not been one.”

In a big victory for the people of Hawaii, our environment, and all American taxpayers, the U.S. Senate this week killed the Production Tax Credit for industrial wind factories ....

The campaign was full of volunteers who worked for months to identify voters ....

HB2019: ' ... fewer distressed borrowers would be able to benefit from short sales, which force banks to accept a discounted payoff ... '

“Many doctors no longer take work comp cases because of low reimbursement rates and, in particular, because of lengthy and onerous paperwork."

The national debt is well on its way to $17 trillion, 13 million Americans are out of work, and the country is stuck in the slowest recovery in the post-war era.

Sen. Sam Slom, a Rick Santorum supporter, said he has “never seen so many Hawaii Republicans in his life, not even at the annual state conventions.”

“I congratulate Mitt Romney on his victory in Hawaii,” said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.

• Newt Gingrich - 1,034
• Rick Santorum - 2,369
• Ron Paul - 1,712
• Mitt Romney - 4,250
• 847 provisional ballots are yet to be counted.

...the American Bar Association secretly declared a significant number of the president's nominees to be "not qualified." 

Links to local and national news stories on tonight's Hawaii GOP Caucus ...