• WHAT: Legislative Townhall Meeting 
• WHERE: Haha‘ione Elementary School Cafeteria
• WHEN: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  

Today, SB 232 HD1, Relating to Civil Unions, passed the House by a vote of 31-19 (with one excused - Rep. Cabanilla).   That means that the bill will now go back to the Senate for reconsideration.  It is expected that the Senate may accept the changes made by the House Judiciary.  If that happens, the bill could end up on Governor Abercrombie’s desk for signature as early as next week.  The Governor has publicly stated he would sign the bill.

AAP’s Freedom to Read director Judy Platt said: “The approach taken by this legislation would have a profound and unacceptable chilling effect not only on AAP members who publish travel guides, but on the robust free marketplace of ideas that the First Amendment is intended to protect. The courts have simply not allowed this to happen, and the Hawaii legislature needs to be reminded of that.”

The future role of the Muslim Brotherhood remains uncertain. The Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Sunni movement, seeks to spread Islamic law throughout the world. Its members have indicated a desire to revoke Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and increase support for Hamas and other terrorist groups.

The Senate Committee on Health heard testimony this week on a beverage tax and Senators heard loud and clear that beverage taxes are not popular.  This Monday, the Committee will vote on one beverage tax proposal. Then on Wednesday, they will hold a hearing on another proposal that would tax beverages.

the commission drew new maps that eliminated most of the canoe districts. The end result was that Hawaii had the largest population deviations in the country. The deviations hit 38.9 percent for the Senate....

If SB 232 SD1 HD1 (civil unions) passes the House, it will then go over to the Senate and they will have to agree to the changes. If they do not agree, the bill will go to a conference committee with members from both chambers so they can work out their differences. What you may not know, is only members who VOTED IN SUPPORT SB 232 can be appointed to the conference committee. In conference committee, no input from the public is accepted.

If the Senate agrees to the amendments, the bill could go straight to the Governor who has publicly stated he would sign the bill.

HONOLULU – The Regents Candidate Advisory Council (RCAC) has presented a list of candidates to Gov. Neil Abercrombie to fill four seats on the University of Hawai’i Board of Regents, including two City and County of Honolulu seats, a Hawai’i County seat and a Maui County seat.

According to Senate Bill 1425, relating to banning the acceptance of solid waste in landfills, no landfill in a county with a population greater than or less than 500,000 residents, will be allowed to accept deliveries of municipal solid waste - beginning  July 1, 2012, for Honolulu, and for the smaller counties, a date to be determined by their councils.

HB12, a bill introduced by State Representative Cynthia Thielen (R, 50^th District) which establishes monetary restitution to property owners who have been victimized by plant thefts, will be heard by the House Committee on Agriculture this Friday, Feb. 11, at 9 a.m. in Conference Room 312 at the State Capitol. 

The House Republican caucus has led the effort to keep invocations a part of the daily legislative sessions in the Hawai`i State House following the ending of the practice in the State Senate.

In November 2010, Hawai‘i voters approved a Constitutional Amendment that gives the Governor the authority to appoint members of the BOE. Governor Abercrombie is encouraged that the State Legislature has been moving expeditiously to establish the appointment process for BOE members. When that legislative process is complete, Governor Abercrombie intends to name Horner among his first appointments.

The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote to block funding for President Barack Obama's signature healthcare overhaul when it takes up a budget plan next week, House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said on Tuesday.

 First, it usurps rights that belong to parents, not the state. Parents get to choose what kind of toys their play with -- A. B, there's no evidence at all that the sale or use of toy guns by children leads to gun violence in later life. There's no study that affirms this. There's no longitudinal effort to look into this at all. This is clearly legislators acting out of their own unproved neuroses.

Three, the law completely overreaches. The Hawaii statute specifically calls for jail time for people who violate it.

This session, 3 bills introduced by Republicans and Democrats, are seeking to not count blank votes, over votes or spoiled votes when it comes to the outcome of proposed amendments to the Hawaii constitution.

The civil unions bill (SB 232) was passed in the House Judiciary Committee by a vote of 11 (yes) to 2 (no) while 3 were excused.

In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex should be downplayed and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much as possible. First let the camel get his nose inside the tent--only later his unsightly derriere!

Honolulu – Governor Neil Abercrombie today announced appointments for the following positions:  Chief Negotiator, Department of Human Resources Development (DHRD) Deputy Director, and Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control.

Pro-gay-marriage Senator Gary Hooser (D-Kauai), speaking on the Senate floor March 25, 2009 said:

“…it may very well be likely that this law would be challenged in court….”

Hooser invites readers to look at his campaign website www.GaryHooser.com. Listed on the right column of his site are links to other websites described as “Senator Gary Hooser’s Regular Reading Regime.” The 25 links include the Kailua, O`ahu-based anti-Semitic 9-11 conspiracy website www.WhatReallyHappened.com (WRH).

At WRH “Regular Readers” like Hooser may peruse an article from a Holocaust denier publication asserting: “(only) two to three hundred thousand Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none in gas chambers.” Another WRH article touts a 1928 communist scheme to send Russian Jews to Siberia. There are literally hundreds of such articles interspersed between a selection of articles about Jewish child molesters, Jewish swindlers, and any other—mostly Jewish or “Israeli”--wrongdoing.

• Bills to Decongest Traffic
• Bills to Cut Taxes & Make Government More Responsive to the People
• Bills to Solve Problems within Homeowner Associations
• Bills to Stop Elder Abuse
• Bills to Solve Problems for Our Schools

House Judiciary Committee Feb 1 acted on over a dozen election-related bills....

In what Politico is calling “the first whiff of the desperation inside the White House about the slowness of the economic recovery,” President Barack Obama spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday, claiming: “I understand the challenges you face. I understand you are under incredible pressure to cut costs and keep your margins up. I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders and the pressures that are created by quarterly reports. I get it.” No. No, he doesn’t.

Steinmetz said: “This is the most outrageous comment eTN has ever received from a public official in our more than 10 years of being in business.

The Hill: Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has said he will soon distribute to senators his definition of what he considers an earmark....

“The new pork mechanisms will depend on how Inouye has decided to define pork/earmarks,” Wheeler said. “The loopholes will be there; he and his staff know how to make them. Once the ‘definition’ is set, the workarounds will only be limited by the human imagination.”

Here's the long history behind the new anti-bullying policy being proposed for Hawaii schools. 

After Senator Josh Green stated that public sentiment was overwhelmingly opposed to the issue, he made a motion to hold the bill in committee.

Former Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii) all but swore off elective politics in his recent farewell address, but the former congressman recently penned an article that is sure to ignite speculation among the state's political observers over whether a 2012 bid against Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) is in the offing.

Health Care Repeal - Vote Rejected (47-51, 2 Not Voting)

Candidates have until Friday February 18 to file nomination papers for Oahu’s upcoming Neighborhood Board elections.  Up for grabs, all 439 seats on 33 Neighborhood Boards.

As a candidate, Neil Abercrombie said over and over again, “We Will Not Be Raising Any Taxes."

But as Governor, Neil Abercrombie has a different message for many of Hawaii’s seniors—you’re not contributing, you’re escaping your responsibilities and, as Governor, I will force you to “make positive contributions in our community.”

In the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

Hawaii's newly elected "DSA-er Democrat" Governor Neil "I am not a socialist" Abercrombie is the birthers' best friend -- and many commentators in Hawaii and across the nation are becoming increasingly annoyed by his antics. 

Location: Kalama Heights Retirement Home, Garden Room

Date: Friday, February 18th, 2011, 6:30pm

Cost: Free and open to the public!

This Sunday is President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.

The Obama-style politics and the youthful 2010 class of freshmen Republicans in the U.S. House might be a passing fad or it might become a lasting trend.  Hawaii has sent a congressional delegation that is betting the modern movement toward a much quicker internet dominated system of governing, based on transparency rather than pork, is temporary and our nation will eventually return to the 20th Century seniority centric system of quiet machine based power-dealing.  The American people will render the verdict on Hawaii’s bet in the next couple of years.

Senator Charles Schumer and other congressional leaders have called on government safety agencies to investigate why such elevated levels of lead are coming into contact with our food and leaching into the environment. Perhaps even more alarming, a University of Arizona study found fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli in some of the bags.

EPA standard for lead in packaging materials is 100ppm.  Safeway tests 6.72 times the EPA limit.  Walgreens is 2.98 times, KTA Superstores 2.85 times, and Defense Comissary Agency tests 2.35 times the EPA standard. 

When the U.S. Supreme Court asks for a response from the side that had won the case in the lower court, that is a sign that the Court is thinking that it might possibly take the case. The response from Hawaii is due March 2.

... 200 people who filled the ballroom at the Ala Moana hotel to hear congresswoman Michele Bachmann speak .... 

Certain violations of S. 52 would subject a person to up to five years in prison, a fine of $500,000, or both.

With this energy efficiency bonus however comes the problem of disposing of fluorescent and CFL bulbs in landfills. Enter 2 more bills – which put mandates on disposing the CFL bulbs by retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Senate Bill 197 mandates companies that sell the CFL bulbs submit a plan to the Legislature by 1/1/2012 on how to manage the waste. And then there’s House Bill 1527 that requires retailers and wholesalers to accept used light bulbs for recycling from customers.

SB602 proposes an amendment to the state constitution to legalize slot machines and video poker machines that are not visible from the street in designated resort areas within Waikiki.

Amends chapter 37, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to include agency-wide technology and computer systems with an estimated useful life of greater than seven years as capital investments to allow all costs to be financed with bond funds and depreciated as capital investments.