PRAISE THE SPEAKER AND PASS THE COMPAZINE: As we enter our fifth year of "daily" whatever-the-heck-it-is-we-do in this space (changing the definition of "daily" on the fly, first to "week"days and later to whenever-the-heck we feel like it), we noticed that, while some years we tend to bang our head against the wall of the annual state legislative session more than others, this year?.. not so much.
Now don't get us wrong- we usually have little or no trouble getting our boxers in a bunch for the next big fight. The trouble is we're so damn tired of fighting the last one again and again.
Our legislative system has to be one of the most "corrupt" in the country. By that we mean that it's essentially based on a politically-motivated, mutual hand-washing type of cronyism and legalized bribery. This year there was a bill floating around that would have literally legalized "gifts" meant to influence legislators.
It's like a bento that comes with a heaping portion of our absurd "committee-chair-as-God" bill-referral system and two scoops of an "it's-always-this-way-unless-it's-not" rules and procedures, all slathered in the gravy of a hurry-up-and-wait, fake-you-out-of-your-Nikes slew of often-unannounced hearings culminating in a series of conference committees at session's end that make the previous four months of kabuki a bad and expensive joke on those picking up the check.
So the past week or so, as yet another effort to remove all environmental protections from the Hawai`i Environmental Protection Act (HRS 343) moved forward- this time in a measure to arbitrarily allow the governor and/or mayors to exempt anything their black little hearts desire from, not just environmental protection, but from any and all permitting that might trigger public hearings or even add conditions- we just couldn't whip up the outrage of past years' efforts at similar mahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflfeasance.
Thankfully this morning we awoke to a Facebook posting from former Kaua`i State Senator and current state Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control, Gary Hooser. Fortunately Hooser is now in a position where it is his job to read through stacks of bills, many of which the environmental watchdogs might miss because of course they're not titled "Related to Rape of the Environment" but rather, as in this case, "Relating To Economic Revitalization."
After sending out an alarm last week as to the scheduling of a hearing yesterday, today Hooser wrote that:
HB1893 was "deferred" in the House Finance Committee which means it is most likely dead for this session! This of course is great news for those who care about the environment and preserving public participation in the development process.
Of course another bill, HB2324, which would exempt "the upgrading and new construction of broadband facilities on state and county property from state and county permitting processes" did pass with still-unknown amendments which, the ever optimistic Hooser hopes, "will result in a Bill that is far better than the version that arrived in Finance."
Every year there's another attack. We'd seen them come and go over the year with the worst of the worst, like "automatic approvals," creating havoc and leaving communities with monstrous projects and developments that no one wants because, in the case of automatic approvals, some bureaucrat was asleep at the wheel.
But a special place in the legislative Hall of Shame has to go to these outright HRS 343 exemptions for certain department or division projects.
We became aware of these relatively recently when the SuperFerry was triggering pre barf-o-meter nausea.
As word of the Linda Lingle Administration's corrupt little exemption from 343 began to be challenged, we noticed the absence of any county permitting- even a Shoreline Management Area (SMA) permit which always accompanies any project on or near the shore and is required under the federal Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Act.
But after our usual runaround at the planning department (PD)- which, as with all county departments, usually consists of a "click" on the phone whenever we identify ourselves- we finally received a semi-anonymous email from a lower echelon PD cog from sector "R," referring us to an HRS provision that, like one of those pockets in your colon that contain five year old potato skins, contained a particularly disgusting little turd of a law that exempted the entire Harbor Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) from any and all county permitting.
Upon further review we learned from then-Kaua`i Representative Mina Morita that, though this provision pre-dated her tenure and had little chance of repeal, she had spent a decade or more fighting the same battle, year after year, to defeat bills that would make others, like the Airports Division, similarly exempted.
Of course now people are becoming more aware of these measures and sometimes, miraculously, as with today's "defeat" of HB1893, the bill is at least temporarily squelched until it rears its ugly head at next year's session.
We have no idea whether we'll be able to stomach much coverage of the legislature this year. Oh we may re-rant about the idiotic Council on Revenues (COR) system where they have to prepare the budget not once, not twice but three times as the economic projections change from one pulled from the COR's sleeve to another pulled from their butts at various points before, during or after the session.
Or maybe we'll get our hackles raised by some last minute "plate-lunch" bill with a heaping portion of gut-and-replace and a side order of conference-committee-shenanigans that yields a final day vote on bill that, although it never even got a hearing and was declared dead in January, has now been slipped into a stack of 20 bills that are passed in a matter of 25 seconds.
But don't expect much. We're nauseous enough from the vog blowing though these days, and food is too expensive to lose our lunch over an entrenched legislative process which stands zero chance of getting a gut-and replace treatment of its own.
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Showing posts with label Linda Lingle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Linda Lingle. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
THE SUBJECT SURE WASN'T ROSES
THE SUBJECT SURE WASN'T ROSES: You won't find a "label" saying "education" at the bottom of any of our columns. As a matter of fact we can't remember it ever being a subject of discussion.
And that's no accident.
We've usually got something to say about everything- learned or devoid of prior inquiry, solicited or unwelcome. But even though we've watched two generations of our own progeny wend their way through the Hawai`i Public School system our opinion regarding how to improve it has been limited to three words... "triple teachers' salaries."
What can you say after that? Assuming that all that;s said about a better educated citizenry and the correlation with productivity, it stands to reason it should easily pay for itself... and more
Not that the ridiculously low wages we pay teachers now is a total deterrent to many who are talented enough to make that treble sum elsewhere. There are an unexplainable slew that are nonetheless dedicated to the thankless, "hardest job you'll ever love" because, well, it's the job they love. But let's not forget that the same low wage has got to be an encouragement to at least a small few who somehow got through college yet would be lucky get a new paper hat each year with their W2.
There ones we're aiming at are those who would become teachers if only they got paid commensurate with their talents. The trick is to properly dispatch the "do you want fries with that" crowd and replace them with professionals by paying teachers like doctors and lawyers, not burger-flippers
Anyway, as usual we digress before we begin.
What caught our attention and convinced us to break our unwritten "don't talk about education" rule is not even just the recent news that the state of Hawai`i has somehow potentially blown the previously promised $75 million through the federal "Race to the Top" program- the only state so designated for reversal. It's that yesterday an article (paywall protected) by Honolulu Star-Advertiser education writer Mary Vorsino zeroed in on why we stand to blow the grant.
After the usual mealy-mouthed mish-mosh of unconvincing reasons why "tings wen' huli" since last year's acceptance into the program, Vorsino "revealed" what anyone who has followed the politics of state education for the last year sensed the day the feds said "not so fast there, Neil."
(I)t's not yet clear whether the state will be able to show movement in one of the biggest areas of concern for federal officials: a continuing labor dispute with the teachers union that has stalled several major projects, including efforts to reach a collective bargaining agreement on improved teacher evaluations...
The U.S. Department of Education review, set for late next month, could make or break Hawaii's grant, whose "high-risk" status reflects federal worries about whether the state is capable of meeting its ambitious Race to the Top promises.
For those who have been in a cave since last summer, the teachers' union- along with most of the other state employee groups- were negotiating for new contracts as they had always done- in fits and stops and threats and other bizarre posturing on both their part and the part of the governor... in this case the newly-elected former educator and liberal lion, former Congressman Neil Abercrombie.
But rather than dicker around as even ultra-conservative Republican Governor Linda Lingle and her predecessors had done, Abercrombie gave the teachers the finger and unilaterally imposed salary and benefit cuts calling it his "best and final offer," telling the teachers to strike if they didn't like it.
The screwiest part was that, within a few cents either way, it was probably what the teachers would have settled for anyway, especially if and when other state workers had accepted the 5% pay cut with a slight raise of the employee contribution to their health care coverage- exactly what Abercrombie had been pushing since the legislative session ended and had already gotten out of the UH teachers and would soon get from the Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA).
Of course the second screwiest was the fact that the $75 million the state stands to lose if the "Race to the Top" money goes south is that, within a few bucks, it's the same amount that the state stands to save on that "best and final offer" to the teachers.
And, if he had settled it rather than impose it, the whole debacle would be over now, not stalled before the labor board where it is being dragged out, ad infinitum, costing a big pile o' cash for lawyers and other legal logistics on both sides.
What the heck Abercrombie was thinking is anyone's guess. It's not the first, nor will it be the last, in a string of seemingly-endless, insanely-tone-deaf decisions he's made since taking office. Apparently he's unable to understand that he can't get away with the same "because I said so" nonsense that just went unnoticed in congress where, as 1 of 435, he didn't have the sole power to enforce his words. Now that he does, as 1 of 1, he stands to be responsible for what he says and does and is uncomfortable with all that power.
And he'd better learn that lesson fast. He's starting to make Lingle look sane.
And that's no accident.
We've usually got something to say about everything- learned or devoid of prior inquiry, solicited or unwelcome. But even though we've watched two generations of our own progeny wend their way through the Hawai`i Public School system our opinion regarding how to improve it has been limited to three words... "triple teachers' salaries."
What can you say after that? Assuming that all that;s said about a better educated citizenry and the correlation with productivity, it stands to reason it should easily pay for itself... and more
Not that the ridiculously low wages we pay teachers now is a total deterrent to many who are talented enough to make that treble sum elsewhere. There are an unexplainable slew that are nonetheless dedicated to the thankless, "hardest job you'll ever love" because, well, it's the job they love. But let's not forget that the same low wage has got to be an encouragement to at least a small few who somehow got through college yet would be lucky get a new paper hat each year with their W2.
There ones we're aiming at are those who would become teachers if only they got paid commensurate with their talents. The trick is to properly dispatch the "do you want fries with that" crowd and replace them with professionals by paying teachers like doctors and lawyers, not burger-flippers
Anyway, as usual we digress before we begin.
What caught our attention and convinced us to break our unwritten "don't talk about education" rule is not even just the recent news that the state of Hawai`i has somehow potentially blown the previously promised $75 million through the federal "Race to the Top" program- the only state so designated for reversal. It's that yesterday an article (paywall protected) by Honolulu Star-Advertiser education writer Mary Vorsino zeroed in on why we stand to blow the grant.
After the usual mealy-mouthed mish-mosh of unconvincing reasons why "tings wen' huli" since last year's acceptance into the program, Vorsino "revealed" what anyone who has followed the politics of state education for the last year sensed the day the feds said "not so fast there, Neil."
(I)t's not yet clear whether the state will be able to show movement in one of the biggest areas of concern for federal officials: a continuing labor dispute with the teachers union that has stalled several major projects, including efforts to reach a collective bargaining agreement on improved teacher evaluations...
The U.S. Department of Education review, set for late next month, could make or break Hawaii's grant, whose "high-risk" status reflects federal worries about whether the state is capable of meeting its ambitious Race to the Top promises.
For those who have been in a cave since last summer, the teachers' union- along with most of the other state employee groups- were negotiating for new contracts as they had always done- in fits and stops and threats and other bizarre posturing on both their part and the part of the governor... in this case the newly-elected former educator and liberal lion, former Congressman Neil Abercrombie.
But rather than dicker around as even ultra-conservative Republican Governor Linda Lingle and her predecessors had done, Abercrombie gave the teachers the finger and unilaterally imposed salary and benefit cuts calling it his "best and final offer," telling the teachers to strike if they didn't like it.
The screwiest part was that, within a few cents either way, it was probably what the teachers would have settled for anyway, especially if and when other state workers had accepted the 5% pay cut with a slight raise of the employee contribution to their health care coverage- exactly what Abercrombie had been pushing since the legislative session ended and had already gotten out of the UH teachers and would soon get from the Hawai`i Government Employees Association (HGEA).
Of course the second screwiest was the fact that the $75 million the state stands to lose if the "Race to the Top" money goes south is that, within a few bucks, it's the same amount that the state stands to save on that "best and final offer" to the teachers.
And, if he had settled it rather than impose it, the whole debacle would be over now, not stalled before the labor board where it is being dragged out, ad infinitum, costing a big pile o' cash for lawyers and other legal logistics on both sides.
What the heck Abercrombie was thinking is anyone's guess. It's not the first, nor will it be the last, in a string of seemingly-endless, insanely-tone-deaf decisions he's made since taking office. Apparently he's unable to understand that he can't get away with the same "because I said so" nonsense that just went unnoticed in congress where, as 1 of 435, he didn't have the sole power to enforce his words. Now that he does, as 1 of 1, he stands to be responsible for what he says and does and is uncomfortable with all that power.
And he'd better learn that lesson fast. He's starting to make Lingle look sane.
Friday, October 14, 2011
MEET THE NEW BOSS...
MEET THE NEW BOSS...: It wasn't that long ago that we all laughed at the prospect of former Governor Lingle running for senate whether Senator Dan Akaka decided to run again or not.
One debacle after another had left most of the state's voters with a distinct "don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out" attitude toward her future in Hawai`i politics.
And why not? In arguably the most Democratic state in the country she had cozied up to the national Republicans two years earlier, opposing our "native son" in the presidential race. Then she dissed every teacher and somehow every parent in the state too with her "Furlough Fridays" in a manner that belied her usual and notorious PR perfect pitch. She had made a show- one that no one really believed- of trying to convince people her veto of civil unions was a "tough decision." And no one had forgotten the SuperFerry debacle which left both sides blaming her for either trying to force the doomed-from-the-start "H4" down our throats or, in "entitled" Honolulu, bungling the effort.
Yet this week's archetypical Stepford Wife announcement of her candidacy caused not just the usually out-of-touch-with-Hawai`i-politics Cook Political Report to call the race a "toss-up" but had many local pundits treating her candidacy with credibility.
So assuming something changed, what was it? Still the same robotic and vaguely spooky Lingle? Check. Still the same predominately Democratic "fool me twice.. ya can't get fooled again" electorate? Check. Still the same draconian congressional Republican cabal that she cozied up to in '08? Check.
So what's the difference? It well may be the rocky row her replacement has hoed.
As Governor, Neil Abercrombie couldn't have mimicked more of her specific blunders if he tried. Suspending the state's environmental protection laws for fishy reasons? Although declaring an emergency to move Nene geese that had been causing the same problems at Lihu`e Airport for a decade isn't exactly the SuperFerry, it was the same thread of political expediency that runs through both in the minds of the electorate.
But in the one place where Abercrombie could have put a wedge between "what a Democrat in office will do" and "what the Republican did," his tin-ear handling of the teachers' union negotiations left many asking what the difference is.
Abercrombie's now infamous "I'm not your pal" statement to the unions and the viral YouTube screaming match with a nurse were followed by the same imposition of a contract and violation of the tenets of collective bargaining that caused massive protests at state capitols in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio after Republican governors in those states imposed similar anti-union measures.
Even though criticism of the actions of the teachers' union's tactics in fighting Abercrombie's unilaterally-imposed, force-fed contract got most of the press, the antipathy toward Abercrombie still simmers just beneath the surface among the unions whose support will be crucial if either Mazie Hirono or (god no) Ed Case is to send Lingle back out to national Republican pastures.
It's a long time between now and a year from November and it's said voters' memories are long in Hawai`i. But those memories are made not just in broad sweeping brush strokes but in the daily paint splotches and, to mix metaphors, once a crack appears in the veneer it's hard to plaster it over to keep the wood from splitting right down the middle.
Abercrombie would do well to keep, if not a low profile next January when the legislature meets, at least one that doesn't rock his own party's boat. Because if Hirono or Case loses to Lingle many Democratic fingers will be pointing his way and it will be a short two years until the '14 gubernatorial election where he'll need all the party support he can get.
One debacle after another had left most of the state's voters with a distinct "don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out" attitude toward her future in Hawai`i politics.
And why not? In arguably the most Democratic state in the country she had cozied up to the national Republicans two years earlier, opposing our "native son" in the presidential race. Then she dissed every teacher and somehow every parent in the state too with her "Furlough Fridays" in a manner that belied her usual and notorious PR perfect pitch. She had made a show- one that no one really believed- of trying to convince people her veto of civil unions was a "tough decision." And no one had forgotten the SuperFerry debacle which left both sides blaming her for either trying to force the doomed-from-the-start "H4" down our throats or, in "entitled" Honolulu, bungling the effort.
Yet this week's archetypical Stepford Wife announcement of her candidacy caused not just the usually out-of-touch-with-Hawai`i-politics Cook Political Report to call the race a "toss-up" but had many local pundits treating her candidacy with credibility.
So assuming something changed, what was it? Still the same robotic and vaguely spooky Lingle? Check. Still the same predominately Democratic "fool me twice.. ya can't get fooled again" electorate? Check. Still the same draconian congressional Republican cabal that she cozied up to in '08? Check.
So what's the difference? It well may be the rocky row her replacement has hoed.
As Governor, Neil Abercrombie couldn't have mimicked more of her specific blunders if he tried. Suspending the state's environmental protection laws for fishy reasons? Although declaring an emergency to move Nene geese that had been causing the same problems at Lihu`e Airport for a decade isn't exactly the SuperFerry, it was the same thread of political expediency that runs through both in the minds of the electorate.
But in the one place where Abercrombie could have put a wedge between "what a Democrat in office will do" and "what the Republican did," his tin-ear handling of the teachers' union negotiations left many asking what the difference is.
Abercrombie's now infamous "I'm not your pal" statement to the unions and the viral YouTube screaming match with a nurse were followed by the same imposition of a contract and violation of the tenets of collective bargaining that caused massive protests at state capitols in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio after Republican governors in those states imposed similar anti-union measures.
Even though criticism of the actions of the teachers' union's tactics in fighting Abercrombie's unilaterally-imposed, force-fed contract got most of the press, the antipathy toward Abercrombie still simmers just beneath the surface among the unions whose support will be crucial if either Mazie Hirono or (god no) Ed Case is to send Lingle back out to national Republican pastures.
It's a long time between now and a year from November and it's said voters' memories are long in Hawai`i. But those memories are made not just in broad sweeping brush strokes but in the daily paint splotches and, to mix metaphors, once a crack appears in the veneer it's hard to plaster it over to keep the wood from splitting right down the middle.
Abercrombie would do well to keep, if not a low profile next January when the legislature meets, at least one that doesn't rock his own party's boat. Because if Hirono or Case loses to Lingle many Democratic fingers will be pointing his way and it will be a short two years until the '14 gubernatorial election where he'll need all the party support he can get.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
WILL IT GO ROUND IN CIRCLES?
WILL IT GO ROUND IN CIRCLES?: We know better than to get too get delusional when the prospects for a governmental action exceeds expectations.
And after eight years of getting up every day wondering what kind of f**ked-up s**t ex-Governor Linda Lingle (boy it feels good to write that) has cooked up today we have to be careful not to engage in too much relativism.
But even before tomorrow’s first meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) under new Chair Bill Aila takes place his appointment has already bourn fruit with the news that the infamous rage-a-holic Bruce Laymon has given up his efforts to fence off the alaloa at Lepe`uli (Larsen’s) Beach.
Copies of a letter (thanks to Joan Conrow and Roger Jacobs for the document postings) from Laymon’s attorney, Lorna Nishimitsu, to the BLNR’s staff surrendering his Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) came flying into our inbox Monday from many who had fought to stop Laymon from harassing beach goers and violating kanaka rights.
It comes on the heels of a new staff report recommending a contested case hearing be granted after the original report was found to be a bunch of bogus bullbleep that simply ignored the testimony of many in the community and rammed through the permit based on Laymon’s misrepresentations.
The problem is that now comes the hard work for Aila, mostly because he’s stuck with most of Lingle’s appointees like the Kaua`i BLNR “representative” Ron Agor whose two-faced actions led to the permit being issued in the first place.
While Agor was telling opponents of the permit that he would fight it, records showed that his support for Laymon was the deciding factor in convincing the board to approve it since many times the board relies on neighbor island reps in deciding issues on their islands.
Aila- and Kaua`i- is stuck with Agor for another year and a half since his four-year term doesn’t end until June 30, 2012- unless he can somehow be forced or persuaded to resign.
In addition to the issue of prescriptive and PASH rights to access to the alaloa- an historic trail that runs around the island near the shore which Laymon’s permit allowed him to fence off in the area- one of the issues has been Laymon himself and his campaign to “clean up” the area.
Although the “cleaning” was said by Laymon and his handful of supporters to relate to trash that’s been left in the area it’s been clear that the real cleansing Laymon desired was that of haoles from the area with a plethora of notorious episodes of harassment of tourists and local Caucasians reported over the last few years in which Laymon insisted on characterizing them all as “hippie campers.”
Laymon was even accused of vandalizing his own equipment and blaming “campers” to gain public sympathy although no one was able to prove who did it one way or the other.
Another winner in all this, aside from the people of Kaua`i, appears to be the owner and leaser of the land, the Waioli Corporation, whose non-profit, do-good, historical-preservation mission has been tainted in all this and will now be able allow the episode to fade into memory.
As we said, we’re not ready to declare a new era for the Department of Land and Natural Recourses and it’s Board. But it is nice when the good guys win every once in a while.
For more information on some of the incidents see our past coverage and Joan Conrow’s Tuesday report and recap.
And after eight years of getting up every day wondering what kind of f**ked-up s**t ex-Governor Linda Lingle (boy it feels good to write that) has cooked up today we have to be careful not to engage in too much relativism.
But even before tomorrow’s first meeting of the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) under new Chair Bill Aila takes place his appointment has already bourn fruit with the news that the infamous rage-a-holic Bruce Laymon has given up his efforts to fence off the alaloa at Lepe`uli (Larsen’s) Beach.
Copies of a letter (thanks to Joan Conrow and Roger Jacobs for the document postings) from Laymon’s attorney, Lorna Nishimitsu, to the BLNR’s staff surrendering his Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) came flying into our inbox Monday from many who had fought to stop Laymon from harassing beach goers and violating kanaka rights.
It comes on the heels of a new staff report recommending a contested case hearing be granted after the original report was found to be a bunch of bogus bullbleep that simply ignored the testimony of many in the community and rammed through the permit based on Laymon’s misrepresentations.
The problem is that now comes the hard work for Aila, mostly because he’s stuck with most of Lingle’s appointees like the Kaua`i BLNR “representative” Ron Agor whose two-faced actions led to the permit being issued in the first place.
While Agor was telling opponents of the permit that he would fight it, records showed that his support for Laymon was the deciding factor in convincing the board to approve it since many times the board relies on neighbor island reps in deciding issues on their islands.
Aila- and Kaua`i- is stuck with Agor for another year and a half since his four-year term doesn’t end until June 30, 2012- unless he can somehow be forced or persuaded to resign.
In addition to the issue of prescriptive and PASH rights to access to the alaloa- an historic trail that runs around the island near the shore which Laymon’s permit allowed him to fence off in the area- one of the issues has been Laymon himself and his campaign to “clean up” the area.
Although the “cleaning” was said by Laymon and his handful of supporters to relate to trash that’s been left in the area it’s been clear that the real cleansing Laymon desired was that of haoles from the area with a plethora of notorious episodes of harassment of tourists and local Caucasians reported over the last few years in which Laymon insisted on characterizing them all as “hippie campers.”
Laymon was even accused of vandalizing his own equipment and blaming “campers” to gain public sympathy although no one was able to prove who did it one way or the other.
Another winner in all this, aside from the people of Kaua`i, appears to be the owner and leaser of the land, the Waioli Corporation, whose non-profit, do-good, historical-preservation mission has been tainted in all this and will now be able allow the episode to fade into memory.
As we said, we’re not ready to declare a new era for the Department of Land and Natural Recourses and it’s Board. But it is nice when the good guys win every once in a while.
For more information on some of the incidents see our past coverage and Joan Conrow’s Tuesday report and recap.
Friday, September 3, 2010
VOTE FOR NEIL ABERCROMBIE FOR GOVERNOR
VOTE FOR NEIL ABERCROMBIE FOR GOVERNOR
Neil Abercrombie is the best candidate for governor we’ve seen in a generation or two- perhaps ever- and PNN wholeheartedly supports his candidacy in the September 18 democratic primary.
While we have been severely disappointed with Neil for things like his support for war funding and the militarization of the islands along with his recent flip flop on off-shore oil drilling, he presents a genuine chance for the kind of progressive leadership we seek from the fifth floor of the capitol.
His opponent Mufi Hannemann is a master of corrupt “pay to play” politics and one of the sleaziest politicians in the political history of the islands. Mufi is a corrupt, ego-driven, heartless braggart and bully that could be actually somehow be worse for the state than current governor Linda Lingle.
He has managed to take an extremely popular idea, a rail system for the city and county, and turn it into a divisive project by insisting on a “my way or the highway” elevated design that has been rejected in almost every major city in the country of late- one designed to enrich favored developers and construction companies rather than one derived through good planning and a public-input-based buy-in.
His horrific rousting and demonization of the homeless of Honolulu makes the damage he could do to these poor souls as governor alarming. His penchant for dirty politics is legendary as is his fondness for surrounding himself with “yes-men” to carry out his policies designed only to further his political career.
While we’ve been around the block enough times to know that campaign promises don’t mean much, Abercrombie’s support for sustainable practices and a clean-energy future for the state along with his stand on civil rights and other issues makes him an obvious choice for governor.
While it does say something about the choices we are routinely faced with at the polls, Neil Abercrombie is the probably the best option for governor we’ve ever had on the ballot and we’re happy to support him.
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Note: Because 14 of the 14 candidates for Kaua`i County Council will be moving on to the November elections we will NOT be picking council candidates for the primary elections.
(The date of the primary in the original post was incorrect. This version has been corrected)
Neil Abercrombie is the best candidate for governor we’ve seen in a generation or two- perhaps ever- and PNN wholeheartedly supports his candidacy in the September 18 democratic primary.
While we have been severely disappointed with Neil for things like his support for war funding and the militarization of the islands along with his recent flip flop on off-shore oil drilling, he presents a genuine chance for the kind of progressive leadership we seek from the fifth floor of the capitol.
His opponent Mufi Hannemann is a master of corrupt “pay to play” politics and one of the sleaziest politicians in the political history of the islands. Mufi is a corrupt, ego-driven, heartless braggart and bully that could be actually somehow be worse for the state than current governor Linda Lingle.
He has managed to take an extremely popular idea, a rail system for the city and county, and turn it into a divisive project by insisting on a “my way or the highway” elevated design that has been rejected in almost every major city in the country of late- one designed to enrich favored developers and construction companies rather than one derived through good planning and a public-input-based buy-in.
His horrific rousting and demonization of the homeless of Honolulu makes the damage he could do to these poor souls as governor alarming. His penchant for dirty politics is legendary as is his fondness for surrounding himself with “yes-men” to carry out his policies designed only to further his political career.
While we’ve been around the block enough times to know that campaign promises don’t mean much, Abercrombie’s support for sustainable practices and a clean-energy future for the state along with his stand on civil rights and other issues makes him an obvious choice for governor.
While it does say something about the choices we are routinely faced with at the polls, Neil Abercrombie is the probably the best option for governor we’ve ever had on the ballot and we’re happy to support him.
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Note: Because 14 of the 14 candidates for Kaua`i County Council will be moving on to the November elections we will NOT be picking council candidates for the primary elections.
(The date of the primary in the original post was incorrect. This version has been corrected)
Monday, August 9, 2010
STOP US BEFORE WE VOTE AGAIN
STOP US BEFORE WE VOTE AGAIN: The TV news last night was full of the same “because there’s video” lede about a sign-carrying demonstration support for one of the worst, most reactionary ideas to come down the pike in many a year- the constitutional amendment to stop electing Board of Education (BOE) members and allow the governor to appoint them with senate confirmation.
According to this morning’s Starvertiser.
"We need to do something," said Colbert Matsumoto, chairman and CEO of Island Insurance Co. Ltd. "We just can't stand idly back."
Admittedly the current election system for electing BOE members has it’s problems. People vote for all the members across the state, not just their local island reps and often have no idea who the candidates are so that they either vote for a “pig in a poke” or leave their ballot blank.
This creates a statewide election- the only one other than that for governor and US senator- run on campaign budgets that preclude interisland campaigning, assuring that no one has any idea who the candidates are, especially with the media emphasis on the glamour races.
But to start doing the “dance of the headless chicken” by waving our arms in the air and yelling “do something” and then deciding to reject democracy as “too messy”, belies the Jeffersonian axiom that the answer to the problems of the messiness of democracy lies not in less but rather more democracy.
The reality of a gubernatorial appointment system will result in more of the same problems experienced with similar appointment schemes such as that of the UH Board of Regents (BOR) which is somehow cited by proponents.
But as with the BOR the positions will be filled by cronies and hacks with no particular expertise other than a partisan knee-jerk adherence to the governor’s agenda. Haven’t we seen the dangers of that during the Lingle administration?
If we need to tweak the election system then let’s do it.
By creating districts and allowing voters to elect only their own local representatives we would assure not just local recognition of candidates but would go a long way toward local control and accountability which is what many say is the right prescription for K-12 educational reform.
It’s very easy to look at governmental systems without accounting for people and politics and deciding that, if the systems works the way it should, it would be better than the present.
That’s always a huge “if” which ignores the political reality of changing control of that system to a single person and placing another layer of accountability between the voters and those acting on our behalf.
According to this morning’s Starvertiser.
"We need to do something," said Colbert Matsumoto, chairman and CEO of Island Insurance Co. Ltd. "We just can't stand idly back."
Admittedly the current election system for electing BOE members has it’s problems. People vote for all the members across the state, not just their local island reps and often have no idea who the candidates are so that they either vote for a “pig in a poke” or leave their ballot blank.
This creates a statewide election- the only one other than that for governor and US senator- run on campaign budgets that preclude interisland campaigning, assuring that no one has any idea who the candidates are, especially with the media emphasis on the glamour races.
But to start doing the “dance of the headless chicken” by waving our arms in the air and yelling “do something” and then deciding to reject democracy as “too messy”, belies the Jeffersonian axiom that the answer to the problems of the messiness of democracy lies not in less but rather more democracy.
The reality of a gubernatorial appointment system will result in more of the same problems experienced with similar appointment schemes such as that of the UH Board of Regents (BOR) which is somehow cited by proponents.
But as with the BOR the positions will be filled by cronies and hacks with no particular expertise other than a partisan knee-jerk adherence to the governor’s agenda. Haven’t we seen the dangers of that during the Lingle administration?
If we need to tweak the election system then let’s do it.
By creating districts and allowing voters to elect only their own local representatives we would assure not just local recognition of candidates but would go a long way toward local control and accountability which is what many say is the right prescription for K-12 educational reform.
It’s very easy to look at governmental systems without accounting for people and politics and deciding that, if the systems works the way it should, it would be better than the present.
That’s always a huge “if” which ignores the political reality of changing control of that system to a single person and placing another layer of accountability between the voters and those acting on our behalf.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
SHHHH
SHHHH: There was a plethora of reported jaw dropping among Governor Linda Lingle and her cronies over the “Hawaii State Bar Association's board of directors' rating of appeals Judge Katherine Leonard as ‘unqualified’ to be Hawaii's next chief justice”.
Strangely enough the news of the rejection of Leonard by the bar wasn’t Starvetizer courts reporter Ken Kobayashi’s lede but instead he stressed the professed outrage of Lingle and her republican cronies in the legislature over the secrecy of the bar’s vote.
But we’ve got a lowered mandible ourselves over Lingle’s colossal nerve to criticize the closed vote, especially considering her own legacy of clandestine operations and the notorious way judges in Hawai`i wield their retaliatory sway over attorneys and others in the judiciary, according to many we’ve spoken to over the years.
Lingle and her administration’s abuse of Hawai`i open records laws has been notorious but for those who want to hear the ultimate story of fear and loathing they need turn no farther than legislative staffer Doug White’s recently revived Poinography blog.
Doug finally explained what he was up to in the year plus absence of his popular blog by telling one of those hilarious-if-it-wasn’t-so-serious tales of the runaround he got over a simple record request of the Lingle administration- not to mention the invoice for his temerity in requesting the records for Lingle’s requests for input on the bills she threatened to veto after the 2009 legislative session.
In My UIPA saga – a $1582.15, twelve month struggle White recounts the evasions, lies, delays and the incredible barriers he experienced at the hands of the Lingle administration making any charges of secrecy from her a joke.
We won’t even attempt to truncate the tale- you’ve got to read it for yourself as well as the indexing and posting of the results which White is busily compiling which are already painting a picture of consultation with everyone who is guaranteed to support her position and avoidance of anyone who might dissent.
Also notable is the lack of consultation with the Lt. Governor and current gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona regarding which we’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Lingle’s legacy of covert governance and feigned outrage over every perceived slight takes a backseat to no other past state administration’s- and that’s saying a lot.
Strangely enough the news of the rejection of Leonard by the bar wasn’t Starvetizer courts reporter Ken Kobayashi’s lede but instead he stressed the professed outrage of Lingle and her republican cronies in the legislature over the secrecy of the bar’s vote.
But we’ve got a lowered mandible ourselves over Lingle’s colossal nerve to criticize the closed vote, especially considering her own legacy of clandestine operations and the notorious way judges in Hawai`i wield their retaliatory sway over attorneys and others in the judiciary, according to many we’ve spoken to over the years.
Lingle and her administration’s abuse of Hawai`i open records laws has been notorious but for those who want to hear the ultimate story of fear and loathing they need turn no farther than legislative staffer Doug White’s recently revived Poinography blog.
Doug finally explained what he was up to in the year plus absence of his popular blog by telling one of those hilarious-if-it-wasn’t-so-serious tales of the runaround he got over a simple record request of the Lingle administration- not to mention the invoice for his temerity in requesting the records for Lingle’s requests for input on the bills she threatened to veto after the 2009 legislative session.
In My UIPA saga – a $1582.15, twelve month struggle White recounts the evasions, lies, delays and the incredible barriers he experienced at the hands of the Lingle administration making any charges of secrecy from her a joke.
We won’t even attempt to truncate the tale- you’ve got to read it for yourself as well as the indexing and posting of the results which White is busily compiling which are already painting a picture of consultation with everyone who is guaranteed to support her position and avoidance of anyone who might dissent.
Also notable is the lack of consultation with the Lt. Governor and current gubernatorial candidate Duke Aiona regarding which we’ll allow you to draw your own conclusions.
Lingle’s legacy of covert governance and feigned outrage over every perceived slight takes a backseat to no other past state administration’s- and that’s saying a lot.
Monday, August 2, 2010
PEA POD POLITICS FOR PEABRAINS
PEA POD POLITICS FOR PEABRAINS: As many read last week Goofy Mufi Hannemann had his usual blinders on in ignoring an Associated Press article the week before that confirmed what we all knew- that Hawaii Superferry (HSf) Inc.’s claim that they were victims of the courts and those crazy environmentalists was a bogus piece of PR from a company that was actually drowning in red ink created by their own lack of a realistic business plan- although the article missed a chance to dig deeper and find out the ferry was created to fail as part of a military demonstration project for the littoral design.
Mufi’s pledge to bring back the same vessels- even though their size was half the reason for the bankruptcy- demonstrates just how much more damage there is to be done if a Hannemann administration gets it’s hands on the already damaged machinery of the state under the equally mentally and morally challenged Linda Lingle.
And as if to underline some of that damage, in an article about the delays in obtaining an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a UH coral reef research project it was reported that:
Part of the delay is that the state body that could grant UH an exemption to the EIS requirement has not met since Aug. 17 of last year...
The council tried to hold a meeting in late June, but was unable to book adequate state videoconference facilities, Steiner said.
"It seemed like we were moving forward, then it just stalled," she said. "I think that it is not a priority to our state or to our administration to have an active Environmental Council."
Steiner said council members have expressed concern that the group is being penalized possibly for ruling in 2007 that the state Department of Transportation erred when it exempted Superferry harbor improvements from an environmental review. That decision was later supported by a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that eventually led to the demise of the interisland ferry.
Though the administration pooh-poohed the connection it’s just another symptom of how the state apparatus- especially for environmental protection- is still addled by Lingle’s denial of what even proponents view as the boneheaded way she handed the Superferry EIS and how it continues to hamstring the state EIS process, having created a pissed off Environmental Council and an administration bent on revenge.
Hannemann and Lingle apparently share one thing- a pig-headed battering ram style that scares the heck out of those who have been looking forward to a change of approach in November.
Mufi’s pledge to bring back the same vessels- even though their size was half the reason for the bankruptcy- demonstrates just how much more damage there is to be done if a Hannemann administration gets it’s hands on the already damaged machinery of the state under the equally mentally and morally challenged Linda Lingle.
And as if to underline some of that damage, in an article about the delays in obtaining an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a UH coral reef research project it was reported that:
Part of the delay is that the state body that could grant UH an exemption to the EIS requirement has not met since Aug. 17 of last year...
The council tried to hold a meeting in late June, but was unable to book adequate state videoconference facilities, Steiner said.
"It seemed like we were moving forward, then it just stalled," she said. "I think that it is not a priority to our state or to our administration to have an active Environmental Council."
Steiner said council members have expressed concern that the group is being penalized possibly for ruling in 2007 that the state Department of Transportation erred when it exempted Superferry harbor improvements from an environmental review. That decision was later supported by a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that eventually led to the demise of the interisland ferry.
Though the administration pooh-poohed the connection it’s just another symptom of how the state apparatus- especially for environmental protection- is still addled by Lingle’s denial of what even proponents view as the boneheaded way she handed the Superferry EIS and how it continues to hamstring the state EIS process, having created a pissed off Environmental Council and an administration bent on revenge.
Hannemann and Lingle apparently share one thing- a pig-headed battering ram style that scares the heck out of those who have been looking forward to a change of approach in November.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
LET’S JUST VOTE ‘EM OFF THE ISLAND
LET’S JUST VOTE ‘EM OFF THE ISLAND: As we predicted two months ago the ACLU has immediately announced it’s filing suit on equal protection grounds after the also predicted veto of the civil unions bill by Governor Linda “Unified Command” Lingle.
It’s simply amazing that there are so many Neanderthals like those that Representatives Jimmy “Can’t Keep His Pants On” Tokioka and Roland “Ag Land Schmag Land” Sagum claimed to represent in voting against the bill.
But on Kaua`i the attitudes of a small group of committed bigots continues on their merry way to medieval days as also evidenced by the still rising number of sexual harassment suits and the growing number of governmental entitles that are involved.
You can add the feds to the list that includes the state judiciary and the county with the little hyped and buried news today (see last item) that:
The federal government has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a female firefighter employed at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.
ITT Corp., a high-technology engineering and manufacturing company based in White Plains, N.Y., was named in the suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court here by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The commission says the woman was sexually harassed and then retaliated against for complaining about the harassment.
It said male co-workers and supervisors repeatedly made overtly sexual remarks and watched sexually explicit television programs and videos at work in the woman's presence.
Just as no one is shocked that a bunch of religion-addled yahoos have foisted their insecurities about their own dysfunctional sex lives on those that can actually have a successful relationship with members of their own gender, no one is surprised that these same ass-wipes think it’s not just ok but their biblical right to harass women as if they were chattel.
It’s a shame we have to put up with these provincial pisants but getting them to change their psychopathic ways- especially in light of the way they are actually protected by all three braches of government on Kaua`i- tells us that we’ll probably just have to take care of them actuarially.
It’s simply amazing that there are so many Neanderthals like those that Representatives Jimmy “Can’t Keep His Pants On” Tokioka and Roland “Ag Land Schmag Land” Sagum claimed to represent in voting against the bill.
But on Kaua`i the attitudes of a small group of committed bigots continues on their merry way to medieval days as also evidenced by the still rising number of sexual harassment suits and the growing number of governmental entitles that are involved.
You can add the feds to the list that includes the state judiciary and the county with the little hyped and buried news today (see last item) that:
The federal government has filed a sex discrimination lawsuit on behalf of a female firefighter employed at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.
ITT Corp., a high-technology engineering and manufacturing company based in White Plains, N.Y., was named in the suit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court here by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The commission says the woman was sexually harassed and then retaliated against for complaining about the harassment.
It said male co-workers and supervisors repeatedly made overtly sexual remarks and watched sexually explicit television programs and videos at work in the woman's presence.
Just as no one is shocked that a bunch of religion-addled yahoos have foisted their insecurities about their own dysfunctional sex lives on those that can actually have a successful relationship with members of their own gender, no one is surprised that these same ass-wipes think it’s not just ok but their biblical right to harass women as if they were chattel.
It’s a shame we have to put up with these provincial pisants but getting them to change their psychopathic ways- especially in light of the way they are actually protected by all three braches of government on Kaua`i- tells us that we’ll probably just have to take care of them actuarially.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
HOCUS JOKUS
HOCUS JOKUS: Two weeks ago today we let loose on the homophobic religious community and their disingenuous shift from defense of the word “marriage” in 1998 to a slimy attempt to conflate civil unions with their precious “M” word today and the way the corporate media contributed to this, having previously cited a post by Honolulu Advertiser columnist Dave Shapiro as an example.
We said it gave Governor Linda “Dash to the Right” Lingle a way out of her 2002 campaign statement saying she supported domestic partnerships paving the way to an expected veto of HB 444, the civil unions bill.
Now, after Lingle said to a rabid hate group- the GOP state convention- this weekend that civil union is just another word for marriage it seems Shapiro is beginning to get the message saying her statement “would seem to end speculation about whether she intends to veto HB 444... By defining HB 444 as equivalent to marriage rather than domestic partnerships, she appears to be laying the groundwork for a veto that she can argue is consistent with her 2002 statement”.
In our May 4 post we attempted to lay out the real history of the way the bigot community had slithered into a redux rewrite of the ’98 debacle.
While falsely conflating “civil unions” and “same gender marriage” in the same breath they’ve drawn a line between the terms “domestic partnership” and “civil unions”- a conflation that in actuality was just an evolution of terminology... a distinction without a difference.
In perusing the comments on Shapiro’s own apparent evolution we came upon a pair that we thought were superior in clarity and historic value describing much the same thing we tried to get across a couple of weeks ago.
So since it’s getting harder to type with every character we’re re-posting a couple of blurbs from our friend “Kolea” today in hopes that his clarity can provide assistance in the coming months as the struggle for civil rights for same gender couples moves from the legislative to the judicial stage.
First he addresses the contention that there’s no difference between marriage and civil unions- the contention that members of the civil rights movement are somehow the ones playing word games in trying to pass a same gender marriage measure by calling it civil unions.
(edited for typos/spelling)
There is no ambiguity in the bill. It basically says that couples in a civil union shall have all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law. The real legal differences are that CUs will not be recognized by Federal law and in most other states. This last point is not a minor consideration. A couple married in Hawaii would have their marriage recognized in other states, so common property laws, visitation rights, inheritance, etc are portable. When a married couple from Hawaii moves to another state and, tens years down the road decide to split up, there is a well-defined legal structure for dissolving that relationship, the divorce laws. Not so with civil unions.
The civil union advocates are not being "crafty" about any of this. They WANT full marriage equality. All couples, regardless of sexual orientation, should be married under the same law. No "Separate But Equal." And no "Separate But Unequal."
But because social conservatives are irrationally attached to the word "marriage" and resist extending it to same sex couples, the Civil Union advocates decided a couple of years ago to postpone the demand for full marriage equality and accept the lesser rights of "Civil Unions" AS A STEP TOWARDS FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY.
So rather than being "crafty" or dishonest, the advocates were making a concession to social conservatives in the hopes they would be mollified. 18 months is a long time, but prior to the start of the 2009 legislative session, it was extremely common for many conservatives to say about the issue:
"I am willing to support equal rights to gay couples, but why do they INSIST upon calling it 'marriage'? Marriage is only for a man and a woman. They should call it something else."
Once GLBT community acceded to that demand in the hopes of a compromise, the Right shifted their position and started saying, "Aha! These crafty gays are playing word games! They are still demanding marriage, but under a different name!"
I'll let you in on a secret plot. Marriage equality advocates are willing to accept civil unions as a temporary settlement. It is their belief, it is also MY belief, that civil unions will grant meaningful rights to gay and lesbian couples now, that the vast majority of "straight" people will come to recognize gay couples as their friends and neighbors rather than some scary or weird "other," and acceptance of full marriage equality will quickly become the dominant attitude in the community.
Then he gives the background of the real apparent disingenuity in many of the statements made back in ’98 as opposed to those from the same people now.
Dave,
While I agree with your overall account, I think you are making more of a distinction between civil unions and "domestic partnerships" than was understood at the time of Lingle's promise to the gay and lesbian community in 2002. The terms have evolved and become distinct in Hawaii in only the last few years. In the 90s, the "some of the rights" package was called "reciprocal beneficiaries," and "domestic partnership" was a stronger concept, meaning, essentially, all the rights and benefits of marriage but without the title. In some states, the law reflects this and "domestic partnership" is exactly equivalent to what we are now calling "civil unions in Hawaii.
Since we are engaging in time travel in order to understand the context of her pledge, readers might be surprised to know that as recently as 2002, all three major candidates for Governor: Case, Hirono and Lingle, were actively courting the leadership of the gay and lesbian community.
During the fight over the 1998 constitutional amendment on marriage, Case and Hirono had both been strong defenders of equal marriage rights. Lingle had NOT been. But Lingle still had a strong core group of lesbian activists who were personally committed to her and the issue of who the community would support was very much in contention.
A series of presentations were made at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center by the candidates. At her presentation, Lingle was questioned about the constitutional amendment and whether she would veto a bill for same sex marriage if it were to cross her desk. She said she would not support same sex marriage but if the legislature were to pass a domestic partnership bill and it came across her desk, she would allow it to become law without her signature.
Again, what was meant by "domestic partnership" in those days was the same thing as what is currently being called "civil unions." Lingle's promise was not just another campaign pledge, it was an explicit promise made to a specific group of people, some of whom went on to work hard for her election. After the election, she did support efforts to create a local chapter of a gay GOP organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, even featuring a speaker from the organization at a GOP Hawaii state convention.
But those were different times. Lingle was first elected as a moderate, even "liberal" Republican. There is very little tolerance today in the national GOP and that has spread to Hawaii, where the moderates have traditionally dominated the party leadership and membership. They are now laying low, hiding their beliefs, going along with the enraged right wing. There are a few noble exceptions, but Lingle is not one of them.
Lingle's betrayal of her campaign promise is just confirming the cynicism of people who had relied upon her word. In the last few months, I have heard gay activists repeatedly say they expected her, in the final lonely minute, to remain true to her promise and her inner truth.
She is not just breaking a campaign pledge. If she vetoes this, she is betraying her sisters who supported her, defended her and worked hard for her election. I think her ambitions for success in an ever more reactionary national GOP will trump the public pledge she made to those sisters in that room, back in 2002.
We said it gave Governor Linda “Dash to the Right” Lingle a way out of her 2002 campaign statement saying she supported domestic partnerships paving the way to an expected veto of HB 444, the civil unions bill.
Now, after Lingle said to a rabid hate group- the GOP state convention- this weekend that civil union is just another word for marriage it seems Shapiro is beginning to get the message saying her statement “would seem to end speculation about whether she intends to veto HB 444... By defining HB 444 as equivalent to marriage rather than domestic partnerships, she appears to be laying the groundwork for a veto that she can argue is consistent with her 2002 statement”.
In our May 4 post we attempted to lay out the real history of the way the bigot community had slithered into a redux rewrite of the ’98 debacle.
While falsely conflating “civil unions” and “same gender marriage” in the same breath they’ve drawn a line between the terms “domestic partnership” and “civil unions”- a conflation that in actuality was just an evolution of terminology... a distinction without a difference.
In perusing the comments on Shapiro’s own apparent evolution we came upon a pair that we thought were superior in clarity and historic value describing much the same thing we tried to get across a couple of weeks ago.
So since it’s getting harder to type with every character we’re re-posting a couple of blurbs from our friend “Kolea” today in hopes that his clarity can provide assistance in the coming months as the struggle for civil rights for same gender couples moves from the legislative to the judicial stage.
First he addresses the contention that there’s no difference between marriage and civil unions- the contention that members of the civil rights movement are somehow the ones playing word games in trying to pass a same gender marriage measure by calling it civil unions.
(edited for typos/spelling)
There is no ambiguity in the bill. It basically says that couples in a civil union shall have all the rights and responsibilities of marriage under state law. The real legal differences are that CUs will not be recognized by Federal law and in most other states. This last point is not a minor consideration. A couple married in Hawaii would have their marriage recognized in other states, so common property laws, visitation rights, inheritance, etc are portable. When a married couple from Hawaii moves to another state and, tens years down the road decide to split up, there is a well-defined legal structure for dissolving that relationship, the divorce laws. Not so with civil unions.
The civil union advocates are not being "crafty" about any of this. They WANT full marriage equality. All couples, regardless of sexual orientation, should be married under the same law. No "Separate But Equal." And no "Separate But Unequal."
But because social conservatives are irrationally attached to the word "marriage" and resist extending it to same sex couples, the Civil Union advocates decided a couple of years ago to postpone the demand for full marriage equality and accept the lesser rights of "Civil Unions" AS A STEP TOWARDS FULL MARRIAGE EQUALITY.
So rather than being "crafty" or dishonest, the advocates were making a concession to social conservatives in the hopes they would be mollified. 18 months is a long time, but prior to the start of the 2009 legislative session, it was extremely common for many conservatives to say about the issue:
"I am willing to support equal rights to gay couples, but why do they INSIST upon calling it 'marriage'? Marriage is only for a man and a woman. They should call it something else."
Once GLBT community acceded to that demand in the hopes of a compromise, the Right shifted their position and started saying, "Aha! These crafty gays are playing word games! They are still demanding marriage, but under a different name!"
I'll let you in on a secret plot. Marriage equality advocates are willing to accept civil unions as a temporary settlement. It is their belief, it is also MY belief, that civil unions will grant meaningful rights to gay and lesbian couples now, that the vast majority of "straight" people will come to recognize gay couples as their friends and neighbors rather than some scary or weird "other," and acceptance of full marriage equality will quickly become the dominant attitude in the community.
Then he gives the background of the real apparent disingenuity in many of the statements made back in ’98 as opposed to those from the same people now.
Dave,
While I agree with your overall account, I think you are making more of a distinction between civil unions and "domestic partnerships" than was understood at the time of Lingle's promise to the gay and lesbian community in 2002. The terms have evolved and become distinct in Hawaii in only the last few years. In the 90s, the "some of the rights" package was called "reciprocal beneficiaries," and "domestic partnership" was a stronger concept, meaning, essentially, all the rights and benefits of marriage but without the title. In some states, the law reflects this and "domestic partnership" is exactly equivalent to what we are now calling "civil unions in Hawaii.
Since we are engaging in time travel in order to understand the context of her pledge, readers might be surprised to know that as recently as 2002, all three major candidates for Governor: Case, Hirono and Lingle, were actively courting the leadership of the gay and lesbian community.
During the fight over the 1998 constitutional amendment on marriage, Case and Hirono had both been strong defenders of equal marriage rights. Lingle had NOT been. But Lingle still had a strong core group of lesbian activists who were personally committed to her and the issue of who the community would support was very much in contention.
A series of presentations were made at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center by the candidates. At her presentation, Lingle was questioned about the constitutional amendment and whether she would veto a bill for same sex marriage if it were to cross her desk. She said she would not support same sex marriage but if the legislature were to pass a domestic partnership bill and it came across her desk, she would allow it to become law without her signature.
Again, what was meant by "domestic partnership" in those days was the same thing as what is currently being called "civil unions." Lingle's promise was not just another campaign pledge, it was an explicit promise made to a specific group of people, some of whom went on to work hard for her election. After the election, she did support efforts to create a local chapter of a gay GOP organization, the Log Cabin Republicans, even featuring a speaker from the organization at a GOP Hawaii state convention.
But those were different times. Lingle was first elected as a moderate, even "liberal" Republican. There is very little tolerance today in the national GOP and that has spread to Hawaii, where the moderates have traditionally dominated the party leadership and membership. They are now laying low, hiding their beliefs, going along with the enraged right wing. There are a few noble exceptions, but Lingle is not one of them.
Lingle's betrayal of her campaign promise is just confirming the cynicism of people who had relied upon her word. In the last few months, I have heard gay activists repeatedly say they expected her, in the final lonely minute, to remain true to her promise and her inner truth.
She is not just breaking a campaign pledge. If she vetoes this, she is betraying her sisters who supported her, defended her and worked hard for her election. I think her ambitions for success in an ever more reactionary national GOP will trump the public pledge she made to those sisters in that room, back in 2002.
Friday, April 30, 2010
LET THE GOOD GUY WIN EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE
LET THE GOOD GUY WIN EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE: The “last minute” maneuver in the state house to pass the civil-unions bill- HB 444- was still quite a shock to the system despite the fact that we’d heard that a massive push was underway by civil rights activists in Honolulu including some pretty intense one-on-one lobbying of house members by those with access.
Process geeks like us can check out Derrick DePledge’s blow by blow live twittering to find out how it came down.
It was aided by, if there’s such a thing within a legislative body, a grassroots effort by a handful of house members that greased the skids on promoting access and putting their own time and effort into convincing their colleagues to force the vote.
Next time you see Mina Morita give her a hug.
But what strikes us is the brilliant political move of the activist in letting the sleeping dog lie as the session wore suckering the bigots and religious zealots into complacency and do their work under the radar.
Now for the next six months we’re going to hear the big lie that’s becoming the popular rallying cry for many of the wing-nuts and, well, nut-case groups in general... that they are some kind of overwhelming majority even when their ranks are far outnumbered.
Whether it’s the same 18% (in a NY Times poll) of the populace that makes up the tea partiers- the same percentage that supported the war criminals by the end of the last administration- who bafflingly maintain they speak for the majority or the dog ladies on Kaua`i who claim “everybody” wants to engage their dirty smelly mutts when they go down to the ocean (and designed a push survey to prove it) it’s the latest in bogus lobbying through lies.
If you don’t have the majority on your side, just say you do over and over and get the press to report that you said it in their “he said she said” coverage.
Which is why we’ve got to make sure that if the homophobic lobby is going to try to make the November election about this we’ve gotta make sure we turn out and both support those who supported civil rights and replace those who didn’t- or keep those new candidates who don’t on the outside.
Here on Kaua`i the no votes came from the always bigoted Jimmy Tokioka and his west side cohort Roland Sagum. We can only hope good candidates will come forward to challenge them.
But assuming a Lingle veto- meaning we’d have to start from scratch in 2011- we’re going to need someone to sign the bill next year and that leaves only Neil Abercrombie.
Most know that Duke Aiona is generally one of the worst religion-addled ass-wipes around. But fewer know that the corrupt Mayor of Honolulu Mufi Hannemann opposes civil unions too.
Candidates aside our most daunting task will be to make sure that the other big lie- that civil unions are somehow related to same gender marriage- is put to rest by November... and that includes whenever some well meaning pea-brains like Jerry Burris conflates them as he did in today’s Honolulu Advertiser... just as columnist Dave Shapiro did as we mentioned last week.
Whatever Ms. Ding-a-Lingle decides to do we’ve go our work cut out for us on this one.
Process geeks like us can check out Derrick DePledge’s blow by blow live twittering to find out how it came down.
It was aided by, if there’s such a thing within a legislative body, a grassroots effort by a handful of house members that greased the skids on promoting access and putting their own time and effort into convincing their colleagues to force the vote.
Next time you see Mina Morita give her a hug.
But what strikes us is the brilliant political move of the activist in letting the sleeping dog lie as the session wore suckering the bigots and religious zealots into complacency and do their work under the radar.
Now for the next six months we’re going to hear the big lie that’s becoming the popular rallying cry for many of the wing-nuts and, well, nut-case groups in general... that they are some kind of overwhelming majority even when their ranks are far outnumbered.
Whether it’s the same 18% (in a NY Times poll) of the populace that makes up the tea partiers- the same percentage that supported the war criminals by the end of the last administration- who bafflingly maintain they speak for the majority or the dog ladies on Kaua`i who claim “everybody” wants to engage their dirty smelly mutts when they go down to the ocean (and designed a push survey to prove it) it’s the latest in bogus lobbying through lies.
If you don’t have the majority on your side, just say you do over and over and get the press to report that you said it in their “he said she said” coverage.
Which is why we’ve got to make sure that if the homophobic lobby is going to try to make the November election about this we’ve gotta make sure we turn out and both support those who supported civil rights and replace those who didn’t- or keep those new candidates who don’t on the outside.
Here on Kaua`i the no votes came from the always bigoted Jimmy Tokioka and his west side cohort Roland Sagum. We can only hope good candidates will come forward to challenge them.
But assuming a Lingle veto- meaning we’d have to start from scratch in 2011- we’re going to need someone to sign the bill next year and that leaves only Neil Abercrombie.
Most know that Duke Aiona is generally one of the worst religion-addled ass-wipes around. But fewer know that the corrupt Mayor of Honolulu Mufi Hannemann opposes civil unions too.
Candidates aside our most daunting task will be to make sure that the other big lie- that civil unions are somehow related to same gender marriage- is put to rest by November... and that includes whenever some well meaning pea-brains like Jerry Burris conflates them as he did in today’s Honolulu Advertiser... just as columnist Dave Shapiro did as we mentioned last week.
Whatever Ms. Ding-a-Lingle decides to do we’ve go our work cut out for us on this one.
Friday, February 5, 2010
LYIN’ DOG AND SLEEPIN’ BABY
LYIN’ DOG AND SLEEPIN’ BABY: Our Monday ridicule of the county’s explanation for why they paid $7.5 million in the Ka Loko Dam tragedy lawsuit while the state only paid $1.5 million elicited two quite opposite responses from readers.
While one close to the story said we pretty much got it right another challenged our interpretation asking for specific references.
In attempting to debunk County Attorney Al Castillo’s contention that “the difference between the state’s portion of the settlement and the county’s had little to do with culpability, and instead reflected financial realities and state law regarding immunity” and show it had everything in the world to do with culpability we noted that there had to be some kind of gross misconduct or even malfeasance on the part of the state to override any general immunity.
So we turned to the Hawaii Dam and Reservoir Safety Act (DRSA [§179D]) and found yes, the state has a pretty much blanket immunity regarding dams and reservoirs in that “no action or failure to act under this chapter shall be construed to create any liability in the State” [§179D-4] .
And yes that can be overridden by “willful acts or negligence by the board or its agents” [§179D-6] in certain situations- the precise situation that occurred between the state and the county in failing to “enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir”.
In other words it’s even worse than we suspected in terms of culpability of the county because it seems it was indeed the county’s willful inactions that precipitated the state’s liability in the case.
Those that sat through the marathon year-and-a-half “Developers Gone Wild” Kaua`i County Council grubbing and grading investigations will remember that a good deal of it dealt with asking then-Acting County Engineer Ian Costa and Chief of Engineering Division Wally Kudo why the heck they didn’t just go onto Jimmy Pflueger’s (and Tom McCloskey’s) properties and inspect them.
Though they had the legal right to do so they claimed it was a lot more difficult for them to do it than the state, needing assistance from the county attorney’s office and the courts.
At that point members of the council got them to say they would try to work with the Department of and Natural Resources (DLNR) which oversees the DRSA and is specifically “authorized to enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir as may be necessary in making, at the owner's expense, any investigation or inspection required or authorized by this chapter”.
Presuming that, under pressure from the council- and despite the interference of then Mayor Maryanne Kusaka who according to an internal memo from one of Kudo’s underlings squelched any action against landowner Jimmy Pflueger- Kudo and Costa contacted DLNR to have them assist them, and again presuming that the DLNR failed to assist them- as evidenced by the fact that it eventually took the federal EPA to come in and enter the property- it would seem that the state’s liability consisted entirely of a small ancillary amount of grossly negligent culpability in the county’s malfeasance and misconduct.
That, if anything, makes Castillo’s contention that
While the County believed it had viable defenses, joint and several liability applied in this case. Had the County lost at trial with the other defendants, we could have ended up having to pay almost everything, not just the percentage the jury assigned to us
even more absurd because it would seem that if anything it was the state that gambled that, by virtue of having even “deeper pockets” than the county, paying their relatively small share was better than trying to show it was entirely the county’s fault in that any “negligence” was primarily purely driven by the county’s actions and inactions.
The responsibility for the whole debacle- and therefore the deaths of the seven people who died primarily due their concerted effort to obstruct justice- seems to sit squarely in the laps of Kusaka, Coast and Kudo.
According to the DRSA [§179D-8b]:
Any person who negligently or after written notice to comply, violates this chapter or any rule, order, or condition adopted, issued, or required under this chapter, or knowingly obstructs, hinders, or prevents the department's agents or employees from performing duties under this chapter, shall be guilty of a class C felony.
Why the trio are not facing criminal charges along with Pflueger is a question that must be addressed by Kusaka’s fellow Republican Linda Lingle’s Attorney General Mark Bennett who is selectively and personally prosecuting Pflueger in a trial scheduled for this summer.
But the question one person who knew the seven who died rhetorically asked us recently- “how does Kusaka sleep at night”- is one only she can answer.
Only a true sociopath could.
While one close to the story said we pretty much got it right another challenged our interpretation asking for specific references.
In attempting to debunk County Attorney Al Castillo’s contention that “the difference between the state’s portion of the settlement and the county’s had little to do with culpability, and instead reflected financial realities and state law regarding immunity” and show it had everything in the world to do with culpability we noted that there had to be some kind of gross misconduct or even malfeasance on the part of the state to override any general immunity.
So we turned to the Hawaii Dam and Reservoir Safety Act (DRSA [§179D]) and found yes, the state has a pretty much blanket immunity regarding dams and reservoirs in that “no action or failure to act under this chapter shall be construed to create any liability in the State” [§179D-4] .
And yes that can be overridden by “willful acts or negligence by the board or its agents” [§179D-6] in certain situations- the precise situation that occurred between the state and the county in failing to “enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir”.
In other words it’s even worse than we suspected in terms of culpability of the county because it seems it was indeed the county’s willful inactions that precipitated the state’s liability in the case.
Those that sat through the marathon year-and-a-half “Developers Gone Wild” Kaua`i County Council grubbing and grading investigations will remember that a good deal of it dealt with asking then-Acting County Engineer Ian Costa and Chief of Engineering Division Wally Kudo why the heck they didn’t just go onto Jimmy Pflueger’s (and Tom McCloskey’s) properties and inspect them.
Though they had the legal right to do so they claimed it was a lot more difficult for them to do it than the state, needing assistance from the county attorney’s office and the courts.
At that point members of the council got them to say they would try to work with the Department of and Natural Resources (DLNR) which oversees the DRSA and is specifically “authorized to enter upon such private property of the dam or reservoir as may be necessary in making, at the owner's expense, any investigation or inspection required or authorized by this chapter”.
Presuming that, under pressure from the council- and despite the interference of then Mayor Maryanne Kusaka who according to an internal memo from one of Kudo’s underlings squelched any action against landowner Jimmy Pflueger- Kudo and Costa contacted DLNR to have them assist them, and again presuming that the DLNR failed to assist them- as evidenced by the fact that it eventually took the federal EPA to come in and enter the property- it would seem that the state’s liability consisted entirely of a small ancillary amount of grossly negligent culpability in the county’s malfeasance and misconduct.
That, if anything, makes Castillo’s contention that
While the County believed it had viable defenses, joint and several liability applied in this case. Had the County lost at trial with the other defendants, we could have ended up having to pay almost everything, not just the percentage the jury assigned to us
even more absurd because it would seem that if anything it was the state that gambled that, by virtue of having even “deeper pockets” than the county, paying their relatively small share was better than trying to show it was entirely the county’s fault in that any “negligence” was primarily purely driven by the county’s actions and inactions.
The responsibility for the whole debacle- and therefore the deaths of the seven people who died primarily due their concerted effort to obstruct justice- seems to sit squarely in the laps of Kusaka, Coast and Kudo.
According to the DRSA [§179D-8b]:
Any person who negligently or after written notice to comply, violates this chapter or any rule, order, or condition adopted, issued, or required under this chapter, or knowingly obstructs, hinders, or prevents the department's agents or employees from performing duties under this chapter, shall be guilty of a class C felony.
Why the trio are not facing criminal charges along with Pflueger is a question that must be addressed by Kusaka’s fellow Republican Linda Lingle’s Attorney General Mark Bennett who is selectively and personally prosecuting Pflueger in a trial scheduled for this summer.
But the question one person who knew the seven who died rhetorically asked us recently- “how does Kusaka sleep at night”- is one only she can answer.
Only a true sociopath could.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
GOING ROGUER
GOING ROGUER: Although we are pretty obsessive about keeping up with local and statewide news reports- not as much for the content but for what kind of pabulum we’re being fed- we do miss things.
But we’re pretty sure that the 2010 plans of Linda “Stepford Wife” Lingle isn’t among them.
She’s been rumored to be movin' on up to the east side of the country in the event the Democrats continue to screw up their unscrew-up-able 2008 mandate to end the war and reverse the constitution shredding and her Republicans take over once again. It would be understandable if she skips town taut suite in ’10 considering what all but the most knee-jerk of partisan GOPers know to be a corruption-plagued comically inept administration-by-press-conference.
But there are those who think she will yet challenge Sen. Dan Inouye who’s up for rubber-stamping next November or even try to fill the seat Congressperson Neil Abercrombie is vacating to run for her term-limited office.
That’s why it’s strange that apparently no one in the horse-race obsessed corporate press seemed to notice a Lingle-penned column that ran in our local Kauai paper this weekend.
After a few paragraphs of self promotional blather Lingle writes quite unequivocally “I want the people of Hawai`i to know that I will not be seeking another elected office in 2010”.
Now it’s understandable in that when 99% of readers saw the headline “Continuing the Journey” and the byline in the newspaper or read the “tease” on-line saying “(f)or the past seven years, it has been my honor and privilege to serve as Governor of our great State of Hawai`i”, they rolled their eyes and went on to the next story.
No one wants to read the usual kind of self congratulatory crap, revisionist history or politically-tone-deaf proposals that she is famous for- probably not even the local editors who took a “plop it in the newshole” approach to the copy.
It’s a well-worn political PR tactic to go to the smallest 'burb in the constituency for a “soft” announcement of somewhat embarrassing news and the expected “well she couldn’t win a race for dogcatcher these days” response could well have motivated Lingle to keep the news a bit spongy.
Unless we missed it in the Honolulu papers expect to see her announcement that she’s going fully lame-duck to permeate the MSM pretty soon.
Either way, the news we won’t have Ding-A-Lingle to kick around anymore can’t come a moment too soon.
But we’re pretty sure that the 2010 plans of Linda “Stepford Wife” Lingle isn’t among them.
She’s been rumored to be movin' on up to the east side of the country in the event the Democrats continue to screw up their unscrew-up-able 2008 mandate to end the war and reverse the constitution shredding and her Republicans take over once again. It would be understandable if she skips town taut suite in ’10 considering what all but the most knee-jerk of partisan GOPers know to be a corruption-plagued comically inept administration-by-press-conference.
But there are those who think she will yet challenge Sen. Dan Inouye who’s up for rubber-stamping next November or even try to fill the seat Congressperson Neil Abercrombie is vacating to run for her term-limited office.
That’s why it’s strange that apparently no one in the horse-race obsessed corporate press seemed to notice a Lingle-penned column that ran in our local Kauai paper this weekend.
After a few paragraphs of self promotional blather Lingle writes quite unequivocally “I want the people of Hawai`i to know that I will not be seeking another elected office in 2010”.
Now it’s understandable in that when 99% of readers saw the headline “Continuing the Journey” and the byline in the newspaper or read the “tease” on-line saying “(f)or the past seven years, it has been my honor and privilege to serve as Governor of our great State of Hawai`i”, they rolled their eyes and went on to the next story.
No one wants to read the usual kind of self congratulatory crap, revisionist history or politically-tone-deaf proposals that she is famous for- probably not even the local editors who took a “plop it in the newshole” approach to the copy.
It’s a well-worn political PR tactic to go to the smallest 'burb in the constituency for a “soft” announcement of somewhat embarrassing news and the expected “well she couldn’t win a race for dogcatcher these days” response could well have motivated Lingle to keep the news a bit spongy.
Unless we missed it in the Honolulu papers expect to see her announcement that she’s going fully lame-duck to permeate the MSM pretty soon.
Either way, the news we won’t have Ding-A-Lingle to kick around anymore can’t come a moment too soon.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
THAT DOG NEVER DID HUNT
THAT DOG NEVER DID HUNT: The Superferry is making headlines again today but as Joan Conrow pointed out this morning, the Honolulu Advertiser’s story missed the mark in reporting that “Hawaii Superferry wants to abandon both its catamarans when the real story, as reported in the Mobile (AL) Press Register (P-R), is that it was anything but about what Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) Inc. wanted to do but rather about the fact that the “Government (is) to repossess Hawaii Superferry”
One things that stands out is a discrepancy between how much of their “investment” in the project HSf maker Austal is eating on the deal, with the Advertiser reporting the figure at $29.9 million and the P-R saying it is only 11 of that 29 million that they will “write off”.
As Joan points out a key passage in the P-R article- at least for those of us who have seen through all the gorilla dust and spin and seen how the project was always about demonstrating the aluminum catamaran design of Austal’s so that they could get the huge military contract they have now signed- says:
Browning said that Austal approved lending $23 million to the ferry venture in part because the deal would help raise the profile of Austal's U.S. shipyard, which at the time had been operating in Mobile for only a few years. Although it succeeded in doing that — the Mobile shipyard in November won a potential $1.6 billion contract to build up to 10 high-speed fast ferries for the military — Browning said the company's lending days are over.
But another couple of passages in the P-R article were, well, pretty outrageous, the first saying
Talks among MARAD, Austal and Hawaii Superferry broke down last week, Austal officials said....
Austal Ltd. President Bob Browning said he was disappointed that MARAD decided to seize the ferries without involving Austal in a project to prepare them for military use.
Maybe Austal is “disappointed” but that is certainly good news for HSf- it seems that the “taxpayer guarantee” is now being “activated” which lets the owners off the hook for trying to find work for the apparently unwanted ferry, as evidenced by the lack of interest thus far in leasing the vessels even to the military.
But the bombshell in this, if true, might just be this sentence:
MARAD made the ferry loans under its Title XI program, which is supposed to support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work.
With what we know now about how the whole deal went down in order to have Austal positioned to do military work, the fact that MARAD- the U.S. Maritime Administration- made the loan to “support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work” points to one conclusion- the whole deal was a fraud.
Austal has admitted as much by saying publicly and repeatedly that their “investment” was in order to prove the ferry’s seaworthiness so it could eventually rely on military work, while knowing full well of the thus-far-unreported “strings attached” to the MARAD loan.
And by fraud we don’t mean just some petty theft- we’re talking about defrauding the taxpayer out of $136.8 million.
If nothing else it goes a long way in explaining the constant, adamant denial of military involvement in the venture- for no good reason- in the face the mounting evidence, as first reported by Conrow.
It also raises the question of what the liability of former Naval Secretary John Lehman may be now that MARAD has stepped in. Funny how he personally seems to be getting away scot-free, at least financially, when it was his machinations that cost everyone big bucks, including the Hawai`i taxpayers who will probably never see the $40 million Harbor improvements Governor Linda Lingle’s “Unified command” was duped out of .
As a matter of fact, he may turn a profit since, as the Advertiser article reports:
The company has no current source of revenue yet has to cover the cost of insurance, maintenance, security, storage and a skeleton crew for the catamarans at an Alabama shipyard owned by J.F. Lehman & Co., the project's main private investor.
So Lehman gets off from any financial responsibility for the fiasco he created and is most likely collecting “maintenance storage, security, and (salaries for) a skeleton crew” now that MARAD has taken “possession” of the boats.
We’ll see what happens in bankruptcy court where proceedings are now taking place in Delaware although the state is trying to move them to Hawai`i. But due to the insane bankruptcy laws that allow fat cats to form “limited liability” companies and duck out of obligations through bankruptcy yet stick working class credit card and home debtors with paying back every penny, don’t expect Lehman to be crying all the way to the bank.
---------
Correction:
Yesterday we said that Councilman Darryl Kaneshiro served in the Eduardo Malapit administration as Mala’s “Administrative Assistant”, a second-in-command “assistant mayor” position as defined in the county charter.
Rather, Kaneshiro’s service was in the administration of Tony Kunimura where he served as economic development director and, apparently, as a generic administrative aide. We regret the error.
One things that stands out is a discrepancy between how much of their “investment” in the project HSf maker Austal is eating on the deal, with the Advertiser reporting the figure at $29.9 million and the P-R saying it is only 11 of that 29 million that they will “write off”.
As Joan points out a key passage in the P-R article- at least for those of us who have seen through all the gorilla dust and spin and seen how the project was always about demonstrating the aluminum catamaran design of Austal’s so that they could get the huge military contract they have now signed- says:
Browning said that Austal approved lending $23 million to the ferry venture in part because the deal would help raise the profile of Austal's U.S. shipyard, which at the time had been operating in Mobile for only a few years. Although it succeeded in doing that — the Mobile shipyard in November won a potential $1.6 billion contract to build up to 10 high-speed fast ferries for the military — Browning said the company's lending days are over.
But another couple of passages in the P-R article were, well, pretty outrageous, the first saying
Talks among MARAD, Austal and Hawaii Superferry broke down last week, Austal officials said....
Austal Ltd. President Bob Browning said he was disappointed that MARAD decided to seize the ferries without involving Austal in a project to prepare them for military use.
Maybe Austal is “disappointed” but that is certainly good news for HSf- it seems that the “taxpayer guarantee” is now being “activated” which lets the owners off the hook for trying to find work for the apparently unwanted ferry, as evidenced by the lack of interest thus far in leasing the vessels even to the military.
But the bombshell in this, if true, might just be this sentence:
MARAD made the ferry loans under its Title XI program, which is supposed to support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work.
With what we know now about how the whole deal went down in order to have Austal positioned to do military work, the fact that MARAD- the U.S. Maritime Administration- made the loan to “support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work” points to one conclusion- the whole deal was a fraud.
Austal has admitted as much by saying publicly and repeatedly that their “investment” was in order to prove the ferry’s seaworthiness so it could eventually rely on military work, while knowing full well of the thus-far-unreported “strings attached” to the MARAD loan.
And by fraud we don’t mean just some petty theft- we’re talking about defrauding the taxpayer out of $136.8 million.
If nothing else it goes a long way in explaining the constant, adamant denial of military involvement in the venture- for no good reason- in the face the mounting evidence, as first reported by Conrow.
It also raises the question of what the liability of former Naval Secretary John Lehman may be now that MARAD has stepped in. Funny how he personally seems to be getting away scot-free, at least financially, when it was his machinations that cost everyone big bucks, including the Hawai`i taxpayers who will probably never see the $40 million Harbor improvements Governor Linda Lingle’s “Unified command” was duped out of .
As a matter of fact, he may turn a profit since, as the Advertiser article reports:
The company has no current source of revenue yet has to cover the cost of insurance, maintenance, security, storage and a skeleton crew for the catamarans at an Alabama shipyard owned by J.F. Lehman & Co., the project's main private investor.
So Lehman gets off from any financial responsibility for the fiasco he created and is most likely collecting “maintenance storage, security, and (salaries for) a skeleton crew” now that MARAD has taken “possession” of the boats.
We’ll see what happens in bankruptcy court where proceedings are now taking place in Delaware although the state is trying to move them to Hawai`i. But due to the insane bankruptcy laws that allow fat cats to form “limited liability” companies and duck out of obligations through bankruptcy yet stick working class credit card and home debtors with paying back every penny, don’t expect Lehman to be crying all the way to the bank.
---------
Correction:
Yesterday we said that Councilman Darryl Kaneshiro served in the Eduardo Malapit administration as Mala’s “Administrative Assistant”, a second-in-command “assistant mayor” position as defined in the county charter.
Rather, Kaneshiro’s service was in the administration of Tony Kunimura where he served as economic development director and, apparently, as a generic administrative aide. We regret the error.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
BARKING IN THE DARK
BARKING IN THE DARK: The Sunshine Law in Hawai`i is known nation-wide as one of the best. Yet in situ, access to government records and meetings is acknowledged to be pitiful.
One of the main “jokes” in the law is that the open meetings requirements that the state legislature has enacted, apply to the others but not themselves.
That’s especially true of the notice requirements that force county councils and state and county boards and commissions to publish virtually un-amendable agendas at least six days before they meet.
Not so the legislature. There is only a two day notice requirement on the books and it has so many loopholes at so many points in the four month session that even that notice doesn’t happen sometimes.
In practice there are two speeds a which legislation moves- lightning fast and zero mph. A bill might sit in an acceptable form for months and literally overnight be amended in a way never contemplated by anyone and moved to a full vote.
But even if the two day notice is given that still makes it impossible for councils, boards and commissions to fairly consider and testify on measures that effect them, because in order to even discuss them they need to put them on an agenda six days in advance of meeting.
That’s only one of the reasons why county councils across the state have asked the legislature to either get them out from under the Sunshine Law or subject themselves to the same restrictions, which go way beyond just notice requirements.
So it’s especially strange that the one Sunshine-related measure passed into law this year- one that hasn’t received any “ink” (or bandwidth) that we can find- was Senate Bill 438, now Act 24, that allows the Board of Education- and only the BOE- to “file any notice that specifies only legislation or legislation-related agenda items, no fewer than two calendar days before the meeting” while the legislature is in session.
The bill passed into law without Governor Linda Lingle’s signature and her statement of concern starts off making a good point by saying
I am concerned that making an exception to shorten the time requirement for filing meeting notices may not be the correct approach for resolving the issue of responding to legislation in a timely manner.
I am also concerned that this bill will allow for special treatment of the Board of Education under the Sunshine Law, as no other board or commission will be provided with the same exception provided under this bill. This bill will require the Office of Information Practices to make a distinction for the Board of Education and treat it differently from the numerous other boards and commissions that must also respond to tight legislative deadlines.
Moreover, because the Sunshine Law, like the Uniform Information Practices Act, is supposed to be administered uniformly across all agencies and boards, creating a special exception for only the Board of Education sets an unnecessary precedent.
I call upon the Legislature to address in a comprehensive manner the conflicts between the Sunshine Law and legislative notices that provide inadequate time for boards, commissions, and the public to respond.
But if hopes that she would call on the legislature to conform with the notice requirements for others were raised by that premise, her conclusion is one that goes in the direction of less sunshine rather than more, saying
At a minimum, the Legislature should consider revising emergency meeting procedures for all boards and commissions that should be afforded the opportunity to comment on pending legislation.
Though on the surface that might seem like a reasonable solution it is one that fulfils the fears that the step in the wrong direction that this legislation embodies makes the slope all the more slippery.
The nuts and bolts problem addressed in the new law is one of many presented by the legislature’s exemption from the Sunshine Law, supposedly because the legislature meets in a hurry up and wait four month session.
That in and of itself is problematic and leads to flawed legislation every year. This year already it has been reported that the new cigarette tax may not be able to be implemented because the two bills that deal with it are inconstant.
The pitfalls of the four month session and exemption allow county councils to argue that they should be exempt too if only as a matter of fairness because to ask the legislature to follow the Sunshine Law would be to ask them to fully reform the way they conduct business and require a constitutional amendment.
But participation in government process is the foundation of democracy and, as Thomas Jefferson said, the solution to the messiness of democracy is more democracy, not less.
Every year some “problem” posed by the legislature’s four month session crops up and is the subject of proposed legislation that tinkers around the edges, usually producing a less than acceptable bill that dies because the piecemeal approach to legislation rarely makes for good lawmaking
Yet when these bills do pass and they’re flawed many times it’s because, in the rush of a short, rigid schedule, those in the public who might be able to offer a better way or at least point out the potential flaws are shut out by the lack of sunshine in the legislative process.
To use the problems posed to create less participation, as this new laws does, is a step in the wrong direction. But until people get fed up enough to demand a change to a year-round legislature with full-time legislators bad laws produced in the dark will be the order of the day.
One of the main “jokes” in the law is that the open meetings requirements that the state legislature has enacted, apply to the others but not themselves.
That’s especially true of the notice requirements that force county councils and state and county boards and commissions to publish virtually un-amendable agendas at least six days before they meet.
Not so the legislature. There is only a two day notice requirement on the books and it has so many loopholes at so many points in the four month session that even that notice doesn’t happen sometimes.
In practice there are two speeds a which legislation moves- lightning fast and zero mph. A bill might sit in an acceptable form for months and literally overnight be amended in a way never contemplated by anyone and moved to a full vote.
But even if the two day notice is given that still makes it impossible for councils, boards and commissions to fairly consider and testify on measures that effect them, because in order to even discuss them they need to put them on an agenda six days in advance of meeting.
That’s only one of the reasons why county councils across the state have asked the legislature to either get them out from under the Sunshine Law or subject themselves to the same restrictions, which go way beyond just notice requirements.
So it’s especially strange that the one Sunshine-related measure passed into law this year- one that hasn’t received any “ink” (or bandwidth) that we can find- was Senate Bill 438, now Act 24, that allows the Board of Education- and only the BOE- to “file any notice that specifies only legislation or legislation-related agenda items, no fewer than two calendar days before the meeting” while the legislature is in session.
The bill passed into law without Governor Linda Lingle’s signature and her statement of concern starts off making a good point by saying
I am concerned that making an exception to shorten the time requirement for filing meeting notices may not be the correct approach for resolving the issue of responding to legislation in a timely manner.
I am also concerned that this bill will allow for special treatment of the Board of Education under the Sunshine Law, as no other board or commission will be provided with the same exception provided under this bill. This bill will require the Office of Information Practices to make a distinction for the Board of Education and treat it differently from the numerous other boards and commissions that must also respond to tight legislative deadlines.
Moreover, because the Sunshine Law, like the Uniform Information Practices Act, is supposed to be administered uniformly across all agencies and boards, creating a special exception for only the Board of Education sets an unnecessary precedent.
I call upon the Legislature to address in a comprehensive manner the conflicts between the Sunshine Law and legislative notices that provide inadequate time for boards, commissions, and the public to respond.
But if hopes that she would call on the legislature to conform with the notice requirements for others were raised by that premise, her conclusion is one that goes in the direction of less sunshine rather than more, saying
At a minimum, the Legislature should consider revising emergency meeting procedures for all boards and commissions that should be afforded the opportunity to comment on pending legislation.
Though on the surface that might seem like a reasonable solution it is one that fulfils the fears that the step in the wrong direction that this legislation embodies makes the slope all the more slippery.
The nuts and bolts problem addressed in the new law is one of many presented by the legislature’s exemption from the Sunshine Law, supposedly because the legislature meets in a hurry up and wait four month session.
That in and of itself is problematic and leads to flawed legislation every year. This year already it has been reported that the new cigarette tax may not be able to be implemented because the two bills that deal with it are inconstant.
The pitfalls of the four month session and exemption allow county councils to argue that they should be exempt too if only as a matter of fairness because to ask the legislature to follow the Sunshine Law would be to ask them to fully reform the way they conduct business and require a constitutional amendment.
But participation in government process is the foundation of democracy and, as Thomas Jefferson said, the solution to the messiness of democracy is more democracy, not less.
Every year some “problem” posed by the legislature’s four month session crops up and is the subject of proposed legislation that tinkers around the edges, usually producing a less than acceptable bill that dies because the piecemeal approach to legislation rarely makes for good lawmaking
Yet when these bills do pass and they’re flawed many times it’s because, in the rush of a short, rigid schedule, those in the public who might be able to offer a better way or at least point out the potential flaws are shut out by the lack of sunshine in the legislative process.
To use the problems posed to create less participation, as this new laws does, is a step in the wrong direction. But until people get fed up enough to demand a change to a year-round legislature with full-time legislators bad laws produced in the dark will be the order of the day.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
NOT SO FAST THERE ROVER
NOT SO FAST THERE ROVER: Tempest in a teapot, much ado about nothing, not with a bang but a whimper.
Pick you trite cliché but it’s gratifying to see the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) tell everyone from the respondents to the pundits- and especially to the Hawai`i Supreme Court (SCOHI) - to go home shut the hell up in today’s decision on the “ceded lands” case.
Because despite what the mainstream media and the state is saying the decision did not establish any new federally-sanctioned state “ownership” in any way shape or form, it simply vacated it and remanded it back to the SCOHI.
What they actually said - not what the Honolulu Advertiser or state attorney general wishes they said- was:
(W)e have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Seems like another typical case of American blind justice and the judges were going to look at the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with the circles and arrows on the back that purportedly showed state ownership the lands stolen from kanaka maoli lands
The SCOTUS just sent the whole matter back to the SCOHI to re-write their opinion without mentioning the 1993 “Apology Law”.
The decision wasn’t based on their stilted and selectively amnesic recitation of the Amerikan view of the thrift-based “ownership” of the “crown lands”. It was solely based on the use of federal law by the SCOHI.
Most people expected this would happen after the oral arguments. Even most of us who asked what part of the apology’s “confession” made the illegal theft legal didn’t expect true justice from a court that has always endorsed the genocidal underpinnings of Amerika.
Still it was nice to see a rap on the knuckles for both Governor Linda Lingle’s corrupt shyster mouthpiece Attorney General Mark Bennett and the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) who thought they were going to get some kind of definitive ruling answering the question of who ‘owns’ the land.
Even we momentarily expected the worst, especially after, as the SCOTUS said,
even respondent OHA has now abandoned its argument, made below, that "Congress . . . enacted the Apology Resolution and thus . . . change[d]" the Admission Act.
But as any SCOTUS watcher knows the prime directive of the Roberts Court is, to paraphrase him, to not make any decision it doesn’t have to make and push it all down the road as long as possible.
What may be the best part of the decision is that it exposes OHA for what it is- nothing more than a cog in the genocidal state and federal machine.
When push came to shove, during the hearing, OHA showed it’s true stripes, basically begging the justices to spare their life, saying they agreed with Bennett et. al, on state ownership of the land... because without state ownership, as a creature of the state they would have and be nothing at all.
Dropping all 30 years of pretense in claiming that they represented the kanaka maoli in any way shape or form, their duplicitous “please have pity on your humble servant oh wise, wonderful and benevolent court” plea was a disgusting show of bureaucratic self- preservation even if it meant the betrayal of their charges.
There’s little doubt that the SCOTHI will go back and purge their opinion of the apology law references and replace them with state law. The process for doing that is contained in the OHA brief in opposition filed in the case.
But then what? Is kicking the can further down the road a strategy that will do anything but allow the thieves to consolidate power behind the now official concept of Amerikan Justice that says that land can owned after being stolen... fair and square?
Certainly this is nothing new in US jurisprudence. Ask any descendent of mainland natives who thought they had rights to their land rights, many with better paperwork than na kanaka have.
Some may think that for now it is a bullet dodged none the less for those who have any hope of maintaining a land base for the reestablishment sovereignty over these islands.
All we can say is don’t count on it being anything beyond, to cite another cliché, the calm before the storm.
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the SCOTUS decision
When a state supreme court incorrectly bases a decision on federal law, the court’s decision improperly prevents the citizens of the State from addressing the issue in question through the processes provided by the State’s constitution. Here, the State Supreme Court incorrectly held that Congress, by adopting the Apology Resolution, took away from the citizens of Hawaii the authority to resolve an issue that is of great importance to the people of the State. Respondents defend that decision by arguing that they have both state-law property rights in the land in question and “broader moral and political claims for compensation for the wrongs of the past.” Brief for Respondents 18. But we have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered
Pick you trite cliché but it’s gratifying to see the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) tell everyone from the respondents to the pundits- and especially to the Hawai`i Supreme Court (SCOHI) - to go home shut the hell up in today’s decision on the “ceded lands” case.
Because despite what the mainstream media and the state is saying the decision did not establish any new federally-sanctioned state “ownership” in any way shape or form, it simply vacated it and remanded it back to the SCOHI.
What they actually said - not what the Honolulu Advertiser or state attorney general wishes they said- was:
(W)e have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Seems like another typical case of American blind justice and the judges were going to look at the 27 8x10 color glossy photographs with the circles and arrows on the back that purportedly showed state ownership the lands stolen from kanaka maoli lands
The SCOTUS just sent the whole matter back to the SCOHI to re-write their opinion without mentioning the 1993 “Apology Law”.
The decision wasn’t based on their stilted and selectively amnesic recitation of the Amerikan view of the thrift-based “ownership” of the “crown lands”. It was solely based on the use of federal law by the SCOHI.
Most people expected this would happen after the oral arguments. Even most of us who asked what part of the apology’s “confession” made the illegal theft legal didn’t expect true justice from a court that has always endorsed the genocidal underpinnings of Amerika.
Still it was nice to see a rap on the knuckles for both Governor Linda Lingle’s corrupt shyster mouthpiece Attorney General Mark Bennett and the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) who thought they were going to get some kind of definitive ruling answering the question of who ‘owns’ the land.
Even we momentarily expected the worst, especially after, as the SCOTUS said,
even respondent OHA has now abandoned its argument, made below, that "Congress . . . enacted the Apology Resolution and thus . . . change[d]" the Admission Act.
But as any SCOTUS watcher knows the prime directive of the Roberts Court is, to paraphrase him, to not make any decision it doesn’t have to make and push it all down the road as long as possible.
What may be the best part of the decision is that it exposes OHA for what it is- nothing more than a cog in the genocidal state and federal machine.
When push came to shove, during the hearing, OHA showed it’s true stripes, basically begging the justices to spare their life, saying they agreed with Bennett et. al, on state ownership of the land... because without state ownership, as a creature of the state they would have and be nothing at all.
Dropping all 30 years of pretense in claiming that they represented the kanaka maoli in any way shape or form, their duplicitous “please have pity on your humble servant oh wise, wonderful and benevolent court” plea was a disgusting show of bureaucratic self- preservation even if it meant the betrayal of their charges.
There’s little doubt that the SCOTHI will go back and purge their opinion of the apology law references and replace them with state law. The process for doing that is contained in the OHA brief in opposition filed in the case.
But then what? Is kicking the can further down the road a strategy that will do anything but allow the thieves to consolidate power behind the now official concept of Amerikan Justice that says that land can owned after being stolen... fair and square?
Certainly this is nothing new in US jurisprudence. Ask any descendent of mainland natives who thought they had rights to their land rights, many with better paperwork than na kanaka have.
Some may think that for now it is a bullet dodged none the less for those who have any hope of maintaining a land base for the reestablishment sovereignty over these islands.
All we can say is don’t count on it being anything beyond, to cite another cliché, the calm before the storm.
For those who haven’t seen it, here’s the SCOTUS decision
When a state supreme court incorrectly bases a decision on federal law, the court’s decision improperly prevents the citizens of the State from addressing the issue in question through the processes provided by the State’s constitution. Here, the State Supreme Court incorrectly held that Congress, by adopting the Apology Resolution, took away from the citizens of Hawaii the authority to resolve an issue that is of great importance to the people of the State. Respondents defend that decision by arguing that they have both state-law property rights in the land in question and “broader moral and political claims for compensation for the wrongs of the past.” Brief for Respondents 18. But we have no authority to decide questions of Hawaiian law or to provide redress for past wrongs except as provided for by federal law. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Hawaii is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered
Friday, March 20, 2009
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE: How could we all have been so wrong for so long?
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
BUT DID IT HAVE TO BE A TOOTHLESS HOUND AND AN OLD GRAY MARE
BUT DID IT HAVE TO BE A TOOTHLESS HOUND AND AN OLD GRAY MARE?: The blurry line between journalists and public relations hacks and flacks is getting more indistinguishable every day with reporters who started out afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted downsized into suckling on the teat of corporate conniving to sell you what you don’t want and never needed.
But those few who are left working for mainstream publications and TV news outlets are under more and more pressure to swallow any dog and pony show that provides innocuous and subservient news-hole fodder.
So it should come as no surprise that the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders have nothing on the Hawai`i press corps when it came to swallowing whole Linda Lingle’s latest PR stunt- her supposed economic stimulus program comprised of already approved projects repackaged with a shiny new bow.
You really have to search hard to find out anything that is actually being done in the supposed “fast tracking” and as a matter of fact no one in Honolulu that we can find has actually uncovered the fact that there is actually nothing being done this week that wasn’t being done last week except for the grin and grip for three neighbor island mayors seeking to appear as though they are “doing something to fix the economy”.
A look at the two major Honolulu dailies shows piss poor journalism in ballyhooing Lingle’s application of porcine makeup with not a one actually asking- much less reporting on- exactly what kind of “fast tracking” will actually be done.
The Advertiser’s Peter Boylan is particular smitten, leading his report by saying.
The state is looking to fast- track $1.86 billion worth of capital improvement projects to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
The 1,521 projects include highway improvements; maintenance and new construction at public schools and university and community college campuses; public library upgrades and repairs; small boat harbor upgrades and expansion; Hawaiian Homes construction; public housing facility repairs and renovations; and hospital and healthcare facility improvements.
After a paragraph saying Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann refused to show up for the farce he continues to describe the sow’s ear as a silk purse, saying
The projects identified by Lingle have already been budgeted and approved by the Legislature, and construction could begin within the next 18 months. The projects are set to be put out to bid by September 2009 and awarded by June 2010, Lingle said.
Lingle said she wants to stimulate the economy because "no one is coming here to rescue us. It is up to us."
She added: "My bottom line is it can't be business as usual. That won't work in these times."
The state will pay for the projects with a series of bond issues or by taking money from $3 billion it has in the bank, Lingle said.
Then he’s off on a tangent of Honolulu’s need for other projects turning his piece into a he said/she said political battle between the mayor and governor, never getting back to exactly what the real “news” is
The Star Bulletin’s usually astute Nina Wu was even more vapid. She not only fails to report what specific “fast tracking” there will be she doesn’t even mention that phrase much less explain that they are just a recycled and repackaged list of projects.
Wu simply regurgitates Lingle’s PR crew’s descriptions of the wondrous amounts of money Lingle will single handedly be bestowing on we commoners saying
Calling it an unprecedented initiative, the governor said the main goal was to create jobs.
"It's about real families," said Lingle. "When I talk to our team, I don't talk about it in terms of CIP or projects; I talk about it in terms of your neighbors, your friends, your family being able to have a decent life, being able to make their mortgage payments. That's what the effort is all about."
And that’s nothing compared to the editorial in today’s Star-Bulletin which proclaims “Lingle stimulus plan should work, in time” saying
GOING forward with state construction projects in an expedited timeframe announced by Gov. Linda Lingle should help the state climb out of its current financial ditch but not overnight. The move to hurry along approved state projects in cooperation with federal and county actions is laudable but limited by processes that cannot be sidestepped.
Lingle said more than 1,500 projects statewide that were approved by the Legislature will be put on a fast track, an 80 percent increase of projects previously put on such a schedule. Even then, she said at a news conference, the projects will be put out to bid by next September and contracts awarded by a year-and-a-half from now.
Want a more pantingly pedantic point of virew? Try today’s blog post from Advertiser columnist Dave Shapiro who has apparently been looking for something to butter up his fave on the fifth floor after being forced more and more recently to acknowledge her failed administration.
Instead of pointing out the emperor’s lack of appropriate apparel he pushes to what appears to be the Advertiser’s party line, turning the story into a hit piece on Hannemann. He wrote:
So what happened when Lingle called Hawai’i mayors together to work on an economic plan? Hannemann skipped out, and he deserves as much criticism as he earlier heaped on Lingle.
Before puking out political punditry that praises the Governor and the neighbor island mayors and faults His Mufiness for having more important things to do than participate in ding-a-Lingle’s no-news news-event.
Of course none of the TV news programs had anything more in their fleeting coverage than what they were spoon-fed and most were decidedly worse in terms of not reporting the deceit itself much less details of it.
But credit where credit is due- even if it is from what is usually the worst paper in the state- or country for that matter- The Garbage- er, Garden Island (TGI) on Kaua`i.
In reading relatively new reporter Michael Levine’s article you get a feeling that he wasn’t buying the gift wrapped turd.
Apparently he actually asked some of these questions and after describing the already-in-the-pipeline nature of the projects and listing some of the amounts of money to be spent he writes
However, the announcement should not be seen as Lingle actually releasing the funds from the state’s coffers — Pang said projects in which bids have not yet been awarded are not ready for release, and that the standard process, including planning and permitting, still has to occur on a case-by-case basis.
As an example of what’s not new he reports that
Nearly half of Kaua‘i’s funding total is expected to be used to widen a two-mile stretch of Kaumuali‘i Highway between Anonui Street and the Lihu‘e Mill Bridge.
According to information on the CIP Web site, that project alone is projected to cost just over $70 million.
The project is expected to go out to bid in June 2009, to be awarded in September 2009, and to begin construction in February 2010. The contract time is projected to be 825 days.
So the project, which was always scheduled for that timeframe as he reported previously, will now be scheduled for that same time... only this time it’s thanks to Lingle with an assist in doing nothing from Kaua`i Mayor Bernard Carvalho
According to Levine there’s nothing specific they will be doing to fast track anything except for determining what if anything they can do- which is probably nothing.
“These projects will help in getting our construction and building trade sectors moving,” Mayor Bernard Carvalho, who pledged support for the program at an afternoon press conference with Lingle and other county mayors, said in a release.
Beth Tokioka, executive assistant to Carvalho, said the mayor’s staff was continuing to look through the list to determine what assistance the county can provide to help speed up the process.
Additionally, Carvalho said in a press release that the county is compiling its own list of high-priority CIP projects for immediate and near-term implementation.
“Millions of dollars at the county level are already in the pipeline or are ready to be awarded,” he said.“We are currently preparing for a bond float so that we can fund additional CIP projects.
Supporting our economy during these difficult times remains a top priority for my administration.”
So let’s get this straight- even the fast-tracking is a con job because there’s no guarantee from Lingle that this will speed up her “release” of the funds or that she’ll do it any differently than what is proscribed by laws and rules. And, Carvalho will also be following the law and rules at the county level for permitting and planning approval.
We can only hope that someone like Levine- if not him- is named to replace the departing TGI Editor Adam Harju who is reportedly moving on to- believe it or not- “The Cambodia Daily”.
Levine has done some really exceptional reporting even though Harju has been a stalwart of censorship and drivel in service to publisher Mark Lewis.
But it appears, despite Harju’s denials when he took the job that he was “here to stay”, Kaua`i was for him just “another stop on the circuit” of small but increasingly larger community papers that younger mainland reporters ride to professional legitimacy.
Well the community’s gain is Harju’s loss- As everyone knows the only reason he was here was for the surfing anyway. We’ll most likely be looking forward to an even more out of touch malahini from “the circuit” taking the TGI reigns.
Keep it riel Adam and don’t take any bamboo ones. We’ll let Pol Pot’s living henchmen know they have nothing to worry about in the way of investigative work from you.
But those few who are left working for mainstream publications and TV news outlets are under more and more pressure to swallow any dog and pony show that provides innocuous and subservient news-hole fodder.
So it should come as no surprise that the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders have nothing on the Hawai`i press corps when it came to swallowing whole Linda Lingle’s latest PR stunt- her supposed economic stimulus program comprised of already approved projects repackaged with a shiny new bow.
You really have to search hard to find out anything that is actually being done in the supposed “fast tracking” and as a matter of fact no one in Honolulu that we can find has actually uncovered the fact that there is actually nothing being done this week that wasn’t being done last week except for the grin and grip for three neighbor island mayors seeking to appear as though they are “doing something to fix the economy”.
A look at the two major Honolulu dailies shows piss poor journalism in ballyhooing Lingle’s application of porcine makeup with not a one actually asking- much less reporting on- exactly what kind of “fast tracking” will actually be done.
The Advertiser’s Peter Boylan is particular smitten, leading his report by saying.
The state is looking to fast- track $1.86 billion worth of capital improvement projects to stimulate the economy and create jobs.
The 1,521 projects include highway improvements; maintenance and new construction at public schools and university and community college campuses; public library upgrades and repairs; small boat harbor upgrades and expansion; Hawaiian Homes construction; public housing facility repairs and renovations; and hospital and healthcare facility improvements.
After a paragraph saying Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann refused to show up for the farce he continues to describe the sow’s ear as a silk purse, saying
The projects identified by Lingle have already been budgeted and approved by the Legislature, and construction could begin within the next 18 months. The projects are set to be put out to bid by September 2009 and awarded by June 2010, Lingle said.
Lingle said she wants to stimulate the economy because "no one is coming here to rescue us. It is up to us."
She added: "My bottom line is it can't be business as usual. That won't work in these times."
The state will pay for the projects with a series of bond issues or by taking money from $3 billion it has in the bank, Lingle said.
Then he’s off on a tangent of Honolulu’s need for other projects turning his piece into a he said/she said political battle between the mayor and governor, never getting back to exactly what the real “news” is
The Star Bulletin’s usually astute Nina Wu was even more vapid. She not only fails to report what specific “fast tracking” there will be she doesn’t even mention that phrase much less explain that they are just a recycled and repackaged list of projects.
Wu simply regurgitates Lingle’s PR crew’s descriptions of the wondrous amounts of money Lingle will single handedly be bestowing on we commoners saying
Calling it an unprecedented initiative, the governor said the main goal was to create jobs.
"It's about real families," said Lingle. "When I talk to our team, I don't talk about it in terms of CIP or projects; I talk about it in terms of your neighbors, your friends, your family being able to have a decent life, being able to make their mortgage payments. That's what the effort is all about."
And that’s nothing compared to the editorial in today’s Star-Bulletin which proclaims “Lingle stimulus plan should work, in time” saying
GOING forward with state construction projects in an expedited timeframe announced by Gov. Linda Lingle should help the state climb out of its current financial ditch but not overnight. The move to hurry along approved state projects in cooperation with federal and county actions is laudable but limited by processes that cannot be sidestepped.
Lingle said more than 1,500 projects statewide that were approved by the Legislature will be put on a fast track, an 80 percent increase of projects previously put on such a schedule. Even then, she said at a news conference, the projects will be put out to bid by next September and contracts awarded by a year-and-a-half from now.
Want a more pantingly pedantic point of virew? Try today’s blog post from Advertiser columnist Dave Shapiro who has apparently been looking for something to butter up his fave on the fifth floor after being forced more and more recently to acknowledge her failed administration.
Instead of pointing out the emperor’s lack of appropriate apparel he pushes to what appears to be the Advertiser’s party line, turning the story into a hit piece on Hannemann. He wrote:
So what happened when Lingle called Hawai’i mayors together to work on an economic plan? Hannemann skipped out, and he deserves as much criticism as he earlier heaped on Lingle.
Before puking out political punditry that praises the Governor and the neighbor island mayors and faults His Mufiness for having more important things to do than participate in ding-a-Lingle’s no-news news-event.
Of course none of the TV news programs had anything more in their fleeting coverage than what they were spoon-fed and most were decidedly worse in terms of not reporting the deceit itself much less details of it.
But credit where credit is due- even if it is from what is usually the worst paper in the state- or country for that matter- The Garbage- er, Garden Island (TGI) on Kaua`i.
In reading relatively new reporter Michael Levine’s article you get a feeling that he wasn’t buying the gift wrapped turd.
Apparently he actually asked some of these questions and after describing the already-in-the-pipeline nature of the projects and listing some of the amounts of money to be spent he writes
However, the announcement should not be seen as Lingle actually releasing the funds from the state’s coffers — Pang said projects in which bids have not yet been awarded are not ready for release, and that the standard process, including planning and permitting, still has to occur on a case-by-case basis.
As an example of what’s not new he reports that
Nearly half of Kaua‘i’s funding total is expected to be used to widen a two-mile stretch of Kaumuali‘i Highway between Anonui Street and the Lihu‘e Mill Bridge.
According to information on the CIP Web site, that project alone is projected to cost just over $70 million.
The project is expected to go out to bid in June 2009, to be awarded in September 2009, and to begin construction in February 2010. The contract time is projected to be 825 days.
So the project, which was always scheduled for that timeframe as he reported previously, will now be scheduled for that same time... only this time it’s thanks to Lingle with an assist in doing nothing from Kaua`i Mayor Bernard Carvalho
According to Levine there’s nothing specific they will be doing to fast track anything except for determining what if anything they can do- which is probably nothing.
“These projects will help in getting our construction and building trade sectors moving,” Mayor Bernard Carvalho, who pledged support for the program at an afternoon press conference with Lingle and other county mayors, said in a release.
Beth Tokioka, executive assistant to Carvalho, said the mayor’s staff was continuing to look through the list to determine what assistance the county can provide to help speed up the process.
Additionally, Carvalho said in a press release that the county is compiling its own list of high-priority CIP projects for immediate and near-term implementation.
“Millions of dollars at the county level are already in the pipeline or are ready to be awarded,” he said.“We are currently preparing for a bond float so that we can fund additional CIP projects.
Supporting our economy during these difficult times remains a top priority for my administration.”
So let’s get this straight- even the fast-tracking is a con job because there’s no guarantee from Lingle that this will speed up her “release” of the funds or that she’ll do it any differently than what is proscribed by laws and rules. And, Carvalho will also be following the law and rules at the county level for permitting and planning approval.
We can only hope that someone like Levine- if not him- is named to replace the departing TGI Editor Adam Harju who is reportedly moving on to- believe it or not- “The Cambodia Daily”.
Levine has done some really exceptional reporting even though Harju has been a stalwart of censorship and drivel in service to publisher Mark Lewis.
But it appears, despite Harju’s denials when he took the job that he was “here to stay”, Kaua`i was for him just “another stop on the circuit” of small but increasingly larger community papers that younger mainland reporters ride to professional legitimacy.
Well the community’s gain is Harju’s loss- As everyone knows the only reason he was here was for the surfing anyway. We’ll most likely be looking forward to an even more out of touch malahini from “the circuit” taking the TGI reigns.
Keep it riel Adam and don’t take any bamboo ones. We’ll let Pol Pot’s living henchmen know they have nothing to worry about in the way of investigative work from you.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
SMOKE AND MIRRORS: The old illusionist trick, when the scantily clad woman goes into a box and the magician sticks swords through it, conjures up an image similar to what Kanaka Maoli Hawaiians must feel like.
Whether it’s dimwitted xenophobic Ken Conklin’s racist screeds or our D.C. fab four and their Akaka bill seeking to steal the land base “one last time fair and square” the daggers keep coming, fast and furious.
But though the bikini-attired assistant is long gone from the box when the swords are plunged through predetermined slots, kanaka are not so lucky.
And tomorrow a sword slung by the state of Hawai`i could deal the final fatal wound to any thought of decolonialization. Because that is when the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) takes up* State of Hawai`i et. al.vs Office of Hawaiian affairs et. al.
For those haven’t heard even though the Hawai`i Supreme Court (SCOHI) put the kibosh on the state’s ability to sell the land that the U.S,. stole in 1893 and gave to the state in 1959 (thinking no one would notice they stole it 66 years before) to keep “in trust” for native Hawaiians the state has appealed and the racist and reactionary Amerikan high court has agreed to hear the case at the behest of Governor Linda Lingle’s henchman, the corrupt Attorney General Mark Bennett of Superferry and various other ignoble infamies.
The basis of the appeal to the feds is that the SCOHI supposedly based their decision to forestall the sale until the issues of the U.S. and State acknowledged theft are dealt with by the State, was the 1993 U.S. “Apology Bill” that the U.S. Congress passed. It acknowledges the series of events through which the governor seemed to believe the land belonged to the state to do with what they pleased by stretching restrictions on its use beyond all recognition
But the appeal- and the press accounts of it- have all centered around whether the apology bill had any force of law which is 180 degrees off from what is at the center of the case.
In the brief in opposition the respondents to the state’s appeal, the attorneys point out that the SCOTUS has no business in the matter to begin with and show how, although the SCOHI did cite the apology bill it did so for the facts contained and more importantly because it verified three other 1993 acts of the Hawai`i State legislature.
Those three laws and another passed in 1997 make up the acknowledged chronology of legal events leading up to the land grab by the state.
The question the brief attempts to answer is
Whether the Hawaii Supreme Court acted within its authority in relying upon Hawaii’s laws and Constitution, as well as principles of trust law and the 1993 federal Joint Resolution to Acknowledge the 100th Anniversary of the January 17, 1893 Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, to impose an injunction on the sale or transfer of the lands conveyed in trust to the State of Hawaii until the ongoing reconciliation process between the state and federal governments and native Hawaiians is completed?
The answer shows that plainly the basis for the SCOHI action lays in the facts contained in the apology bill- facts based on the Hawaii state statures- not in the nature of the apology bill and whether it is “binding” or “advisory”.
We’re not hopeful for the outcome here- U.S. courts, especially the SCOTUS have routinely ignored the law when it comes to indigenous peoples’ rights on the mainland and here in the islands.
When the land base for any sovereign indigenous group is gone so is much of the impetus for any sovereignty movement.
This judicial end-around could well be that death blow. For all the SCOTUS’ ballyhooing of “states rights” that only goes when the states’ decisions are “wing-nut” right.
Over the past few months the wise-guys and the American judges in their pockets have been out in force trying to ignore the actual legal chain of events that cloud title to all the lands they stole.
Although you hear the term “ceded lands” used by these agents of theft the real term used for over 100 years in the kanaka community is “stolen lands”.
So here, reprinted below, is the answer- in a nutshell (albeit a rather long one) to the question of the legal paper trail for a large chunk of the kanaka claims of sovereignty over these lands that were never rightfully “ceded” by anyone- except perhaps from Americans to Americans.
A careful reading lays out how, through a convoluted paper trail designed to obscure if not hide the theft, we come to this day, when a national seal of approval by the American courts to finalize the theft by dubbing it legal, is upon us.
Although we urge anyone interested to read the entire brief, here’s the gist of it with some citations and other extraneous material deleted.
----------
The unanimous decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court in this case mentioned seven different sources of law: four Acts of the Hawaii legislature, two Acts of the United States Congress, and the carefully-crafted body of state trust law as applied to Hawaii’s Public Lands Trust. Petitioners’ claim before this Court is limited to the assertion that the decision below misread one of the two federal acts, the 1993 Apology Resolution, a Resolution that was enacted after three of the four Hawaii laws at issue in the case and that duplicated those very laws.
The 1993 Hawaii statutes that form the essence of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in this., case were a long-overdue reaction to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1893. In 1.898, when Hawaii was annexed, the Republic of Hawaii "ceded all former Crown, government, and public lands to the United States."
However, the United States treated these lands as separate from other public lands,
requiring their revenues "to be ’used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes.’ (quoting from the Annexation Resolution). In 1899, the U.S. Attorney General opined that the Annexation Resolution had placed these lands (about 1.8 million acres) in a "special trust" for the benefit of Hawaii’s people. Hawaii-Public Lands,
Subsequently, in the 1959 Hawaii Admission Act, (the "Admission Act"),
Congress stated five purposes for which the lands in the trust could used. One of these was "for the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians" Id., Section 5(f). Congress also affirmed that it would be up to the State of Hawaii to determine how to manage these lands: "Such lands, proceeds and income shall be managed and disposed of for one or more of the foregoing purposes in such manner as the constitution and laws of said State may provide, and their use for any other object shall constitute a breach of trust. (emphasis added.) In 1978, the people of Hawaii clarified the State’s trust obligation to native Hawaiians during a Constitutional Convention, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) was created to manage proceeds derived from the lands held in trust and designated for the benefit of native Hawaiians.
In the spring of 1993, the year marking the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the Hawaii State Legislature passed three related statutes:
The first was Act 340 (1993), "An Act Relating to the Island of Kaho’olawe." It established the Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission, and stated that the island of Kaho’olawe (which had been used by the Navy for training purposes, and was in the process of being returned from the federal government to the State) "shall be held in trust as part of the public land trust; provided that the State shall transfer management and control of the island and its waters to the sovereign native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the United States and the State of Hawaii."
The second was Act 354 (1993), "An Act Relating to Hawaiian Sovereignty." It set forth the facts of the 1893 overthrow and 1898 annexation, and stated that the Hawaii State Legislature "has also acknowledged that the actions by the United States were illegal and immoral, and pledges its continued support to the native Hawaiian community by taking steps to promote the restoration of the rights and dignity of native Hawaiians."
The third was Act 359 (1993), "An Act Relating to Hawaiian Sovereignty." Its Findings section again provided the facts related to the 1893 overthrow and the 1898 annexation, emphapasizing that the activities taken by U.S. diplomatic and military representatives to support the overthrow of the Kingdom occurred "without the consent of the native Hawaiian people or the lawful Government of Hawaii in violation of treaties between the two nations and of international law," and characterizing these acts as "illegal." The Act went on to observe that the 1898 annexation of Hawaii was "without the consent of or compensation to the indigenous people of Hawaii or their sovereign government," and that as a result of the annexation, "the indigenous people of Hawaii were denied the mechanism for expression of their inherent sovereignty through self-government and selfdetermination, their lands, and their ocean resources." The Act declared its main purpose to be to "facilitate the efforts of native Hawaiians to be governed by an indigenous sovereign nation of their own choosing,", and outlined a process designed to
promote that goal.
Only after the State of Hawaii enacted these three statutes into law did the United States Congress, in November 1993, pass "a Joint Resolution recounting the events [relating to the overthrow] in some detail and offering an apology to the native Hawaiian people." Rice, 528 U.S. at 505 (citing Apology Resolution). The Apology Resolution’s findings directly mirrored those of the three statutes that Hawaii had just recently passed.
Following the above spate of state and federal legislation, four years later the Hawaii Legislature enacted Act 329 (1997), "An Act Relating to the Public Land Trust," which was designed to clarify the proper management of the lands in the Trust. The Act stated that "the events of history relating to Hawaii and Native Hawaiians, including those set forth in [the federal Apology Resolution] continue to contribute today to a deep sense of injustice among many Native Hawaiians and others." Id. It explained that "the people of Hawaii, through amendments to their state constitution, the acts of the legislature;, and other means, have moved substantially toward [a] reconciliation." In addition, the Act identified its "overriding purpose" as "to continue this momentum, through further executive and legislative action in conjunction with the people of Hawaii, toward a comprehensive, just, and lasting resolution." Id. Importantly, the Act also stated that Congress’ Apology Resolution provided a correct recounting of "the events of history relating to Hawaii and Native Hawaiians."
The fact findings set forth in these four Hawaii statutes--the three from 1993, preceding the Apology Resolution, and the fourth postdating it in 1997- were repeatedly and directly relied upon by the Hawaii Supreme Court in the opinion upon which certiorari is sought.
Although at one point the Hawaii Supreme Court characterized Respondents as relying "largely" upon the Apology Resolution, Respondents referred repeatedly to these state grounds below, and, of course, the Hawaii Supreme Court explicitly relied on these sources of State law at every turn. The Opening Brief filed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the Hawaii court referred, for instance, to Act 340 (1993) (codified as Hawaii Revised Statutes, sec. 6K-9) at pages 35-36 and 38; to Act 359 (1993) at pages 2, 4, 11, 15, 26, 34, 35, and 38; and to Act 329 (1997) at pages 2-3, 11, 15, 22, 26, 35, and 38-39 (and both Acts 359 (1993) and 329 (1997) were attached to the Opening Brief as appendices). The first sentence in the Individual Plaintiffs’ Opening Brief to the Hawaii Supreme Court stated: "The central issue in this case is whether, in light of the admissions in Act 354 (1993), Act 359 (1993) and the Apology Resolution (collectively referred to as the "1993 Legislation"), the State would breach fiduciary duties if it sold ceded lands before the Hawaiians’ claim to ownership of the ceded lands is resolved." Thereafter, "1993 Legislation" was cited 30 times in Individual Plaintiffs’
Opening and Reply Briefs. Both Act 354 (1993) and Act 359 (1993) were included in the appendices of the Opening Brief filed by the Individual Plaintiffs. In combination with Hawaii judicial precedent and Hawaii trust law, the Hawaii statutes provided an explicit, independent state-law basis for the court to enjoin the State of Hawaii from selling the lands held by the State in the Public Land Trust until the claims of native Hawaiians are addressed and the ongoing reconciliation process is completed.
Basic common law principles of Hawaii trust law provided the Hawaii court with the authority to protect the trust corpus, and the factual findings of the Hawaii statutes (like those of the federal Apology Resolution, which mirrored them) reaffirmed the need to ensure that the corpus remains when a settlement is reached as to these claims.
Accordingly, both the text and reasoning of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s opinion provide independent and adequate--indeed, crucial and central—state grounds supporting the Hawaii court’s holding and its remedy.
* clarifies earleir post saying "hears" the case.
Whether it’s dimwitted xenophobic Ken Conklin’s racist screeds or our D.C. fab four and their Akaka bill seeking to steal the land base “one last time fair and square” the daggers keep coming, fast and furious.
But though the bikini-attired assistant is long gone from the box when the swords are plunged through predetermined slots, kanaka are not so lucky.
And tomorrow a sword slung by the state of Hawai`i could deal the final fatal wound to any thought of decolonialization. Because that is when the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) takes up* State of Hawai`i et. al.vs Office of Hawaiian affairs et. al.
For those haven’t heard even though the Hawai`i Supreme Court (SCOHI) put the kibosh on the state’s ability to sell the land that the U.S,. stole in 1893 and gave to the state in 1959 (thinking no one would notice they stole it 66 years before) to keep “in trust” for native Hawaiians the state has appealed and the racist and reactionary Amerikan high court has agreed to hear the case at the behest of Governor Linda Lingle’s henchman, the corrupt Attorney General Mark Bennett of Superferry and various other ignoble infamies.
The basis of the appeal to the feds is that the SCOHI supposedly based their decision to forestall the sale until the issues of the U.S. and State acknowledged theft are dealt with by the State, was the 1993 U.S. “Apology Bill” that the U.S. Congress passed. It acknowledges the series of events through which the governor seemed to believe the land belonged to the state to do with what they pleased by stretching restrictions on its use beyond all recognition
But the appeal- and the press accounts of it- have all centered around whether the apology bill had any force of law which is 180 degrees off from what is at the center of the case.
In the brief in opposition the respondents to the state’s appeal, the attorneys point out that the SCOTUS has no business in the matter to begin with and show how, although the SCOHI did cite the apology bill it did so for the facts contained and more importantly because it verified three other 1993 acts of the Hawai`i State legislature.
Those three laws and another passed in 1997 make up the acknowledged chronology of legal events leading up to the land grab by the state.
The question the brief attempts to answer is
Whether the Hawaii Supreme Court acted within its authority in relying upon Hawaii’s laws and Constitution, as well as principles of trust law and the 1993 federal Joint Resolution to Acknowledge the 100th Anniversary of the January 17, 1893 Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, to impose an injunction on the sale or transfer of the lands conveyed in trust to the State of Hawaii until the ongoing reconciliation process between the state and federal governments and native Hawaiians is completed?
The answer shows that plainly the basis for the SCOHI action lays in the facts contained in the apology bill- facts based on the Hawaii state statures- not in the nature of the apology bill and whether it is “binding” or “advisory”.
We’re not hopeful for the outcome here- U.S. courts, especially the SCOTUS have routinely ignored the law when it comes to indigenous peoples’ rights on the mainland and here in the islands.
When the land base for any sovereign indigenous group is gone so is much of the impetus for any sovereignty movement.
This judicial end-around could well be that death blow. For all the SCOTUS’ ballyhooing of “states rights” that only goes when the states’ decisions are “wing-nut” right.
Over the past few months the wise-guys and the American judges in their pockets have been out in force trying to ignore the actual legal chain of events that cloud title to all the lands they stole.
Although you hear the term “ceded lands” used by these agents of theft the real term used for over 100 years in the kanaka community is “stolen lands”.
So here, reprinted below, is the answer- in a nutshell (albeit a rather long one) to the question of the legal paper trail for a large chunk of the kanaka claims of sovereignty over these lands that were never rightfully “ceded” by anyone- except perhaps from Americans to Americans.
A careful reading lays out how, through a convoluted paper trail designed to obscure if not hide the theft, we come to this day, when a national seal of approval by the American courts to finalize the theft by dubbing it legal, is upon us.
Although we urge anyone interested to read the entire brief, here’s the gist of it with some citations and other extraneous material deleted.
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The unanimous decision of the Hawaii Supreme Court in this case mentioned seven different sources of law: four Acts of the Hawaii legislature, two Acts of the United States Congress, and the carefully-crafted body of state trust law as applied to Hawaii’s Public Lands Trust. Petitioners’ claim before this Court is limited to the assertion that the decision below misread one of the two federal acts, the 1993 Apology Resolution, a Resolution that was enacted after three of the four Hawaii laws at issue in the case and that duplicated those very laws.
The 1993 Hawaii statutes that form the essence of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in this., case were a long-overdue reaction to the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii exactly one hundred years earlier, in 1893. In 1.898, when Hawaii was annexed, the Republic of Hawaii "ceded all former Crown, government, and public lands to the United States."
However, the United States treated these lands as separate from other public lands,
requiring their revenues "to be ’used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes.’ (quoting from the Annexation Resolution). In 1899, the U.S. Attorney General opined that the Annexation Resolution had placed these lands (about 1.8 million acres) in a "special trust" for the benefit of Hawaii’s people. Hawaii-Public Lands,
Subsequently, in the 1959 Hawaii Admission Act, (the "Admission Act"),
Congress stated five purposes for which the lands in the trust could used. One of these was "for the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians" Id., Section 5(f). Congress also affirmed that it would be up to the State of Hawaii to determine how to manage these lands: "Such lands, proceeds and income shall be managed and disposed of for one or more of the foregoing purposes in such manner as the constitution and laws of said State may provide, and their use for any other object shall constitute a breach of trust. (emphasis added.) In 1978, the people of Hawaii clarified the State’s trust obligation to native Hawaiians during a Constitutional Convention, and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) was created to manage proceeds derived from the lands held in trust and designated for the benefit of native Hawaiians.
In the spring of 1993, the year marking the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the Hawaii State Legislature passed three related statutes:
The first was Act 340 (1993), "An Act Relating to the Island of Kaho’olawe." It established the Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission, and stated that the island of Kaho’olawe (which had been used by the Navy for training purposes, and was in the process of being returned from the federal government to the State) "shall be held in trust as part of the public land trust; provided that the State shall transfer management and control of the island and its waters to the sovereign native Hawaiian entity upon its recognition by the United States and the State of Hawaii."
The second was Act 354 (1993), "An Act Relating to Hawaiian Sovereignty." It set forth the facts of the 1893 overthrow and 1898 annexation, and stated that the Hawaii State Legislature "has also acknowledged that the actions by the United States were illegal and immoral, and pledges its continued support to the native Hawaiian community by taking steps to promote the restoration of the rights and dignity of native Hawaiians."
The third was Act 359 (1993), "An Act Relating to Hawaiian Sovereignty." Its Findings section again provided the facts related to the 1893 overthrow and the 1898 annexation, emphapasizing that the activities taken by U.S. diplomatic and military representatives to support the overthrow of the Kingdom occurred "without the consent of the native Hawaiian people or the lawful Government of Hawaii in violation of treaties between the two nations and of international law," and characterizing these acts as "illegal." The Act went on to observe that the 1898 annexation of Hawaii was "without the consent of or compensation to the indigenous people of Hawaii or their sovereign government," and that as a result of the annexation, "the indigenous people of Hawaii were denied the mechanism for expression of their inherent sovereignty through self-government and selfdetermination, their lands, and their ocean resources." The Act declared its main purpose to be to "facilitate the efforts of native Hawaiians to be governed by an indigenous sovereign nation of their own choosing,", and outlined a process designed to
promote that goal.
Only after the State of Hawaii enacted these three statutes into law did the United States Congress, in November 1993, pass "a Joint Resolution recounting the events [relating to the overthrow] in some detail and offering an apology to the native Hawaiian people." Rice, 528 U.S. at 505 (citing Apology Resolution). The Apology Resolution’s findings directly mirrored those of the three statutes that Hawaii had just recently passed.
Following the above spate of state and federal legislation, four years later the Hawaii Legislature enacted Act 329 (1997), "An Act Relating to the Public Land Trust," which was designed to clarify the proper management of the lands in the Trust. The Act stated that "the events of history relating to Hawaii and Native Hawaiians, including those set forth in [the federal Apology Resolution] continue to contribute today to a deep sense of injustice among many Native Hawaiians and others." Id. It explained that "the people of Hawaii, through amendments to their state constitution, the acts of the legislature;, and other means, have moved substantially toward [a] reconciliation." In addition, the Act identified its "overriding purpose" as "to continue this momentum, through further executive and legislative action in conjunction with the people of Hawaii, toward a comprehensive, just, and lasting resolution." Id. Importantly, the Act also stated that Congress’ Apology Resolution provided a correct recounting of "the events of history relating to Hawaii and Native Hawaiians."
The fact findings set forth in these four Hawaii statutes--the three from 1993, preceding the Apology Resolution, and the fourth postdating it in 1997- were repeatedly and directly relied upon by the Hawaii Supreme Court in the opinion upon which certiorari is sought.
Although at one point the Hawaii Supreme Court characterized Respondents as relying "largely" upon the Apology Resolution, Respondents referred repeatedly to these state grounds below, and, of course, the Hawaii Supreme Court explicitly relied on these sources of State law at every turn. The Opening Brief filed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in the Hawaii court referred, for instance, to Act 340 (1993) (codified as Hawaii Revised Statutes, sec. 6K-9) at pages 35-36 and 38; to Act 359 (1993) at pages 2, 4, 11, 15, 26, 34, 35, and 38; and to Act 329 (1997) at pages 2-3, 11, 15, 22, 26, 35, and 38-39 (and both Acts 359 (1993) and 329 (1997) were attached to the Opening Brief as appendices). The first sentence in the Individual Plaintiffs’ Opening Brief to the Hawaii Supreme Court stated: "The central issue in this case is whether, in light of the admissions in Act 354 (1993), Act 359 (1993) and the Apology Resolution (collectively referred to as the "1993 Legislation"), the State would breach fiduciary duties if it sold ceded lands before the Hawaiians’ claim to ownership of the ceded lands is resolved." Thereafter, "1993 Legislation" was cited 30 times in Individual Plaintiffs’
Opening and Reply Briefs. Both Act 354 (1993) and Act 359 (1993) were included in the appendices of the Opening Brief filed by the Individual Plaintiffs. In combination with Hawaii judicial precedent and Hawaii trust law, the Hawaii statutes provided an explicit, independent state-law basis for the court to enjoin the State of Hawaii from selling the lands held by the State in the Public Land Trust until the claims of native Hawaiians are addressed and the ongoing reconciliation process is completed.
Basic common law principles of Hawaii trust law provided the Hawaii court with the authority to protect the trust corpus, and the factual findings of the Hawaii statutes (like those of the federal Apology Resolution, which mirrored them) reaffirmed the need to ensure that the corpus remains when a settlement is reached as to these claims.
Accordingly, both the text and reasoning of the Hawaii Supreme Court’s opinion provide independent and adequate--indeed, crucial and central—state grounds supporting the Hawaii court’s holding and its remedy.
* clarifies earleir post saying "hears" the case.
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