NO LITTLE KIRK, WE SAID YOU COULD HAVE “A” DOG

NO LITTLE KIRK, WE SAID YOU COULD HAVE “A” DOG: Curiouser and curiouser is an apt description after 10 days down the rabbit hole in the case of the deadline-missing candidates.

Because a “preliminary” half-ruling by former “de facto” State Elections Chief Kevin Cronin has determined half the equation in saying that soon-to-be-former House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell did not withdraw from running for his old post until after the filing deadline- doing so on Wed. July 23, not before the filing deadline on the 22nd- enabling the Democratic Party to pick their replacement candidate, Isaac Choy

But as to whether Caldwell- or anyone- broke the law as the ruling infers, by illegally filing for a second office without withdrawing from the one he had previously filed for, Cronin exercised his “I’m not here” privilege and was silent.

According Ian Lind who today provided the pdf file of Cronin’s ruling:

That appears to bounce the issue of Caldwell’s candidacy for the city council back to city clerk Denise Decosta, who by law (Section 12-8 HRS) must decide on challenges to candidates for county office. Now that Cronin has ruled that Caldwell remained a candidate in his House district until sometime on the morning following the filing deadline, and state law prohibits a candidate from filing for more than one office, Decosta appears to have less wiggle room in determining whether Caldwell’s council filing was valid.

So Decosta, who if she wasn’t a law-breaker herself at best aided and abetted Caldwell in breaking the law prohibiting the filing for more than one office, will be the one to decide whether Caldwell’s filing for council is valid regardless of how the insufficient-valid-signatures issue with Caldwell’s filing plays out.

If she rules Caldwell, having had his filing accepted by her office, legally filed for council she would be the one who was the scoff-law for allowing him to file for two offices at once. But if she rules that her office made a mistake in accepting it and bans Caldwell from the ballot, it’s all’s well that ends well- for her... unless of course Caldwell sues her for screwing him- despite the fact that he apparently didn’t know or intentionally broke the law despite the fact that he makes the laws..

Caldwell’s kind of like the guy with two girlfriends. He’s thinking the worst that could happen is that he’ll have to chose one or the other if they find out about each other. But when they do uncover his scheme they both ditch him.

It appears that Kirk is in for a rude awakening when he wakes up to find that after diddling around with two constituencies his new bed in the political gutter.

And you know it couldn’t happen to a nicer- or at least more appropriate- guy.

Anyone who observes- or cares about- the legislature knows Caldwell primarily for his blind devotion to Speaker Calvin Say and for his penchant for obstructing legislation by assuring it gets killed, if not by him then through his support of powerful committee chairs.

If the speaker didn’t like a bill or it didn’t serve their leadership faction politically he was the hatchet man. He and Say killed dozens of good bills this session- the kind people look at and say “how did that not get passed?”- and pulled the same crap when veto overrides were proposed, denying a vote on many of them by claiming, as he did during session, that “there weren’t enough votes”, without even bother to hold one.

He’s been a real champ at these political moves, shielding legislators from having to commit on controversial issues in an election year.

Cronin also has more problems of his own today after breaking another law and running up against common sense because he reportedly already ordered the ballot to be printed without allowing the parties to examine them (in violation of state law) and included Caldwell’s name on the ballots even though his ruling practically obviates the rejection Caldwell’s council filing

It’s quite the biblical parable. But presumably there will be some other twist such as Cronin’s decision being nullified because perhaps his self-proclaimed “de facto” leadership status might be insufficient to allow him to make the decision in the first place.

We just heard the Mad Hatter say to stay un-tuned

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And in a follow-up to our SuperScamFerry story yesterday there are two seemingly conflicting stories out of ferry-builder Austal’s home town newspaper, the Mobile Press-Register, regarding the copmpany’s military contracts and plans to build warships for the Navy.

The first, published Wednesday, is headlined

Audit: Austal failed to keep tabs on LCS Company didn't keep Navy managers informed

It tell us that the big Navy shipbuilding contract they are depending on might be on shaky ground saying:

Austal USA failed to keep Navy managers informed about the cost and schedule of the littoral combat ship under construction at its Mobile yard, according to a recent report that also faults the Navy and the project's lead contractor, General Dynamics Corp., for failing to ride herd on the company.

Overall, the review by the Naval Audit Service outlines a "significant breakdown" in internal controls over the high-profile project, now some $300 million over budget and a year behind the original timetable.

Program managers "were not provided valid and reliable cost, schedule and technical performance information for decision-making purposes," the report said.

"These issues raise concerns regarding Austal's management processes impacting the timeliness, accuracy, reliability and validity of performance management data that (Navy leaders) were supposed to rely upon to manage the contracts."

But then today there’s this:

Austal begins $254M facility; Shipyard counting on expansion to win more military contracts

Austal USA is banking on a $254 million expansion of its Mobile shipyard to lay the groundwork for large-scale U.S. military work.

Austal broke ground Thursday on a modular manufacturing facility that promises faster, less expensive ship construction at a time when the Defense Department is trying to rein in costs, particularly on ships.

Whether the U.S. Navy responds with new contracts remains to be seen, but one Washington, D.C., analyst said he feels there's a good chance the multimillion-dollar gamble will pay off.

"I don't think there's ever a guarantee in life," said Jay Korman, senior Navy analyst for consulting firm Avascent Group. "But when you look at the progress they've made on their program, they are right on track. I think the military customers will come ? that's the bottom line."

Gotta file this one under “huh?”

NO, NO- IT’S A JUST WHISKERLESS BARKING CAT

NO, NO- IT’S A JUST WHISKERLESS BARKING CAT: When Larry Geller posted a story about an article from the BYM Marine & Maritime News Wednesday on Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) maker Austal’s final Joint High Speed Vessel proposal to the US Navy he sure didn’t think he’d wind up on the obituary page of the Honolulu Advertiser today

The profoundly exaggerated news of Larry’s demise notwithstanding, his original post pressed others in the local alternative press into action with a lot more details coming from the “owner” of the USS Superferry story Joan Conrow to come up with some expanded coverage, quite obviously spurring a story in this morning’s Advertiser.

They are all a must read. And they all detail how military use of the Superferry is indeed- despite HSf’s past attempts to hide and deny it- moving along quite nicely thank you with a new ramp designed for military use being included in the new “under contraction” HSf and the possible retrofitting of one on the ferry currently in use.

But the real news came from Maui Professor Dick Mayer who did a little digging and provided this from an article today in the Mobile (Alabama) Press-Register. about hometown’s Austal’s prospects for landing the Navy contract to build 10 and maybe more of the military vessels based on the same design as the HSf vessels

The article states:

"We have the trained workforce ready today, we have the facilities available today to support construction, and we have already built a vessel of very similar design right here in Mobile," he said, referring the Hawaii Superferry.

Austal was one of three bidders awarded a design contract in January, and company officials said that they anticipate a contract award before year's end.

But that’s followed by what may be the punch line to the whole HSf joke.

The Mobile shipbuilder also said Wednesday that it had won new work to provide "additional features and equipment on the second Hawaii Superferry to facilitate its use by the military."

Part of a $190-million, two-ship contract, the vessel is being built for Hawaii Superferry Inc. The first superferry is in service in Hawaii, but the company's plan to run an inter-island ferry service has been plagued by environmental protests, and company officials could be positioning the vessel for sale to a third party. (emphasis added)

Browning said he met recently with Thomas Fargo, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who is Hawaii Superferry's chief executive, and there was "no mention" of plans to sell the second vessel.

"However, the national defense features we are adding to HSF 2 would enable the vessel to be chartered to the military if they so desired," Browning said.

Well this drove Conrow up a wall. In today’s post she says:

Now I don’t mind if HSF 2, or even the Alakai, for that matter, is made into a military ship, although it bothers me that the HSF spent so much money lobbying in an effort to get us taxpayers to pick up the tab. But I’m a fan of full disclosure, and when Hawaii Superferry came to town, asking for all sorts of state help and public acceptance for what is proving to be a rather dubious commercial enterprise, I think they should have been totally up front about their military aspirations.

Then we all could have weighed the issue more carefully, and asked such probing questions as whether HSF really is committed to the state for the long haul, or if we’ll be left holding the bag for those expensive harbor improvements, tugboat operations and litigation — and have no alternative form of transportation to show for it.

And then there’s still the unanswered question of why Gov. Lingle went out on such a limb to ensure the Superferry sailed. Surely it wasn’t just the replica of the Alakai she received from top Superferry investor John Lehman, who bequeathed a similar gift on that other key ferry skid-greaser, House Speaker Calvin Say, within months of the special legislative session being convened. (Sen. President Colleen Hamabusa, on the other hand, got only a framed photograph.)

But slow by slow, it seems the truth is being revealed, and perhaps one day the full tale will be told. Somehow, though, I don't think it will be The Advertiser that breaks the story.

In the grifter and carnie world they say the best “mark” is a fellow con artist. Think. the movie, The Sting”.

And it’s now become apparent that we’ve been the perfect suckers.

Lingle, Say, Hamabusa and most of the gullible public took it all at face value when we heard we were going to be magnanimously gifted with an interisland ferry. Thoughts were of a “free lunch” that wouldn’t cost the state taxpayers a nickel in the long run.

But it’s beginning to become painfully obvious that “we was tooken” and former Navy Secretary and 9/11 Commission member Lehman and his military-contractor breakfast club at Lockheed never really planned to help Hawai`i with a new form of inter-island transportation but rather just to demonstrate the prototype ship for his and Austal’s military boondoggle.

So if you were going to pull off this scam to get the Hawai`i pols and taxpayers to support this demonstration project but not lose your shirt in your cockamamie money-losing business plan, you’d have to not only wind up selling the boat to the military once it served it’s purpose but make sure people wouldn’t lynch you when it’s all over.

How? Maybe by intentionally going forward with a bad business, making bad business decisions and purposefully getting people to oppose it to insure the boat would eventually have be sold (to the military) without people even knowing they were conned because they blame themselves- and protesters or environmentalists- for the demise of their “free lunch”.... the best kind of scam of all.

The most superlatively run cons have a partnerships where one of the scammers is also scamming the others because they’re too busy conning others to realize they’re being taken.

Ever wonder why an obvious idiot like Garibaldi was put in charge? Garibaldi thought he was going to con everyone else into actually accepting the ferry, be a hero and make a lot of money. Lingle thought she was going to con everyone to put a higher-office feather in her admiral's cap

Everyone involved was out to con someone into something for their personal enrichment, whether monetary or otherwise including many of the “regular people” who thought they were getting insanely cheap transportation or a way to steal and smuggle back neighbor island resources or at least exploit them on the cheap.

That explains why they tried to deny any military use at first when no one- as Joan said to light our bulb- would have really cared if it was indeed a ferry project for Hawai`i and also a demonstration of the catamaran design for military purposes.

Normally you’d think they’d promote it. Why would they hide it?

Well maybe, if their plan all along was really to leave us high and dry so to speak, they were afraid people would look back and see the real purpose once they were “forced” to sell HSf’s boats to the military.

We in the islands - even those who support HSf- keep asking ourselves how these guys could be so stupid as to their business plan, their machinations with the state, the EIS debacle, the “in-your-face, Supreme Court” attitude that caused the Kaua`i protests to swell, all the PR blunders, starting service in the winter-swell season and other idiocies?

The most rabid Superferry proponent even asks “how could these people be so stupid.”

The answer is they weren’t and aren’t.. Nobody is that stupid. They always had this as their real plan.

How do we know- The same way the bunko squad does- when you use that as a premise, everything else falls into place and makes perfect sense.

You don’t even have to connect any dots but rather think about what makes all this “make sense”. Then you see the real reason they tried to deny, cover-up and hush up the military connection until the uproar in the alternative press got so loud the newspapers had to cover it..

But let us know if you still don’t believe this- we may have a bridge to the neighbor islands to sell you. Maybe you can sail your ferry under it.

RUNT OF THE LITTOR

RUNT OF THE LITTOR: News from Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) builder, Mobile Alabama-based Austal, filled the inbox today with various items of interest.

The most sadly comical was the news from Austal union organizer Swan Cleveland that “it has been reported to me from a reliable source that when they put the LCS in the water the bow thrusters leak so bad they had to flood the stern of the boat to get the bow out of the water so it could be fixed”.

Ah the competent craftsmanship of briefly-trained, non-union, reportedly $12/hour welders.

As we reported this week, according to a NY Times article Austal’s version of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) was to be set in the water Saturday, as also detailed in one of those fluff pieces by WKRG-TV in Mobile about how great it all was with a piece called “Austal Unveils New Warship”. It contains quotes anticipating a “win” for General Dynamics and Austal to build 55 such vehicles, based, as the Times article detailed, on the design of the Superferry.

But that was minor news at Austal because on Friday it was reported on both WKRG and in the Birmingham Press Register that there was a noose hung in an Austal break room.

The article said:

Noose found in rafters at Austal Shipyard

Friday, May 02, 2008

By SUSAN DAKER
Staff Reporter
An employee found a noose hanging from the rafters of a building Thursday morning at Austal USA's shipyard downtown, police said.

Mobile police were called to the Mobile River shipyard about 9:45 a.m. and found the noose, made of nylon rope, hanging in a break room, police spokesman Officer Eric Gallichant said.

"We completed a report for what we deem suspicious circumstances. Other than the item, there was no note. There were no other overt threats," Gallichant said.

Police officers did not take the noose as evidence, Gallichant said. He declined to identify the employee who made the emergency call.

Austal issued a statement Thursday afternoon saying it will not tolerate any offensive behavior among its employees.

"Our preliminary investigation has revealed the possibility of a personal agenda as the motivation behind this incident and does not reflect the culture that Austal has worked so hard to build,(emphasis added)" company spokesman Bill Pfister said in the statement.

The statement did not elaborate on the "personal agenda" that Pfister described.
Pfister said Austal notified the FBI about the incident.

FBI spokeswoman Angela Tobon said that the agency had not determined whether the matter warranted investigation.

Austal is being sued by a group of 22 current and former black employees who claim that company managers have participated in and condoned widespread racial discrimination.
One of those former employees, Jermaine Roberson, notified the Press-Register Thursday that the noose had been found at Austal that morning.

The lawsuit was filled in March in Mobile federal court. It claims racial discrimination at Austal is "standard operating procedure rather than a sporadic occurrence," and maintains that black employees aren't afforded the same salaries, promotions or training opportunities as white workers.

Bob Browning, Austal's president and chief executive, has insisted that his company does not discriminate or turn a blind eye to racist behavior by its employees.


Given the discrimination lawsuit, Austal statement is bizarre on the face, although perhaps only to anyone outside the deep south. What were they thinking about the obvious hate crime?

Take credit where credit is due Austal- it is exactly the culture you’re apparently trying to build.

An interview in the video version of the story at WKRG identifies Roberson, who quit and joined the discrimination suit in March, as saying “this is not the first time” a noose had been used as a threat to black employees.

For a thoroughly disgusting example of how racism is alive and well in Alabama in 2008 check out the comments at both the newspaper and TV web sites.

We also received the actual “you’re soooo fired” letter sent to Wayne Jenkins, the welder who first reported defective welds, quick-concrete-fixes of Superferry leaks and a general shoddiness during construction and recent dry-dock repairs of the Superferry.

It says

Mr. Jenkins,

This letter will inform you that your employment is terminated as of April 18, 2008 for disloyalty and disparagement based on your recent public comments on the Superferry in service in Hawai`i which you never worked on and about which you have no firsthand knowledge. You will receive information soon regarding your rights pursuant to COBRA to continue insurance coverage if you so choose at your own expense.

Jeff O’Dell
Human Resources Director

Note the letter doesn’t deny the allegations just the alligator. The question of “disloyalty”- as if it were in fact a military job- aside, it makes one wonder if reporting true facts- even if related by numerous knowledgeable coworkers- can be called “disparaging”... perhaps they meant “damning”.

According to Cleveland, Jenkins- who first told the whole story on the Katy Rose and Jimmy Trujillo radio program last month as reported here and in the Honolulu Advertiser Capitol Notebook - has landed a good union job at Goram Htg + Air.

Jenkins was one of the victims of illegal anti-union actions on the part of Austal and was reinstated with back pay recently after being fired, along with other workers, after winning an almost unheard of victory in an National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling earlier this year.

It is unknown at this time whether Jenkins will file another unlawful termination suit.

In other less than widely reported Superferry news Ian Lind broke the story, picked up in Derrick DePledge's now defunct Honolulu Advertiser “blog” Capitol Notebook that HSf lied about their lobbying expenditure to the tune of more than a third of a million dollars but must rely on Dan Mollway’s wishy-washy, afraid-of-their-shadow Hawai`i Ethics Commission to hold hearings- and then access, if they want, a reported maximum $500 fine for not revealing how much they spent to buy the Special Act 2 Session of the Legislature.

And, for those who somehow can still doubt that there is a military connection with the Superferry, Lind has reported on a lawsuit filed against HSf Inc. by The Argent Group, the financial consultant who put together the money for the HSf. If you go to the documents in the case , you’ll find the agreement, which includes the responsibilities of Argent Group- including not only consultation and negotiations with the federal Marine Maritime Administration, all the investors and money people and the Superferry execs but- shockingly enough- “the military”.

The comments at both the newspaper and TV site on the noose hanging (be sure to see the TV video with a pic of the noose at WKRG) make the police’s “nothing to see here- what hate crime?” statements seem tame.

So glad things those days are gone. Have fun on the Show Boat- Ol’ man ree-bah...