PROCESS OF ELUCIDATION

PROCESS OF ELUCIDATION: One of the more absurd of Yogi Berra's non-sequiturs was that "nobody goes there any more- it's too crowded."

When it comes the field of "acceptable" candidates in this year's elections the ballot is anything but crowded. That's the case up and down the ticket on Kaua`i but it's exemplified by the County Council election where a record low nine people are running for seven seats.

The key word there is "acceptable" because the way democracy has combined with capitalism in America we've managed to define "acceptable" as "corporate-funded, duopoly selected."

But that has little or nothing to do with the reason why Hawai`i in particular is at or near the bottom of the list in voter turnout. This week a six-part series by blogger/journalist Ian Lind in Civil Beat tried to explain why through statistical gymnastics that, while we're sure are true, seemed anything but insightful.

One thing missing in Lind's report is the "sun and surf" factor.

Stay with us. Hawai`i is the home of the tourism-industry crummy jobs that cause all members of the family to work at least two close-to-minimum-wage jobs apiece. With the cost of living higher than other places in the US, people just don't have time to pay attention to politics and certainly want to spend their leisure time doing something other than figuring out who to vote for.

Even though we political junkies don't see the logic in that, it makes more sense when you add in that "immigrants" don't exactly flock here to get involved in politics, which also goes for those born and raised here who have usually chosen to "stay home" after they finish school.

Most people are here one way or another because they can surf, hike, snorkel, fish and do all the things that make living in the islands unique. If anything, they came here- or stay here- because they are actually running away from places obsessed with politics and the like.

Then of course there are also those who aren't particularly interested in participating in what they see as the central activity that an "occupying nation" uses to justify their military control and "make the world safe for democracy." Though it's not a vast number who think that way, it's more than most people think.

But if you really want to know why few among the remaining are voting it may be the simplest reason of all: there's "no one" running.

Why vote when all the Democrats and Republicans are greedy power mongers who are all, in one way or another, on the take?

While there are exceptions that prove the rule like Mina Morita or Gary Hooser (who, maybe not so coincidentally, are both currently out of office although Hooser is seeking to return to the county council) it's been like pulling proverbial teeth to get people to run for office these days.

We just spent a year and a half recruiting candidates and didn’t find a one. We even lost a couple at the last second.

We approached almost every "community activist" we know, even some we disagree with because we knew that at least they fight for things they actually believe in. And every one said "thanks but no thanks," some adding "why in the hell would I want to do that?"

Indeed running for office is a daunting proposition. Just the prospect of having to ask people for money makes many back off. The idea of spending every spare moment for a year going door to door, attending every gathering and being subjected to more scrutiny than a prize pig at an auction is not one that makes one's heart go pitter-patter.

Surprisingly many say that actually serving- crafting legislation, guiding it through, going to meetings and all that intriguing stuff- is what they want to avoid because they'd have to deal with all the a-holes in office who, for the most part, actually enjoy all the back-stabbing political gamesmanship that got them into office and keeps them there.

Can you imagine having to sit there with Mel Rapozo or Dickie Chang- and not just sit there at a meeting but actually negotiate with and schmooze them? Are you going to listen to Jay Furfaro go on endlessly about his delusions of success or try to figure out why Kipukai Kuali`i would be aligning himself with Rapozo and the Queen of Spleen, Prosecutor Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho- and then actually come up with equally sinister plans to oppose their evil schemes?

What fun. Who'd wanna go surfing when you can listen to a three hour report on some incomprehensible, unattainable, feel-good plan to spend a million bucks to spruce up the county building parking lot?

So there you have it- an electorate that's already got better things to do and actually came or stayed here to get away from the backstabbing political culture on the mainland. And if they do take a look at the local political culture they see nothing but a bunch of moronic and vicious bozos appealing to what's left of the electorate. And those that do vote do so on the basis of who went to school with whom and whether they attend the same church... or cock fight.

And it's only getting worse. Don't forget the last mayoral election where the only one to run against a punch-drunk, concussion-syndrome-addled, ex-football player was a well-meaning too-smart-for-the-job, haole lady who'd lived here all of ten minutes. And this year, even with the criminally insane, moist-Malaprop-spewing Iseri running for prosecuting attorney against what appears to be a smart, honest and upstanding progressive apparently actually interested in serving justice (imagine that), it's still a race too close to call because she grew up here and he didn't.

It doesn't get any better with our choices for US congress where unlike the Kaua`i state legislative contest, there is one. For the U.S. house it's a war-obsessed vet who has gotten non-religion and is suddenly bigoted-no-more, running against a slimy pay-for-play veteran who has as much substance as dark matter. And for senate it's a pseudo-progressive against a pseudo-Democrat in the primaries and the winner gets to take on the Stepford Wife, chameleon ex-governor who has the unique talent for speaking out of all three sides of her mouth.

Those are our choices? Well actually not. Because even though we have convinced ourselves that we can only vote for one of them, there are others on the ballot, many of whom aren't corrupt caricatures of public servants. It's just that we've convinced ourselves we're not allowed to vote for them.

The fact is that people believe in the cockamamie "two party system" that has created a fraudulent scheme where legalized bribery is compulsory, corporate billionaires do the bribing and everyone is too intimidated to vote for the candidate they actually like because no one else will.

Maybe Yogi had it right: there's nobody running- the field is too crowded. In other words, why would you vote for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein? She's too popular.

PRESUMPTUOUS ASSUMPTIONS

PRESUMPTUOUS ASSUMPTIONS: The outrage is palpable over the actions of Mayor Bernard Carvalho Jr. in placing ever popular Kaua`i Police Department (KPD) Chief Darryl Parry on leave pending investigation of a reported "hostile workplace" complaint by Officer Darla Abbatiello-Higa against Perry's two assistant Chiefs- Roy Asher and Ale Quibilan.

It fits the narrative- one we admit to perpetuating- of a pompous, politically-motivated. power-hungry mayor, yet again overstepping his authority and perhaps, as many have speculated, going after a potential 2014 political opponent with Perry's name being bandies about by many as the only person who could successfully challenge Carvalho for his job in two years.

But what if the narrative is wrong? What if there was misconduct on Perry's part in handling Abbatiello's complaint- actions that violated the county's own policies on how to handle a complaint?

One thing we can report is that, although Perry's first and only statement to the press- or at least on-the-record comment- stressed that he had "the utmost trust in the... decision-making" of Asher and Quibilan and that "they’re beyond reproach,” literally dozens of people will tell you that it is in fact Abbatiello that has a sterling reputation for being a "straight shooter" and beyond reproach.

And another dozen will tell you that they have no difficulty at all in believing that either Asher or Quibilan were the types who would think they are so "beyond reproach" that they could get away with harassing Abbatiello even after she had successfully sued the county for just such actions by other KPD officers and brass in the past.

It is certainly strange then that Perry's first reaction was to tell the local press he apparently fully supported his two assistants despite what had to be an extremely credible complaint from "Officer Darla" as she is affectionately known.

Remember that a hostile workplace complaint was filed internally by Abbatiello, reportedly against Asher, in October. That complaint seems to have been all but ignored and was apparently mishandled with, at minimum, no "separation" of Asher and Abbatiello as county policy calls for.

The county's 2010 edition of their "Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment" says that “(p)ending investigation, the investigator(s) shall take immediate and reasonable action to limit the work contact between employees where there has been a complaint of discrimination or harassment.”

Seemingly the fact that going up the chain of command in October- a chain that ends with Perry- met with no success led to Abbatiello's January 31 complaint, reportedly against Quibilan, being sent to both the police commission and the mayor.

While we're not privy to the contents of the complaint, the scenario that makes the most sense is that, after finding out about the complaint- and presumably its contents- Perry tried to stop the bleeding by placing Asher and Quibilan on leave. But he felt compelled to side with them against Abbatiello in a comment to the press even after being warned, according to the same article, not to comment on the matter.

So put yourself in Carvalho's place. Assuming the complaint included the fact that Perry had filed to act properly in the October complaint, the "beyond reproach" comment was too much for the politically-oriented Carvalho. But more importantly consider that the comment exacerbated the situation intimating that Officer Darla was a liar. Having the department head take sides against the complainant would be yet another violation of the sexual harassment guidelines.

And we're pretty sure Carvalho was reminded of all this by County Attorney Al Castillo who has also been under fire for allowing these sexual harassment suits to be mishandled and even ignored.

The fact that the complaint was addressed to the mayor left him in a place where, if he failed to act by putting Perry on leave- and not just allowing him to "work from home" as Perry claimed he had demanded- he would be doing what the county has done in similar sexual harassment complaints- at best just ignore them and worse put pressure on the complainant to drop the charges by allowing Perry's statement to stand as the county's only reaction to the complaint.

While we've gone back and forth on the subject of whether Carvalho had the authority to discipline the chief, it's a subject that has even received scrutiny in Honolulu with an exchange between blogger Ian Lind- who asserted Carvalho did not have the authority- and, in comments on the post, former local Kaua`i newspaper reporter and current "Civil Beat" correspondent Mike Levine.

Levine essentially said "not so fast" in pointing out that, while the authority might seem to be with the police commission which hires and fires the chief, it's a leap to say they are the only ones who can discipline the chief since there is no clear written authority to do so anywhere in the Kaua`i County Charter.

The most popular narrative on Perry in the community is that, after a recently reported 61 official grievances having been filed during the brief tenure of his predecessor KC Lum- who was essentially "quitted" for allowing "low morale" to spread through the department- Perry has been able to cut those grievances to a negligible level. But among those who thought Lum got a raw deal, the narrative is that the reason why there were so many grievances under Lum is that he was actually processing them by the book, encouraging an atmosphere where employees felt their complaints would actually be heard, causing the number to snowball not because of morale but because there was so much misconduct.

They say that the reason why the grievances have slowed to a trickle under Perry is that he has sought to "smooth things over" and either ignore the complaints until they went away or intervening and using his authority to intimidate complainants into withdrawing their complaints so as not to "make waves" and "rock the boat."

That, some say, has allowed some "bad apples" to remain in place and created a "don't bother to complain" atmosphere under Perry's permissive reign.

Is that the situation here? While we can speculate and even state that Perry's public handling of Abbatiello's latest complaint was in violation of the county's workplace policy- making them a violation of the law since the law requires employers to have a policy and stick to it- we have no direct evidence other than the public statements to believe one way or the other.

But if others, as they have in almost unanimity, want to speculate that Hizzonah is once again on the wrong end of an issue of process, they would be wise to consider that there is another narrative that, while it doesn't fit the observable past, may just have the quality of the proverbial broken clock- one that right at least twice a day.

DISINFECTANT APLENTY

DISINFECTANT APLENTY: The subject of open meetings and records- and of course the related Sunshine Laws- has always been near and dear to us. Nothing gets our blood boiling more than attempts by councilmembers across the state who try to claim it prevents them from doing their job, especially when they misrepresent restrictions on interactions with each other, even after the Office of Information Practices (OIP) tells them where "the line" is.

The typical complaint goes something like "I can't even go to dinner and talk to a fellow councilmember about the weather without violating the Sunshine Law." The fact is that there are "permitted interactions." They include allowing two members to talk about anything unrestricted as well as other bright lines of what can and can't be discussed unless it is done in a properly agendaed meeting.

But the main thing is- to perhaps oversimplify- that you can't talk about a matter of public policy that is- or is likely to be- before the body. And you can't use serial communications to avoid the ban.

So it irked us a little to see fellow champion of open governance journalist-blogger Ian Lind's comment on a proposed clarification of the law proposed by OIP.

After discussing the permitted interactions rules he wrote:

The result has been what I consider some absurd results, including the notion that circulating draft bills for signatures prior to introduction would somehow violate the law, despite the fact that it has nothing at all to do with whether the bill will become law or not.

Wow. As it turns out, a case we filed against Kaua`i County Council Chair Jay Furfaro for just such an infraction- apparently circulating a proposed bill to all other councilmembers at the time and even asking for "support" for it- was recently addressed by OIP and the only fact that prevented it from being an "unpermitted interaction" is that, according to then County Clerk Peter Nakamura, the cover letter and draft bill were never actually sent to other councilmembers, only addressed to them.

Otherwise, OIP said, it would have violated the sunshine law.

And that's as it should be. If you want to talk about the content of a bill, do it in public. It has nothing to do with the actual passing of the bill but rather the deliberations which eventually yield those pesky details that the bill will contain. It's called "deliberating toward a decision" and it includes all stages of public policy making from the drafting through the discussion and finally to the passage.

So how do you talk to your fellow councilmembers about proposed legislation? The answer may be contained in a notice for a "workshop" the Kaua`i Council has scheduled for next Tuesday January 24 at 9 a.m. at the Kaua’i Civil Defense Agency- Emergency Operating Center, 3990 Ka’ana Street, Suite 100

According to the notice:

A facilitated workshop is scheduled to set goals that the Kaua’i County Council would like to see achieved in the next few years and to discuss issues pertaining thereto that could include:

So far, so good. Sounds like they are finally "getting it" and want to let the public in at the planning stage rather than springing matters on us as a "done deal."

But then, to our astonishment, the agenda list 41, count 'em 41, subjects they intend to discuss, each subject so broad that each individual item could spur hours of discussion. We've listed them at the end of this post.

That also means that if the public wanted to testify on each one, assuming they'd be given the usual six minutes to speak on each, just one person could sit there for just over fours hours... although, because all 41 are listed under one agenda item they might decide to give only one six minute time allotment for all of them. That of course would leave about nine seconds a subject.

We did ask OIP for a down and dirty opinion of the sufficiency of the agenda and were told that it looked okay, although they did not address the public testimony aspects.

But the upshot is that rather than complain that they are prevented from discussing proposed legislation, this format- not with 41 subjects but with let's say with just one or two- is the way it's supposed to work. You put it on an agenda for discussion and have that discussion in public, not behind closed doors.

That's the irksome part of all this. What those who would allow these kinds of things to be done in private are saying is that, because it is a little more hassle to put a subject on the agenda and discuss it in public, we should chuck the whole concept of discussing public policy in open session and allow pols to collude behind closed doors.

The message we should be sending officeholders is this: although you apparently think that the council is your own little private fiefdom where you are a god of lawmaking unto yourself, you are, in fact, in the line of work of deciding public policy with the key word being "public." If you want to make decisions by yourself, go into the private sector and then you can make all the decision about selling your widgets as privately as you want to.

But if you want to hold public office you'd better get used to discussing public policy with that pesky public listening to the deliberations that go into your decision making.

Is that asking too much? Apparently yes.

----------

The following is the list of subjects to be discussed at the workshop:

1. Drug abuse prevention and treatment and interdiction of illegal drugs
2. Traffic congestion relief/multimodal integrated transportation system
3. Open space acquisition! preservation, including coastal and Mauka lands and access
thereto
4. Tourism, including sustainable tourism
5. Economic development
6. Island-wide information technology & management systems
7. County information technology & management systems
8. Agriculture & biotechnology
9. Solid waste management, Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), recycling programs, and recycling facilities
10. Military
11. Voter registration
12. 2012 State Legislative issues, including Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT)
13. Real property tax system
14. Town planning
15. Affordable housing
16. County budget; Operating and Capital Improvement Projects (CIP)
17. Containment of sprawl and protection of open spaces and vistas
18. Subdivisions, grading and drainage
19. Small businesses
20. Sustainability and sustainable communities
21. Park planning, development and maintenance
22. Planning issues; General Plan Update, Development Plans, Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, Special Management Areas
23. Community outreach
24. Energy self-sufficiency, renewable energy, and renewable energy projects
25. County infrastructure
26. Preservation of “places of the heart”
27. Bikeways
28. Underground utilities
29. County as a model—”Walking the Talk”
30. County efficiency and cost control
31. Elderly programs & outreach
32. Youth programs & outreach
33. Timeshare
34. Bed & Breakfast and Transient Vacation Rentals regulations
35. Wastewater systems
36. Water systems
37. Public safety issues; police, fire and civil defense
38. Risk management
39. Public transportation
40. Intra-governmental relations
41. County Human Resource Management

A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY

A LITTLE TRAVELING MUSIC SAMMY: The first time it occurred to us that it had been way too long since we'd been off-island was when Hawaiian Air unexpectedly assigned us a seat.

But then, flying to the Big Island this weekend to participate in Saturday's UH- Hilo Media Symposium was all about change... in the media at least.

The "Old Media versus New Media" panel contained the mucky-mucks of Hawai`i journalism... and Andy Parx- who almost didn't get to go because one of the sponsors said with an upturned nose "he's just a blogger."

We told the story of how, after 30 years in journalism, much of it as a "columnist," we "became" a blogger as a function of choosing the "blogger" software, giving us a McLuhan-esque thesis for the weekend: there is no "new media," just one new medium after another.

The really observant in attendance saw that we were all a bunch of old media dinosaurs trying to figure out exactly what this "new media" was.

Our main observation was that Hawai`i Island has what Kaua`i lacks - a vibrant journalism community with dozens of "journalist-bloggers"- or whatever you call people like Andy Parx and Ian Lind, who shared two panels- many "aggregator" sites and seemingly dozens of local reporters that have eked out a living and in fact a career practicing their craft.

Not to mention a packed room full of J-school students expecting to make a living at it.

There's no such thing on Kaua`i. We feel all alone in a forest- along with Kaua`i Eclectic's Joan Conrow- in "news-blogging" (if you will) because there are simply no opportunities for local journalists here. The local newspaper pays starvation wages and usually hires reporters from those who are "on the circuit" on the mainland. They stay for anywhere from two months to two years and then move on to the next stop.

The few professionals who live here have long since left the trade and ended up selling anything from real estate to "activities" or waiting tables.

The Big Island on the other hand has an actual press club that has existed for decades. And, although there was quite a bit of damage in keeping it that way, the Hawai`i Tribune Herald remains the only union shop in the islands.

The result for Kaua`i is a distinct lack of available information, almost all of which is "courtesy" of the local paper where incompetence is a tradition that began with the departure of (full disclosure) our mentor, legendary editor Jean Holmes, in the early 80's.

But back to the weekend. We did manage to meet people who heretofore had been only names on a web site, including Damon Tucker who, as we wrote last month, was beaten allegedly by the cops and arrested, apparently for taking taking pictures of a melee in front of a Pahoa nightclub.

Tucker was arrested for "obstructing a government operation" and the police, according to reports, allege that he was physically getting between them and those involved in the fracas. But Tucker sat us down and shared the cell-phone video taken that night and our observation was that he would have had to have been a magician to have managed to get between the cops and their subjects.

Though the two clips are very short, the timing between the two is what caught our attention.

In the first, which is only nine seconds long, an officer can be seen telling Tucker to "stop" and that’s where it ends. Tucker says that the rest of the sentence was "taking pictures" or something to that effect.

The second clip was taken one minute and thirty-one seconds later according to the time stamp and in it you can hear the sound of handcuffs being put on Tucker and in that intervening time is when Tucker says he was thrown to the ground and beaten.

The thing is that according to Tucker, the view is of the officer standing almost directly across the street from the nightclub where the fight occurred with Tucker taking the video right in front of him. That means that in the minute and a half, if the police's story were true, Tucker would have had to have crossed the street, gotten between the police and the fighters gone back to the other side of the street and been taken down, beaten and handcuffed.

In addition Tucker had a regular camera which the police confiscated and claimed that that was what he used to take the pictures of the fight. So add "getting out the regular camera" to the list of chores he miraculously performed in a minute and a half.

Oh- and according to Tucker, the police have told his attorney that there were no pictures on the memory card of the camera.

Today according to Associated Press,

Journalist Amy Goodman, host of the syndicated program "Democracy Now!" and two of her producers will receive $100,000 in a settlement over their arrests during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Many will remember how Goodman was arrested simply doing her job in reporting on the convention.

"When journalists are arrested, it is not only a violation of the freedom the press, but of the public's right to know," Goodman said in a statement. "When journalists are handcuffed and abused, so is democracy. We should not have to get a record when we put things on the record."

Getting back to the symposium, it seemed that every time we mentioned Tucker's name in close proximity to the word "reporter" it elicited an audible groan and a rolling of the eyes from the professionals there.

But the fact is that when someone is acting in the capacity of a reporter and has the means to distribute the story and has done so in the past, that person becomes a reporter by performing the act of reporting.

And that may be the crux of why many in the old guard of the old media insisted on there being reporting standards of professionalism for bloggers, especially those who do reporting and opinion in the same piece.

We maintained that there's no need because critical readers will be able to sort out who is reliably reporting events even if it is intermixed with opinion. And of course those without those skills will not.

It's really no different than it's ever been. When we were growing up you could either read the New York Times or The New York Post. Some people can't tell the difference and for them their lack of critical reading and thinking skills will never allow them to distinguish between the two. Even with time showing the reliability of the Times and their reputation for veracity that comes with it, those who lack those skills will see the Post's material as factual no matter how often they are proven to be purveying false information.

The lesson we took from the symposium is that the "new media" is simply a function of the new technology- nothing more and nothing less. There's no need for new rules of journalism on the part of the writers because the readers and their skills will be what determines the viability of each publication in the future.

As it was half a century ago, the medium is still the message and no new gizmo is going to change that.

INFORMATION TAR-TAR

INFORMATION TAR-TAR: Ever since the Office of Information Practices (OIP) lost the infamous ES-177 case- wherein the County of Kaua`i went to court to avoid releasing the minutes of an executive session despite apparent legislative intent to give OIP ultimate authority and ban such court action- we've kind of felt like the guy in the movies screaming in futility while spinning through the vacuum of space.

But recent attention has been paid by Civil Beat Editor John Temple prompting the OIP to defend itself- in a letter from the current director entitled "The Raw Truth"- for refusing to, as they see it, waste their time trying to claim their "teeth" that the court took away.

We're not going to try to rehash the long and winding road of ES-177 and CofK vs OIP again here but today Temple does point out a new wrinkle that puts OIP's finger-pointing at the legislature in a new light saying that under:

sections 92F-15.5 and 92F-28 of Hawaii Revised Statutes that the OIP has authority to hear and make binding decisions in appeals if it exercises its rule-making authority.

Apparently OIP has never bothered to promulgate Chapter 91 Administrative Rules to set up an appeals process for agencies who disagree with their Uniform Information Practices Act (UIPA) rulings to follow- one of Kaua`i County's major gripes in their suit having been the denial of "due process."

In addition today, another open records and meetings junkie, blogger/journalist Ian Lind takes a shot at OIP's defense by noting that in CofK vs OIP the court actually distinguished it from another case where OIP's authority was upheld, noting that "board meeting minutes are specifically covered by HRS Chapter 92, whereas development proposals, such as the ones at issue" in the other case, are not.

Of course the only reason the ES-177 case is finally getting statewide attention is that Governor Neil Abercrombie refused to adhere to an OIP decision on releasing the names of candidates for the Hawaii Supreme Court and then refused to reappoint the OIP director who made the decision.

But one thing that again occurs to us today, has bothered us since the first day the CofK decided to file suit.

Why exactly did the county bother to sue and not just ignore the OIP?

By filing suit they risked losing but by ignoring the OIP- as many are doing today, they apparently would have risked nothing. That's because of something that neither Temple nor Lind nor OIP itself has mentioned- something that really exposed the weak link in all of this.

According to the Sunshine Law under §92-12 Enforcement,

(a) The attorney general and the prosecuting attorney shall enforce this part.

The fact is that, because the law also says that anyone who doesn't agree with an OIP directive can sue in circuit court, attorneys general have consistently said that one must go to court first and so, they have refused to enforce OIP's opinions.

Thus the root of the claim that OIP is a "toothless tiger" is that the AG refuses to enforce its decisions.

That is why Abercrombie can get away with thumbing his nose at the OIP- not because the legislature hasn't been clear enough, as Temple points out today in citing the 1989 conference committee report for the sunshine law, as the OIP did in it's arguments in CofK vs. OIP.

Seems that "The Raw Truth" is that OIP does have options- options that you can bet the always-reticent-to-act legislature will be sure to iterate next year when they consider the OIP's request for tooth sharpening.

FOURTH AND FORTY

FOURTH AND FORTY: The Office of Information Practices (OIP) has been taking it on the chin lately over what has been described ad nausium as their decision to "punt" to the courts on this issue of whether Governor Neil Abercrombie had to reveal the full list of his judicial nominees after he made the appointment.

For those who haven't been following the story Abercrombie's predecessors routinely released the list but he claims that doing so would result in attorneys' reluctance to apply, should their law firms or clients find out.

The story has been reported and analyzed in the mainstream and alternative press as well as blogs- both mainstream and alternative- culminating with a Honolulu Star Advertiser editorial today and all have one thing in common- they routinely miss the point in criticizing the OIP for not opining on the matter since, they say, the law appears to require them to do so.

Typical of the criticisms is today's post by S-A columnist/blogger Dave Shapiro who, in telling the saga thus far, writes:

The saga of Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s secrecy on the names of judicial candidates has taken a troubling new turn with his hand-picked director of the Office of Information Practices, Cheryl Kakazu Park, refusing to issue an opinion on whether state law allows the governor to keep secret the nominees given him by the Judicial Selection Commission.

Park said it’s a waste of time for OIP to become further involved because Abercrombie has said he’ll ignore any OIP opinion against him unless a court tells him he must abide.

Park’s “punt,” as one news story described it, isn’t surprising; her predecessor, Cathy Takase, was fired after ruling against Abercrombie with a letter reiterating a 2003 OIP ruling that the names must be released.

The troubling part is that the governor now has not only shut the public out of the process of selecting judges who wield great power over our lives, but has politicized the OIP in an unprecedented way that diminishes its credibility and relevance.

And the law seems to be clear as is set out in this passage from blogger Ian Lind's post on the subject:

In Section 92F-42, which sets out the powers and responsibilities of OIP, this is right there at the top of the list. Responsibility #1.

The director of the office of information practices: (1) Shall, upon request, review and rule on an agency denial of access to information or records, or an agency’s granting of access;

I added the bold type on the word “shall.” OIP shall rule on an agency’s denial of access. It doesn’t use the word “may,” which would have given OIP discretion on whether to issue a ruling. It doesn’t say that OIP shall rule except when it looks futile because an agency stubbornly insists that it has the right to do whatever it wants. It says, simply, OIP shall do this job. It’s #1 responsibility. Top of the list, top line priority.

Someone needs to go back to OIP and ask what legal authority they have to “punt” in this case, given what appears to be clear statutory language (emphasis Ian's).


The problem is that each and every one who has written on the subject has either failed to read or comprehend the operative sentence in the letter from Park:

Toward the end of her memo she simply writes that:

since the Hawaii Supreme Court's (ruling) in County of Kaua`i vs Office of Information Practices OIP has been issuing advisory opinions rather than determinations.

For those for whom the case doesn't ring a bell it revolves around the infamous Kaua`i County

Council executive session- ES 177- the tentacles of which not only chimed over and over in Kaua`i Police Deportment politics for years but was one of the major highlights of the tale told in the book KPD Blue (see right rail).

At the secret conclave, then and now-again Councilmember Mel Rapozo, who was present at the infamous lap dance party at KPD headquarters and lost his cop job because of it- went off on KPD personnel blasting Chief KC Lum and others in the department according to an OIP memo observed but not copied by PNN at the time.

After an "on camera" examination the OIP ordered the minutes of the meeting to be released but the county, in the person of County Clerk Peter Nakamura, acting on the orders of then Council Chair Kaipo Asing, refused and decided to sue in circuit court.

The problem, as far as the OIP was concerned, was that the OIP was set up, in part, just to avoid these kinds of inter-agency lawsuits and then Director Les Kondo fought the case tooth and nail to avoid having the OIP become a "toothless tiger".

He argued that the provision allowing parties aggrieved by the OIP to sue in circuit court was to provide due process to individuals who were denied access to records, not for agencies told to "give 'em up" to sue the OIP. And he presented not just the specific wording of the law but the legislative committee reports- which clearly stated stated as much- as evidence.

But, to perhaps over simplify, the Supreme Court (SC) didn't listen or didn't care what Kondo foresaw happening to the OIP.

They essentially ruled that the county was entitled to access to the courts if due process was to be served. They also ruled, somewhat bizarrely, that although the request was for the minutes of ES-177- a "record request" over which the law clearly gave OIP authority in HRS 92F- it was actually a suit regarding a meeting, which falls the Sunshine Law (HRS 92) where the OIP did not have the "final bite of the apple" authority.

That essentially meant ithat Kondo's argument was deemed irrelevant.

And now the chickens have come home to roost.

In dealing with the ruling the OIP has simply stopped handing down binding opinions as the law calls for and now simply issues "advisory opinions", all of which can be appealed to the circuit court by anyone, as the SC precedent said.

Kondo was almost apoplectic over what he saw as the end of the OIP and of course he was right. But the Hawai`i press still doesn’t get it.

The SC opinion is not entirely clear as to whether the case was decided on the minutes vs open meeting matter or the lack of due process, the latter seeming to be just to get around Kondo's argument and get to what they- and the C of K- saw as the meat of the issue at hand... the release of the ES-177 minutes.

The County may have won the case but people who value open government and records rue the day that the decision came down. And until our punditry class cuts through the clutter of the politics of the judicial appointment list case and recognize the roots of the OIP's action, we'll continue to be kept in the dark about the state of affairs in the OIP.

FIND THE RED QUEEN

FIND THE RED QUEEN: You can set your watch- well, maybe your calendar- by it.

As the two minute warning for the first half of the legislature approaches, with “first decking” coming up on Friday, some wiseacre will try to use the old fumbleroosky play- called in the trade “the gut and replace.”

It’s a self explanatory way to get around the constitutional requirement that bills be introduced very early in the session and it tends to come up this week every year- usually this very day, the Tuesday before first decking, when almost every committee is doing “decision making” on all the bills that have been held up for one reason or another over the past month.

While everyone else- including the press- is busy watching their bill of choice, someone will inevitably try to slip in the worst piece of crap ever by gutting a good bill and inserting a horrific one.

This year's crook was Democratic Sen. Brickwood Galuteria, who has gutted SB 671- a bill introduced by Democratic Sen. Les Ihara to tighten up ethics rules on gift giving- and replacing it with another that would entirely blow up any semblance of ethics in gift giving.

But instead of it sneaking through, as has been the habit over the past decades, in the on-line age it dominated the on-line world late yesterday and this morning.

You can read the gory details at Civil Beat or almost any news and politics blog you choose- Dave Shapiro’s, Ian Lind’s and Larry Geller’s.

But only Geller figured out what the out the “rooski” part of the play was for anyone who discovered the fumble and wanted to testify.

He wrote:

Even if you wanted to testify against SB671 SD1, you can’t, because of the way it is set up. If you submit testimony it would be registered under SB671, not the amended version. Now, SB671, as originally written, appears to be a very fine bill. So if you testified in opposition, you’d be opposing that bill. It’s the way the computer is set up. The committee did not provide a way to testify against the new, evil amendment.

That’s right it's not even one of those “no means yes and yes means no” kind of dirty tricks. It’s more like the “head I win, tails you lose” swindle where the con man gets to interpret all the yeses and noes as whatever he wants them to mean.

Ordinarily this would be the part where we post the email address for the Senate Judiciary Committee but actually this time so many people know about the scam that it is apparently covered.

Instead cross your fingers that today’s decision making on moving oversight of medical marijuana from the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health goes smoothly. Then if this stuff continues to give you headaches you’ll be more likely to have the medicine to help it go away.

MY OH MY WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY

MY OH MY WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY: The oldest trick in the shyster book is the standard “cease and desist” letter.

So when Big Island blogger Damon Tucker emailed us over the weekend that he’d gotten one from Midland, Texas attorney Robert K. Whitt after he posted a story on December 8 quoting two co-owners of a “zip-line” company- replete with pictures of rusty cables- there saying that,

the (other) owner of The Umauma Experience (Cleo Carlile) installed substandard cable on the course and it started to fail…It has worn down from round to flat and then the tension broke the cable as it became too thin. I immediately closed down lines 1, 2, and 4. The owner will replace the cable that guests ride on, but has refused to replace the guy wires which hold the whole thing up, platforms etc.

We suggested that he

tell him to go f**k himself and take it up with the people who said it. All you did was quote them. These kinds of letters are bluffs. They don't want a lawsuit- all that would do is put the guy's quote in the mainstream media.

suggesting he send a reply to the effect that he would

"welcome a lawsuit where we can air the issue of the safety of your ziplines before the community and in the mainstream press."

The letter demanded that Damon essentially put the toothpaste back in the tube with retractions and deletions.

But while the mainstream press hasn’t picked up the story yet this morning journalist and blogger Ian Lind went to town on the story saying

Attorney Whitt also provided an official-looking “Certificate of Inspection” issued by “Zipline Canopy Creations” and signed by “Julianne Lester”, apparently certifying that the ziplines have recently passed a “safety inspection”.

According to state business registration records, Lester is the registered agent for Kauai-based Zipline Canopy Creations, which was registered to do business in August 2010, and the president of Just Live, Inc., a recreation company also based on Kauai.

Apparently safety of the unregulated zip line business is sort of like getting a “deal” at a car dealership with rotating salespersons playing the part “manager” for the others to give the illusion of a discount- in this case zipline companies signing “Certificates of Inspection" for each other.

Ian also noted that

(a) quick search yesterday left me with the impression that zipline engineering and safety are largely unregulated by the state or counties, beyond the need to get routine building permits, so the status of this “certificate of inspection” is seems questionable.

And it didn’t end there.

After Ian’s post Disappeared News’ Larry Geller picked up the ball and ran with it regarding how these ziplines

cry out for regulatory control. Anything with allegedly rusty cables that could be described by Wikipedia as a “death slide” ought to catch the interest of state or local government you’d think.

Larry also noted that

Damon and Ian have provided a public service by posting information on their findings. At least those who Google for information on ziplines in Hawaii will possibly hit one of the articles.

But more important than those who google “ziplines in Hawai`i” might be those who google “The Umauma Experience” or “Midland, Texas attorney Robert K. Whitt.”

Now they’ll get at least four “hits.”

With the advent of “bloggers” the question is whether, when they engage in the act of reporting, they are de facto journalists. While many of the more stogy practitioners may argue for all sorts of self-serving and exclusionary rules for what a journalist is or isn’t, there’s still “no license required. ”

In fact, after much debate our own Hawai`i state reporters’ “shield law” essentially defines a reporter by the act of reporting- something bloggers do every day whether, like Ian they consider themselves journalists or, like Damon and Larry, not.

In this case Damon simply reported on the situation, citing and naming his source. Whether or not “The Umauma Experience” is actually safe or not his report is true in that the story is that two co-owners are alleging they are not safe.

And in libel cases, truth is the ultimate defense.

But to compound the report, rather than try to show that his operation is safe, Carlile chose to try to put the Genie back into the bottle and squelch the information, leading people to believe that, despite the industry’s claims, safety may not be their primary concern.

Not only that but, should they proceed with the lawsuit it will the become open season for the corporate press whose lawyers normally have their hair on fire over reporting anything of this nature unless and until a suit is filed.

The two-fold lesson here is that 1) the best way to make sure that information you wish would just “go away” gets out to a wider audience than the original report could is to try to squelch it and 2) if you file a lawsuit, even more people will know of the claim and even of you win, all people will remember is the allegation.

The other lesson may be that, even if you’re from Texas, don’t mess with Hawai`i bloggers.

ENHANCE THIS

ENHANCE THIS: Words matter. And when words change so can facts related to them.

It’s all part of the way the “big lie” works.

Just this morning, as if designed to give us a lead-in to how the coastal “bike path” became a “shared use” or “multi use path”, Ian Lind quoted a Mike Middlesworth article at Truthout.org, explaining how the media plays its part:

The oligarchy that owns and runs our government and controls our mass media has learned Goebbels’s lesson well: A lie unanswered is a lie believed – more so if the lie is repeated, over and over again.

Accordingly, a successful propaganda campaign must accomplish two essential and coordinated tasks: (a) tell the lies, and (b) see to it that they are not effectively refuted. The six media conglomerates that now control most of the US media accomplished both tasks supremely well.

So it’s no surprise that the somewhat clueless Leo Azambuja led his latest article on the bill that will no doubt be passed this Wednesday- after what he called “a long day of contrasting testimony from both sides of the dog-path issue” (emphasis added) last week- by saying:

The question of whether the county should allow dogs on the shared-use path has carried on for several months...

But why not? He has bought into the same big lie that any number of genuinely confused constituents have swallowed after being bombarded with propaganda by any number of “don’t confuse me with the facts”, misinformed misanthropes who insist that it’s not a bike path but one for any and all uses... even uses that make bicycling so dangerous to all as to make it all but impossible.

The fact is that the path originated through $40 million dollars of federal monies distributed by the state called Transpiration Enhancement (TE) funds.

The funds are specifically to be used for one of 12 activates acceding to 23 U.S.C. 101(a)(35), the most common being bike paths that provide for, well, transportation enhancement.

TE funds require a 20% match from the recipients. In our case that 20% came from donated lands the biggest portion of which, until recently, came from the Kealia Kai “gift” of coastal lands between Kealia and Kuna Bay (aka Donkey Beach).

The matter almost came to litigation when Attorney Bill Sweeney, representing several condos in Wailua that were slated to have the path run between their complexes and the ocean, threatened suit causing the county to move the path behind the condos.

Here’s the pertinent part of what he wrote at the time in convincing the county to change the route of the path lest they be sued for misusing the TE funds, according to administration testimony before the county council:

Transportation Enhancement (TE) Must Relate to Surface Transportation.

It is questionable whether the shoreline path relates to surface transportation and not recreation as required by applicable law. Each transportation enhancement (TE) project must relate to surface transportation and meet one of the 12 eligible activities [23 U.S.C. 101(a)(35)]. Applicable federal regulation clearly indicates that TE funds cannot be used to fund bike & pedestrian facilities that are solely for recreational use.

According to the language under 23 USC 217(1), "No bicycle project may be carried out under this section unless the Secretary has determined that such bicycle project will be principally for transportation, rather than recreation purposes".

Public support for modifying the pristine beach along the shoreline path with a concrete path or boardwalk is likely based on their misconception that the path will provide recreational opportunities. For example, in several articles in the The Garden Island Lester Chang reported as follows:

December 22, 2003: "The entire project would greatly enhance recreational needs in the Kawaihau District, the largest population area on the island, county officials have said."

March 6, 2004:

"The entire project is intended to enhance recreational opportunities in the Kawaihau District, which boasts the largest population of the island." (Emphasis added) The State of Hawai`i and Kauai Count must justify the shoreline on the basis of primarily benefiting transportation and not for recreational purposes.

The Inland Roadways route (Alternative 2) and the Canal Path route (Alternative 3) more clearly satisfy the objective of enhancing transportation in that they have a closer relationship to Kuhio Highway and are more likely to serve a transportation purpose. As discussed, the Inland Roadways route (Alternative 2) and the Canal Path route (Alternative 3) also avoid potential significant environmental, archeological and ecological concerns.

The number of examples and quotes have increased exponentially over the years, now numbering in the dozens from the newspaper and no doubt hundreds in minutes from county meetings.

And now, with the evolution of bike path to shared use path to dog path, the proof is in the pudding... or piddling as it were.

No one, despite dozens of requests- including a formal letter from then Councilperson Shaylene Iseri Carvalho to the state DOT just before she left office- has ever produced a determination from the federal secretary of transportation.

Some have gone as far as to claim that there never were any TE funds. But a simple visit to the county public works department will turn up the paperwork, as Building Division Chief Doug Hague will provide and attest to.

This weekend after reading in the announcement of the reelection bid of “shared use path” proponent Tim Bynum that he “wrote the initial funding proposal that started the shared-use coastal path project and continues to support its expansion” we asked him to explain and he confirmed that the $2.5 million in his proposal for the Lydgate Kamalani "Bridge", a maintenance shed and part of the path- as well as the other $40 million- came from TE funds.

So what? Well the addition of dogs to the strollers, kids roller-skating, people in wheelchairs and any number of future cat and even turtle walkers on the path (as has been discussed in council sessions) it has been said that it is now simply unsafe to have bicycles there- especially those using the path for 30 mph “transportation”- and perhaps we should move to ban bikes.

Banning bikes from a transportation-use bike path would seem pretty absurd. But when you call it a shared or muli-use path, well, anything goes doesn’t it?
We’re sure some troll will comment that we’re wrong. But then again that’s how the big lie works.

EVERYBODY’S BITCH

EVERYBODY’S BITCH: To whore or not to whore- that is the question every “blogger” faces, whether of the journalistic or social networking type.

Last week Honolulu Advertiser blogger and former Star-Bulletin Editor Dave Shapiro set off a turd-storm describing how he

read in the Pacific Business News how a bunch of bloggers and social media types from the Mainland were here on a free Hawai`i vacation compliments of the Hawai`i Tourism Authority.

I don't have the marketing expertise to say whether the $15,000 paid by HTA on the So Much More Hawai`i junkets was worthwhile in terms of attracting visitors to Hawai`i.

But the new media folks accepting the freebies were a throwback to the bad old days of journalism when favorable coverage was for sale at the right price

Well after Dave referred them to the Society of Professional Journalists Ethics Code which forbids “freebies” for travel writers (and other “reviewers) because of the obvious conflict of interest, many of the blogger/whores- who were acting as journalists but were really just PR hacks masquerading as reporters- got wind of the post and tried to defend themselves.

After the denials by some that “I’m not a journalists- I’m just a blogger”- despite the fact that they are doing exactly what a reporter does- their reactions were, like any child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, expected and priceless in defending their actions with either “but everyone else is doing it” or “well, really I didn’t take THAT much money/freebie”.

But those who “blog” and also try to maintain actual journalistic principles face the same dilemma facing newspapers these days- how to financially support their efforts and still maintain those ethical standards.

Some may solicit donations like Disappeared News’ Larry Geller. But many others like Ian Lind have turned to advertising which is all too easy with “googleads” and “doubleclick” offering cash-for-eyeballs, even if it is at a rate of pennies a click.

Today Ian- and the rest of us- got a lesson on the pitfalls of “signing up” to allow ads to appear with his posts.

Ian, a former investigative reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, usually provides comments and added content on local stories and provides links to interesting web sites and posts, all interspersed with original reporting.

But today he presented arguably the best piece of investigative journalism in the state this year with under the professionally crafted headline Door-to-door security sales ringing consumer alarms.

It details an apparent scam happening on O`ahu involving Mormon students on summer vacation who are parlaying their door-to-door skills gained in “missionary” work into selling fly-by-night, long-term contacts for “free” home security systems.

The problem is that when you click through to the stand-along page for Lind's article, right across the top, googleads/doubleclick has pasted a click-on ad reading

Need and Alarm system?
Let Buyerzone Save You Time and Money
Compare Alarm System Price Quotes and Save

And of course when you click it on you see

Buyer Zone- used by over 4 million buyers
Compare Free Quotes- Let us save you time and money in 5 minutes- Take our Survey
Or....Search our Directory of Monitored Alarm System Companies

Of course when you “search” there is only one company to “compare” - ADT Monitored Alarm Systems”, a “reputable” company with many years in the business.

Lind has no control over which ad google will post with which article, but of course google is well known for automating a process where their ads correlate with the content- as anyone who uses gmail knows all too well

The problem is that to anyone who doesn’t know how google works or doesn’t put it together with the ad on Ian’s site, it makes what is an extraordinary piece of investigative work onto one that raises questions about the integrity of the author by making it appear Lind is just running down the competition for his “paid” masters.

No reputable newspaper runs ads based on content- note the word “reputable” since it seems to happen more and more these days. And certainly they would never be so gauche as to put the ad at the top of a page that contains an article on a related subject. And that goes double for on-line ads... if they have the ability to control it.

While on-line ad revenue for news providers will seemingly be minimal for the foreseeable future. if the google-style information gobbling and regurgitation advertising model is the future of newspaper reporting, those getting freebies on tourism marketing junkets may be the least of the ethical problems for the “news business”.

A GOOD RAP ON THE SNOUT SHOULD DO IT

A GOOD RAP ON THE SNOUT SHOULD DO IT: Our over the top tirade in defense of Larry Geller against a personal attack by Ian Lind- apparently because Ian thought Larry “personally attacked” someone- was met by an ”ouch” from Ian today, saying

Whew. I’ve got pretty thick skin, but that was pretty harsh.

We just wanted to show what a personal attack really is and obtusely question the prevalent practice of personally attacking humorous ridicule by calling it a personal attack.

Actually our attitude is that using the English language to its full descriptive potential is not a personal attack and the only sin in poking- or even stabbing- fun is if it’s not funny... even if an especially unconventional sense of humor is required to find it such..

Larry’s sin was presumably a chart showing money bags as check marks for those legislators who support more corporate money in politics and smiley faces on those who would kill the measures in HB 539

And yesterday, after excoriating House Judiciary Chair Jon Riki Karamtsu, the poster child for corporate cash and the author of the now dead, HB 539, for holding an apparent corporate fundraiser- in session, downtown (not in his blue-collar district), and for $150 a pop- Geller warns us that though HB 539 was killed on the floor of the house, some reps aren’t giving up on opening the spigot further instead of banning corporate contributions by inserting the meat of HB 539 in HB 215..

But this morning Lind continued to defend corporate cash still deriding those who would try to take advantage of the fact that the legislature is at present dealing with a flawed law that is currently in the courts. Depending on how you look at it, the law either limits corporate money to $1000 a corporation or takes the caps off entirely.

Lind describes the legal situation quite well but first he says:

To be honest, I don’t think I qualify as a reactionary corporate stooge for trying to deal with some of the complexities of the campaign law and for pointing out where the public debate has gone off track. Nor do I apologize for taking the position that an assessment of risks and rewards should be a natural part of political strategizing.

What is clear is that how people view the proposed “limits” on corporate campaign contributions that were part of HB 539 depends a great deal on how you understand the status quo.

In describing the “status quo” Lind only expounds on the judicial case and the Campaign Spending Commission ruling that caused the circuit court to put the kibosh on the commission’s interpretation until a higher court decides.

But the core of his contention is an argument of misdirection. The court case might be the only “status” that counts if the legislature made the ambiguous law and was refusing to do anything about it.

The real “status quo” is that the people who made the law are at this very moment trying to deal with any “flaw” in the current law and in dong so are deciding the future of corporate money in Hawai`i politics.

And whatever they decide during this session it’s highly unlikely to be changed again any time soon

The broad view shows that as we write some are trying to flood the system with a massive moolah infusion from special interests instead of serving the public interest and just banning it completely, as 22 other states have done.

Does it really matter what the law currently says when the actual status quo is that the legislature is in the process of changing it? And if they are changing it should we sit still for legitimizing what, as Geller points out, is the virtual lifting of all limits by allowing unlimited numbers of $25,000 chunks to go to any number of political action committees as HB 539 would have done?

We and Geller- and dare we say just about anyone not greasing or getting greased under the current system- think that even one corporate dollar to one corporate PAC is one dollar and one PAC too many. But Lind says any limit- apparently even if it’s a fake one- is better than none at all and for some reason he thinks that that precludes any attempt to fully ban corporate money because he seems to think we won’t ever get a ban.

Well, you certainly won’t if you don’t demand or even ask for one.

Even in the name of the political expediency Lind cites, supporting a certain amount of corporate cash instead of a ban makes no sense. You don’t start bargaining over the amount an armed mugger will take from you by offering him five dollars when he wants it all.

It reminds us of the old joke that ends with the punch line “we’ve established what kind of girl you are, now we’re just haggling over price”.

Corporate cash in elections- and corporate influence in general- is actually the result of a uniquely American concept that is cited by many as the root of the dysfunction of not just the US campaign finance system but that of democratic capitalism in general

Its called corporate personhood and can be traced back to a somewhat bizarre ruling - and some say corruptly-divined misinterpretation of the constitution- by the US Supreme Court in 1886 called , Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.whereby corporations were given the same full consttional rights as actual people whereas previously corporate rights were limited to those of “articifical persons”.

Check out the wilipedia entry linked above if you want to know what’s at the core of the corporate takeover of the country.

But in the absence of an unlikey reversal of the decisions (actually the infamous “Buckley v Vallejo” is based on it in part) or some sort of legislation or constitutional amendment one thing we can do is to eliminate the legalized bribery that is pervelnet in 28 states including Hawai`i.

As we tried to point out in our origianal piece if you start with a “we’re defeated already so we’d better get behind something that sucks” .attitude you may well be a “reactionary corporate stooge”- although we would never stoop to that kind of name calling since reactionary is much too strong to be accurate

No matter what the current law says you can help put a cork in corporate infuence by sending an email to reps@capitol.hawaii.gov telling them to stop the madness and chuck any bill, including HB 215, that doesn’t ban corporate cash in elections into the same trash can onto which they threw HB 539.

THE OLD SWITCH-A-ROO

THE OLD SWITCH-A-ROO: This is the time of year in Hawai`i when the mausoleum for dreams of social economic and environmental justice and good governance is open for business.

The legislature is in session and no good idea is too good to be tortured into a bizarro-world semblance of its original virtue.

Sometimes it’s because troglodytic pitchfork and torch-wielding bumpkins, whipped into a frenzy, descend on the decision makers- as they are doing as we write- because they don’t want to let others be as or more miserable than they are in their abusive and loveless marriages where they abuse their children by sending them to church to learn how to hate.

But most of the time it’s those “leaders” who sell the rest of us down the river by compromising away what both they and their followers wanted in the first place, selling us a “diamonelle” and calling it a gem..

Even though we spent yesterday ridiculing the bible-thumping bigots, we have to remember that the civil union bill HB 444 is already a mockery of the civil rights that those who support it really envisioned.

Before the red-shirted, wide-eyed handful of dogmatic hypocrites descended on the capitol we had already lost the battle because those who would protect the rights of same-gender couples had already given up on the true equality that only a repeal of the legislature’s ban on equal marriage rights for all can provide.

Now mind you we don’t really understand the need people have for obtaining paperwork to prove they love someone else- it’s a remnant of medieval society that really has no place in the 21st century.

If the government is going to grant licenses for anything the only important thing is that they be subject to equal protection under the law. Yet our own progressive leaders have already given up before we began by telling the rest of us to sit down shut up and support their poor substitution for social justice.

But this isn’t the only issue that’s had it’s heart torn out by our supposed allies.

A bloggers’ battle royal is brewing over Ian Lind’s usual bent toward losing the battle before it has begun- especially on issues like campaign finance reform- after Disappeared News’ Larry Geller dared to expose the shibai Lind has been promoting lately supporting a series of bills that would actually cause a flood of corporate money to fill politician coffers by repealing restrictions that are in place now.

The “that is better than this and we’ll never get that so we should settle for something else” pap has been a theme of Lind’s on this and many other issues for years but never more than in his apparent longstanding opposition to meaningful public financing of elections.

Recently he’s even not just been campaigning against fully eliminating corporate contributions to political campaigns he’s actually supporting a bill to increase corporate cash

Lind, the self professed progressive who actually headed Common Cause Hawai`i in the early 80’s, has somehow become a leading voice in whittling away at reforms before they even get started by accepting unacceptable compromises.

He’s been keeping up a cockamamie thread for over a year now about how the pilot program of full public financing of elections on the Big Island violates a somewhat unrelated U.S. Supreme Court ruling even after we pointed out the differences between the Big Island law and those that were struck down.

(The ones struck down all restrict the amounts non-participants can collect while the local measure only increases the amount publicly financed participants get based on what the others collect)

We finally gave up on challenging him- as we did last year- when he reinstated his bafflingly devoid-of-reality rant again recently but when Geller sort of called him out- without even mentioning his name or blog- Lind apparently blew a gasket.

Geller reiterated his stance today which somehow didn’t rise to Lind’s snooty Honolulu-kama`aina-family standards or bow to his usual mainstream corporate journalism embrace.

He attacked Geller for writing a “diatribe” that “abandoned any pretense of thoughtful analysis of campaign finance issues and instead waded into a swamp of name calling and crudely overstated political stereotypes.”

What the heck Lind is referring to is anyone’s guess. Geller’s original piece is well researched and simply rightly ridicules those in the legislature who want to pad their campaign coffers and increase corporate influence.

Lind’s personal and passive-aggressive attack on Geller was the only thing in all of it that could be called name calling but is typical of the lack of depth he exhibits every day, usually substituting a quick google search for substance and analysis.

Geller, as usual, beat us to the punch in his articulation of what kind of crap the legislature is pulling, calling it their “own stimulus bill” but apparently the somewhat prissy and proper Lind has some weird kind of axe to grind that causes him to be one of those who lose our battles before they commence.

And besides- if Ian’s characterization of Larry’s piece were accurate we’d be the first to complain...name calling, diatribes are our kuleana.

Another well known compromiser of rights- as usual the rights of the very people it purports to represent- the Office of Hawaiian affairs was also torn another new one today by Dave Shapiro

In his blog he asks what the heck OHA is doing supporting bills that are held out to stop the state’s “ceded land” grab but actually do so by acknowledging the very principle of ownership-by theft by giving the legislature the right to approve, by a 2/3 margin, the sale of the lands

Another bit of bitter baloney is how the anti-GMO groups have joined those with this kind of unfathomable need to abandon-the-war-to-fight-a-skirmish by dropping efforts to ban frankenfoods- or even restrict or label them- but rather jumping on the bandwagon to ban only GMO taro.

That leaves active measures in the legislature- like the bills that would not just protect corporate interests in despoiling what we eat but even possibly ban the counties from prohibiting them as some have contemplated- orphans that could stealthily slip through to passage.

We have met the enemy and he is, if not us certainly a close approximation.

MONKEY’S AND WEASELS VS. JOKERS AND THIEVES

MONKEY’S AND WEASELS VS. JOKERS AND THIEVES: It’s anything but lonely under the big top.

The winners’ butts are barely parked after the 2008 game of musical chairs and already the players are throwing elbows for position and the music is playing for the 2010 political sweepstakes.

Only this time there’s going to be way more candidates circling the seats, with not just one but many less chairs to be fought over than suitors to fill them.

Senator Gary Hooser’s announcement that he’ll run for Lt Governor comes with instant opposition like Democratic Party Chair Bryan Schatz and Honolulu Councilmembers Rod Tam and Donovan Dela Cruz.

But with the announcement that he is seeking to play second banana to one of the Abercrombie Hanabusa or Hannemann triumvirate comes an opening for a top political plum for Kaua`i politicians- and one sure to cause all manner of the upwardly mobile to vacate their once coveted incumbencies.

While Honolulu-centric bloggers like Ian Lind and the long fingered Dave Shapiro (whose chair may be in Hilo but whose keyboard is on O`ahu) have quite a bit to say as to who will be flitting around the fifth floor in 2011, here on Kaua`i the speculation has already begun as to who will try to fill Hooser’s shoes.

Today former councilman, former mayoral candidate Mel Rapozo - who for the next two years at least is reduced to nitpicking at council and planning commission meetings and blogging like the rest of us poor schlubs- speculates on the game of marbles to come saying

Who will run for (Hooser’s) seat? It is way to early to tell, but the names that come to mind are JoAnn Yukimura, Ron Kouchi, and James Tokioka. If Tokioka decides to run for the Senate seat, we will have a vacancy in his State House seat as well. The next few months will be very interesting, and maybe even surprising. I have some tough decisions to make as well. I will be considering all of my options.

What Rapozo doesn’t mention in naming only those out of office is how this will effect the ambitious who are already in one seat or another.

And by “the ambitious” we mean every single one of them.

There is also a mayoral election in 2010 along with one for the seven members of the county council and a trio in the legislature. And you can bet all of the sitting have their eyes on greener grass of someone else’s seat.

But we have no doubt that there will be the same belly aching come the July 2010 filing deadline- that “there are no good candidates” once again despite this advance warning that it’s going to be a wide open field.

Every election year it’s the same thing- people who have the fire-in-the-belly if not the name recognition and even a good resume but won’t run or, when summer comes just suddenly discover there is going to be an election in a few months but haven’t done anything for the past two years to prepare for the opportunity.

Even worse will be another group will whine and snivel at their lack of choice and try to promote the joke of a “none of the above” option on the ballot while they refuse to run for office themselves.

But for anyone really serious about public service, today is your lucky day.

We’re here to remind you that with a little hard work over the next two years you too can have everyone in town calling you a hack, a crook and a dunderhead for the two years following your election.

Yes it’s time to get started and all you need is a running car a few good pair of shoes and a few boxes full of something to give away.

It’s time to visit every single one of your neighbors- it’s time to “walk the island”, going door to door talking to each person and letting them know who you are, what you’re running for and why they should vote for you.

Oh and bring ho`okipa. It should be something that they will not just throw away like a pen or key chain or something else with your name on it that you haphazardly ordered a bunch of. It’s got to be something people will either use or see every day that reminds them of you.- preferably something that is unique to you and your campaign.

Now get a map- a good, up to date one.. And then get movin'- there are almost 100 weekends between now and the election- plenty of time to knock on every door.

Now there are a select few people for whom this might not work- this mean-mouthed, higher-taxes and bigger-government advocate comes to mind. But for those of you who will come to us the summer after this one and ask us to support you and haven’t been doing this for two years, don’t wonder why you come in in 22nd place in a 21 candidate council race.

There very well could be almost all “vacant” seats- those without incumbents- on the council and in state house races to go along with state senator slot because, as we know from experience, having competition never stopped a politician from seeking higher office and there will be at least two or three current or former office holders in every race.

This is your year. find a gimmick- er, gift- put some gas in the jalopy and get out there.

Otherwise shut up next year. We’re tired of hearing “oh woe is us we have no good candidates again” every two years or if you do run having to see you stand there at the debates with your thumb up your butt because you don’t know the issues, you don’t know the voters and have no chance because you got a late start but we had to support you because at least you aren’t “them”.

Oh and it wouldn’t hurt to start following the actions of the person in the seat you’re seeking so you just might be able to do something once you get into office. But that’s a thought for another day.

SERVING TWO MASTERS

SERVING TWO MASTERS: The blogs and press are all trying to make heads or tails of what many claim is a scam of native Hawaiians trying to reclaim lands stolen from them and then resold despite purportedly “irrevocable” Royal Patents granted in the mid-19th century.

Mahealani Ventura-Oliver of the Hawaiiloa Foundation has been giving seminars and presenting compelling evidence that people who can trace their genealogy to those to whom the patents were granted may be able to reclaim the lands and those that still own them do not have to pay taxes, mortgage payments and other debts.

You can read up on a lot of it in everything from two articles lacking exposition in Honolulu paper to Ian Lind’s three link-filled but inconclusive blog entries to the racist treatment in the right wing Hawaii Free Press.

But what none report is whether, upon examination, the chain of events from those days to this comprise a valid legal case.

We haven’t the time or inclination to determine if there is a valid claim but the real question is one that is at the rhetorical core whre the winding road of the erosion of Hawaiian rights and theft of Hawaiian lands is concerned:

Even if they are perfectly valid claims, do we really expect justice in an American court?

We all know of the successful attempt to show that annexation of Hawai`i never legally took place. That and other dubious transactions by the US government should, by all rights, result in the return of lands and rights to a sovereign native kanaka maoli body politic

And we all know the results of almost 25 years of these and other efforts backed by seemingly proper precedence - the American so called “justice” system refuses to acknowledge the cases much less rule favorably on them..

Maybe in the 80’s if you were kanaka maoli it might have been a good gamble to put your life and possessions at risk in an attempt seek justice from American courts. But even then it seemed like a long shot to those who saw the way the government treated the valid claims of the native communities on the mainland.

The genocide of native Americans is well documented and continues today. Though treaties were signed and land rights designated, the supra-judicial theft of both lands and rights- many times validating actions taken at the same point of a gun that stole the Hawaiian kingdom- has prevailed in the realms of American jurisprudence.

Just this week a program on PBS’ “Independent Lens” series detailed the plight of the residents of the Swinomish Reservation in northwest Washington State. Despite the fact that they own a portion of land called March Point the fact that an oil refinery sits there – a plant that has polluted and killed-off their traditional fishing grounds and so their subsistance lifestyles- has made reclaiming the land impossible.

It’s an all too familiar and common story- though they have a apparently legitimate claim to the land, no court will apparently ever rule in their favor

What is obvious is that even if Ventura-Oliver’s claims are valid it takes a bit of schizophrenia on the part of kanaka to think that the very American system that is denying them the actualization of their inherent sovereignty is a good place to seek redress of their grievances.

Those who own property, have mortgages, credit card debt and owe taxes have by their actions already bought into the American government’s occupation of the islands. They have helped give legitimacy to the illegal occupation by allowing the greed and individualism of westerners to take hold over their own lives.

In doing so they make apparent that on some level they believe in the corrupt American system so it would make sense that they would naively go to American courts to enforce the law.

But at the same time they’ve got to know that they are asking for the recognition of their sovereign rights flies in the face of the corporate control of the American government and it’s courts.

Whether this woman and her aides are actually stealing from gullible people is something that requires we examine her motives just as with the “Perfect Title” case in the ‘90’s and early ‘00’s. And that’s something we’ll leave for others closer to the situation to determine

But participation in both requires a duality in thought on the part of the alleged victims- the belief that the very entity they believe stole what is rightfully theirs is the right entity to petition to voluntarily restore those rights.

Next time it might be wise to ask the Swinomish people how that’s going for them.

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?”