RABID REPROBATE: As November approaches it gets harder and harder to stomach Governor Linda Lingle and her corrupt, incompetent, self serving, government-by-sound-bite administration.
It’s guaranteed that the closer the end of her slash and burn reign of terror, the more bizarre it will get.
Now she’s claiming that State Auditor supreme Marion Higa is the one who is incompetent and does "shoddy," "unprofessional" and "politically motivated." work for detailing the way the state, seemingly illegally- put taxpayer money into hair-brained investments that ended up essentially frozen when they got taken by some slick wall street firms, selling supposedly liquid investments that have suddenly become all but worthless if we need the money right now... which apparently we do.
The report is only a draft and apparently unavailable in full but media accounts show how, as usual, Lingle answers charges never made and uses personal attacks to substitute for facts, just like she did the last time Higa uncovered corruption/incompetence (take your pick) in Ted Liu’s Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism when Higa said Liu “should be relieved of his duties due to a ‘troubling pattern on nondisclosure’ of financial details surrounding an overseas trade mission and federal grant program” according to today’s press account.
Higa is know nationally as one of the best at what she does and Lingle’s known as one of the worst- except among the delusional Rush-Rove-Chaney crowd- so it’s pretty obvious why Lingle is left with nothing to do but to attack Higa personally when she “outs” Lingle’s Department of Budget and Finance team as the boobs they have shown themselves to be in this and most other fiscal and financial management blunders.
We’re lucky to have Higa statewide but when it comes to our own newly appointed auditor we’ve yet to see anything out of former Deputy County Clerk Ernie Pasion’s County Auditor’s office except that he’s searching for one.. an office that is.
But even once he sets up shop we don’t expect much from affable, good old boy Ernie whose former job consisted of serving the council in the role of boat-rocking attendant.
The appointment of Pasion was one of the biggest slaps-in-the-face of good governance advocates who waited years through the “hold me back boys” antics of some of the beaten down, former council reformers who, due to pubic outrage almost 10 years ago over illegal land rape by the likes of Jimmy Pflueger and Tom McCloskey, first threatened and funded an investigation under charter provision- 3.17 which allows the council to perform administration investigations.
But there was so much screwed up stuff in the Department of Public Works under Mayor Maryanne Kusaka’s administration that they couldn’t decide on what to investigate and then called the matter too expensive anyway.
Next they set up and funded an auditor position by ordinance and then never appointed anyone. That was followed by the last and latest stall tactic of placing a charter amendment to create the new County Auditor position before the people. which passed last fall.
While the promise was to set up a “Marion Higa-style-auditor” the search for a tough, competent, experienced and independent auditor started and ended in the council chambers with the appointment of someone who could be counted on to continue his anti-boat rocking activities when wave-making is exactly what is called for in a management auditor.
For all those who think good governance lies in passing laws and charter amendments- like the one to peg tourism development to growth figures in the general plan, which has apparently died a death by disregard- it’s time to recognize that until we say “enough” on election day we’ll never escape the management-by-incompetence and corruption typified by our current gang of self-serving incumbents whether at the county council/mayor or the state representative/senator/governor level.
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We’re losing our editor for the next few weeks to a mainland jaunt so our incomprehensibly long sentences will probably be even more unwieldy and the typos and spell-checker caused glitches will most likely proliferate until then. We’re also going to be a little more intermittent in posting over that period, what with so much college basketball and so little time. Go ‘Cuse.
Showing posts with label Lingle Administration corrupion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lingle Administration corrupion. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
THAT DOG NEVER DID HUNT
THAT DOG NEVER DID HUNT: The Superferry is making headlines again today but as Joan Conrow pointed out this morning, the Honolulu Advertiser’s story missed the mark in reporting that “Hawaii Superferry wants to abandon both its catamarans when the real story, as reported in the Mobile (AL) Press Register (P-R), is that it was anything but about what Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) Inc. wanted to do but rather about the fact that the “Government (is) to repossess Hawaii Superferry”
One things that stands out is a discrepancy between how much of their “investment” in the project HSf maker Austal is eating on the deal, with the Advertiser reporting the figure at $29.9 million and the P-R saying it is only 11 of that 29 million that they will “write off”.
As Joan points out a key passage in the P-R article- at least for those of us who have seen through all the gorilla dust and spin and seen how the project was always about demonstrating the aluminum catamaran design of Austal’s so that they could get the huge military contract they have now signed- says:
Browning said that Austal approved lending $23 million to the ferry venture in part because the deal would help raise the profile of Austal's U.S. shipyard, which at the time had been operating in Mobile for only a few years. Although it succeeded in doing that — the Mobile shipyard in November won a potential $1.6 billion contract to build up to 10 high-speed fast ferries for the military — Browning said the company's lending days are over.
But another couple of passages in the P-R article were, well, pretty outrageous, the first saying
Talks among MARAD, Austal and Hawaii Superferry broke down last week, Austal officials said....
Austal Ltd. President Bob Browning said he was disappointed that MARAD decided to seize the ferries without involving Austal in a project to prepare them for military use.
Maybe Austal is “disappointed” but that is certainly good news for HSf- it seems that the “taxpayer guarantee” is now being “activated” which lets the owners off the hook for trying to find work for the apparently unwanted ferry, as evidenced by the lack of interest thus far in leasing the vessels even to the military.
But the bombshell in this, if true, might just be this sentence:
MARAD made the ferry loans under its Title XI program, which is supposed to support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work.
With what we know now about how the whole deal went down in order to have Austal positioned to do military work, the fact that MARAD- the U.S. Maritime Administration- made the loan to “support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work” points to one conclusion- the whole deal was a fraud.
Austal has admitted as much by saying publicly and repeatedly that their “investment” was in order to prove the ferry’s seaworthiness so it could eventually rely on military work, while knowing full well of the thus-far-unreported “strings attached” to the MARAD loan.
And by fraud we don’t mean just some petty theft- we’re talking about defrauding the taxpayer out of $136.8 million.
If nothing else it goes a long way in explaining the constant, adamant denial of military involvement in the venture- for no good reason- in the face the mounting evidence, as first reported by Conrow.
It also raises the question of what the liability of former Naval Secretary John Lehman may be now that MARAD has stepped in. Funny how he personally seems to be getting away scot-free, at least financially, when it was his machinations that cost everyone big bucks, including the Hawai`i taxpayers who will probably never see the $40 million Harbor improvements Governor Linda Lingle’s “Unified command” was duped out of .
As a matter of fact, he may turn a profit since, as the Advertiser article reports:
The company has no current source of revenue yet has to cover the cost of insurance, maintenance, security, storage and a skeleton crew for the catamarans at an Alabama shipyard owned by J.F. Lehman & Co., the project's main private investor.
So Lehman gets off from any financial responsibility for the fiasco he created and is most likely collecting “maintenance storage, security, and (salaries for) a skeleton crew” now that MARAD has taken “possession” of the boats.
We’ll see what happens in bankruptcy court where proceedings are now taking place in Delaware although the state is trying to move them to Hawai`i. But due to the insane bankruptcy laws that allow fat cats to form “limited liability” companies and duck out of obligations through bankruptcy yet stick working class credit card and home debtors with paying back every penny, don’t expect Lehman to be crying all the way to the bank.
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Correction:
Yesterday we said that Councilman Darryl Kaneshiro served in the Eduardo Malapit administration as Mala’s “Administrative Assistant”, a second-in-command “assistant mayor” position as defined in the county charter.
Rather, Kaneshiro’s service was in the administration of Tony Kunimura where he served as economic development director and, apparently, as a generic administrative aide. We regret the error.
One things that stands out is a discrepancy between how much of their “investment” in the project HSf maker Austal is eating on the deal, with the Advertiser reporting the figure at $29.9 million and the P-R saying it is only 11 of that 29 million that they will “write off”.
As Joan points out a key passage in the P-R article- at least for those of us who have seen through all the gorilla dust and spin and seen how the project was always about demonstrating the aluminum catamaran design of Austal’s so that they could get the huge military contract they have now signed- says:
Browning said that Austal approved lending $23 million to the ferry venture in part because the deal would help raise the profile of Austal's U.S. shipyard, which at the time had been operating in Mobile for only a few years. Although it succeeded in doing that — the Mobile shipyard in November won a potential $1.6 billion contract to build up to 10 high-speed fast ferries for the military — Browning said the company's lending days are over.
But another couple of passages in the P-R article were, well, pretty outrageous, the first saying
Talks among MARAD, Austal and Hawaii Superferry broke down last week, Austal officials said....
Austal Ltd. President Bob Browning said he was disappointed that MARAD decided to seize the ferries without involving Austal in a project to prepare them for military use.
Maybe Austal is “disappointed” but that is certainly good news for HSf- it seems that the “taxpayer guarantee” is now being “activated” which lets the owners off the hook for trying to find work for the apparently unwanted ferry, as evidenced by the lack of interest thus far in leasing the vessels even to the military.
But the bombshell in this, if true, might just be this sentence:
MARAD made the ferry loans under its Title XI program, which is supposed to support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work.
With what we know now about how the whole deal went down in order to have Austal positioned to do military work, the fact that MARAD- the U.S. Maritime Administration- made the loan to “support U.S. shipyards by reducing their reliance on military work” points to one conclusion- the whole deal was a fraud.
Austal has admitted as much by saying publicly and repeatedly that their “investment” was in order to prove the ferry’s seaworthiness so it could eventually rely on military work, while knowing full well of the thus-far-unreported “strings attached” to the MARAD loan.
And by fraud we don’t mean just some petty theft- we’re talking about defrauding the taxpayer out of $136.8 million.
If nothing else it goes a long way in explaining the constant, adamant denial of military involvement in the venture- for no good reason- in the face the mounting evidence, as first reported by Conrow.
It also raises the question of what the liability of former Naval Secretary John Lehman may be now that MARAD has stepped in. Funny how he personally seems to be getting away scot-free, at least financially, when it was his machinations that cost everyone big bucks, including the Hawai`i taxpayers who will probably never see the $40 million Harbor improvements Governor Linda Lingle’s “Unified command” was duped out of .
As a matter of fact, he may turn a profit since, as the Advertiser article reports:
The company has no current source of revenue yet has to cover the cost of insurance, maintenance, security, storage and a skeleton crew for the catamarans at an Alabama shipyard owned by J.F. Lehman & Co., the project's main private investor.
So Lehman gets off from any financial responsibility for the fiasco he created and is most likely collecting “maintenance storage, security, and (salaries for) a skeleton crew” now that MARAD has taken “possession” of the boats.
We’ll see what happens in bankruptcy court where proceedings are now taking place in Delaware although the state is trying to move them to Hawai`i. But due to the insane bankruptcy laws that allow fat cats to form “limited liability” companies and duck out of obligations through bankruptcy yet stick working class credit card and home debtors with paying back every penny, don’t expect Lehman to be crying all the way to the bank.
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Correction:
Yesterday we said that Councilman Darryl Kaneshiro served in the Eduardo Malapit administration as Mala’s “Administrative Assistant”, a second-in-command “assistant mayor” position as defined in the county charter.
Rather, Kaneshiro’s service was in the administration of Tony Kunimura where he served as economic development director and, apparently, as a generic administrative aide. We regret the error.
Friday, March 20, 2009
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE
USED GUIDE DOG FOR SALE: How could we all have been so wrong for so long?
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
It’s painfully obvious now that conclusions, even though based on the reams of data, that the Hawai`i Superferry (HSf) was nothing but a demonstration prototype for a new class of military war ships were nothing but the rantings of a bunch of stupid hippie environmentalists grasping at straws.
The illumination came directly from an unimpeachable source- Superferry president and chief executive officer- and former Navy Admiral- Thomas Fargo who would certainly have no reason to lie to or BS anyone.
Barely choking back crocodile tears, before the “final voyage” of the Superferry, Fargo set everyone straight.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser:
Fargo, after mentioning that the military might want to lease the Alakai, addressed speculation by some activists who have opposed the project that Superferry was designed from the start as a military operation.
"That's absolutely not true," said Fargo, a former Navy admiral. "We certainly wouldn't have gone to the trouble to paint Alakai in the manner that we did, to appoint her with 836 first-class seats, to spend the huge sums of money that we did to establish service here in Hawaii if that was our goal.
"The goal that's unmistakable was to provide regular and reliable commercial ferry service in these Islands."
And, in a phone interview directly from the deck of the boat with the local Kaua`i paper’s Michael Levine, Fargo let us misinformed misanthropes know that this was no causal remark.
Levine says:
Asked about the possibility that the Alakai would be sold to the military, Fargo took umbrage at the implication that it the Superferry was designed for military purposes all along.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear because this has been misunderstood from the get-go. All these theories that it had something to do with the military are bogus,” he said. “We wouldn’t have painted, branded, and carpeted (the ship), put 831 first-class seats and spent all this money if we wanted to lease it to the military. That logic is absolutely flawed. The conspiracy theories ... are a bunch of baloney.”
Of course- how could we have been so blind? All we had to do was look at the paint job. It was right on the boat... “Hawai`i Superferry”. obviously if it were really for military use it would have said “War Ship Prototype- Military Boondoggle”.
And whose ever heard of painting over anything- that lettering was obviously done with permanent paint. It must have cost at least, why, hundreds of dollars to paint the words and logo on an almost $400 million boat.
Of course those seats couldn’t serve anyone else but ferry passengers. They quite obviously are irremovably and permanently embedded on the ship. Those “first class appointments” could only serve civilians because, as everyone knows, soldiers always stand at attention and never sit down.
But the carpeting- well that cinches it. That stuff is impossible to replace. And who would want to with all the vomit stains?
Apparently we were just bamboozled by these awful conspiracy theorists. because, well Fargo says it was all a “bunch of baloney” and what possible reason would we have to not take a Superferry official at their word?
It’s all falling into place now.
It was apparently just a coincidence that back in 2000 Hawai`i Senator Daniel Inouye and Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens of Alaska “earmarked” $10 million to study the feasibility of high-speed large-capacity ferries in Hawai`i and Alaska at the very same time when, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed services committee, he was first considering Navy plans for a new fleet of high speed large capacity vessels virtually indistinguishable from the ferry- a plan which called for spending 10’s of billions on the war ships that were yet to be designed or built.
Then, it certainly wasn’t in anticipation of cashing in when Australian ship builder set up shop in Mobile Alabama where they could compete to design and build the military vessels because, unlike ferries, the war ships had to be built in America.
They came to build us a ferry.
The fact that the ferry was the first aluminum-hulled, high-speed vessel of that size and with a catamaran design- identical to the description the Navy used for their proposed project- was quite obviously part of a fallacious post hoc- proctor hoc argument by anti US military commies.
Austal was obviously only coming to the US because they love Americans so much and just wanted to come and build a ferry for Hawai`i, even if their initial investment in setting up the ship was many times the amount the ferry cost and there was no contract in place for even the ferry. Why everyone knows that all corporations like Austal are really just benevolent public service organizations and don’t ever consider anything based purely on profit motive.
Of course it was just a happy coincidence that the first and only major funding for the ferry came from former Navy Secretary John Lehman. Because it was certainly of no note at all that congressional records show that they were reluctant to spend a nickel on the new design because they didn’t know if it would really be able to stand up to shallow water and close shore maneuvering... or for that matter if the unique design would even float.
It’s all too clear that the real story is the original story. The one they’ve told all along and are “sticking to” today as they ready the ship for military use: some guy who had never heard of high-speed high-capacity ferries identical to the Navy’s design went to Europe, saw a ferry and said “I’m gonna run an outlandishly big, untested and never-built-before ferry to go between islands in Hawai`i”.
The fact that he had no background in ferries, mutli-hundred-million dollar businesses or any money personally to invest is irrelevant. It had to work because he was “an entrepreneur”.
This could never have been just a cover story in anyone’s wildest dreams- even though Inouye had already appropriated the money for the study before the idea was even proposed and was one of the first to immediately support the idea.
Why even Superferry opponents like Koohan Paik and Jerry Mander say that’s the true origin of the HSf, as they wrote over and over in their book “The Superferry Chronicles”. Who are we to question the story if they bought it?.... It doesn’t matter that almost every bit of information cited in the book came from secondary and tertiary rather than original sources.
Now we know it’s the only thing in the book they got right.
It’s obvious the whole project was and always has been driven forward solely in the name of serving the people of Hawai`i. The fact that Lehman et. al. put pressure on the federal government to demand an exemption from state mandated environmental studies before they would guarantee a loan had nothing to do with the urgency to move the project forward and get the boat in the water as quickly as possible to show congress that the “ferry” would withstand actual service.... that’s would be just preposterous
What possible motivation, other than helping people to take their car and travel to see their auntie on another island, could a former Secretary of the Navy have had?
And certainly it was just because Governor Linda Lingle really liked the Superferry honcho John Garibaldi so much that she risked and eventually destroyed her political career to pressure the state bureaucrats to acquiesce to flouting the law in order to rush an oversized, biggest-ferry-in-the-world into service... despite the fact that it was comparatively horribly expensive to operate and had unless capacity... not to mention the sticker shocking price.
Why all that sucking up to people dealing in multi billion-dollar contracts could never result in a lucrative position when Lingle term-limits run out in 2010. Because pols who make corrupt decisions and show themselves to be willing cogs in a boondoggle never get rewarded with multi-million dollar revolving door consulting jobs after leaving office
It was all just speculation when articles appeared in the military-contracting trade magazines quoting Austal officials, U.S. congressional members and military planners talking about wanting to see how the HSf stands up to use before they go forward with the new class of Navy ships based on that almost identical design. After all, everyone knows that trade magazines like that that people rely on to make billion dollar investments are all just opinion rags.
Just because it was the first one and sailed around for a year before congress and Senator Inouye- now chair of the armed forces appropriation sub committee- allowed the project to start slowly going forward doesn’t mean a thing.
And we all know how dumb Lehman, Inouye, Fargo and everyone else involved are. They would never have been smart enough to plot to operate for a year or so without an EIS for a boat that any moron could tell you would severely effect the environment in ways that can’t be mitigated (especially at zero cost for infrastructural support).
They could never have schemed to nix the studies so they could pull out, sell the boat to the military and sue the state for letting them do it when the courts unanimously laughed at the state’s attempts to con everyone.
The fact that they ignored the first Supreme Court ruling as long as they could- and then got the legislature to illegally let them show off the boat by running it for a year while opponents went back to court- yet this time after the recent ruling they shut down on a dime, doesn’t mean a thing.
The record shows that they are obviously just good citizens who always respect the law and the court rulings.
Why how could they have foreseen that they would get to operate long enough to show the boats viability then get nixed by the courts?... you’d have to believe they have ESP or are psychic.
We all know that senators and military-contracting ex-admirals would never be able plot anything so complex.
And anyway, they would never scam idiotic twits like Lingle, Attorney General Bennett and most of the members of the state legislature. No one would do that just for money- why it would be wrong and the military never does anything wrong- just think of how righteous the Vietnam and Iraq wars were.
Besides, they had no way of knowing that there were plenty of greedy, self-centered mainland marauders living in Honolulu who would jump at the chance to treat the environmentally sensitive and infrastructure-poor neighbor islands like their personal playground and toilet and plunder the resources, trash the place and go home.
Why Americans can always be counted on to put their own self-interest aside and do what’s for the good of others. When people ask them not to overrun and despoil someone else’s neck of the woods Americans never just call them NIMBY’s, push them aside and take what they want with no regard for anyone but themselves.
So they certainly couldn’t count on all that happening. It was just a happy coincidence that the greedy pigs put on enough political pressure to force the state’s Minotaurs at the legislature and in the administration to do what was wrong as long as they could.
Yup- Fargo has opened everyone’s eyes to our silly evidence-based conclusions.
We who thought there was ever any connection between the Hawai`i Superferry Inc. and the military simply made the common mistake of believing’ our own lyin’ eyes instead of the words of those always trustworthy PR hacks and corrupt military personnel and contractors.
Even though their wieners are out and there’s a distinct and overpowering pissy stench of ammonia coming from our feet, apparently it’s just raining.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
CASPER’S BEST FRIEND
CASPER’S BEST FRIEND: Yeah we know- we’ve become way too hung up on this election filing deadline dance and the fallout in Honolulu but how can you ignore the idiocy of public officials when they respond to the revelations with pompous, self-serving and self-congratulatory blatherings like those in Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin’s statement on all of the sundry snafus.
Who’s to blame for it all? According to Cronin it’s apparently Derrick’s and our fault for telling people about it.
These cases should not be tried and decided in the newspapers and other media. Isn’t this our democratic system? Shouldn’t it be allowed to work? But because they have chosen to present snippets to the public and reached a decision including casting aspersions on the Office of Elections whose dedicated staff is working extremely hard to prepare for the 2008 elections under very difficult circumstances, the current atmosphere obliges me to comment before it is necessary under the law.
But perhaps the most absurd of all of Cronin’s responses Derrick DePledge reproduced today in his on-line-only Honolulu Advertiser “The Notebook” blog today entitled “De Facto”, was this alleged explaining of why Cronin didn’t register to vote before taking his job in February as the law requires.
After he got done blaming the press for covering the story, in order to exonerate his staff he went on to defend himself in the following truly baffling manner:
Until I registered to vote, I served as what the law calls a “de facto” official. A “de facto” official is one who in good faith may perform the duties of office without jeopardy to any decisions made. No one informed me otherwise. There is no question I was a citizen of the United States, older than 18 and a resident of Hawaii. All of that paperwork had been completed.
What remained to remove the “de facto” status was to complete an application to become a registered voter in Hawaii. Unfortunately, this was one of several personal items which remained on my to-do list and that working 6-7 days a week kept getting moved to the next day as I worried about getting a voting machine system secured for the state and to begin election preparations in what is expected to bring to the polls an unusually large number of voters. When the caller/reporter asked about my status, I left the office immediately to go to Honolulu Hale to register to vote.
And then, in one of those “don’t you have anything better to worry about- whadda you lookin’ at” statements he says:
To experience the attention and anger among many people over my voter registration status surprised me, especially when our beautiful state has so many more compelling issues like education, health care, and transportation, among others.
But what the heck is a “de facto” government official anyway? We suppose Cronin’s definition was the one in the dictionary that says it means “existing in fact, whether with lawful authority or not”.
In other words. “because I said so”.
Thanks mom.
And don’t forget this guy is the one whose job description includes interpreting the election law.
So under the Cronin doctrine of de facto governance we just can’t wait to see all the de facto voters- exactly how many votes does a de facto voter get? Easy- Cronin will obviously get to decide that, arbitrarily and capriciously, under his “lawful or not authority.”
Maybe this is a preview of Cronin’s defense in the ES&S lawsuit over why he picked the more-than-double-the-cost Hart election-tallying company. It’s quite obviously a de facto contract- not necessarily a legal one but just the same, legal just because Cronin says so.
Why this may be just the ticket for the State administration. Attorney General Mark Bennett and Governor Linda Lingle have become extremely adept at appropriating the nonsensical rantings of underlings and county officials as their own justifications for lawlessness- why not this one.
Any day now we expect Bennett to write one of those bizarre yet secret opinions allowing Lingle to declare herself, the De Facto Governor, enabling her to dictate to the legislature, override the courts and maybe declare herself The De Facto Queen.
It seems to be a trend in public service these days. It’s a new brand authority -“Ghost Governance”- whereby officials have absolutely none of sloppy muss and fuss of democracy and lawful responsibilities of employment... just all the power...
Just make sure you’re not qualified for the job and then when challenged say “well I was just ‘sort of’ in charge so I can do whatever I want because I am not really here at all... unless I want to be.”
The only question left is whether Cronin is collecting a real paycheck or a de facto one.
Wait- gotta run... we hear the white knight counting backwards.
Who’s to blame for it all? According to Cronin it’s apparently Derrick’s and our fault for telling people about it.
These cases should not be tried and decided in the newspapers and other media. Isn’t this our democratic system? Shouldn’t it be allowed to work? But because they have chosen to present snippets to the public and reached a decision including casting aspersions on the Office of Elections whose dedicated staff is working extremely hard to prepare for the 2008 elections under very difficult circumstances, the current atmosphere obliges me to comment before it is necessary under the law.
But perhaps the most absurd of all of Cronin’s responses Derrick DePledge reproduced today in his on-line-only Honolulu Advertiser “The Notebook” blog today entitled “De Facto”, was this alleged explaining of why Cronin didn’t register to vote before taking his job in February as the law requires.
After he got done blaming the press for covering the story, in order to exonerate his staff he went on to defend himself in the following truly baffling manner:
Until I registered to vote, I served as what the law calls a “de facto” official. A “de facto” official is one who in good faith may perform the duties of office without jeopardy to any decisions made. No one informed me otherwise. There is no question I was a citizen of the United States, older than 18 and a resident of Hawaii. All of that paperwork had been completed.
What remained to remove the “de facto” status was to complete an application to become a registered voter in Hawaii. Unfortunately, this was one of several personal items which remained on my to-do list and that working 6-7 days a week kept getting moved to the next day as I worried about getting a voting machine system secured for the state and to begin election preparations in what is expected to bring to the polls an unusually large number of voters. When the caller/reporter asked about my status, I left the office immediately to go to Honolulu Hale to register to vote.
And then, in one of those “don’t you have anything better to worry about- whadda you lookin’ at” statements he says:
To experience the attention and anger among many people over my voter registration status surprised me, especially when our beautiful state has so many more compelling issues like education, health care, and transportation, among others.
But what the heck is a “de facto” government official anyway? We suppose Cronin’s definition was the one in the dictionary that says it means “existing in fact, whether with lawful authority or not”.
In other words. “because I said so”.
Thanks mom.
And don’t forget this guy is the one whose job description includes interpreting the election law.
So under the Cronin doctrine of de facto governance we just can’t wait to see all the de facto voters- exactly how many votes does a de facto voter get? Easy- Cronin will obviously get to decide that, arbitrarily and capriciously, under his “lawful or not authority.”
Maybe this is a preview of Cronin’s defense in the ES&S lawsuit over why he picked the more-than-double-the-cost Hart election-tallying company. It’s quite obviously a de facto contract- not necessarily a legal one but just the same, legal just because Cronin says so.
Why this may be just the ticket for the State administration. Attorney General Mark Bennett and Governor Linda Lingle have become extremely adept at appropriating the nonsensical rantings of underlings and county officials as their own justifications for lawlessness- why not this one.
Any day now we expect Bennett to write one of those bizarre yet secret opinions allowing Lingle to declare herself, the De Facto Governor, enabling her to dictate to the legislature, override the courts and maybe declare herself The De Facto Queen.
It seems to be a trend in public service these days. It’s a new brand authority -“Ghost Governance”- whereby officials have absolutely none of sloppy muss and fuss of democracy and lawful responsibilities of employment... just all the power...
Just make sure you’re not qualified for the job and then when challenged say “well I was just ‘sort of’ in charge so I can do whatever I want because I am not really here at all... unless I want to be.”
The only question left is whether Cronin is collecting a real paycheck or a de facto one.
Wait- gotta run... we hear the white knight counting backwards.
Monday, July 28, 2008
THE BITE ISN’T BLEEDING MUCH AND AW, HE’S SO CUTE
THE BITE ISN’T BLEEDING MUCH AND AW, HE’S SO CUTE: We’ve got a buddy who never tires of asking us, in referring to our apparent obsession with Kaua`i politics, “So, you still got your nose in the cesspool?”.
And apparently it was all for naught when for a few days we took on the absurd machinations of the “City and County” only to hear “so now you’ve got your nose in a bigger cesspool”
Perhaps our fascination with our leader’s excrement is because of this penchant of much of the citizenry to excuse our government officials with the basketball cliché of “no blood, no foul” when confronted with the a level of lawlessness that is apparently ok unless our personal ox is actually killed, not merely gored.
Yesterday we got an email from a usually astute observer who said it didn’t matter who exactly was being replaced in the Honolulu Hale filing deadline fiasco we focused on over the past few days because they had already chosen a replacement candidate.
And today, in an appropriately entitled piece “Phew, Somebody Forgot to Flush” former Honolulu Star Bulletin Editor and current Advertiser blogger Dave Shapiro detailed some of the story- without shedding any new light- regarding the events Tuesday and since.
But instead of squeezing off a bit of his usual righteous indignation he ended his piece by saying
But let’s be real: What are the chances that Democratic patronage workers are going to tell the House Democratic majority leader who is supported by the Democratic mayor of Honolulu that he can’t run.
Then today, in another plop in the potty, Honolulu Advertiser reporter and blogger Derrick DePledge detailed the latest flouting of the law, this time by the state’s Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin.
It appears Cronin didn’t bother to - and wasn’t apparently bothered by the fact that he failed to- fulfill the requirements for his job by failing to register to vote when he came here from Wisconsin in February.
When, after a tip, DePledge asked Cronin if he was indeed “a registered voter of the State” as the law states he must be, Cronin reportedly replied “It was one of those things that I never got around to doing, Thank you for reminding me.”
You would expect the outrage would be gushing like an open artery not only at the lawless arrogance and stupidity but the fact that Cronin- who was ultimately responsible for the Tuesday screw ups- is being sued over his awarding of a contract to a Hart Election Systems that bid $41 million to count our votes instead of a $19 million ES&S bid and apparently he made the decision knowing he didn’t validly hold the job... a point we expect ES&S to raise in court.
Cronin reportedly has had prior associations with Hart and ESS was the preferred contractor under former Chief Elections Office Dwayne Yoshina who was replaced, many observers say, due to partisan-based political maneuverings by the current administration.
But among the comments in DePledge’s blog was one that voices the who cares mantra with clarity
First “Bryan” expressed the requisite minimal indignation by saying:
Never got around to doing, what a load of crock!!... This tells us 1 of 2 things, either Cronin is hiding something (maybe his resident status back in Wisconisin) or he is just too stupid to understand the law. Either one dosn’t look good for us voters.
But “Jane” was seemingly unfazed saying:
Isn’t it a requirement by the State of Hawaii for new employees to sign a Declaration of Residency? I had to. If Cronin did this, the whole issues is much ado about nothing. Maybe he was waiting to find permanent residency, maybe... other election issues took precedent- expand your mind Bryon and don’t be so pessimistic.. the failing of Hawaiian schools-now that is something to be concerned about.
The fact is that if Cronin was not a registered voter until now, he could not have legally held the job. And if he never legally held the job he could not have legally and officially made the decisions attributed to him. All actions done in his capacity as Chief Elections Officer should be null and void.
What is it that rouses the rabble when hearing someone stuffed a boar’s head in the toilet amongst the graffiti in the brand-new, always-filthy, county bathrooms in Kealia but keeps us ho-humming it all when everyone from the president to the three pig-headed law-breakers running for Kaua`i Mayor take a dump on our law books?
It’s bad enough when they actually pull off their crimes and no one cares. But the worst may be when an official’s illegal actions don’t accomplish the deed-most-foul they had in mind and so people think it’s time to “move on”.
If I’m doing 80 in a school zone I don’t get to “move on” just because I didn’t hit a kid. If I try to rob a bank and don’t get any money the FBI won’t send me along my merry way..
Are we still so ingrained with plantation mentality that we allow our mucky mucks to do whatever they want as long as their corrupt attempts use their office to gain advantage fail?
Don’t answer Ralphie-boy- Norton can’t hear you down here in the sewer.
And apparently it was all for naught when for a few days we took on the absurd machinations of the “City and County” only to hear “so now you’ve got your nose in a bigger cesspool”
Perhaps our fascination with our leader’s excrement is because of this penchant of much of the citizenry to excuse our government officials with the basketball cliché of “no blood, no foul” when confronted with the a level of lawlessness that is apparently ok unless our personal ox is actually killed, not merely gored.
Yesterday we got an email from a usually astute observer who said it didn’t matter who exactly was being replaced in the Honolulu Hale filing deadline fiasco we focused on over the past few days because they had already chosen a replacement candidate.
And today, in an appropriately entitled piece “Phew, Somebody Forgot to Flush” former Honolulu Star Bulletin Editor and current Advertiser blogger Dave Shapiro detailed some of the story- without shedding any new light- regarding the events Tuesday and since.
But instead of squeezing off a bit of his usual righteous indignation he ended his piece by saying
But let’s be real: What are the chances that Democratic patronage workers are going to tell the House Democratic majority leader who is supported by the Democratic mayor of Honolulu that he can’t run.
Then today, in another plop in the potty, Honolulu Advertiser reporter and blogger Derrick DePledge detailed the latest flouting of the law, this time by the state’s Chief Elections Officer Kevin Cronin.
It appears Cronin didn’t bother to - and wasn’t apparently bothered by the fact that he failed to- fulfill the requirements for his job by failing to register to vote when he came here from Wisconsin in February.
When, after a tip, DePledge asked Cronin if he was indeed “a registered voter of the State” as the law states he must be, Cronin reportedly replied “It was one of those things that I never got around to doing, Thank you for reminding me.”
You would expect the outrage would be gushing like an open artery not only at the lawless arrogance and stupidity but the fact that Cronin- who was ultimately responsible for the Tuesday screw ups- is being sued over his awarding of a contract to a Hart Election Systems that bid $41 million to count our votes instead of a $19 million ES&S bid and apparently he made the decision knowing he didn’t validly hold the job... a point we expect ES&S to raise in court.
Cronin reportedly has had prior associations with Hart and ESS was the preferred contractor under former Chief Elections Office Dwayne Yoshina who was replaced, many observers say, due to partisan-based political maneuverings by the current administration.
But among the comments in DePledge’s blog was one that voices the who cares mantra with clarity
First “Bryan” expressed the requisite minimal indignation by saying:
Never got around to doing, what a load of crock!!... This tells us 1 of 2 things, either Cronin is hiding something (maybe his resident status back in Wisconisin) or he is just too stupid to understand the law. Either one dosn’t look good for us voters.
But “Jane” was seemingly unfazed saying:
Isn’t it a requirement by the State of Hawaii for new employees to sign a Declaration of Residency? I had to. If Cronin did this, the whole issues is much ado about nothing. Maybe he was waiting to find permanent residency, maybe... other election issues took precedent- expand your mind Bryon and don’t be so pessimistic.. the failing of Hawaiian schools-now that is something to be concerned about.
The fact is that if Cronin was not a registered voter until now, he could not have legally held the job. And if he never legally held the job he could not have legally and officially made the decisions attributed to him. All actions done in his capacity as Chief Elections Officer should be null and void.
What is it that rouses the rabble when hearing someone stuffed a boar’s head in the toilet amongst the graffiti in the brand-new, always-filthy, county bathrooms in Kealia but keeps us ho-humming it all when everyone from the president to the three pig-headed law-breakers running for Kaua`i Mayor take a dump on our law books?
It’s bad enough when they actually pull off their crimes and no one cares. But the worst may be when an official’s illegal actions don’t accomplish the deed-most-foul they had in mind and so people think it’s time to “move on”.
If I’m doing 80 in a school zone I don’t get to “move on” just because I didn’t hit a kid. If I try to rob a bank and don’t get any money the FBI won’t send me along my merry way..
Are we still so ingrained with plantation mentality that we allow our mucky mucks to do whatever they want as long as their corrupt attempts use their office to gain advantage fail?
Don’t answer Ralphie-boy- Norton can’t hear you down here in the sewer.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
THEY CALL ME A DOG WHEN I’M DOWN
THEY CALL ME A DOG WHEN I’M DOWN: For decades Kaua`i suffered from an inferiority complex when it comes to recognition of the ability of our politicians and business leaders to run a pervasively corrupt system of governance.
Oh we knew WE were good at promulgating done deals and kickback schemes while feigning incompetence but far from our shores recognition was hard to come by.
Not that we don’t have people that are excellently crooked. But they go about exploiting-if not breaking- the law and lining their pockets with a bit of a free pass for a certain brand of amateurism that can only stand in an apathetic beaten-down populace like ours.
So imagine our pride in recent times when our Ethics Board became a wholly owned subsidiary of the county council, administration and big land-owning developers, shrugging off blatant violations by all three with a “What Me Worry?” shrug of Grove Farm’s Mark “Alfred E”. Hubbard’s shoulders.
And our self-worth as a world-class kleptocracy was certainly boosted when our own Council’s scheme to keep public policy decisions out of the public eye- by shoving County Attorney opinions down their pants and using attorney client provisions to hide everything else - was appropriated and implemented by the Unified Command of Governor Linda “Admiral” Lingle and His Fraudulency Attorney General Mark Bennett, who perfected the Kaua`i initiated shell game.
And we knew it was another ostrich plume in our featherbedded cap when Kaipo “the Duke” Asing somehow manipulated and ignored enough laws to actually serve as Mayor and Council Chair at the same time, paternalistically passing legislation so he could sign it as Mayor.
And yesterday in the Kaua`i Council Chambers, after the last strains of “All Around the Mulberry Bush” were played and the Musical Chairs extravaganza wound down with a new Chair being installed, we were dazzlingly impressed with the political mischief-making skills of mayoral candidates Mel Rapozo.
Mel reportedly grabbed a “done deal” bill to turn the coastal bike path into the Westminster Kennel Club, stealing it out from under bill-supporting Parks and Rec Committee Chair Tim Bynum by taking the Committee Chair itself away and parking his okole in it where he can now guide the bill to a certain death.
But alas we were again shown to be the bumpkins we are when compared to the machinations of various and sundry office seekers in Honolulu who, when the music stopped, apparently pulled out their own folding chairs and a new set of rules in order to stay in the game.
Begging the question when it’s 4:30 in Honolulu, what time is it in Honolulu Hale?
In case anyone has not been following the improbable chain of events on Tuesday in the County Clerk’s office in Honolulu, a last day decision by a councilwoman to run against the mayor this fall spurred the state house majority leader to seek her council seat and give up his legislative slot. That caused an aide to the mayor to run down 40 minutes before the deadline to file to run for the legislator’s seat only to find a line so long she couldn’t get the papers until 4:25.
So when the office doors were locked at 4:30 she wasn’t back with her 15 signatures.
And when the majority leader’s petition was verified it was one signature short.
Should they count? Should they be left in the cold? What to do- what to do?.
Who ya gonna call? The corporation council? The attorney general?
No, call the head of the Democratic Party. Shockingly he advised them to take the petition from the late filer at 10 to five and to allow a member of the clerk’s staff to provide the 15th signature for the insufficient petition so the two Democrats could run.
OK- you guys win... for now. But watch out- we’ll be back. No matter who’s elected here in November we have, if not indictments, convictions that our new mayor and council will be up to the task of uplifting our “Separate Hackdom” once again and reestablishing our title as the renowned, world-class sewer of unbridled avarice and arrogance... still the worst little politicians money can buy.
Oh we knew WE were good at promulgating done deals and kickback schemes while feigning incompetence but far from our shores recognition was hard to come by.
Not that we don’t have people that are excellently crooked. But they go about exploiting-if not breaking- the law and lining their pockets with a bit of a free pass for a certain brand of amateurism that can only stand in an apathetic beaten-down populace like ours.
So imagine our pride in recent times when our Ethics Board became a wholly owned subsidiary of the county council, administration and big land-owning developers, shrugging off blatant violations by all three with a “What Me Worry?” shrug of Grove Farm’s Mark “Alfred E”. Hubbard’s shoulders.
And our self-worth as a world-class kleptocracy was certainly boosted when our own Council’s scheme to keep public policy decisions out of the public eye- by shoving County Attorney opinions down their pants and using attorney client provisions to hide everything else - was appropriated and implemented by the Unified Command of Governor Linda “Admiral” Lingle and His Fraudulency Attorney General Mark Bennett, who perfected the Kaua`i initiated shell game.
And we knew it was another ostrich plume in our featherbedded cap when Kaipo “the Duke” Asing somehow manipulated and ignored enough laws to actually serve as Mayor and Council Chair at the same time, paternalistically passing legislation so he could sign it as Mayor.
And yesterday in the Kaua`i Council Chambers, after the last strains of “All Around the Mulberry Bush” were played and the Musical Chairs extravaganza wound down with a new Chair being installed, we were dazzlingly impressed with the political mischief-making skills of mayoral candidates Mel Rapozo.
Mel reportedly grabbed a “done deal” bill to turn the coastal bike path into the Westminster Kennel Club, stealing it out from under bill-supporting Parks and Rec Committee Chair Tim Bynum by taking the Committee Chair itself away and parking his okole in it where he can now guide the bill to a certain death.
But alas we were again shown to be the bumpkins we are when compared to the machinations of various and sundry office seekers in Honolulu who, when the music stopped, apparently pulled out their own folding chairs and a new set of rules in order to stay in the game.
Begging the question when it’s 4:30 in Honolulu, what time is it in Honolulu Hale?
In case anyone has not been following the improbable chain of events on Tuesday in the County Clerk’s office in Honolulu, a last day decision by a councilwoman to run against the mayor this fall spurred the state house majority leader to seek her council seat and give up his legislative slot. That caused an aide to the mayor to run down 40 minutes before the deadline to file to run for the legislator’s seat only to find a line so long she couldn’t get the papers until 4:25.
So when the office doors were locked at 4:30 she wasn’t back with her 15 signatures.
And when the majority leader’s petition was verified it was one signature short.
Should they count? Should they be left in the cold? What to do- what to do?.
Who ya gonna call? The corporation council? The attorney general?
No, call the head of the Democratic Party. Shockingly he advised them to take the petition from the late filer at 10 to five and to allow a member of the clerk’s staff to provide the 15th signature for the insufficient petition so the two Democrats could run.
OK- you guys win... for now. But watch out- we’ll be back. No matter who’s elected here in November we have, if not indictments, convictions that our new mayor and council will be up to the task of uplifting our “Separate Hackdom” once again and reestablishing our title as the renowned, world-class sewer of unbridled avarice and arrogance... still the worst little politicians money can buy.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
MCGRUFF’S MARAUDERS
MCGRUFF’S MARAUDERS: In one of the most predictable screw-ups in a screwed-up system the Department of Public Safety (DPS) apparently sent the names, addresses and medical information for all 4200 some-odd medical marijuana patients in the state to a reporter at the Hawai`i Tribune Herald (HTH) last month.
The unfathomable breach of privacy and safety- including apparently the location of their plants- was barely mentioned, buried deep inside a June 27 story about medical use of marijuana on the big Island in the HTH with just a mention that the information was in reporter Peter Sur’s hands.
Though apparently calls immediately flooded both HH and DPS offices within minutes of publication the story was evidently covered up until yesterday when HTH detailed the story, which was picked up by the Honolulu Advertiser today.
In the intervening period Governor Lingle vetoed a measure that would form a task force to look into methodology for the State growing and distributing the medication to patients and also look into whether the DPS is the right place to administrate the program.
None of the other 12 states that allow medical marijuana regulate the prescriptions through a law enforcement entity preferring to put administration where people almost universally agree it belongs- in their respective departments of health or similar entities that have experience in administering medical information and privacy laws.
What the prison system was doing keeping medical records in the first place was an issue brought up often since the legislature passed the law. At the time of enactment, advocates were assured by lawmakers that the statute would be changed in future legislative sessions but every year bills to shift responsibility of the Department of Health have died.
People around the state are apparently frantic and wonder who else now might have their records or whether there were other such breaches unreported by the troubled DPS, which has been constantly under fire for many years for it’s own lawlessness and a whole slew of issues.
A DPW spokesperson sent a letter informing the patients of the breach, saying that supposedly “steps are also being taken internally within my department so that this does not happen again”. But it did not address any specifics or say whether other such breaches have occurred or are occurring daily with already distributed lists.
One of the worst provisions of the Hawaii law- the only one in the country not passed by citizen initiative- is the sharing of information by DPS with local police and “other law enforcement agencies”, even apparently federal bureaus such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) who are known to arrest patients after the Supreme Court allowed them to do so a few years back.
According to the HTH article
The DPS Web site has a list of frequently asked questions for patients, including the question of whether a patient's confidentiality is protected.
"Yes," it says. "However, upon an inquiry by a law enforcement agency, the Department of Public Safety will verify whether a particular qualifying patient has registered with the Department and may provide reasonable access to the registry information for official law enforcement purposes."
While they try to make it sound as if they will only identify individual patients upon a request by law informant agencies for information on a specific patient named by the agency the reality is that the last part of that sentence describes the practice that has become standard- the same list that was released to HTH sits in files at every police department in the state and possibly the DEA itself
Reform of this outrageous lack of medical privacy has unfathomably been blocked by a slew of law enforcement agencies across the state who are apparently gung-ho for the money and resources the feds, states and counties provide to take medicine away from sick people.
Although we have not seen the actual lists, one source close to Kaua`i Police Department told us that the list are available to all officers and even potentially to non- sworn officers at KPD.
According to the article the lists contain the exact locations of the plants patients are allowed to grow giving thieves a road map to steal medicinal “pakalolo” as it’s know locally. If bought and sold, the herb reportedly goes for $400-500 an ounce on Kaua`i, about twice the price of California which has medical marijuana “stores” called co-ops.
More than a dozen of medical marijuana patients report to us that they do not even try to grow their own due to fears that they will be targeted by thieves and others still have had such experiences with thievery- including the theft of other items by thieves taking their plants- and now are unable to obtain the medicine needed for treatment of severe and debilitating diseases.
Others still report that they won’t even try to get their prescriptions because of the provisions for distributing the lists to federal agencies, especially many who live in federally-funded public housing or receive federal housing vouchers.
They fear that despite the fact that they receive the assistance due to their horribly debilitating conditions and diseases there is a “zero-tolerance” policy under federal law which would throw them out in the street if they admitted to using medical marijuana.
The bill vetoed by Lingle during the intervening time between the HTH security lapse and the statewide publicizing of the incident- which the House refused to override after the Senate did- would have set up a task force to do what other states like New Mexico and California have successfully done in setting up a system to grow and distributed the medicine to patients.
The bill was a compromise after being introduced in a form that would have systematized and permitted a Maui cooperative to grow and supply the marijuana to patients
------------
Correction: The correct location for Derrick DePledge's and Peter Boylan's "Notebook" blog is http://thenotebook.honadvblogs.com/ . We embedded the wrong link yesterday. We apologies for any inconvenience. Yesterday’s post has been corrected.
The unfathomable breach of privacy and safety- including apparently the location of their plants- was barely mentioned, buried deep inside a June 27 story about medical use of marijuana on the big Island in the HTH with just a mention that the information was in reporter Peter Sur’s hands.
Though apparently calls immediately flooded both HH and DPS offices within minutes of publication the story was evidently covered up until yesterday when HTH detailed the story, which was picked up by the Honolulu Advertiser today.
In the intervening period Governor Lingle vetoed a measure that would form a task force to look into methodology for the State growing and distributing the medication to patients and also look into whether the DPS is the right place to administrate the program.
None of the other 12 states that allow medical marijuana regulate the prescriptions through a law enforcement entity preferring to put administration where people almost universally agree it belongs- in their respective departments of health or similar entities that have experience in administering medical information and privacy laws.
What the prison system was doing keeping medical records in the first place was an issue brought up often since the legislature passed the law. At the time of enactment, advocates were assured by lawmakers that the statute would be changed in future legislative sessions but every year bills to shift responsibility of the Department of Health have died.
People around the state are apparently frantic and wonder who else now might have their records or whether there were other such breaches unreported by the troubled DPS, which has been constantly under fire for many years for it’s own lawlessness and a whole slew of issues.
A DPW spokesperson sent a letter informing the patients of the breach, saying that supposedly “steps are also being taken internally within my department so that this does not happen again”. But it did not address any specifics or say whether other such breaches have occurred or are occurring daily with already distributed lists.
One of the worst provisions of the Hawaii law- the only one in the country not passed by citizen initiative- is the sharing of information by DPS with local police and “other law enforcement agencies”, even apparently federal bureaus such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) who are known to arrest patients after the Supreme Court allowed them to do so a few years back.
According to the HTH article
The DPS Web site has a list of frequently asked questions for patients, including the question of whether a patient's confidentiality is protected.
"Yes," it says. "However, upon an inquiry by a law enforcement agency, the Department of Public Safety will verify whether a particular qualifying patient has registered with the Department and may provide reasonable access to the registry information for official law enforcement purposes."
While they try to make it sound as if they will only identify individual patients upon a request by law informant agencies for information on a specific patient named by the agency the reality is that the last part of that sentence describes the practice that has become standard- the same list that was released to HTH sits in files at every police department in the state and possibly the DEA itself
Reform of this outrageous lack of medical privacy has unfathomably been blocked by a slew of law enforcement agencies across the state who are apparently gung-ho for the money and resources the feds, states and counties provide to take medicine away from sick people.
Although we have not seen the actual lists, one source close to Kaua`i Police Department told us that the list are available to all officers and even potentially to non- sworn officers at KPD.
According to the article the lists contain the exact locations of the plants patients are allowed to grow giving thieves a road map to steal medicinal “pakalolo” as it’s know locally. If bought and sold, the herb reportedly goes for $400-500 an ounce on Kaua`i, about twice the price of California which has medical marijuana “stores” called co-ops.
More than a dozen of medical marijuana patients report to us that they do not even try to grow their own due to fears that they will be targeted by thieves and others still have had such experiences with thievery- including the theft of other items by thieves taking their plants- and now are unable to obtain the medicine needed for treatment of severe and debilitating diseases.
Others still report that they won’t even try to get their prescriptions because of the provisions for distributing the lists to federal agencies, especially many who live in federally-funded public housing or receive federal housing vouchers.
They fear that despite the fact that they receive the assistance due to their horribly debilitating conditions and diseases there is a “zero-tolerance” policy under federal law which would throw them out in the street if they admitted to using medical marijuana.
The bill vetoed by Lingle during the intervening time between the HTH security lapse and the statewide publicizing of the incident- which the House refused to override after the Senate did- would have set up a task force to do what other states like New Mexico and California have successfully done in setting up a system to grow and distributed the medicine to patients.
The bill was a compromise after being introduced in a form that would have systematized and permitted a Maui cooperative to grow and supply the marijuana to patients
------------
Correction: The correct location for Derrick DePledge's and Peter Boylan's "Notebook" blog is http://thenotebook.honadvblogs.com/ . We embedded the wrong link yesterday. We apologies for any inconvenience. Yesterday’s post has been corrected.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
DEM BONZ:
DEM BONZ: In a yet another somewhat stunning development in the case of the desecration of kanaka maoli burials at Ha`ena point the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Tuesday requested that the attorney general’s office send a cease and desist order to halt all construction there.
The letter questions not only the legitimacy of the state burial council’s administrative rules under state constitution and statues but details how the State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and the developer’s attorney’s Walton Hong lied to both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
The highly legally notated letter, available only in a pdf file for now, first cites HRS 6E-13 and 6E-13(b) allowing the attorney general or any citizen to file suit “for the protection of an historic site or burial site and public trust therein or improper demolition alteration or transfer of property or burial site”
Then it cites 10(4)4 and 10 1(b) which essentially requires state agencies to assist OHA saying “(i)t shall be the duty and responsibility of all state departments ... to actively work toward (OHA’s) goals”.
But the heart of the request is based on Article Vii Section 7 of the State Constitution which says the state “shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for substance cultural and religious purposes”.
Then citing HRS 6E and Chapter 13-300 of Hawaii Administrative rules which regulate the Burial Council it quotes McMahon and Hong misrepresenting the law to the two citizen panels.
At the heart of the claim is the state’s contention that the burial councils, as they have been told, have no right to have any say over burials other than to say either remove them or let them sit where they are.
OHA goes on to show that this is not true when the actual laws and rules are read, claiming that the burial council also has the right to say “no- you’ can’t build there” or other appropriate actions.
It questions the legitimacy of the process and says because the process was abused that the current decision allowing Joe Brescia to build a house on top of the numerous burials, both discovered and undiscovered at the north shore parcel at Naue in Ha`ena must be revisited and the decision of the burial council be considered void and illegitimate.
The letter includes many other specific details of and objections to the way the Burial Council, under the State Historic Preservation Department (SHPD) has violated the constitution and state laws and presents the transcripts of the misrepresentation by SHPD head McMahon, and Brescia’s attorney Hong before both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
What’s most surprising is that it took so long for OHA to start going through this process. But the confluence of events brought to light by Ka`iulani Edens Huff, Nani Rogers Louise Marston and a host of others over the last month or so has perhaps spurred them to action
And perhaps the very adamancy of the right wing wacko property rights crowd in supporting Brescia’s “right to desecrate” because he “followed all the rules” was just the thing needed to spur action by OHA,
OHA outrages their own community with regularity in its state-lap-dog habit of fighting against its own beneficiaries on so many occasions that it has become a joke to most kanaka in light of its mission.
And the fact that Chief Darryl Perry on Kaua`i brought up the state law against desecration- even though it is written separately from the laws protecting the traditional cultural and religious rights of the descendent of pre-western contact islanders- might have been contributory enough to finally provoke the ever conservative OHA to finally stand up for the rights of the people they represent.
It is an election year- for OHA too- and this story has been getting statewide media attention of late and has gotten to the point where not just many but most, in the Kaua`i community agree that something is wrong as typified by a letter in today’s local paper .
The one problem may be that the person who OHA is requesting/demanding write the cease and desist letter is allegedly the most corrupt of the hacks in the Linda Lingle administration Attorney General Mark Bennett who is responsible for the Superferry debacle and various other gubernatorial sleazy ploys, using blatantly unethical if not illegal secrecy ploys to cover-up alleged crimes by administration personnel.
How he answers the letter will be most interesting but it is apparent that asking him to do it is only OHA’s first move and that if he refuses, OHA makes it most clear that they will proceed on their own.
We leave you with the words of Nani Rogers on the current situation written this week when the corrupt pols in the AG’s and the local Kaua`i Prosecutor Craig Decosta’s office refused to back up Police Chief Perry ’s assertion that Bescia’s and Hong’s actions were desacratory.
I pray all is maita`i with you and your loved ones. Auwe! Auwe! Auwe! Kaua`i na po`e are crying over the unbelievable disrespect and denial of State and County agencies. For their disrespect of sacred burials and their denial of the truth and cultural and natural laws that protect graveyards from desecration. It is a criminal act, in anybody's law book, to desecrate burials; the Naue burials date back to the 13th century and are of great significance to our na po`e that are lineal descendants ofna iwi at Naue and to all na po`e and supporters that have been camping near by to protect them from harm for the last three months. It has been a long and hard battle but we will go on, we will continue to be there and to stand up to any challenges they may throw at us.
We urge na kanaka to come to Naue and be eye witnesses to the desecration so you can go home and tell your ohana and children. They need to learn our ways.
Ka`iu, myself, and others will be at Naue this afternoon to camp overnight again. We made a vow to protect our na po`e buried there, we must keep our promise to do all we can to do so.
To Mr. Joseph Brescia, who says he owns the `aina, to Mr. Walton Hong, his lawyer, to Mr. Galante, the contractor, to Pua Aiu, SHPD Director, to the Police Dept., the Attorney General and to Governor Lingle, et al, we say, BEWARE! get ready for the grave (pardon the pun) spiritual consequences your actions will cause. Remember that you will have brought it all upon yourselves, nobody else is to be blamed but you for anything that may happen to you and your family. Can you see that?
We pray that our na Akua, na Aumakua and na Tupuna continue to surround and protect us at Naue. We pray that our na po`e; men, women and children; buried there may continue to rest in peace. Mahalo!
The letter questions not only the legitimacy of the state burial council’s administrative rules under state constitution and statues but details how the State Archeologist Nancy McMahon and the developer’s attorney’s Walton Hong lied to both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
The highly legally notated letter, available only in a pdf file for now, first cites HRS 6E-13 and 6E-13(b) allowing the attorney general or any citizen to file suit “for the protection of an historic site or burial site and public trust therein or improper demolition alteration or transfer of property or burial site”
Then it cites 10(4)4 and 10 1(b) which essentially requires state agencies to assist OHA saying “(i)t shall be the duty and responsibility of all state departments ... to actively work toward (OHA’s) goals”.
But the heart of the request is based on Article Vii Section 7 of the State Constitution which says the state “shall protect all rights customarily and traditionally exercised for substance cultural and religious purposes”.
Then citing HRS 6E and Chapter 13-300 of Hawaii Administrative rules which regulate the Burial Council it quotes McMahon and Hong misrepresenting the law to the two citizen panels.
At the heart of the claim is the state’s contention that the burial councils, as they have been told, have no right to have any say over burials other than to say either remove them or let them sit where they are.
OHA goes on to show that this is not true when the actual laws and rules are read, claiming that the burial council also has the right to say “no- you’ can’t build there” or other appropriate actions.
It questions the legitimacy of the process and says because the process was abused that the current decision allowing Joe Brescia to build a house on top of the numerous burials, both discovered and undiscovered at the north shore parcel at Naue in Ha`ena must be revisited and the decision of the burial council be considered void and illegitimate.
The letter includes many other specific details of and objections to the way the Burial Council, under the State Historic Preservation Department (SHPD) has violated the constitution and state laws and presents the transcripts of the misrepresentation by SHPD head McMahon, and Brescia’s attorney Hong before both the Kaua`i Planning Commission and the Burial Council.
What’s most surprising is that it took so long for OHA to start going through this process. But the confluence of events brought to light by Ka`iulani Edens Huff, Nani Rogers Louise Marston and a host of others over the last month or so has perhaps spurred them to action
And perhaps the very adamancy of the right wing wacko property rights crowd in supporting Brescia’s “right to desecrate” because he “followed all the rules” was just the thing needed to spur action by OHA,
OHA outrages their own community with regularity in its state-lap-dog habit of fighting against its own beneficiaries on so many occasions that it has become a joke to most kanaka in light of its mission.
And the fact that Chief Darryl Perry on Kaua`i brought up the state law against desecration- even though it is written separately from the laws protecting the traditional cultural and religious rights of the descendent of pre-western contact islanders- might have been contributory enough to finally provoke the ever conservative OHA to finally stand up for the rights of the people they represent.
It is an election year- for OHA too- and this story has been getting statewide media attention of late and has gotten to the point where not just many but most, in the Kaua`i community agree that something is wrong as typified by a letter in today’s local paper .
The one problem may be that the person who OHA is requesting/demanding write the cease and desist letter is allegedly the most corrupt of the hacks in the Linda Lingle administration Attorney General Mark Bennett who is responsible for the Superferry debacle and various other gubernatorial sleazy ploys, using blatantly unethical if not illegal secrecy ploys to cover-up alleged crimes by administration personnel.
How he answers the letter will be most interesting but it is apparent that asking him to do it is only OHA’s first move and that if he refuses, OHA makes it most clear that they will proceed on their own.
We leave you with the words of Nani Rogers on the current situation written this week when the corrupt pols in the AG’s and the local Kaua`i Prosecutor Craig Decosta’s office refused to back up Police Chief Perry ’s assertion that Bescia’s and Hong’s actions were desacratory.
I pray all is maita`i with you and your loved ones. Auwe! Auwe! Auwe! Kaua`i na po`e are crying over the unbelievable disrespect and denial of State and County agencies. For their disrespect of sacred burials and their denial of the truth and cultural and natural laws that protect graveyards from desecration. It is a criminal act, in anybody's law book, to desecrate burials; the Naue burials date back to the 13th century and are of great significance to our na po`e that are lineal descendants ofna iwi at Naue and to all na po`e and supporters that have been camping near by to protect them from harm for the last three months. It has been a long and hard battle but we will go on, we will continue to be there and to stand up to any challenges they may throw at us.
We urge na kanaka to come to Naue and be eye witnesses to the desecration so you can go home and tell your ohana and children. They need to learn our ways.
Ka`iu, myself, and others will be at Naue this afternoon to camp overnight again. We made a vow to protect our na po`e buried there, we must keep our promise to do all we can to do so.
To Mr. Joseph Brescia, who says he owns the `aina, to Mr. Walton Hong, his lawyer, to Mr. Galante, the contractor, to Pua Aiu, SHPD Director, to the Police Dept., the Attorney General and to Governor Lingle, et al, we say, BEWARE! get ready for the grave (pardon the pun) spiritual consequences your actions will cause. Remember that you will have brought it all upon yourselves, nobody else is to be blamed but you for anything that may happen to you and your family. Can you see that?
We pray that our na Akua, na Aumakua and na Tupuna continue to surround and protect us at Naue. We pray that our na po`e; men, women and children; buried there may continue to rest in peace. Mahalo!
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