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Entries for January 2010

Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Gay marriage on trial: Stacking the Deck Against Proposition 8
By Heritage Foundation @ 12:08 PM :: 6763 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

The much-anticipated trial to determine the constitutionality of California's Proposition 8 is scheduled to begin this morning in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger. What's at stake in this case, filed in federal district court in San Francisco on behalf of two gay couples, is not just the right of California voters to reaffirm the definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, but also whether marriage may be otherwise defined in any state.

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Monday, January 11, 2010
Hey Obama, Who's Freddy?
By Andrew Walden @ 11:40 PM :: 15727 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

Is it possible?  Did we miss one? With all the Marxists dug out from the very public -- yet very opaque -- story of President Barack Obama's life, could there be room for one more, hiding in plain sight on page 24 of Dreams from My Father?  

A Japanese-American man who called himself Freddy and ran a small market near our house would save us the choicest cuts of aku for sashimi and give me rice candy with edible wrappers.

Who's Freddy? 

I nominate the late Wilfred Mitsuji Oka, former proprietor of the Corner Liquor Store in Honolulu's Chinatown.

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Monday, January 11, 2010
Case implies Hanabusa campaign is dirty and negative
By Andrew Walden @ 11:07 PM :: 14956 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

Endorsing Colleen Hanabusa (D-Koolina), Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) Saturday claimed "She's got integrity. She's a very principled woman."  This may come as quite a surprise to readers of Governor Ben Cayetano's (D-HI) autobiography, in which he ties Hanabusa's Broken Trust connections to her dealings on behalf of Jeff Stone's Ko'olina project.  But Ed Case's ire was raised to challenge Inouye's "recollection of the facts" on another matter.

In an email blast sent out this morning, Case claims, "There is and must be a better way forward than just more old-style control politics."  Case challenges Inouye's recitation of the 2006 Case vs Akaka primary campaign

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Monday, January 11, 2010
Cast Your ballot: Abercrombie nominated "2009 Porker of the Year"
By News Release @ 2:20 PM :: 8914 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

 

Neil with his friends, Mr Broken Trust, and Brother Sandwich Isles. 

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Monday, January 11, 2010
Global Cooling killing Manatees and Sea Turtles: Frozen iguanas falling from trees
By Andrew Walden @ 2:09 PM :: 15149 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics, World News, Family

  A victim of Global Cooling lies on the frozen soil of South Florida.

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Monday, January 11, 2010
The deciding vote on Obamacare: Will a Republican JAG Officer win Kennedy's former Senate seat?
By Selected News Articles @ 12:52 PM :: 6005 Views :: National News, Ethics

Scott Brown is a Massachusetts State Senator running for the U.S.Senate as a Republican in a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. The Massachusetts special election to fill the seat is less than two weeks away (January 19) and the polls indicate that the race is tightening. Scott Brown, who is a solid moderate Massachusetts Republican with a fiscally conservative record in the Massachusetts State House, stands poised to pull off what would be the upset of the century.

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Saturday, January 9, 2010
Illegal aliens get past TSA, jet off to Hawaii with forged ID
By Andrew Walden @ 1:00 PM :: 25483 Views :: Law Enforcement

Thousands of airline passengers on domestic US flights are using forged IDs to get past TSA screeners and board commercial flights under assumed names.  Just days after the al-Qaeda Panty Bomber tried to blow NW Flight 253 out of the sky, evidence leading to acquittals in a Honolulu illegal alien smuggling case has exposed the US Transportation Safety Administration’s repeated failure to spot phony IDs.

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Friday, January 8, 2010
FreedomWorks: Flip three votes and Obamacare fails in House
By News Release @ 6:50 PM :: 4662 Views :: National News, Ethics

Pelosi barely held Democrats together in passing ObamaCare the first time. A narrow 220 to 215 margin means we can kill ObamaCare in the House by flipping just 3 votes!

FreedomWorks has identified 13 critical Democrat targets that we believe are the most likely to abandon Pelosi in her quest to socialize health care.

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Friday, January 8, 2010
Lingle proposes new plan to eliminate Furlough Fridays
By News Release @ 6:45 PM :: 7471 Views :: Energy, Environment

Under the Governor’s latest plan, up to $50 million from the Rainy Day Fund would be used to restore 12 furlough Fridays – five this semester and seven in the 2010-2011 school year. 

An additional 12 instructional days – two this semester and 10 in the next school year – would be gained by using days when teachers are paid to be in their classrooms but do not teach students.

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Friday, January 8, 2010
Two more Muslims, of all people, arrested in New York 9-11 anniversary bomb plot
By Selected News Articles @ 4:30 PM :: 7396 Views :: National News, Ethics, World News, Family

Zazi, 24, an Afghan national was nabbed after sweeping raids on Queens apartment buildings in September. The raids turned up evidence of bomb-making materials, and Zazi was charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Medunjanin, 25, who is believed to have accompanied Zazi to an Al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan in 2008, fled in his car Thursday when he came home and saw agents swarming over his apartment, sources said.

He made it as far as Whitestone, Queens, where he crashed on the Whitestone Expressway about 4 p.m....

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Friday, January 8, 2010
Obama "Kills the initiative and morale of our intelligence employees"
By Heritage Foundation @ 11:32 AM :: 8012 Views :: National News, Ethics, World News, Family

 The President promised he would direct “our intelligence community immediately begin assigning specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high-priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively — not just most of the time, but all of the time.” And he added: “In addition to the corrective efforts that I’ve ordered, I’ve directed agency heads to establish internal accountability reviews, and directed my national security staff to monitor their efforts.”

But this failure of our intelligence system was not just about lack of accountability. It was about empowerment - or more specifically the lack thereof. The system simply moved too slowly because there was a lack of urgency about the war on terror. Intelligence personnel were not empowered to employ their ingenuity and resourcefulness to connect the dots. Adding layers of “internal accountability reviews” will only make the bureaucratic stupor worse.

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Passenger taken off flight: "I'm Palestinian and I want to kill all the Jews"
By Selected News Articles @ 11:23 PM :: 7994 Views :: National News, Ethics, World News, Family

Mansor Mohammad Asad, 43, has been charged with threats against a public servant, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after the incident aboard Delta Airlines flight 2485, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department.

Witnesses told investigators that Asad yelled anti-Semitic references such as, "I'm Palestinian and I want kill all the Jews," in Arabic. The pilot turned around as the plane was taxiing for take-off at 6:35 p.m., according to police.

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Governor nominates DCCA Dir Reifurth to Intermediate Court of Appeals
By News Release @ 6:25 PM :: 7443 Views :: Energy, Environment

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle today nominated Lawrence M. Reifurth to serve as a judge on the Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals.  Reifurth would fill the vacancy created when Governor Lingle named Judge Craig Nakamura to serve as chief judge of the Intermediate Court of Appeals.  Reifurth’s nomination is subject to confirmation by the State Senate.

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Democrats jump from sinking Congress after healthcare "mistake" -- Obama proposes third "stimulus"
By Heritage Foundation @ 12:16 PM :: 5050 Views :: National News, Ethics

The Democratic Party was shaken to its core on Tuesday when Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Gov. Bill Ritter (D-CO) announced they would not run for re-election in 2010, all on the same day. The source of these Democrats’ fears in facing the American people at the polls is no secret: the American people believe the state of the economy is poor and getting worse. Responding to this dismal environment, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) told the Fremont Tribune on Tuesday: “I think it was a mistake to take health care on as opposed to continuing to spend the time on the economy.”

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hamamoto's DoE resignation: To block Lingle's constitutional amendment?
By Andrew Walden @ 4:06 AM :: 10886 Views :: Education K-12, Labor

While Hamamoto said politics were not part of her decision to resign, she spoke out yesterday against a state constitutional amendment proposed by Lingle to make the DOE superintendent a Cabinet-level position, under the governor's control.

"Politics should not be part of what goes on in the school room," Hamamoto said. "The superintendent has to be able to advocate for what is right for the kids. You have to be apolitical in order to advocate for the children. That should be the first priority of a superintendent. The second priority is ensuring organizational stability. How do you ensure stability if teachers and administrators think they will be jerked around every four or eight years?"

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Thursday, January 7, 2010
Hawai`i Free Press closes out 2009 with more online readers than Honolulu Advertiser
By Andrew Walden @ 12:06 AM :: 5383 Views :: Energy, Environment

HawaiiFreePressDailyTrafficDec2009

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Obama’s Other Broken Health Care Promises
By Heritage Foundation @ 7:24 PM :: 4821 Views :: National News, Ethics

A reporter reminded Pelosi about President Barack Obama’s frequent promises to the American people throughout 2008 that he would ensure C-SPAN was allowed to televise exactly such negotiations, to which Speaker Pelosi quipped: “There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail.”

Speaker Pelosi is right: President Obama’s broken health care promises are legendary. According to reports, Speaker Pelosi wasn’t even referring to Obama’s whopper from last month that he never campaigned on the public option. No, Speaker Pelosi is apparently most upset with Obama’s support for the Senate’s tax on high cost health plans, which she believes is a violation of Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Obamacare, COFA, and the upcoming $350M State budget gap: Lingle vs Congressional Delegation
By Gov. Linda Lingle @ 1:11 PM :: 9155 Views :: Energy, Environment

In Hawaii, we have some of America’s most generous Medicaid programs – especially for children. Medicaid enrollment jumped by almost 15 percent in 2009, and last spring the State Department of Human Services had to delay $43.5 million in payments for medical care because of a serious budget shortfall.

Nearly one year later, we are still unable to catch up with our Medicaid funding deficit, and it is about to get worse – a lot worse. On January 1, 2011, the boost to states for Medicaid programs from the national stimulus funding will come to an abrupt end after nine quarters. That means Hawaii will stop receiving more than $350 million in federal funds....

If Congress forces Hawaii to further increase Medicaid eligibility and benefits, we could only pay the bill by slashing other government programs or by raising taxes. Neither option is acceptable, in my opinion. 

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Lack of Law Put Minors at Risk in Hawaii (Is Hawaii a haven for pimps?)
By Selected News Articles @ 12:24 PM :: 7778 Views :: Energy, Environment

Marcus X Arrington's victim was only 16-years-old when he allegedly forced her into prostitution.

While she can't be named because she is a minor, her story fits the profile of many others. She ran away from home hoping to escape its problems. Arrington allegedly promised to help but instead brandished a handgun and forced her to work for him....To keep her in compliance, she says she was beaten and sexually assaulted by her captor.  

Hawaii is one of eight states without a human trafficking law. If this were New York, Arrington would face up to 25 years in jail for this felony offense. Instead, he is charged with promoting prostitution, a crime that can be classed as a misdemeanor and carries a very broad sentence ranging from one day and ten years.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Constitutional Amendment: Aiona Proposes Hawaii Elect Secretary of State
By News Release @ 9:09 PM :: 7245 Views :: Energy, Environment

Currently, voters in Hawai‘i have no direct authority over the Office of Elections. The Elections Commission, which appoints the Chief Elections Officer, is composed of individuals selected by only four members of the State Legislature.

Hawai‘i consistently ranks at or near the bottom nationally for voter turnout.

If passed, the constitutional amendment would give Hawai‘i voters the authority to decide in the 2010 General Election whether or not to establish an elected, nonpartisan Secretary of State.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Bennett: New Akaka Bill guarantees years of litigation
By Selected News Articles @ 7:36 PM :: 9662 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

The move ignited a furor in Honolulu. Gov. Linda Lingle and Attorney General Mark Bennett, who found out about the changes just hours before the Dec. 16 House vote, promptly reversed their support for the bill, saying the revisions could endanger Hawaii's economic and legal standing. Both officials are Republicans.

"The new bill explicitly states that it gives the state of Hawaii no authority to tax or regulate the new tribe, while ambiguously stating that nothing in the bill will itself pre-empt state authority over Native Hawaiians or their property," said Mr. Bennett in a statement. "Such a provision would guarantee years, if not decades, of litigation."

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, the state's senior Democratic senator, told local reporters in Honolulu last week that differences were being "ironed out" with the governor's office and predicted the Senate would vote on the amended bill in February. But to date, no final deal has been announced.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Obamacare: A Sham Of A Process For A Sham Of A Bill
By Heritage Foundation @ 2:38 PM :: 6052 Views :: National News, Ethics

Politico is reporting that President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will meet at the White House today (joined by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) via conference call) to set the parameters for reconciling the House and Senate versions of health care legislation. However, instead of proceeding with the usual public and open conference committee process, the White House is going to take a very active role in secret behind-closed-door meetings between the House and Senate. The Sunlight Foundation explains the implications for the American people: “Both House and Senate rules require that all conference committee meetings be open to the public unless a majority of conferees votes in open session to close the meetings. Senate rules require all conference committee reports be publicly available for at least 48 hours prior to a final vote. Without conference, there is no mechanism to provide for openness in the final discussions regarding the health care bill.”

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Kubo: Governor nominates former Federal prosecutor to First Circuit Bench
By News Release @ 11:30 AM :: 10390 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment

Kubo served as U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii from 2001 to October 2009, and prior to that was Assistant U.S. Attorney for 11 years. During his tenure with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Kubo focused on major federal criminal investigations such as white collar crimes, mortgage fraud, civil rights violations, tax evasion, corruption, crimes on government installations and violent crimes.

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Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Security Theater Now Playing at Your Airport
By Daniel Pipes @ 1:01 AM :: 9422 Views :: National News, Ethics, World News, Family

Airport security--How the Israelis do it.

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Monday, January 4, 2010
Case again implies Hanabusa disrespectful, lacking in knowledge
By Andrew Walden @ 11:41 PM :: 12010 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

In an obvious reference to Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, (D-Koolina) Case argues that those who "have suggested that we don't need the special election until our regular primary election on September 18th" demonstrate "not only a disrespect for our rights as citizens, but a basic lack of knowledge of how Capitol Hill works and what's at stake."

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Monday, January 4, 2010
Responding to Abercrombie resignation: Djou "ready and eager" for early Special Election
By Andrew Walden @ 6:30 PM :: 11399 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

"We are ready and eager to bring our message of fiscal responsibility to Hawaii voters in a May special election."

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Monday, January 4, 2010
Abercrombie resignation effective Feb 28
By Andrew Walden @ 5:01 PM :: 15985 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

Under Hawaii law a Special Election may be held no earlier than 60 days after a vacancy occurs.  That would be Thursday, April 29, 2010.  There is no outside limit on when the Special Election can be held.  Trailing in the polls, Senate President Colleen Hanabusa (D-Koolina) has suggested that Hawaii "cannot afford" a Special Election. 

Republican Honolulu councilman Charles Djou is leading in the fund race.  The other candidate is the widely hated Democrat Ed Case whose failed challenge against Dan Akaka in 2006 still rankles many Hawaii Democrats.  Case, who calls Hanabusa "clueless", has already indicated he would again seek a Senate seat if the opportunity arose.

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Monday, January 4, 2010
Mufi chases Neil Abercrombie out of Congress
By Andrew Walden @ 12:45 PM :: 14291 Views :: Maui County, Education K-12, Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

Abercrombie has handed his ally Ed Case an advantage over Hanabusa in that she will be required to attend to legislative business during the abbreviated campaign and Case has previous experience with the 2003 special election.   On the other hand Case is despised by his own Party after challenging Dan Akaka for US Senate in 2006.  With two hogtied Democrat frontrunners, the advantage shifts to Honolulu Councilman Charles Djou.

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Monday, January 4, 2010
Forewarned but not forearmed: Obama Admin knew name and technique of panty bomber
By Heritage Foundation @ 11:44 AM :: 4738 Views :: National News, Ethics

This past weekend the American public learned that not only was the Obama administration briefed about the bombing technique attempted on Flight 253, not only did the United States have information that a Nigerian was being prepared for a terrorist attack by al Qaeda in Yemen, but our government also knew that an “Umar Farouk” was involved. 

Following these revelations, the Obama administration again took to the Sunday shows to defend their national security record. Last week Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to convince Americans that “the system worked”. She failed. This Sunday, Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan did admit that the system failed on Christmas Day but still insisted: “Every other day the system has worked this year….The system is working.”

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Sunday, January 3, 2010
AlQaeda celebrates New Year with failed axe-attack on Danish cartoonist
By Andrew Walden @ 7:56 PM :: 10175 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics, World News, Family

feature photo

September 30, 2005 cartoon drawn by Westergaard became focal point of manufactured controversy starting in February, 2006.

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Sunday, January 3, 2010
New for 2010: Unemployment benefits to be taxed
By Heritage Foundation @ 10:40 AM :: 7975 Views :: National News, Ethics

While millions of Americans are more than ready to put 2009 behind them, they should know that Congress failed to reauthorize dozens of tax breaks for individuals and businesses before the Members scurried home for the Holidays. These “expiring provisions” affect every American in one way or another as individuals or businesses. By allowing them to lapse, Congress has enacted tax increases at time when these taxpayers can least afford it.

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Saturday, January 2, 2010
Your picks: Our Top Stories from 2009
By Selected News Articles @ 2:30 AM :: 8949 Views :: Energy, Environment, National News, Ethics

Here is a complete list of all 38 Hawai`i Free Press stories with unique hit counts over 1000 views.  These are YOUR picks for the most interesting stories of 2009--unedited and in reverse chronological order.   Of these, 28 are Hawaii state or local news stories and 10 are national news stories. 

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Friday, January 1, 2010
UPDATE: Limbaugh released from hospital, holds news conference
By Andrew Walden @ 1:00 AM :: 11133 Views :: Maui County, Energy, National News, Ethics

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, right, speaks during ...AP Photo

Limbaugh holds New Year's Day news conference at Queens' Medical Ctr with Dr Joanne Magno, chief of the Dept. of Cardiovascular Diseases.

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