Environment

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle vetoed three bills today that would have negatively affected Hawai‘i’s low-income and affordable housing supplies.  The Governor issued her vetoes to highlight the importance of housing needs during one of the state's most economically challenging times.

“Affordable housing options are scarce in Hawai‘i,” Governor Lingle stated.  “We should be passing laws that increase affordable housing options for Hawai‘i’s families, not limit them.”

Because we believe that furloughs are still the best way to address the fiscal crisis, we will likely appeal the Circuit Court’s recent ruling.  We are also developing layoff procedures, which may become a necessary but undesirable reality.

In 2000, Carlisle encouraged then Deputy Prosecutor Randall Lee’s investigation into illegal campaign contributions to Harris, and stood by Lee’s investigation and prosecution of contractors who laundered money to Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Bob Watada, then state campaign spending director, estimates that more than 100 companies laundered $1.5 million to Harris, constituting half of Harris' campaign war chest. Carlisle says if he is elected ... he will select people on the basis of talent, skill and experience and on what they know, not who they know.

As a result of declining state revenues, today Governor Linda Lingle vetoed 10 bills that would have spent funds not included in the state budget and which would further widen the state’s budget shortfall.  The Governor’s vetoes highlight the fact that the state cannot afford these programs, even those that have merit, during this difficult fiscal period.

“Combining top federal and state rates, and factoring in all deductions, the government would be taking over half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers in two-thirds of the states under this latest funding scheme,” Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge said. “In fact, even in the seven states with no income tax, the lowest top tax rate would be about 46%.”

The hardest-hit states would be Hawaii (55.8%), Oregon (55.8%) ....

On June 21, Walden was interviewed by Ben Barrack on right wing radio (KTEM, Temple City/Ft Hood, TX) and was joined later in the program by Birfistani lawyer and dentist, Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. The argument got pretty hot pretty soon in.

Plus, Walden said to Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.: “Don’t patronize me, dentist!”

Yes, he did!

Administration’s Position Still Unknown, Sources say Department of Justice Seeks Changes to Bill....

The vote postponement follows some written criticisms of the bill by prominent members of the Native Hawaiian legal community.

In a four-page analysis of the legislation sent to the Natural Resources Committee, the Native Hawaiian Bar Association voiced concern that some provisions would grant the federal government too much immunity against potential claims by Native Hawaiians, especially for land.

(They want the Akaka Tribe but they are unwilling to trade away the PASH decision and the opportunity to shake down future Hokulias.)

The final tax collections represent $56.7 million additional general fund revenue loss compared to what the Council on Revenues had projected for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2009 when it last met on May 28.  The additional revenue loss means the state is now facing a budget shortfall in excess of $786 million through June 30, 2011.

House minority staff report that the Akaka Bill, HR2314 Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, is scheduled to be "marked up" by the US House Committee on Natural Resources Thursday, July 9th at 10AM. 

UPDATE 4PM 7-8-09: House Minority press secretary Jill Strait reports that the Akaka Bill has been removed from the agenda for tomorrow's meeting of the US House Committee on Natural Resources.   

In response to the state’s financial woes, Djou has advocated curtailing expenditures by shrinking the state budget and scaling back government programs. He has been a vocal critic of Hannemann’s proposal of a 20-mile elevated rail line that would run throughout Honolulu. Hannemann has said the jobs needed to construct the rail system would stimulate the economy, while Djou has charged that the cost would outstrip the job-related benefits.

“Charles is trying to make it understood that you can’t solve all your problems by raising taxes,” said Jim Bryan, a spokesman for the Hawaii Republican Party. “It’s going to hurt people further who have already suffered from this economy.”

Richard Ianieri, the defense contractor charged today with accepting $200,000 in kickbacks from a subcontractor, was president of a company that gave more money to Rep. John Murtha than any other lawmaker. That company, Coherent Systems International, received millions of dollars in earmarks from Murtha, and continued giving money to the Pennsylvania Democrat after Ianieri left Coherent and Argon ST bought it.

• SB 1058 SD2 HD2 CD1 relating to controlled substances.  This bill attempts to circumvent provisions of federal controlled substances laws as enforced by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.  Portions of this bill may also violate Section 14 of Article II of the State Constitution regarding the scope of subjects each law enacted by the Legislature may encompass.
• SB 912 SD2 HD2 CD1 relating to permanency hearings
• HB 1611 HD2 SD2 CD1 relating to labeling of meat and fish products
• HB 690 HD2 SD2 CD1 relating to insurance

"This is a reckless fiscal maneuver that dramatically increases taxpayers' cost and an inappropriate use of the defense budget to spread political pork.  This is nothing more than an all too typical Congressional move to spend public money for the sake of spending money," stated Djou.  "This is exactly the reason why Hawaii needs a new voice in D.C."

Honolulu AP: Several Hawaii churches are uniting to register tens of thousands of new voters in hopes of influencing 2010 elections for the Legislature and governor's office.  Hawaii Family Forum is leading the effort, which also includes several Protestant churches the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, and the Mormon Church.

Chart compares number of union members vs adult citizen church members.  Even in the 2nd most unionized US state, churches are 64% larger than unions.

Governor Lingle said that she and her cabinet will be working late into the night and through the weekend to plan the next steps following Friday's court ruling on her furlough plan.

 No surprise here.  The unions shopped for Sakamoto amidst the Hawaii Judiciary's sea of plenty.  Here are some quick hits from the local media...more updates as they become available....

Already Amazon.com and Overstock.com have officially sent out notification that they are severing their “affiliate” relationships with Hawai‘i.  Other well known internet-based firms, such as eBay are likely to do the same if prompt action is not taken.

The NY Times fails to mention that Eid al-Adha falls on Sunday, September 11 in the year 2016 and Eid al-Fitr will begin at sunset on September 9 and continue to sunset on Friday September 10 in the year 2010.

Inouye reported ownership of Central Pacific shares worth $350,000 to $700,000, some held by his wife, at the end of 2007 [5]. The shares represented at least two-thirds of Inouye's total reported assets. Inouye has requested a delay in filing his annual financial disclosure for 2008, which was due this spring, and he declined to provide the current value of his investment. Since the end of 2007, the bank's stock has lost 79 percent of its value.

Central Pacific was founded in 1954 by a group of World War II veterans including Inouye who were emerging leaders in Hawaii's Japanese American community.

Union leaders are playing with their members livelihoods! And they are calling for an increase in GE Taxes! The union bosses are pushing their membership to rally at the Capital June 30th, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM. We need you to call radio shows, write letters to the editor and call/email Senator Hanabusa and Speaker Say to let them know your cost of living is already too high. Want to be part of the solution? This is what YOU can do...

Specific areas of concern include bills that would extract more taxes from state residents (HB 1271, SB 1678 and HB 1544); impact end-of-life choices (HB 1379); curtail affordable housing choices (SB 1160 and SB 1350); and, remove the Public Utility Commission’s oversight to control basic telephone service (SB 603).

In addition, due to the unprecedented $2.7 billion revenue shortfall between now and June 30, 2011, as projected by the Council on Revenues, the Lingle-Aiona Administration has increased scrutiny of all bills for potential budgetary implications.  As a result, a number of bills were put on the potential veto list because they call for new or increased spending at a time when the State cannot afford to expand the cost of government or further deplete the State’s limited fiscal resources.  Twelve bills on the list fall into this category of potentially negative fiscal implications (HB 36, HB 343, HB 358, HB 982, HB 986, HB 989, HB 1504, HB 1809, SB 266, SB 423, SB 1248 and SB 1665).

Unite and inspire 80% of the Christian Church to register to vote in July of 2009.  Get 80% of the Christian Church to vote Christian values in November of 2010.  

Water vapour was responsible for 95 per cent of the greenhouse effect, an effect which was vital to keep the world warm, he explained.

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle today released a list of judicial nominees that was provided to her by the Judicial Selection Commission to fill the position of chief judge of the Intermediate Court of Appeals.  Governor Lingle is making the list available to the public to encourage public comment on the nominees.

Sometimes you just have to laugh out loud at those who consider themselves to be "conscious, enlightened, and progressive".

“This is not something we want to do, but something we have to do to balance the state budget and address the unprecedented fiscal emergency we are in due to the projected $2.7 billion revenue shortfall,” Governor Lingle said.  “I appreciate the understanding of the State employees who will be affected by the furlough and admire the cooperation they have demonstrated in helping to ensure that state services will continue to be provided when the furlough plan begins on July 1.”

The executive order refers to the furlough plan announced on June 18, 2009, which describes furlough schedules of specific departments and agencies, and includes furlough calendars.

Independent estimates say that families could pay $3,000 more a year on energy and the entire plan would take $2 trillion from our economy in just over eight years.

Some of the biggest porkers in the House authorization bill were Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), with 17 projects worth $51,646,000...$3,500,000 by Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) for BAE Systems in Honolulu, Hawaii...$2,550,000 by Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) for whale and dolphin hearing....

A DailyKos/Research 2000 poll conducted June 15 to June 17 showed Abercrombie leading Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann in a Democratic primary match up of likely voters 42 to 22 percent, but 36 percent of voters were undecided. The poll's margin of error is 4 percentage points....

The poll showed Abercrombie's general election race could be more competitive than the state's typically Democratic lean would suggest. Abercrombie, who is serving his 10th full term in office, led Republican Lieutenant Gov. James "Duke" Aiona 45 to 36 percent with 19 percent undecided in a hypothetical general election match-up.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, regulating carbon through the Clean Air Act would expose at least one million mid-sized commercial buildings to draconian environmental regulations. One-fifth of all food service businesses, one-third of all health care businesses, one-half of the entire lodging industry, and even 10% of all buildings used for worship would be under the EPA’s hammer.

“The primary goal in developing the furlough plans for each department was to achieve the required operational savings, while minimizing disruption to public services,” said Governor Lingle.  “I recognize the impact the furloughs will have on many employees and their families.  This is not something we want to do, but something we have to do to balance the state budget.  We appreciate the public’s understanding and patience as our state employees adjust to the new schedules.”

Perhaps what we need today is a bunch of ambitious young men eager to improve the State who will decide to infiltrate and re-direct the Republican Party. 

With Obama’s White House counsel Greg Craig and GTMO Shutdown Czar Daniel Fried riding shotgun—plus the detainees two personal attorneys--a US plane landed Thursday in Bermuda to offload four Chinese Muslim Uighurs who allegedly trained with al-Qaeda and were captured in Afghanistan on the field of combat at Tora Borah in December, 2001.

Palau is the Obama’s administration’s next stop. Seventeen more Uighurs from Tora Bora are to be dumped there. That will total 21 jihadi head-choppers who have been granted residence at US taxpayer expense on beautiful tropical islands after facing American soldiers in combat alongside al-Qaeda at Tora Borah.  Palauans have the right to travel and work in the United States under the terms of the Compact of Free Association. 

“It’s essentially an enabling act” that would allow Native Hawaiians OHA cronies the chance to manage land and assets as they see fit, Abercrombie said. “When the land wasn’t worth anything and there was no money, nobody cared.  (When was that?  1848?  Overthrowing the Mahele, Neil?)  Now that the land is worth a considerable amount of money, now all of a sudden, everybody is OHA cronies are interested.”

Dr. M.R.C. Greenwood, chancellor emerita of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been named president of the University of Hawai‘i System.

Nine days after Greenwood’s resignation on November 4, the Chronicle finally began publishing a series of stories that Dynes had tried to get ahead of. Starting with the stunning fact that 8,500 staffers had collected at least $20,000 each in unreported bonuses and extra pay in the previous year, Schevitz and Wallack methodically cracked open a secret culture of executive compensation more widespread than anyone could have imagined. At the heart of the series was a blockbuster number Wallack had teased out of payroll data. According to his calculations, $871 million had been “quietly handed out” in “administrative stipends, bonuses, and other hidden cash compensation.” There was a veritable canyon between UC’s reported salaries (plus overtime) and the total payroll.

Congratulations UH!  This is who you are about to hire.

The $725.3 million bond sale included $500 million of new money proceeds to fund new capital improvement projects and $225.3 million of refunding bonds to refinance outstanding debt.  The refinancing of existing debt resulted in a reduction in debt service of approximately $100 million per year in fiscal years 2010 and 2011.  The overall interest rate for the bonds was 4.12 percent.

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service cited, as one of the State’s credit strengths, “management’s well-established, proactive budget monitoring practices, including frequent revenue forecast updates from the Council on Revenues, which facilitates prompt identification of potential budget adjustments.”

The legislature voted to impose almost $521 million in new taxes on residents and visitors. It was just one in a flurry of moves that will slow economic recovery and lead to greater job losses.

Most troubling was that legislators did not have to raise taxes on our businesses and hard-working families. Our Administration provided them with a credible alternative to closing the state’s budget gap without raising taxes, cutting essential services or laying off government workers.

Hawaii could add 7,000 new jobs at no cost to taxpayers if the federal estate tax were repealed, according to a new analysis by SmartBusiness Hawaii (SBH) and the SBH Entrepreneurial Education Foundation.

Contrary to popular opinion, Indian reservations have a history in Hawaii. An Oct. 12, 1999, article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin describes the 1995 efforts by corrupt trustees controlling America’s largest charitable trust — Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE) — to evade state and federal oversight. And not without reason: trustees’ salaries were over $1 million per year. KSBE money, along with trustees’ personal funds, had been invested in a pornographic website. Spending on the Kamehameha School was being cut. One trustee was running rampant in the school, micromanaging teachers and administrators. The trustees’ self-dealing and their investments with Goldman Sachs — at the time headed by current New Jersey Democratic Governor John Corzine — had brought losses of $264 million in 1994 alone. Investigators were starting to ask questions. Hawaiians were beginning to protest. The trustees’ plan? Get the IRS and the state attorney general off their backs by moving KSBE’s legal domicile to an Indian reservation.

"...we now have a government that we cannot afford....

"I cannot support raising taxes because it would cause further hardship for families, businesses, and the overall economy.

"We have two options:  we can continue to tax and spend to pay for a government that we would like to have but can no longer afford, or we can take the steps necessary to create the government that we need and are able to afford.

"...delaying bills until July, instituting a statewide furlough plan, and scaling back free Medicaid benefits to low-income adults – will allow us to avoid deeper cuts in education, environmental protection, public safety, and other core services the State provides."

HONOLULU – Governor Linda Lingle and State School Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto today announced Hawai‘i’s participation in a nationwide program led by the states to ensure public school students have the knowledge and skills they need to compete in the global economy.

Governor Lingle and Superintendent Hamamoto have co-signed a Memorandum of Agreement that commits Hawai‘i to participate in the process of developing a common core of state standards that are internationally benchmarked.

Governor Lingle will address the people of Hawai‘i on the Administration’s plan to close the budget shortfall.  The address will be carried live on line at 1PM today.  Four links are available to avoid website overloads.

Here is video of the latest Islamist riots in Athens.  The excuse: something about Koranic verse being written on a piece of paper torn up by an Athens police officer.  The date:  May 29, 2009 (Gregorian).  The fall (and looting) of Constantinople to the Ottomans was ...(drumroll please)... May 29, 1453 (Julian). 

Of course this is just a coincidence.  Really.  Certainly nobody would ever do such a thing in Hawaii.

“I will be meeting tomorrow and throughout the weekend with my staff to identify options to close the immediate shortfall projected by the Council on Revenues, as well as our projected $500 million shortfall in the fiscal 2010 – 2011 budget period that begins July 1, 2009.
“I will address the public at 1:00 p.m., Monday, June 1 on television, radio and webcast to discuss these options and to outline our path to economic recovery.”

Canadian Shona Holmes had a brain tumor and was told by her government health care agency to wait 6 months for treatment.  In Canada she had no choice.  The government had spoken.  So Shona mortgaged her home and came to the United States for immediate treatment--that saved her life.

At the Chinese border city of Yanji, 130 miles (200 kilometers) northwest from the test site, an emergency siren sounded shortly before 9 a.m. when officials thought an earthquake occurred. A receptionist at Yanji's International Hotel said she and several hotel guests felt the ground tremble.

Aziz Poonawalla of Madison, Wisconsin May 19 writes: “Naturally, there are some (conservative, Republican) people who see this as dhimmitude incarnate. This fellow for example ... intones seriously, 'the muslims are laughing'. Why, yes, we are indeed.”

The first commenter on Poonawalla’s blog post identifies himself as Hawaii IIO webmaster Abdul Rashid Abdullah.  The Islamic Information Office (IIO) website is tied to the Hawaii-based Muslim initiators of the “Islam Day” resolution. 

The next morning “Indira” comments: “Nice work, that is also September 11 on the Julian calendar, no wonder you are laughing at kufr.” 

Currently, cars exiting the Middle Street tunnel must merge onto the H-1, which creates an extreme bottleneck as cars traveling eastbound on the H-1 slow down to allow the incoming traffic.  This project will increase traffic capacity through the Middle Street merge and Vineyard Boulevard by adding a fourth continuous lane, eliminating the need to merge. The additional lane will also add a second exit lane to the Vineyard Street off-ramp.