National News

Three interceptor ships near Japan and the Philippines, as well as U.S.-based interceptors, are ready to shoot down the North Korean missile if space-, land-, and sea-based sensors determine its flight path is targeted at the United States or U.S. allies....

While the President is throwing stones at the court, he's living in a glass house ....

Only six agencies responded that in order to track cell phones, they must first get a warrant or have probable cause: County of Hawaii, Hawaii; Honolulu, Hawaii; Wichita, Kan.; Lexington, Ky.; Lincoln, Neb.; and North Las Vegas, Nev....

Recent Congressional Votes

• Senate: 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011
• Senate: Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act
• House: Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2011
• House: Surface Transportation Extension Act
• House: Democratic Alternative Budget
• House: Fiscal 2013 House Budget Resolution

As of yesterday, the U.S. corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent claimed the world's top spot, edging out Japan which recently lowered its rate from 39.5 percent to 36.8 percent. (The U.S. rate includes the 35 percent federal rate plus the average rate the states add on.)

Will House Republicans save Hawaii's Prepaid Health insurance law from Abercrombie's effort to destroy it? 

The Hawaii state legislature has taken dead aim at NAFTA and the provisions it requires of the state, and the protections it affords Canadians who make cross-border investments in vacation rental properties….

More than a thousand ships and barges will reach the end of their useful lives in the next few years. More may be forced out of service as environmental standards tighten....

"The Ex-Im Bank is critical to help U.S. companies to access financing to support the exports of their goods and services abroad. In fact, 85% of Ex-Im Bank's transactions directly supported small businesses last year."

...he did not want to leave his medical colleagues at the hospital short-handed.  "He didn't eat (on shift), he didn't pee, he wasn't going to say 'I need to take an hour off to go to therapy,'" said Mrs. McCaddon....

Liberals put on an election-year show, with the personal encouragement of President Barack Obama, in which they attempted to impose higher taxes on the oil industry as punishment for their profits while gas prices are at an all-time high....

TARP, provided Central Pacific with a $135 million financial lifeline in the midst of the recession but will be collecting only about $74 million from selling its Central Pacific stock .... 

Less than one year ago, Congress formally recognized that "the failures of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac helped precipitate the deepest economic decline since World War II."

When the wheels start coming off this project, as they undoubtedly will, we predict that many fingers will be pointing at your agency....

On Sunday, the United States gets a distinction no nation wants -- the world's highest corporate tax rate....

For the past three days, the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard a series of arguments on Obamacare -- what promises to be one of the most seminal decisions in the Court's history....

While Washington's eyes are focused on the historic Obamacare hearings at the Supreme Court, work continues across the street in the House of Representatives where some Members of Congress -- though not all -- are doing their best to clean up Washington's budgetary mess.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue today urged lawmakers to better promote the United States as a premier travel destination and to put the welcome mat back out for international visitors ....

Scalia: 'We're not stupid'...

Heritage’s Robert Alt and Edmund Haislmaier have created a guide to the issues before the Court, potential rulings, and their effects ....

North Korea is preparing to launch yet another long-range missile, and Iran is in desperate pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, the United States and its allies remain unprotected from the threat of nuclear missiles, and now it appears that Obama wants to cede even more ground to Russia....

...the incentive structure suggests that banks would prefer to write down more than double the amount of investor principal for the same credits while strengthening their own balance sheets and avoiding increased losses....

• Senate: Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act
• House: Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost, Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2011

Rare is the occasion when the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather to hear three days of arguments.... 

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Kahuku is 3rd on this list of junk-grade US DoE loans and loan guarantees.

$8.5 billion for military construction, down 29 percent ...

Two years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law Obamacare, a 2,700-page bill that will radically alter America's health care system and wreak havoc on medical costs, quality of care, and fundamental rights ....

Medicaid beneficiaries have more difficulty getting primary care and they visit hospital emergency departments more often than those with private insurance....

A heavily subsidized solar company received a U.S. taxpayer loan guarantee to sell solar panels to itself....

Mazie has accepted none because she fears any public exchange of views or comparison of our candidacies and has been instructed to remain behind a carefully scripted campaign front. That is conduct unbecoming a U. S. Senator."

Disgraced former Obama “green jobs czar” Van Jones made an appearance in Hawaii last night in which he ripped on the “American fantasy” and called for socialistic approaches to wealth redistribution, while castigating Obama opponents as America-haters ....

The U.S. Department of Commerce today released tourism data revealing that international and domestic tourism spending increased 8.1 percent in 2011....

Schoenwetter was sentenced to eight years in a federal prison—a term longer than what some violent criminals could spend in lockup—for domestic regulatory offenses that did not even violate foreign law.

...gas prices keep going up, with no end in sight. But instead of taking action to bring relief to the American people, the Obama Administration is patting itself on the back for a job well done ....

More than 1,000 high-school students from around the world will have the opportunity to showcase their hard work after an intense six weeks of designing and building an original robot....

"A potential new champion of progressivism is Mazie Hirono...." -- In These Times 

Abercrombie in 2009 asked Hawaii to gamble its entire public-sector and private-sector economy on a promise of “Green Jobs” from a "former" communist Czar whose nervous breakdown was healed by a tree-sitter named “Butterfly.” Now they're teaming up to launch a State-owned Bank backed by your tax dollars.

Olympia Snowe showed her importance to the Senate's pro-choice firewall when she voted against the Blunt Amendment. After she retires her most likely GOP successor on this issue is Hawaii's former governor, Linda Lingle.

The HSTA and the Abercrombie administration have fallen into name calling and finger pointing....This is a sure sign that a deal is in the works and they are both in on it.

Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, will release his budget blueprint today .... 

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The Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom is being held Friday, March 23 at noon, outside the Prince Kuhio Federal Building 300 Ala Moana Bl, Honolulu.

Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) Act - Vote Passed (74-22, 4 Not Voting)

The Senate passed this $109 billion bill that would fund transportation programs and projects for the next two years. It is unclear at this time whether the House will pass a two or five year bill.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on its constitutionality, bringing this intolerable act to the forefront of the American mind once again and reminding the country that the issue of Obamacare is by no means settled....

The Holy Grail for many cargo interests shipping by ocean in the domestic Hawaii and Guam trades is an unrequited generational quest to find a way to take advantage of the existing mainline Trans-Pacific container carriers passing regularly Westbound by the islands ....

Yoshioka’s statement in the Final EIS, “… traffic congestion will be worse in the future with rail than what it is today without rail …”

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Shown on Molokai March 14 and 15--will this must-see film come to your local theater?

Many of Faleomavaega’s antics are recounted elsewhere in this blog but just to give an example, after the killing of Osama Bin Laden Faleomavaega rose up on the House floor to demand that President Obama and then-CIA Director Leon Panetta apologize to native Americans for using “Geronimo” as a code word in the operation. Needless to say, he was ignored. Many think he is nuts.