Ethics

Strike at Tesoro's refineries still negotiating contracts could shut down 500,000 barrels a day of refining capacity ....

• Senate: Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act
• House: Protecting Investment in Oil Shale the Next Generation of Environmental, Energy, and Resource Security Act
• House: Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act

An examination of "administrative earmarks" around the time of congressional votes on key pieces of President Barack Obama's agenda suggests the White House used its power to fund local projects as a means to "buy" votes for major legislative efforts....

...Charles is on his way home from Afghanistan after many months of deployment in one of the most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan....

Poor George Washington. His birthday, spontaneously celebrated since the Revolution and formally declared a holiday in 1879, has slowly morphed into the insipid Presidents Day you'll hear about today....

impending troubles to be faced by public-sector retirement funds....

Even with billions in US Tariff support, sugar just couldn't carry the ILWU in Hawaii....

Three years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law his trillion-dollar stimulus plan, a measure that he promised would save or create 3 million jobs by the end of 2010 and would prevent unemployment from ever going above 8 percent....

There are two conservatives for every liberal in America. That’s the message of a recent David Brooks column as well as a Gallup survey. I think the imbalance is much starker. I would guess there are four conservatives for every liberal. Maybe even more.... 

Keep in mind that the average income of a Volt buyer is $175,000 per year. That means that middle-class taxpayers are helping the rich buy pricy, politically correct cars.  With his other hand, President Obama is taking from the poor....

Mr. Fortuño wants to convert the island's oil-fired plants to cheaper, cleaner natural gas....

Last week, America erupted in protest against one of those actions -- the White House's determination to force all insurance plans to cover, at no charge, contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization as part of Obamacare.

The sales tax in Hawaii ... has a base that includes many services, and as such are not strictly comparable to other sales taxes.

For 2011, Hawaiian averaged a 92.8 percent on-time performance ranking #1 in 11 of the 12 months and exceeding the industry average for the year by 13.2 percentage points....

• Senate: FAA Air Transportation Modernization and Safety Improvement Act
• House: Budget and Accounting Transparency Act
• House: Expedited Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act of 2011
• House: STOCK Act

Hawaiian Airlines has earned the first-ever aviation based carbon credits, having reduced its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by nearly 22,000 metric tons over the past six years using an innovative, eco-friendly engine washing technology developed by Pratt & Whitney.

Nearly 3 out of every 10 workers in Hawaii (29.7%) work for federal, state, or local government.... 

... the six states with the highest percentages — Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Vermont and California — also skew Democratic. In each of these states the percentage of childless women exceeds 55%....

Yesterday, the newest White House chief of staff, Jack Lew, took to the Sunday talk shows to get a head start on promoting President Barack Obama's FY2013 budget....

in order to either scare Togiola to the sidelines or bolster his own popularity, Faleomavaega made his next and even more cynical move: promise citizenship to nationals and national status to aliens....

His problem is with the "prohibitively high cost" of US-built ships and the impact of those costs on freight rates. The high costs of other aspects of a US-flag operation, such as the cost of an over-manned US-citizen crew with all its fringe benefits, get no mention....

• Romney - 39% (2,190 votes)
• Paul - 36% (1,996 votes)
• Santorum - 18% (989 votes)
• Gingrich - 6% (349 votes)
• Other - 1% (61 votes)

"The people of Hawaii know we've seen this type of inconsistent, ineffective behavior from Mazie before."

Horizon’s departure has left Guam with a single Westbound common carrier, Matson Navigation Company, which now operates as a true monopoly here....

The legislation was introduced in the Maryland Senate last week, and Governor O’Malley has made it a key legislative priority for 2012.

Families and businesses have budgets, yet Washington doesn't -- and it hasn't for the last three years.... 

...it appears that Brown successfully lobbied for California to get $6 billion in cash and siphon off a total of $18 billion from the $25 billion mortgage settlement with the five largest U.S. banks....

Attorney General David M. Louie on Thursday formally joined a landmark $25 billion joint federal-state agreement with the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers over foreclosure abuses and fraud....

When John F. Kennedy was President, just over a quarter of federal spending went to fund programs paying for some 21.7 million Americans to be dependent on Uncle Sam. But as high as that spending and dependence on the federal government was then, it has exploded today, with one in five Americans -- more than 67.3 million -- depending on Washington ....

To correct the threats to religious liberty and rights of conscience by the Obama administration, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act has been introduced in Congress (H.R. 1179, S. 1467).

All indications are that the Middle East is crumbling, and President Barack Obama's foreign policy is collapsing right along with it. 

Clinton was planning historic reforms during his second term. These were to include private accounts under Social Security and vouchers for Medicare.

Americans who rely on government receive an average $32,748 worth of benefits, surpassing the average American’s disposable personal income of $32,446....

Sen. Rick Santorum won all three Republican Presidential caucuses February 7 ....

Beginning in 2013, a tax will be imposed on the manufacture and importation of medical devices in an attempt to offset a portion of the $1 trillion cost of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act....

It is a rare moment indeed when faith denominations of all stripes unite together in common cause, and it is rarer still when that cause is a political one, with a sole piece of legislation as its principal target.... 

...permission to spend up to $184.7M on rail design build contracts....

• Senate: STOCK Act
• House: Fiscal Responsibility and Retirement Security Act
• House: Pro-Growth Budgeting Act of 2011
• House: Baseline Reform Act of 2011
• House: FAA Modernization and Reform Act

Americans following the current GOP brawl witnessed a series of attacks on Mitt Romney for the low effective tax rate he pays on his personal income.

the geniuses running state pensions lost $4.33 for every dollar public workers "contributed." However, the geniuses did manage to pocket $36.6 billion in "Other Expenses" for themselves and their pals in the process.

Today marks President Ronald Reagan's 101st birthday....

Marshall, who oversees the think tank’s Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, took her presentation on the road. During a three-day tour of Hawaii she spoke to political science students at BYUH and to TEA Party groups in Kona and Hilo.

U. S. Senate candidate Ed Case (D‐HI) today called out his Democratic opponent, Mazie Hirono, for false and misleading claims in her current television ad.

... we can be 100% free of our dependence on foreign oil within 10 years if we set our minds to it, by using our most abundant renewable energy source, geothermal energy, for our base load energy, sun, wind, and ocean, but HECO keeps stifling these technologies, especially geothermal energy, so it can continue burning oil and bi-oil for another 20 years to preserve its profits ....

With 100% of the Vote in, here are the results from the Nevada Republican Caucuses....

...a small number of people spend most of the health care dollars. True. But the small number this year are not the same people as the small number last year, or the year before....

Hint to Hawaii: This is what happens when a PUC actually represents the consumers ....

The Obama Administration and the nation have cause to breathe a sign of relief as today’s monthly jobs report shows 243,000 jobs were created in January....

... the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has already filed a lawsuit on behalf of an interdenominational Christian college that objects to providing abortion ....

Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) is up with her first ad in her Senate race, and seeks to tie both her primary and general election opponents to former President George W. Bush.