Ethics

The day-by-day, bank-by-bank numbers...formed the basis of a series of Bloomberg News articles this year about the largest financial bailout in history....

With this vote, the House rejected the Senate's two-month extension of the Social Security payroll tax reduction and requested a conference to consider a yearlong extension....

The politics of resentment has characterized much of 2011. It's been fueled by an entitlement mentality that "threatens not only the spirit of Christmas but the very fabric of a just and prosperous society," Messmore says....

After determining that 9,000 of the eligible 24,000 school-age students in military families were not attending public schools, top military leaders commissioned Johns Hopkins University researchers to focus on attitudes and opinions about the Hawaii education system.

One of the most important intellectual and policy battles, which remains relevant today, is over how to defend both civil liberties and security in time of war....

Pity the much-maligned plastic bag....

Lingle's fundraising report is going to scare Democrats when it comes out in January....

... one thing here that might give Ms. Lingle hope, short of a meltdown in the Democratic primary, would be the governor. “How Abercrombie does will matter,” he said, “and affect the Senate race. And affect the future of the party.”....

...without a revised contract, the State cannot fully implement many initiatives in its approved Race to the Top plans.... (Now you know why the HSTA has been stalling.)

...the U.S. Senate is home for the holidays already, celebrating with family while Washington sits in a stalemate....

...most people on the left who use the word “progressive” are actually reactionaries....

Low Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements are a key cause of HMC’s financial difficulties. Now it appears that Prime’s solution to the low reimbursement problem is simple—just cheat.

"Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests."

PolitiFact debunked the Medicare charge in nine separate fact-checks rated False or Pants on Fire, most often in attacks leveled against Republican House members.  Now, PolitiFact has chosen the Democrats’ claim as the 2011 Lie of the Year….

Upcoming Congressional Bills

• House: Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2011

...the surprise development raises concerns about its impact on Pyongyang's ongoing leadership transition, regime stability, and North Korean security and foreign policies....

It is a hopeful vision of the future of broad prosperity.’ But it's hard to see how voters are going to see any hope at all.” (John Dickerson, “Obama’s Victory Plan,” Slate, 12/13/11)

...Comments on page 23 of the 71 page-long Technical Review of the Hawaii DoE proposal point to a previously unknown DoE scheme to link up with Abercrombie’s much maligned Medical Homes proposal and use federal Medicaid money to screen—and therefore designate--even more children as Special Needs or High Needs....

Unfortunately, it was opposed by members of the House, who wanted a variety of devastating anti-environmental riders which, if the Senate accepted, would have set back our nation’s air and water protections for many years to come. 

Rather than produce a timely budget by way of standard operating procedure, congressional leaders again butted up against the deadline and reached a deal on a trillion-dollar "mega-omnibus" nine-bill appropriations package that sadly is yet another disappointing failure to rein in government spending.

No matter how powerful or pervasive a regime is, it can still be overrun by the sheer superior numbers of the people it governs. However, this traditional political framework has been undermined by the development of the modern welfare state ....

Case said he just finished a six-week swing across the islands and spoke with 5,000 people. He said he’s using that as his poll guidance for now. “They will not vote for the status quo, period,” Case said ....

America's tax code needs reform, plain and simple. The current tax system discourages saving, investment, and entrepreneurship. It's a drag on productivity, job growth, international competitiveness, and wages. It's complicated beyond belief, and it needs to change.... 

Already, education policy experts who are watching progress in Race to the Top states are urging the Education Department to make an example out of Hawaii for its lack of progress—real or perceived—on its teacher-evaluation component.

In case you’re not keeping track, it has been nearly 1,000 days since the United States Senate passed a budget. Meanwhile, America’s fiscal nightmare keeps growing, and those on the left—including Members of the Senate—keep advocating for even more spending ....

Electric bills have skyrocketed in the last five years, a sharp reversal from a quarter-century when Americans enjoyed stable power bills even as they used more electricity, says USA Today.

...media outlets and opposing politicians in other states have a tendency to start jumping up and down, hollering and pointing fingers when an incumbent’s contributor receives an earmark. Strange, but true....

Federal prosecutors Tuesday charged Ayman Joumaa, an accused Lebanese drug kingpin and Hezbollah financier, of smuggling tons of U.S.-bound cocaine and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars with the Zetas cartel of Mexico....

When it comes to solar power, Hawaiians are in a race. And for a small but growing number, the competition is already over....

This proves that Inouye has been grooming Hirono to look like she’s actually doing something by letting her co-sponsor his earmarks for an entire year now.

Attempts to solve drug shortages with more regulations could actually worsen the problem ... the only way to alleviate the drug shortage is to make generic drugs more profitable.

Last week, President Obama announced his intention to veto the bill when he warned, "Any effort to try to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut I will reject."

The documentary showed a former Iran senior official accepting a plan to launch from Mexico a cyber war on the United States, one that would cripple U.S. computer systems, including the White House, the FBI, the CIA and several nuclear plants....

•  Senate: Cloture on the Nomination of Richard Cordray to be Director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
• Senate: Motion to Proceed; Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011
• Senate: Motion to Proceed; Temporary Tax Holiday and Government Reduction Act
• House: Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act of 2011
• House: Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011

Today was the day we were to have found out whether the Supreme Court would review Corboy v. Louie....

“I’ve been to events that have already raised in excess of six figures for her,” Republican Jewish Coalition President Matt Brooks said. “This is going to be a real priority race for the organization.”

… and yet, oddly, Inouye & the AFL-CIO have been dead set against switching to a closed Democratic Primary ….

Hawaii homebuyers average a 13.37% mortgage downpayment.

The federal renewable energy production tax credit, which allows wind producers to take a 30 percent investment tax credit or receive a 2.2-cents-per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit, has been around since 1992. The tax credit expires at the end of 2012 ....

“It’s just unfortunate, and unworthy of the people of Hawaii, that Ed Case lets those frustrations with his own candidacy get the better of him,” Nielsen said.

If U.S. history is a painting on giant canvas, President Barack Obama's speech this week in Osawatomie, Kansas, is a thick coat of whitewash layered all over it, and the failure of the last three years lies underneath.

Any program in which 60 percent of the graduates failed to find work for two consecutive years would face funding reductions ....

Thirty seven states will be affected by these reductions with the majority of personnel cuts occurring in those states with the largest military and Army civilian populations.

The assessments were levied after the Campaign Spending Commission investigators uncovered thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions, contributed to Hirono as a part of Hawaii's extensive "Pay to Play" scandal....

Case fired back. "While Mazie's been selling her candidacy to the DC insiders, I've taken mine straight to Hawaii's voters, who aren't too interested in Washington telling them how to fix Washington."

"Waihee was instrumental in planning, facilitating, and effectuating the misappropriation of funds from the trusts...."

Two women claim Hawaii unconstitutionally denies them the right to marry, in violation of Attorney General Eric Holder's February letter to Congress stating that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act "is unconstitutional as applied to same-sex couples married under state law".

On this day 70 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and requested a declaration of war against Japan following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor the day before.

We have now filed a Freedom of Information Act request ... and will update this story as appropriate.

...President Obama is not vacationing in Hawaii with his wife and children while the extension of the payroll tax holiday remains in limbo....