Hawaii climate policy going overboard on cruise ships
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Hawaii Congressional Delegation How They Voted July 18, 2025
Green: ‘We’re totally fine’ –Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ ‘doesn’t hurt us right now’
SA: … The likelihood of Hawaii’s Legislature holding a special session later this year to compensate for federal spending cuts may be dimming after alarms over such a need were raised in May….
(MENCKEN: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”)
Green recently declared that he no longer sees a need for state lawmakers to reconvene early. The governor expressed his view on the Hawaii News Now interview show “Spotlight Now” on July 1 after the U.S. Senate approved an amended version of President Trump’s domestic policy bill that makes dramatic changes to health care, taxes, immigration, energy investments and other things.
“The bill as I’ve been able to read it so far, it doesn’t hurt us (Hawaii) right now,” Green said. In general, people should know we’re going to be OK. We won’t need a special session, and I won’t have to adjust anything else right now.”
On July 4, the federal bill was signed into law without further change.
Green told “Spotlight” that one big concern about the law removing a lot of people from Medicaid coverage is not immediate. He said such cuts aren’t expected to happen before 2027, and that rural hospitals in the state potentially hurt by the move will be able to seek special federal funding.
Other reasons Green cited included $100 million in appropriations he trimmed from the state budget, $200 million in available state contingency funding and the recent receipt of $550 million from a legal settlement with the maker of the blood thinner Plavix.
“All of these things keep us afloat,” Green said. “We’re totally fine. … That means we will not need to have a special session in all likelihood because we have enough resources without having to do any cuts.”…
Read … Legislative special session may not be needed | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Case Only Votes with Hard Left 92% of the Time
Shapiro: … The liberal group Progressive Punch rates Case as voting with progressives 92% of the time this year. If legislators must march in such lockstep with partisan dogma that they aren’t allowed even 8% worth of independent thought before they’re pilloried by party police, is it any wonder Congress is broken?
Keohokalole is also leaning on the “values” card often played in local vs. haole Hawaii elections.
“Are we getting representation that really reflects the values of residents in our community?” he asked in his HNN interview.
This tactic is cheap and tired and fails miserably almost every time….
Keohokalole, 41, influential in the Senate as chair of Commerce and Consumer Protection, considered a run for Congress in 2022 but hesitated after the Ethics Commission dinged him for improperly intermingling his campaign fund and office allowance with personal accounts….
Read … David Shapiro: Keohokalole focus is blurry in possible Case challenge | Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Lee Cataluna: Survival Sex In Lahaina? Says Who?
CB: … This is what happens when two political opportunists try to manipulate the facts for their own selfish reasons….
The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security told the world that after the Lahaina fire, one in six female survivors were forced to engage in sexual acts in exchange for basic needs like food and housing.
And the Lahaina people were like, “What the hell is she talking about?”
Before Kristi Noem, the Insta-Glam puppy-shooting Republican, spat out that spurious statistic as though it was God’s truth, Hawaiʻi’s own flame thrower Khara Jabola-Carolus made a similar statement based on the same report:
“The fact that in the richest country in the world women had to resort to any means necessary to meet basic human needs and survive a fire, is absolutely a critique of the entire American system – and the problem with having that system forced onto Hawaii,” Jabola-Carolus, a co-author of the report called “Equality in Flames: The Impact of the Lahaina Wildfire on Gender Equality and Filipino Women in Hawaii,” told The Guardian, the only media outlet that bit on the story when the report was released in May.
And the Lahaina people were like, “What the hell is she talking about?” ….
Background: Next Tulsi? Mrs Kaniela Ing Finally makes the Big Time--with the Trump Administration!
Read … Lee Cataluna: Survival Sex In Lahaina? Says Who? - Honolulu Civil Beat
Honolulu Charter Commission Begins Hearings
CB: … We’re just starting a process that comes along only once every 10 years — proposing amendments to the Honolulu City Charter. Although City Council members can send charter amendments to the ballot in non-Charter Commission years, this once-in-a-decade process is the only chance citizens have to bypass the council and propose their own ideas….
At a meeting last week, a Charter Commission committee that has been tasked with overseeing the proposal submissions came up with a tentative schedule. The key dates: Aug. 4 is the first day to submit proposals and Nov. 7 is the last day the commission will accept them. After that the commission will spend some time sorting through public submissions as well as whatever its own members come up with.
Public hearings are expected to be held from January to May next year, followed by more review and revamping and the commission will decide by Aug. 12, 2026, what to send to the ballot. Then comes a “public education” period (The Blog thinks this is code for campaigns for or against the ballot props) and then the voters have their say on Election Day, which is Nov. 3, 2026.
It’s an ambitious schedule that still needs to be approved by the full commission, but commissioners are worried that the process has already fallen behind. In 2015, proposals were already being accepted by July 1….
LINK: Home — Honolulu City Council
Read … The Sunshine Blog: Now's Your Chance To Fix Honolulu Government. Don't Miss It - Honolulu Civil Beat
No Confidence: We Need To Force Legislative Leaders To Clean Up Their Own Houses
CB: … One thing we can do is petition both the Senate and House to formally investigate the $35,000 given by the FBI to a legislator in 2022 as part of a federal corruption investigation. So far, leadership has had little to say about this important matter, which amounts to the FBI’s direct involvement in the legislative process.
Additionally, both chambers should require their respective rules committees to establish a voting procedure to give members a mechanism to express their lack of confidence in legislative leaders. That legislative vehicle currently does not exist….
Read … No Confidence: We Need To Force Legislative Leaders To Clean Up Their Own Houses - Honolulu Civil Beat
Maui enforcing overgrowth rules, warning violators of potential fines, jail time
HNN: … The wildfire disaster of 2023 has Maui County stepping up enforcement of recently updated fire codes.
The rules are in place to ensure buffer zones between brush and structures. The vegetation has to be cutback based on height.
Warning letters have been going out to violators, urging them to take action in a month or face fines up to $1,000 per day. Criminal prosecution is also possible with punishment up to six months in jail….
Read … Maui enforcing overgrowth rules, warning violators of potential fines, jail time
Two Miske associates to appeal their sentences
ILind: … The Miske co-defendants who drew the longest sentences are both appealing those sentences to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Lance Bermudez, who was sentenced earlier this week to a 30-year term in federal prison, filed a notice on Friday that he intends to appeal the sentence….
John Stancil, 37, Mike Miske’s younger half-brother, received a 20-year sentence, the maximum provided on the charge of racketeering conspiracy. Stancil filed a notice of appeal last year, which did not state the basis for the appeal. Following several delays, the opening brief in his appeal is due in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in September….
The appeals of both men are constrained by the terms of their plea agreements, in which each waived their rights to appeal their convictions and sentences “in exchange for the concessions made by the prosecution….”
Their plea agreements both provide that there are only two grounds of appeal that are available.
The first exception to the waiver provides the convictions or sentences can be appealed “based on a claim of ineffective
assistance of counsel.”
Further, if the defendant’s sentence is longer than the range spelled out in federal sentencing guidelines, the defendant may appeal “the portion of his sentence greater than specified in the guideline range….” …
Read … Two Miske associates to appeal their sentences | i L i n d
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