Entries for August 2011

Abercrombie last week appointed* Barry T. Mizuno to fill the Hawai'i County seat on the Board of Regents of the University of Hawai'i (UH).

Janney Capital Markets analyst Tony Wible is concerned that Disney's losing its magical touch with a Hawaiian timeshare resort where projected operating costs are spiraling out of control....

Last week the developer and the County of Hawaii filed their joint Brief in Opposition in C & J Coupe Family Limited Partnership v. County of Hawaii....

Attached is an Excel file with school-by-school results for the 2011 Hawaii State Assessment Program....

Palin's campaign would mark the first serious national effort by any conservative to come back from a post-modern Gramscian deconstruction attack. If successful, a Palin victory would signify a serious weakening to the ablilty of Gramscians to control the popular mind.

The Administration’s short-sighted effort to score a quick and easy military victory over Qadhafi’s regime failed to end the threat to civilians in “days not weeks,” as President Barack Obama promised. The administration now must scramble to develop and implement a long term strategy for a post-Qadhafi Libya.

Americans in Hawaii continued to set the national standard in wellbeing in the first half of 2011, followed closely by North Dakota....

What does a worn out and debunked fraud scheme do when it has exhausted its welcome around the world? It comes to Hawaii, of course.

Ghaddafi is/was the fourth-largest shareholder of Honolulu Rail contractor Ansaldo.  It appears that Ghaddafi's Libyan Investment Authority is undergoing a change in management ....

JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – Death hovered behind a car window packed with figurines and Teddy Bears on a tract of Iraqi road with no name....

 It will now be up to the “super” commission to come up with a strategy or game plan that will set a course for the financial affairs of the nation.

She voted against a...proposal to mandate he inscription of a religious message at the Capitol Visitor Center....  A non-practicing Buddhist, Mazie would be the first non-theist to serve in the Senate.

One losing bidder in the procurement process advocated building the rail cars here- creating 150 local jobs on Oahu instead of in California. The losing bidder could also build and maintain the rail cars for $250 million less than what Ansaldo proposed. 

...as NASA sends its shuttles to museums, China is making great strides in its space program—with preparations under way for the launch of a Chinese spacelab in the next few weeks....

After being a territory for so long, achieving statehood represented a “coming of age” for Hawaii to many. To others, statehood also represented less positive aspects.

The states most dependent on federal spending could also see their credit ratings fall in the wake of a major deficit reduction deal if they fail to adapt accordingly.

“This contract will be the largest installation of photovoltaic solar energy facilities in Hawaii’s history....”

HSTA’s leadership has alleged that the leaders of other public unions have made agreements with the Governor and that UHPA conspired against Hawaii’s teachers and prohibited their right to bargain. As a result, more than 88 individuals, some representing the leaders of UHPA, HGEA and UPW, have been subpoenaed to testify at the HLRB hearings. The notion of a conspiracy is an insult.

We must remember how we stood as a nation with a shared purpose and intensity on September 12, 2001 and in the days following. That collective and eternal vigilance is still essential. Never quit.

...Abercrombie's solutions focus on spending more on government services rather than growing our economy and creating jobs. His statement today didn't even mention our small businesses or entrepreneurs ....

Governor Abercrombie outlined ... major challenges facing the state...

• Potential program cuts from Washington, D.C. and inadequate federal funding to address the federal government’s responsibility to Compact Migrants in Hawai'i.

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 At stake is whether our children will find good jobs, whether our families will be able to stay in Hawai‘i, whether we will have the resources to protect our environment and provide the social services we pledged to provide.

The 22nd annual KIDS COUNT Data Book profiles the status of children on a national and state-by-state basis and ranks states on 10 measures of well-being.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta held a joint press event in Washington in which they cautioned that U.S. debt is jeopardizing America's ability to ensure national security and preserve its interests abroad.

Djou: “Hawaii, in particular, has become exceptionally isolated and vulnerable in Washington D.C because of the lack of a bipartisan congressional delegation...."

I will not run for Congress in 2012.... When the time is right, I will decide whether to run for Governor in 2014.

Speaker Gingrich will be on Maui this Saturday, August 20th. The event begins at 5:30pm at the Door of Faith Church, 432 Waiehu Beach Rd, Wailuku....

• Where: Midway Street between Hangars 110 & 111 on Kalaeloa Airport, Kapolei, Hawaii
• When: Saturday, September 10, 10 am-6 pm and Sunday, Sept. 11, 10 am-4 pm
• Special: 10th Anniversary 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony at 10 am on Sunday, Sept. 11 

The President's tour began yesterday in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, where in one breath he pointed his finger at Washington's broken politics and in the next he blamed "a string of bad luck ... "

Financial issues with a new Walt Disney Co. resort scheduled to open this month in Hawaii prompted the company to suspend all time-share sales for the project and force out three executives, including the president of its Celebration-based time-share business...

Featuring dinner and a solo performance by the country music icon known best for “God Bless the U.S.A,” the event is set for Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. in the Koolau Ballrooms at the Koolau Golf Course, 45-550 Kionaole Road, Kaneohe, Oahu.

Honolulu – Governor Neil Abercrombie today announced Deputy Public Defender Karen Tooko Nakasone as his nomination to the judicial seat on the First Circuit Court.

The mother, Jane Doe, claims that the "defendants had actual or constructive knowledge of what was going on."

Every year, Americans for Tax Reform Foundation publishes its Cost of Government Day report, which calculates the day on the calendar year until which the average American must work to pay for the full costs of government spending and regulation....

Governor Neil Abercrombie and his Coordinator on Homelessness, Marc Alexander, today concluded the 90-Day Plan on Homelessness....

With its ruling, the court affirmed the principle that the Constitution means what it says—Congress does not have unfettered power to force the American people to comply with any and all dictates it creates.

Busted, named, and shamed by the Honolulu Ethics Commission, Honolulu Planning Commissioner Andrew Jamila has turned State’s Evidence and fingered others involved in a conspiracy to keep Waimanalo Gulch open....

Neil Abercrombie says Hawaii can’t afford Micronesians.

All four members of Hawaii’s Congressional delegation say Micronesians are “unsustainable.”

Arkansas disagrees.

While we may benefit from those generous federal dollars and programs, if spending is not reined in now, the situation will get even worse. If political leaders don’t have the courage to rein in spending, then perhaps voters should find elected officials who will make those tough decisions.

Michele Bachmann has been named the winner of the Iowa straw poll, taking 4,823 votes out of nearly 17,000 cast. Ron Paul was a close runner-up, taking 4,671 votes and trailing Bachmann by less than 200 ballots. In a distant third place was former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who took 2,293 votes after investing heavily in the event.

Widely panned by local political commentators, the DSCC screed bizarrely tagged Lingle as a “hyper partisan…Republican bomb thrower.”

But there is a ticking time-bomb buried at the bottom of their rambling diatribe.....

What I learned in my 20’s traveling the globe as an Air Force pilot, our current president has yet to acknowledge in his 50’s – that we are the most exceptional nation on the face of the earth.

Obama approval has dropped by 12%.  A year ago Obama’s approval was 68% in Hawaii....

In the 1993 comedy Dave, a small-town presidential impersonator is called on to pretend to be the actual President of the United States when the commander in chief takes ill. Dave steps into the White House, takes his new role too far, and with wide-eyed innocence promises America, "I'm initiating a program to try to find a decent job for every American who wants one."

This afternoon, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled that the individual mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), more commonly known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional.

In 2010, seat belt use in the United States ranged from 72.2 percent in New Hampshire to 97.6 percent in Hawaii and Washington....

The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday....