Entries for 'Selected News Articles'

The Governor’s Administration played a pivotal role in developing the Race to the Top public education program that was awarded $75 million in Federal funds and won praise from President Obama’s Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan....  Hirono either purposely failed to acknowledge Governor Lingle’s landmark, community-based effort known as the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI), or she has been away from Hawaii so long she is out of touch with the progress that has been made in this critical area. President Obama’s Dept. of Energy has lauded the HCEI as a model for other states.

Land before humans came to the Hawaiian Islands around 1,000 years ago, there ruled land crabs which roamed great distance, a new study has claimed.

POLL Daily Kos March 22: Aiona 42% – Hannemann 42%

All nine federal judges in Hawaii have recused themselves from hearing the latest complaint, of a long string, that challenges a major transportation project in Honolulu.  With each judge stepping back from the case, 9th Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima will step in, according to an order filed Friday....

As HMSA and the Abercrombie administration push forward with electronic medical records in Hawaii—a key requirement for any medical rationing system—the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General has today released two audits of electronic medical records security systems….

The Late Harold B. Estes' letter to Obama: "One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man. So here goes....

"You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: "We're no longer a Christian nation" "America is arrogant" -- (Your wife even announced to the world, "America is mean- spirited." Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)"

In April, the Obama administration lost $1.5 billion of $2 billion budgeted to improve America's antiquated transportation systems, with high-speed rail projects. Though the funds will now likely go toward deficit reduction, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a defendant in the Hawaii rail lawsuit, has asked for $53 billion over the next six years.

...And that number is an understatement. It is gleaned from tax forms, news stories and reporting. But Soros funds foundations that fund other foundations in turn, like the Tides Foundation, which then make their own donations. A complete accounting is almost impossible because a media component is part of so many Soros-funded operations....

If agreement is not reached in the current round of negotiations, the team will make a decision on whether to proceed to arbitration. The timetable for arbitration is contained in a March 23, 2011 Memorandum of Agreement, which allows for either the Union or the Employer to request the Hawaii Labor Relations Board (HLRB) implement impasse procedures.

Moody's justified the downgrade based on the state's forecast depletion of reserve funds by the end of the 2011 fiscal year, sustained budget shortfalls relieved by one-time solutions and low pension-funded ratios relative to other states. Hawaii's audited financial results have also come in late since fiscal 2007....

Recent Congressional Votes

• Senate: Cloture Motion; James M. Cole to be Deputy Attorney General
• House: Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act
• House: Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act
• House: Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to ensure that Defendants do not implement the Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project...before complying fully with federal environmental laws.

In a speech in Boston, Mr. Tutu directly attacked the Jewish supporters of Israel as being in effect traitors to America, controlling U.S. foreign policy for the benefit of Israel and to the detriment of America. In that speech he compared American Jewish supporters of Israel to Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Milosevich, Stalin, and Pinochet.

School districts very often define spending categories in unexpected ways, making it difficult to distinguish classroom spending from operational costs....

…a decade’s worth of reform and rhetoric that hasn’t made much of a dent. 

'I used to go to their house. He had two wives, one spoke Arabic, and the other one spoke Urdu. They had three children, a girl and two boys. They gave me two rabbits. They had installed a camera at the outer gate so they could see people before they entered the house,' Zarar Ahmed said....

...NLIHC calculates Hawaii’s "housing wage" at $31.08 per hour. The “housing wage” which is the full-time hourly wage a household would need to earn in order to afford the fair market rent for an apartment....

The Jones Act has singularly failed to deliver on its declared objectives of "supporting foreign and domestic commerce and creating a merchant marine of the best equipped and most suitable types of vessels." The "must build in America" clause is the biggest problem. Today the U.S. builds 1 percent of the world’s commercial ships — with 95 percent being built in Asia....

President Bush called the operation a “momentous achievement” that “marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”

Indeed, the rumor that Obama was not a U.S. citizen was initially spread in April 2008 by a group of Hillary Clinton supporters, as reported April 22 by Politico’s Ben Smith and Byron Tau....

... despite a few early skirmishes — including the one that cost the English explorer his life — the people who preceded the Europeans to the so-called "Sandwich Isles" by at least a thousand years generally had good relations with the British empire....

Kaho'ohanohano, just 21, hailed from Hawaii. He left his home in Maui to fight with Company H, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division. He distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy in the vicinity of Chupa-ri, Korea, on Sept. 1, 1951.

…And another immigration memo, from June 1964, records that Harvard officials were trying "to get rid of him" and "couldn't seem to figure out how many wives he had."….

An extremely high cost of living, coupled with a fairly high tax rate, give Hawaii the lowest adjusted-average income....

While enforcing the federal antitrust laws in Hawaii, (in the early 1960s) my boss, Ray Carlson, and I investigated the big five companies’ control of the Matson Steamship Company. We had the fervent support of the Hawaii Attorney General. We finished the investigation and filed a case against the Matson and the companies controlling it....

 ... more than half of Democrats believed Bush was complicit in the 9-11 attacks ....

Traditional history courses were torn down in favor of “queer” studies, black studies, Asian studies, women’s studies; language was deconstructed in order to remove its capitalistic foundations; traditional sexual mores were torn asunder in the name of “tolerance.”  President Obama was the result.

Is the City is hiding a politically damaging increase in rail cost projections by placing the money in the Handi-van account and using inflated census numbers to justify it?  At a future date, will the moneys be quietly transferred back to rail?

But it is a reflection of some of the concerns she’s voiced, and I think she’s supportive. The general concept, she’s for it.

‘When I get agitated and irritated, I might act up.'

From 2003 to 2008, the nation's general government debt varied between 2% and 5% of GDP....  In 2009, as the government increased spending to stimulate the economy, S&P said the U.S. debt load "ballooned" to more than 11% and has yet to come down….

More evidence that Birtherism is nothing but a scheme to help Obama get reelected....

 Seizure notice posted on Full Tilt Poker

"They are doing a good job," said Lance Holter, chairman of the Sierra Club Maui Group.

The man behind Donald Trump's possible 2012 presidential campaign is a registered Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008....

The poll, conducted by SMS for developer Jeff Stone, was taken among 700 voters statewide between March 18 and April 3. The margin of error was 3.7 percentage points.

 This is the old-boy response to Ed Case claiming to have made up with Inouye.

The bill reduces funding for transit by a total of $991 million ....

This article is obviously planted in POLITICO by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to foster the illusion that Ed Case has it all wrapped up.

I would have thought this track record would have been enough to put an end to Case's political ambitions, but ambition is what defines Ed Case—ambition, and douchiness.

 If the Molokai landowner is incapable of participating in a viable plan for the island, the state is willing to exercise its right (sic) to condemn lands for this public (sic) purpose....

$6.2 Trillion in cuts from Obama's budget over the next decade....

Ralph Nader had filed this case in 2004, challenging Hawaii law that requires an independent presidential candidate to submit approximately six times as many signatures as are needed for a ballot-qualified political party with its own primary.

 Street lights crowd roadside on installed section of project. 

Ever since I visited the decrepit wind project at South Point on the Big Island I realized that wind farms are investment schemes, not reliable energy production plants. So did T. Boone Pickens with his multibillion dollar order of GE wind turbines for his “Pickens Plan,” a plan that has been abandoned because wind energy makes no business sense....

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos/SEIU (3/24-27, Hawaii voters, no trendlines)

Did they leave a bunch of checks in the box ‘til March 1?  Anyone want to lay bets on March coming in as “surprisingly high" when CoR meets next time?

"I look forward to supporting Gov. Lingle," Djou told the more than 50 people who attended his two-hour speech. "I believe she will make a very good U.S. senator."

CD1(Blue): 47.6% Kerry 16/9/53/20 W/H/A/O
Most of Oahu, particularly the more Republican parts.

CD2(Green): 58.4% Kerry 29/9/42/20 W/H/A/O
South-eastern Oahu and all of the other Hawaiian islands.