Ethics

Rather than continue a cycle of dependence with streams of anonymous government checks, policymakers can take steps to remove disincentives to marriage and demonstrate how healthy marital relationships can lead to self-sufficiency.

"As soon as the governor signs the final bill, Hawaii should move swiftly to finish the job by ending exclusion from marriage itself..." --Evan Wolfson, co-counsel in 1993 gay marriage case, Baehr v. Miike

 "A study of 11 other state education lotteries showed that states are likely to decrease their growth of spending for education upon operating a lottery designated for that purpose."

"This decrease occurs regardless of the revenue generated by the lottery," Sanders added. "Meanwhile, states without lotteries maintained and increased their education spending more than states with lotteries."

During 2010 most Kona coffee went to Afghanistan , where it was very highly welcomed and appreciated.  Some also went to the P.I. and now here at the end of the year I am once again sending Kona coffee to the 25th Infantry Division folks who have recently deployed to Camp Liberty, Iraq.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide a case about whether state laws which require elected officials to recuse themselves from considering matters on which they appear to have conflicts of interest, impermissibly infringe upon the officials' First Amendment rights.

"We already knew that bag taxes are an annoying levy that provide no environmental benefit; now we also know that they are an economically destructive job killer thanks to this new report. Unfortunately it is also D.C.'s poorest communities that are hit hardest by the bag tax," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

  Legislators say this is illegal!

the commission drew new maps that eliminated most of the canoe districts. The end result was that Hawaii had the largest population deviations in the country. The deviations hit 38.9 percent for the Senate....

The U.S. House of Representatives is likely to vote to block funding for President Barack Obama's signature healthcare overhaul when it takes up a budget plan next week, House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said on Tuesday.

Pro-gay-marriage Senator Gary Hooser (D-Kauai), speaking on the Senate floor March 25, 2009 said:

“…it may very well be likely that this law would be challenged in court….”

In what Politico is calling “the first whiff of the desperation inside the White House about the slowness of the economic recovery,” President Barack Obama spoke to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday, claiming: “I understand the challenges you face. I understand you are under incredible pressure to cut costs and keep your margins up. I understand the significance of your obligations to your shareholders and the pressures that are created by quarterly reports. I get it.” No. No, he doesn’t.

The Hill: Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has said he will soon distribute to senators his definition of what he considers an earmark....

“The new pork mechanisms will depend on how Inouye has decided to define pork/earmarks,” Wheeler said. “The loopholes will be there; he and his staff know how to make them. Once the ‘definition’ is set, the workarounds will only be limited by the human imagination.”

Former Rep. Charles Djou (R-Hawaii) all but swore off elective politics in his recent farewell address, but the former congressman recently penned an article that is sure to ignite speculation among the state's political observers over whether a 2012 bid against Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) is in the offing.

Health Care Repeal - Vote Rejected (47-51, 2 Not Voting)

In the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

Hawaii's newly elected "DSA-er Democrat" Governor Neil "I am not a socialist" Abercrombie is the birthers' best friend -- and many commentators in Hawaii and across the nation are becoming increasingly annoyed by his antics. 

This Sunday is President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.

The Obama-style politics and the youthful 2010 class of freshmen Republicans in the U.S. House might be a passing fad or it might become a lasting trend.  Hawaii has sent a congressional delegation that is betting the modern movement toward a much quicker internet dominated system of governing, based on transparency rather than pork, is temporary and our nation will eventually return to the 20th Century seniority centric system of quiet machine based power-dealing.  The American people will render the verdict on Hawaii’s bet in the next couple of years.

Senator Charles Schumer and other congressional leaders have called on government safety agencies to investigate why such elevated levels of lead are coming into contact with our food and leaching into the environment. Perhaps even more alarming, a University of Arizona study found fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli in some of the bags.

EPA standard for lead in packaging materials is 100ppm.  Safeway tests 6.72 times the EPA limit.  Walgreens is 2.98 times, KTA Superstores 2.85 times, and Defense Comissary Agency tests 2.35 times the EPA standard. 

When the U.S. Supreme Court asks for a response from the side that had won the case in the lower court, that is a sign that the Court is thinking that it might possibly take the case. The response from Hawaii is due March 2.

Certain violations of S. 52 would subject a person to up to five years in prison, a fine of $500,000, or both.

Hopefully, every member of Congress will recognize by then that earmarks are a wasteful, unnecessary part of the budget process that should never be restored. CAGW will also be monitoring how members of Congress may attempt to circumvent the moratorium, through ‘phonemarking’ or other underhanded techniques.”

What would you call a health-insurance program that has worse health outcomes for cancer and heart disease than Medicare or private insurance, that pays doctors and specialists so little that they often refuse to see patients, and that’s driving state budgets into bankruptcy? If you’re the Obama administration, apparently, you call it a success and make it the cornerstone of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act....

According to Heritage legal expert Robert Alt, Judge Vinson’s declaratory judgment binds the parties to the suit, which includes 26 states, the National Federation of Independent Business and the federal government. This means that, absent a court-issued stay, Obamacare cannot be further implemented as it pertains to these 26 states. So the White House now faces a simple choice: Will President Obama abide by a valid decision by a federal district court, or will he unilaterally ignore the rule of law? If the past is any indicator, the rule of law is in for a continued beating.

The US Senate voted 81-17 to repeal the Obamacare "1099-MISC" tax hike and information reporting requirement.  Hawaii Senators Dan Akaka and Dan Inouye were among a rump group of 17 Obamacare bitter-enders.

…others on retirement watch, including Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), offered no indication they will run again in 2012.

Akaka, 86, raised less than $2,000 in the fourth quarter and had just $66,000 in the bank as of Dec. 31....

Energy Secretary Steven Chu responded to a question about the situation in Egypt, saying: "Certainly any disruption in the Middle East means a partial disruption in the oil we import. It’s a world market and [a disruption] could actually have real harm of the price. The best way America can protect itself against these incidents is to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, in fact to diversify our supply." This is a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, everything the Obama Administration is doing is only increasing our dependence on foreign sources of oil.

PRINCETON, NJ -- About 7 in 10 national adults, including 88% of Republicans, say it is important that Republican leaders in Congress take the Tea Party movement's positions and objectives into account as they address the nation's problems. Among Republicans, 53% rate this "very important."

“The President has stated unequivocally that he will veto any legislation containing earmarks, and the House will not pass any bills that contain them,” Inouye said in a statement. “Given the reality before us, it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law.”

The move also comes after House and Senate Republicans have agreed not to seek earmarks for the two years of the 112th Congress.

It looks as though Sen. McConnell has determined a way to force Sen. Reid to allow a full repeal vote in the Senate today or tomorrow.

In detective novels and television crime dramas like "CSI," the nation's morgues are staffed by highly trained medical professionals equipped with the most sophisticated tools of 21st-century science. Operating at the nexus of medicine and criminal justice, these death detectives thoroughly investigate each and every suspicious fatality.

The reality, though, is far different. In a joint reporting effort, ProPublica, PBS "Frontline" and NPR spent a year looking at the nation's 2,300 coroner and medical examiner offices and found a deeply dysfunctional system that quite literally buries its mistakes.

"It is difficult to imagine that a nation which began, at least in part, as the result of opposition to a British mandate giving the East India Company a monopoly and imposing a nominal tax on all tea sold in America would have set out to create a government with the power to force people to buy tea in the first place. If Congress can penalize a passive individual for failing to engage in commerce, the enumeration of powers in the Constitution would have been in vain for it would be ‘difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power’ and we would have a Constitution in name only."

It isn’t the first time around for Roger Dale Stockman, arrested in the parking lot of a Dearborn, Michigan mosque last week.  Stockman, allegedly caught with illegal fireworks after making threats against Arabs at a Dearborn bar, has a long criminal and psychiatric record.  At least two of his previous federal arrests involved threats.  In 1985 he was sent to a Federal Prison psychiatric ward after placing a pipe bomb in the Reno, NV airport.

Recent Congressional Votes

• Senate: Secret Holds Elimination
• House: Non-Security Discretionary Spending Limit
• House: Presidential Campaign Fund Termination

The most important message is what it doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us whether the person who died consented when the lethal dose was administered.

Further to that, the physician is rarely present at the time the lethal dose is administered. If the person does not consent, who would know?

The reporting system has a conflict of interest, whereby the physician who wrote the lethal prescription submits the report. The physician will not admit to abuse.

Oahu:  Wednesday, Feb. 2nd, 11:30 am to 1 pm

Maui: Wednesday, February 2nd, 5:30 to 8pm

...that could imperil a cherished practice of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.  Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has long defended earmarks as a constitutional prerogative. He once called himself the "No. 1 earmarks guy" in Congress.

Today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that our nation simply can’t afford President Obama’s failed leadership for much longer. This new CBO 10-year budget baseline shows an unprecedented $1.5 trillion deficit for this fiscal year—an increase of $95 billion over their last estimate. This will be the third consecutive year of trillion-dollar deficits.

This information also applies to Native Hawaiian firms, many of which are doing exactly the same thing.

Republicans expect states and local governments to beg Congress for relief from their underfunded pension programs sometime soon. But unlike Congress' haphazard, expensive responses to the Wall Street and automaker crises, GOP lawmakers intend to be ready this time.

Their plan has three parts: First, a nonbinding resolution that Congress will not bail out the pension programs; second, a bill to codify that into law and require transparent public pension accounting; and finally, a managed bankruptcy bill for the states.

Last night, in his State of the Union, President Barack Obama claimed, “We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. ... That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” This is true. But then he went on to say: “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time.” No. No, he doesn’t. The rest of the President’s speech made it very clear that he has no idea what makes America the best place on earth to do business.

In this very room, the House will produce, debate, and advance a budget. Last year — in an unprecedented failure — Congress chose not to pass, or even propose a budget. The spending spree continued unchecked.

We owe you a better choice and a different vision.

...for many, the change has been painful.  I've seen it in the shuttered windows of once booming factories, and the vacant storefronts on once busy Main Streets. I've heard it in the frustrations of Americans who've seen their paychecks dwindle or their jobs disappear -- proud men and women who feel like the rules have been changed in the middle of the game. 

They're right. The rules have changed.....

Hawaii scores high in categories which measure money spent and low in categories showing the results of those expenditures.  Notably Hawaii scores 6th in “Net Formation of High-Tech Establishments per 10,000 Business Establishments 2002”—this reflects the large number of fake “hi-tech” companies being formed to sop up ACT 215/221 tax credits.

Justice Alito's most "Hawaii-centric" opinion was in Hawaii v. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 129 S. Ct. 1436 (2009), where he authored the opinion for a unanimous Court. In that case, the Court held that the United States held "absolute fee simple" title to Hawaii's ceded lands, and that Congress' 1992 Apology Resolution had no legal effect.

Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act - Vote Passed (245-189, 1 Not Voting)

The House voted to repeal the 2010 health care law. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has vowed to block the bill in the Senate.

The first-ever National School Choice Week is underway! This week, January 23rd - 29th, school choice advocates from across the country will host events and highlight the benefits of educational freedom.  More than 150 organizations are hosting events in nearly every state.