First Amendment

Because Hawaii’s pay-to-play law does not limit itself, as many such state laws do, to prohibition against contribution politicians with authority to determine who receives government contracts, Jim Bopp argues that the law unreasonably impairs speech in pursuit of regulation....

Allen was responsible for organizing the volunteers at the 2010 iVote rally at the Capitol as well as organizing the neighbor island pastors and churches in the HB444 campaign.  He is a leader in our community and we are extremely blessed to have him take this key position.

...the meeting was disrupted by many Hawaiian Sovereignty proponents who dominated the session with loud and acrimonious statements....

Thursday July 29 and Friday July 30 -- four events on three islands.

The SPEECH Act will guard American authors and publishers from frivolous foreign libel suits, filed in countries that do not have our strong free speech protections....

When California voters approved Prop 8 outlawing gay marriage, gay activists exploded in a display of blind racial hatred directed at blacks.  Is Hawaii’s smug gaggle of “conscious, enlightened, progressives” now taking a page from the same hateful playbook?  

After years of pretending to be concerned about Hawaii's worst-in-the-nation voter participation, today the Honolulu Star-Bulletin has shown its true colors.

In an editorial titled "Religion risky for GOP", SB editors condemn a church-based statewide voter registration drive.  They complain bitterly that, "...the goal is to convince 80 percent of Christian churchgoers to register to vote and then persuade 80 percent of those who register to vote...."

This contrasts sharply with the Star-Bulletin July 21, 2009 which cried, "Hawaii dead last in voter turnout." 

The Honolulu Community Media Council (HCMC) is working with Georgetown University attorneys from the so-called "Institute for Public Representation" to challenge the Raycom Media deal linking the news operations of KGMB, KHNL and KFVE.

According the the HCMC, the Raycom deal is "nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to avoid regulatory scrutiny by the FCC and that Raycom will exercise control over all three stations in defiance of the FCC ownership rules."

But the Honolulu Community Media Council has its own decades-long history of "thinly veiled attempt(s)" to "exercise control" over the media....

Gramscian ideas are far advanced in America. You see them in "hate crimes" laws, in gender equity legislation, in forced corporate "sensitivity" training, in the menace of coerced "right thinking" in the universities. You feel the nuances of it in casual conversation. It's an attitude at a cocktail party.

The Auchi-Rezko-Obama connection came to public attention with federal marshals pounding on the door of Tony Rezko’s Wilmette Chicago mansion in the early morning of January 28, 2008. They hauled Rezko to jail after his bail was revoked for concealing a $3.5 million Auchi loan from the court. The Times outlines the story in two sentences. It should be of tremendous interest to the American public and the world.

But there is more to this story than run-of-the mill political corruption. Nadhmi Auchi is alleged to have a long affiliation with Iraqi Baathism and Saddam Hussein—which his attorneys deny. How close were they? According to a 1960 US Embassy report, Auchi was convicted along with Saddam by an Iraqi court for his part in a failed 1959 assassination attempt against then-Iraqi Prime Minister Qassim. For his crime, Auchi earned a sentence of “three years rigorous imprisonment.”

The US Senate Judiciary committee is now considering the so-called Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed by the House April 29, under the sponsorship of Rep John Conyers (D-MI) and 120 other Representatives. Dubbed the “Thought Crimes Prevention Act” by some House Republicans, HB1913 includes pedophilia as a protected sexual orientation.

Prior to approval by the whole House, a party-line 10-13 vote of Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee April 23 rejected a proposal by Republican Rep Steve King (R-IA) “to define the term `sexual orientation' as used in the bill to explicitly exclude pedophilia.” Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, an open lesbian, called the amendment, “unnecessary and inflammatory."

Why is there so little media investigation of the financing behind Barack Obama’s early political sponsor—and now convicted felon—Tony Rezko?   

The dual US-Syrian citizen Rezko--who assisted Obama in the purchase of his Chicago mansion--was heavily funded by loans from Iraqi-British ex-Baathist billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.  According to testimony at Rezko’s trial, Obama met Auchi at an April 3, 2004 event at Rezko’s home during Obama’s 2004 US Senate campaign.  The Times of London reports discovering, “state documents in Illinois recording that Fintrade Services, a Panamanian company, lent money to Mr. Obama’s fundraiser in May 2005.”  Fintrade directors, according to The Times “include Ibtisam Auchi, the name of Mr. Auchi’s wife”.

Media bias is an easy—and intellectually lazy--explanation.  Journalists digging into stories involving Auchi often find themselves peppered with threats of libel litigation from a London law firm known as Carter-Ruck.  Hawai'i Free Press has received several such letters.

This background file includes news articles, and letters to the editor by leading Democrats, regarding a possible shift to a closed primary system.  Also included US Supreme Court rulings on two relevant cases.

The Hawai`i Island Journal is closed.  Its last edition, published June 14, carried only a short notice of regret ...