Hawaii History

Neil Abercrombie’s campaign is responding to reports that Abercrombie has been a secret member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

  DSA's Democratic Left Nov./Dec. 1990, page 4

On this day in 1898, the House approved Senate Joint Resolution 55 providing for the annexation of Hawaii as a U.S. territory. At the time, Hawaii was an independent republic. The vote was 209-91.

A campaign banner touting Hannemann’s Democratic Primary opponent, former Congressman Neil Abercrombie, now hangs prominently from the front gate at the Honokaa ranch of Larry Mehau.  Mehau was a key figure in the 1990s “Broken Trust” scandal at Kamehameha Schools, collecting $40,000 a month for “security” at the Kamehameha campus and more for the “protection” of Big Island Kamehameha lands . . . .

Contrary to popular opinion, Indian reservations have a history in Hawaii. An Oct. 12, 1999, article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin describes the efforts of Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate (KSBE) trustees in 1995 to evade oversight of their corrupt doings. The Trustees’ self-serving investments caused losses of $264,090,257 in 1994 alone. To avoid scrutiny, they considered moving KSBE corporate headquarters out of Hawaii to the windswept plains of the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian reservation in South Dakota.

Meheula’s memo says: “In the late 1990s, when Ed Case was chairman of the State House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, he repeatedly acted to reduce Native Hawaiian benefits, rights and revenues…. In the 1998 legislative session, Mr. Case proposed the 123-page ‘Native Hawaiian Autonomy Act.’ The Act would have terminated OHA and the Hawaiian Home Lands program, denied Native Hawaiians the right to self-determination and federal recognition, and reduced State liabilities to Native Hawaiians. The Act stated that its purpose is to stop the ‘continued dependence by native Hawaiians on others which prevents the development of the full potential of the native Hawaiian people.’”

SB Photo 1999: Jeff Stone's sister Mari Stone Wong and his then-brother-in-law, ousted Bishop Estate Trustee Dickie Wong, needn`t be as worried as they look--they're on trial in the courtroom of Judge Michael Town.

About Hanabusa's 2002 push for developer Jeff Stone to receive $75 million in Ko Olina tax credits, Cayetano writes:

"As I watched all of this, I wondered if there were any legislators who had the guts to ask the hard questions.  There was not a peep from the Democrats--or from conservative Republicans like Slom and Hemmings who had made careers in opposing social programs for the needy, or from young legislators who were learning quickly the politics of "going along to get along."  The only legislators who raised questions about the credibility of Stone's claims were Republicans Charles Djou of O`ahu and Jim Rath of Kona, Hawai`i."

If Hanabusa enters the congressional race and defeats Democrat Ed Case in the Primary, she will face off with Charles Djou in the General Election next November.

First they come so subtly as to barely elicit notice; bundled in thick layers of effusive praise for Hawaii’s newly canonized Saint Damien.

Last year, instead of enacting a law stating that the Supreme Court was wrong, the Legislature adopted special legislation exempting the Superferry pending completion of an environmental impact statement. The Supreme Court’s recent decision correctly struck down that exemption as violating the Hawaii constitutional prohibition against legislative special treatment for special interests.

The governor and Legislature were then handed a second opportunity to make the law pono by saying what everyone believed. The Legislature could enact simple language, such as the following which I recommended to the legislative leadership in March 2009, making clear that our environmental laws do not extend to "secondary" impacts:

"Significant effect" does not include or require consideration of “secondary impacts” on the environment that may result from government action. This latter provision is retroactive to enactment of this chapter.

By doing so, the law would state what everyone always believed it meant and the Superferry would have been allowed to continue providing essential transportation to Hawaii's citizens and competition to interisland airlines.

While John McCain was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, First Unitarian Church of Honolulu -- at which the elementary-age Obama would later attend Sunday school after returning from Indonesia in 1970 or 71 -- was sheltering deserters and AWOLs recruited by ‘flirty fishing' coeds from a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) group known as "The Resistance".  The deserters' exploits were front page news for months on end in mid-1969 Honolulu.  They were also proudly trumpeted by the Honolulu SDS tabloid, "The Roach". 

The contrast between the war hero POW and the Obama deserters' church would have made a pretty good campaign commercial.  But nobody in Honolulu spoke up to claim Obama's First Unitarian connection until after Election Day. 

Speaking in Turkey, April 6, President Obama claimed: "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation."  This is not new.  Obama has delivered similar remarks going back to at least 2008.  These are usually coupled with "we are not a (or--We are also a) Jewish nation, Muslim nation, Buddhist nation, nation of unbelievers, etc"  

But in Germany June 3, as he prepared to travel to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Obama changed his meme--announcing "The US is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”

Toby Harnden of the UK Telegraph writes:

As ABC's Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller astutely outline here, the Obama administration is embracing the new president's inner Muslim, as it were. Deputy national security adviser stated that Obama had "experienced Islam on three continents...growing up in Indonesia, having a Muslim father -- obviously Muslim Americans [are] a key part of Illinois and Chicago".

So that's once, twice, three times a Muslim?

Statehood was achieved through the dedication and perseverance of these great leaders, along with the people of Hawai‘i – who in 1959 voted 17 to one in support of statehood.

They voted for basic rights and privileges of American citizenship. 

They voted to have a voice in Washington.

And, as Governor Ariyoshi said so well in his 50 Voices of Statehood piece, they voted for “control over our own destiny.”

News Release from Governor's office responds to December 6, 2008 Honolulu Advertiser article. The Advertiser quotes Bill Meheula, a key player in Dan Akaka's 2006 reelection campaign and Lilian Kame'eleihiwa, of the UH Hawaiian Studies Dep't who ague that OHA has a claim to ceded lands and seem to imply that the State has taken a new position in its appeal to the US Supreme Court requesting the Court overturn the Hawaii Supreme Court ruling blocking the state from selling ceded lands.

In a Feb­ru­ary 28, 2008 letter, Hon­orary Vice-Consul of Italy in Hawaii, Car­men Di Amore-Siah, purports to grant the Hawaii King­dom Gov­ern­ment group recognition by the Gov­ern­ment of Italy.

PBS Hawai`i’s propaganda piece on the life of Hawai`i communist Koji Ariyoshi should be required viewing for lovers of freedom who understand the value of knowing their enemy. Somehow the program manages to tell the story of Hawai'i's most prominent Communist without once letting on that Ariyoshi was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, USA.