I remember covering O’ahu District Court in the late 1960s when haole hippies brought in on marijuana busts would be offered an opportunity by the judge to have charges dropped if they got on a plane back to the Mainland by midnight. It’s like deja vu all over again with the move in the Legislature [...]
Archive for June 2010
These are state legislators?
June 30, 2010It’s my birthday and I’ll politic if I want to
June 29, 2010We’ve had dueling gubernatorial birthday bashes this week with Neil Abercrombie celebrating his 72nd with supporters at the Bishop Museum last night and James “Duke” Aiona marking his 55th tonight at Sam Choy’s Breakfast, Lunch and Crab. I haven’t heard what Mufi Hannemann plans when he turns 56 on July 16, but I wouldn’t put [...]
No chocolate-coating the oil disaster
June 28, 2010I’m not sure that pouring chocolate syrup over three lovely beach bunnies wearing string bikinis and pouty faces was the best way for “Hands Across the Sand” organizers in Waikiki to illustrate the plight of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. I doubt the poor petro-soaked waterfowl have guys lined up volunteering to [...]
flASHback alert
June 26, 2010Today’s flASHback column in the Star-Advertiser: “Civil unions issue leads to stumbling and bumbling.”
The business of civil unions
June 25, 2010Just when I think the Business Roundtable’s brush with HB 444 couldn’t get any more bizarre, it does. The Roundtable went from a June 4 letter to Gov. Linda Lingle urging her to veto the civil unions measure, to a statement late week that the executive committee stood by the recommendation despite deepening dissent among [...]
Senator Subordinate
June 24, 2010KITV had an good story that hasn’t gotten much attention about Mililani state Sen. Michelle Kidani’s off-session job as an aide to new Honolulu City Councilman Lee Donohue, who was appointed to fill the last six months of Charles Djou’s term. A legislator can’t legally hold a second state job, but Kidani says she’s obtained [...]
The return of the out-to-lunch councilman
June 23, 2010Honolulu Councilman Rod Tam is fully back in the saddle three months after colleagues censured him for the second time in three years and stripped him of all committee assignments for ethics violations relating to $13,700 worth of falsified meal expenses he charged to the city. In a reorganization announced by the council yesterday to [...]
The Hannemann campaign answers
June 23, 2010I encouraged the Hannemann campaign to address issues arising from the state Democratic convention and wanted to direct attention to a detailed comment on the previous post, “More Mufi in the woodshed,” from Keith Rollman. Rollman, a senior city IT advisor, Hannemann campaign volunteer and Democratic convention delegate, argues that the convention was stacked from [...]
More Mufi in the woodshed
June 22, 2010I don’t know how many read all the way through yesterday’s comments about Mayor Mufi Hannemann’s performance at the state Democratic Convention, but there was one near the end from Laraine Yasui, co-chair of the convention planning committee, that’s worth a look. Yasui basically confirms party chairman Dante Carpenter’s assertions about the behavior of the [...]
The veto list lands
June 21, 2010There was an interesting mixed reaction among leading supporters of HB 444 to news that Gov. Linda Lingle has placed the civil unions bill on her list of possible vetoes. PFLAG-Oahu obviously didn’t believe the governor that she’s still making up her mind and issued a statement bashing Lingle as though the bill is already [...]
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