Congressman Charles K. Djou gave the following speech from the floor of the U.S. House, calling for greater cooperation and a deeper relationship with the Republic of Korea.

Congressman Charles K. Djou (R - Hawaii District 1) gave the following speech from the floor of the U.S. House today during consideration of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, expressing his disappointment that his amendment to fully fund (as the President requested) the realignment of forces to Guam was not allowed to be considered by the full House.

Gubernatorial candidates gathered last night at the Waikiki Sheraton for a forum sponsored by the Waikiki Neighborhood Board. Out of the total of 11 candidates running, 7 were in attendance. Republican candidate Duke Aiona, the present lieutenant governor, did not attend.

Mass media attention focused on the two "leading" candidates, former Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D), and former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

No news yet on whether or not a full-length video will be made available on-line.

KHON2 covers the forum and provides a short video.

Links:

Hawaii 2010 Candidates [HPI]

Abercrombie, Hannemann, push their platforms at a Waikiki forum [Hawaii News Now]

Journalistic erasure continues at new Star-Advertiser as it deletes candidates from forum [Disappeared News]

Company plays it down. Thousands have already downloaded the information. Security consultant says users' personal information cannot now be made private.
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msnbc.com

The personal details of 100 million Facebook users have been collected and published online in a downloadable file, meaning they will now be unable to make their publicly available information private.

However, Facebook downplayed the issue, saying that no private data had been compromised.

The information was posted by Ron Bowes, an online security consultant, on the Internet site Pirate Bay.

Read more . . .

August 28, 2009

From the YouTube introduction: Carol Plato, an executive director of Martin Memorial Medical Center in Florida, gives a briefing on the specific costs and liabilities the hospital has incurred while treating illegal immigrants. It's actually really outrageous to hear the itemized costs these hospitals have to incur while knowingly treating illegal immigrants. Even more outrageous is that one of them who was deported back to his home country by the hospital - after wracking up millions in free legal bills - is now suing the hospital. Only in America folks, can something like this happen. Other countries forcibly deport, imprison, and generally make the lives miserable of illegal immigrants, while we roll out the red carpet and subsidize their lifestyles.

Mahalos to Howard Saiki for sending HPI this video.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern on what the Wikileaks logs reveal and what Washington is trying to play down.

by Michael Connelly

Mr. Connelly teaches law, including constitutional law, through Education to Go, an online company that provides courses to numerous universities, including the University of Hawaii system. The author of three books and publisher of a website, he resides in Carrollton, Texas, and can be reached by email.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

This alert concerns two important pieces of legislation before Congress. First, people have found that they are not always powerless when dealing with dangerous legislation in the Congress. The massive outcry by readers of this blog and other blogs, listeners to my radio show, and hundreds of thousands of other people lead to the liberals in Congress losing on their first try ram the Disclose Act through the Senate.

This is the bill that would violate the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans in conservative political groups, corporations, and small businesses by limiting their ability to participate in the upcoming 2010 election process by buying and airing advertisements. At the same time, labor unions and liberal groups like Moveon.org, are exempt from the provisions of the bill. Ironically, this legislation that claims to require disclosure was written in secret, amended in secret, and is bypassing the normal committee channels in order to keep its provisions from being known to as many of the American people as possible.

After its recent failure to get the sixty votes for cloture needed so the legislation could be brought to the Senate floor, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has vowed to keep bringing the bill up over and over until they get it passed. So, it is necessary for everyone to keep a watchful eye on this and other blogs since it may be necessary to keep contacting your Senators until this proposed law is finally dead.

Another piece of extremely important legislation is that extending the Bush tax cuts that will expire in a few months. Many liberals want them to die entirely and that would impose on Americans the largest tax increase in history. President Obama has tried to placate many taxpayers by saying that he is willing to go along with extending the tax cuts for Americans making less than $200,000 per year. In other words, he will only increase the taxes on the rich, yet who are most of these so-called rich people? The vast majority are small business owners who often use much of their profits to expand their businesses and create more jobs for their fellow Americans.

During the past 18 months many of these entrepreneurs who are responsible for creating most of the jobs in the private sector have been reluctant to spend any money on expansion and new jobs for fear that the Obama administration would do exactly what it is proposing, increase their taxes. In fact, these tax increases may cause many small businesses to cut back and actually eliminate jobs. Some economists are predicting this could be the final nail in the coffin that Obama is constructing to bury the American economy.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution were fearful that giving the Federal government a broad power to tax meant giving it too much power to control individual Americans and their businesses. Thus the taxation power was severely limited in the original Constitution. It was broadened considerably by the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 that allowed the implementation of the income tax. However, even with that amendment it is clear that taxation was not meant to be used as a method to punish successful Americans, to redistribute wealth, or to destroy the American Free Enterprise system. Yet that is exactly the way it is being used by the Obama administration and Congress.

Remember, we already have massive tax increases being imposed on us by the health care bill the U.S. economy can’t survive any more. Contact your Congressional representatives and your Senators and let them know that you support the extension of the Bush tax cuts for all Americans.

Help Hawaii vote!

The Hawaii Office of Elections would like you to help out on the upcoming primary and general election days (Sat, Sept 18 and Tu, Nov 2). If you'd like to become a precinct official, go to http://hawaii.gov/elections/, scroll down slightly until you see the big blue button in the middle of the page, click and fill out the form. You'll get a phone call assigning you a poll location near your home and setting you up for training. It's that easy! And you'll even get paid!

Panos Prevedouros

by Panos Prevedouros

Candidate for nonpartisan office of mayor of Honolulu

Yesterday the Star Advertiser published a very informative article by Sean Hao titled Repairs Tab May Top $32 Billion. Let's just add the Rail in the mix along with its generous cost overruns, for a round and even $40 Billion Dollars of infrastructure debt. NOT!

Politicians cannot prioritize this colossal list of projects and can never do them right. We need to limit our infrastructure fixes to those we need and afford. We are only about one million people. $32 billion to $40 billion means that everyone owes $32,000 to $40,000 of State and City government debt. Plus interest.

That's over $150,000 for a family of four. That's crazy!

Elect an engineer to control the costs and ensure proper planning and priorities for our City.

Read the article:

Honolulu Star Advertiser

Repairs tab may top $32B

Past spending decisions and priorities led to the list, economists say, and it is mostly necessities

by Sean Hao

Monday, July 26, 2010

Hawaii taxpayers are on the hook for billions of dollars in construction projects over the next few decades, ranging from sewer upgrades to undersea power cables.

More . . .

Under conditions that smack of human trafficking, Thai workers at Aloun Farms were charged fortunes in terms of their Thai standard of living to come to Hawaii and earn incomes that were far less than what they were promised, writes Malia Zimmerman of Hawaii Reporter.

The two brothers who own Aloun Farms, Alec and Mike Sou, have plead guilty to forced labor charges. The sentencing portion of the trial is scheduled to resume on September 9. If the brothers are jailed, it is feared that their Ewa plain farmland, among Hawaii's best, may be lost to an eager developer, D.R. Horton-Schuler Hawaii.
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Hawaii Reporter

by Malia Zimmerman

A delay in sentencing two brothers who plead guilty in federal court to forced labor charges at their Oahu farm operation will put the workers’ impoverished families in Thailand six weeks closer to losing their farms and homes.

Michael Mankone Sou and Alec Souphone Sou, owners of Aloun Farm, were able to get their sentencing in U.S. District Court postponed from July 19 to September 9, after their attorneys told Judge Susan Oki Mollway that their clients who operate the 3,000 acre farm in Kapolei were bullied by federal agents into signing a guilty plea this past January.

Samporn Khanja, one of 44 men the Sous admitted to bringing to Hawaii from Thailand in September 2004 to work at Aloun, was in federal court to witness the proceedings with his wife Joanna Thakhamhor. They were hoping for a resolution in the criminal case – Samporn’s family is counting on it.

As Thai recruiters directed him and the other workers to do, Samporn borrowed $20,000 to pay them on their promise that he would make that money and much more back over a three to four year contract with Aloun. However, Aloun released him and most of the other Thai workers without paying for their transportation home after only employing them from September 2004 to February 2005, and according to Samporn and federal prosecutors, paying them far less than the promised $9.60 an hour.

The collateral for Samporn’s two loans are the family’s 35-acres of rice fields and their home in Maha Sarakham, Thailand. If Samporn doesn’t pay back the entire $20,000 plus $13,000 in interest for a total of $33,000 by this December, his family will lose everything they own.

Read more . . .
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Links:

Farm owners describe wrongdoing

Aloun Farm Owners to Be Sentenced [HPI] Why it matters to everyone in Hawaii

Aloun Farms' Fate Will Have Major Impact on Local Agriculture

Aloun Farms Owners, Thai Recruiter, Indicted [HPI] Story by the investigative reporter, Malia Zimmerman of Hawaii Reporter, who brought the workers' plight to light

TSA Negligence Helps Gain Not Guilty Verdicts in Oahu Case [HPI] Aloun Farms neighbor Jefts Farms in court for their illegal alien workers

Protest Saved Prime Farmland [HPI] Aloun Farms and Jefts Farms work prime farmland on the Ewa plain that is classed as the best in the world. In 2009 it was almost lost forever to a housing project. As is usually the situation in political causes, persistence and awareness continue to be necessary to protect against losing this irreplaceable farmland in the future.