Why is Hawaii a state?

Native Hawaiians debate best path to sovereignty

 

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ5 hours ago

WAIMANALO, Hawaii (AP) — Pookela Rodenhurst lives as if he's back in the Hawaiian Kingdom. He hunts for sea turtles, watching for the game warden behind his back. He forages for herbs in the Koolau Mountains. He drives without a license because he won't agree to abide by state laws.

Rodenhurst and other Hawaiian nationalists who long for a return to the days when the islands were ruled by royal families are increasingly dominating the debate about the future of the islands' indigenous people. And their insistence on someday restoring the kingdom threatens to overshadow a federal proposal that could, after years of lobbying by advocates, offer Native Hawaiians some of the same privileges that have long been available to other native groups.

Many years before Hawaii became a tourist destination, the Hawaiian Kingdom ruled over the islands and held treaties with dozens of countries. It was overthrown by a group of American businessmen 122 years ago, on Jan. 17, 1893, and annexed five years later.

Now, the U.S. government is considering extending to Native Hawaiians the same type of tribal recognition that many American Indian tribes have had for generations, potentially giving special status to more than 200 programs and securing lots of federal money, including nearly $14 million for health care, $32 million for education and $10 million for housing. The issue has reawakened distrust between moderates who generally support the idea and absolutists who want to see the kingdom rebuilt, even if it means chasing an all-but-unattainable goal — dissolving the state of Hawaii.

Rodenhurst insists the American government is "belligerently occupying Hawaii."

"They have no business to come out here and try to engage us and treat us like Indians," he said.

Resentment over the annexation is nothing new among Native Hawaiians, but it resurfaced in June, when the U.S. Department of Interior began considering extending tribal status, which moderates believe is a far more realistic goal than somehow reversing Hawaiian statehood.

"People will criticize that federal recognition is not the end-all, be-all for Hawaii's population, but it is what I believe is achievable in my lifetime," said Michelle Kauhane, president and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.

The Republicans opened with confrontational showboat politics and Obama doubles

Obama to Senate Dems: ‘I’m going to play offense’

The president said he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation, including an Iran sanctions package.

By MANU RAJU 1/15/15 7:09 PM EST Updated 1/15/15 7:37 PM EST

President Barack Obama made clear Thursday in a closed-door session with Senate Democrats that he’s prepared to veto hostile legislation from the GOP-controlled Congress, including an Iran sanctions package on the front-burner of Capitol Hill.

According to several sources at the Thursday summit in Baltimore, Obama vowed to defend his agenda against Republicans in Congress, promised to stand firm against GOP efforts to dismantle his agenda and called on his Democratic colleagues to help sustain his expected vetoes. The president also was explicit over his administration’s opposition to an Iran sanctions bill, promising to veto legislation with his administration in the midst of multilateral nuclear negotiations with the Middle Eastern regime.

Even though Obama’s position on Iran sanctions differs from a number of powerful Democrats, the session, several sources said, was more of a pep rally than confrontation. Despite his lame-duck status, the president promised that he would not sit on the sidelines in the next two years. He vowed more executive actions to implement his agenda, something bound to prompt anger from Republicans who have called the president’s unilateral moves, particularly on immigration, an unconstitutional power grab.

(Also on POLITICO: Obamacare's little secret)

“I’m not going to spend the next two years on defense; I’m going to play offense,” Obama said, according to two attendees.

The president’s remarks at their retreat at the Hilton hotel near Camden Yards Stadium, were greeted warmly, sources said. The energetic atmosphere was a sharp departure from the tension felt between Senate Democrats and the White House in the aftermath of November’s GOP midterm election rout, attendees said. Obama spent most of the time answering questions, even promoting his trade agenda to many Democrats who oppose his administration’s push on the issue.

At the meeting, Obama, who has rarely used his veto pen in his six years in office, signaled he would do so repeatedly, including on GOP-sponsored legislation to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Once that measure passes, Republicans have indicated they would soon move to a bill — being drafted by Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — that would provide a set of tough sanctions against the Iranian economy. The White House worries such a provocative move could prompt Iran to back out of a sweeping nuclear deal with the U.S. and other world powers before a June 30 deadline.

(Also on POLITICO: Ernst makes the cut to rebut Obama’s big speech)

White House officials confirmed the veto threat over the Iran bill but declined to comment further. His administration has raised concerns over the Iran measure, but the president appeared to take his opposition a step further in Thursday’s meeting. In January 2014, Obama threatened a veto over a similar Iran sanctions bill, but in the new Congress, the administration has stopped just short of such a threat.

“We in the administration believe that, at this time, increasing sanctions would dramatically undermine our efforts to reach this shared goal” of reducing Iran’s nuclear weapon capacity, said Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, at a Louisville event with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) earlier this week.

The bill, however, likely has the votes to clear both chambers of Congress.

John Bresnahan contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/obama-to-senate-dems-im-going-to-play-offense-114307.html#ixzz3Oxu8XCn0

Boycott Chinese Goods - Chinese Leather factory in China video, viciously killing dogs for their skin and meat

Drudge headlines say the “The Troops”are turning on Commander in Chief

I know that we are supposed to be all agog and genuflect when someone wearing combat fatigues goes through an airport, but let’s get real for a moment. By the way, there is no reason  why military personnel should be flying on civilian flights dressed in battle fatigues and work uniforms. It is as absurd as a doctor flying in scrubs or a fireman traveling with his uniform.

To those that were in the military, because he had to, all left basic training wearing our uniform because we wanted to impress our parents and high school friends. We rarely wore uniforms off base, even  in Viet Nam. 

The US military of 2015  is a mercenary army. They are hired guns and paid contractors. No one put a gun to their head and said they had to enlist. The US military no longer has the  credibility as being representative of American society. That dissipated when selective service ended. The ending was IMHO a huge error, but the politicians and the professional lifers in The Pentagon wanted it that way because it gave them better control and less scrutiny by the public.

To those in the military that do not like the Commander in Chief, too bad. Quit and get another job.

Thank you for your service and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.

Who is the early enemy of ISIS? Hizbullah :: Who was behind ISIS and supported it? - Saudi Arabia and others

Nasrallah Says Main Responsibility Falls on Saudi in Anti-IS Fight

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية

by Naharnet Newsdesk 27 October 2014, 15:54

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Monday that Saudi Arabia must shoulder a bigger responsibility in the fight against the extremist ideology of the Islamic State group, noting that military efforts alone cannot eradicate the jihadist organization.

“Nowadays, the prime responsibility in the Islamic world for stopping the proliferation of this ideology falls on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

“It is not enough to create an international coalition and bring the armies of the world to fight ISIL (Islamic State). My remarks are addressed to everyone: close the schools that are educating the followers of this ISIL ideology … and stop labeling people as polytheists for the most trivial reasons,” Nasrallah added.

In June, the IS declared an "Islamic caliphate" straddling vast swathes of Iraq and Syria, ordering Muslims worldwide to pledge allegiance to their chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The U.S. has formed a coalition of Western and Arab allies to battle IS, which has been accused of widespread atrocities in Iraq and Syria, including mass executions, beheadings, rape, torture and selling women and children into slavery.

Y.R.

OOrah Assholes

NEWS & POLITICS

We Are a Chickenhawk Nation, Blindly Worshiping the Military; Wasting Enormous Amounts on Useless Military Hardware

A new fleet of F-35 fighter jets will cost the equivalent of the entire Iraq war.

By Allegra Kirkland /  AlterNet

January 9, 2015

It’s common knowledge that the U.S. devotes more money to our defense budget than any other industrialized nation. But just how much we spend is remarkable. This year, the nation is on track to spend over $1 trillion on national security, after factoring in nuclear weapons funding, military pensions and “overseas contingency funds,” in addition to the Pentagon’s $580 billion operating budget. In total, this figure accounts for about 4 percent of the United States’ income—double what most other countries spend. Yet all of this budgetary bloat has done nothing to advance our strategic interests in countries like Syria and Iraq. In an investigative piece in the most recent Atlantic, James Fallows explains why.

“The Tragedy of the American Military” convincingly makes the case that the deepening divide between the military and the American public is the reason we spend such absurd sums on the tools and technology of war. We have, Fallows argues, become a “chickenhawk” nation: blindly supportive of our troops and perma-ready to deploy them, yet distantly removed from the consequences of these costly geopolitical games. The vast majority of Americans don’t have personal ties with any service members, and politicians are petrified of the political risks of seeming unsupportive of the military (the House Armed Services Committee passed the most recent defense budget by a vote of 61-0). According to Fallows, this potent combination of emotional distance and hero worship means we avoid “the caveats or public skepticism we would apply to other American institutions, especially ones that run on taxpayer money.”

The problem isn’t just how much money we spend on national security, but what we spend it on. In a tightly bound circle of favors, the military asks for a tremendous amount of funding, congressional leaders eager to gain new defense contracts in their districts grant it, and the contractors whose livelihoods depend on selling massive amounts of new weaponry rake in millions. This is why so much is allocated toward developing updated models of existing technologies, despite the Pentagon's lack of adequate funding for veterans’ care, training and pensions.

One such example is the F-35 fighter jet. The F-35 is intended to replace the A-10, a durable, inexpensive plane that has been used by the American military since the Vietnam War. There’s no urgent need to phase out the A-10. These planes have proven to require minimal upkeep, and we already have thousands stockpiled. So why are we on track to spend $1.5 trillion—the same estimated cost as the entire Iraq war—to replace them with the expensive and unreliable F-35? Because top military brass insists the A-10s are outdated. Because 1,200 defense contractors received commissions to develop this new technology. And because, as Fallows points out, “the general public doesn’t care.”

But we should. These massive expenditures burn through money that could be spent on domestic policy efforts like repairing our crumbling national infrastructure of bridges and roads, or bolstering the education budgets in impoverished school districts. The same Republican congressional leaders who are so eager to throw money towards expensive new military toys balk at the idea of allocating more resources for veterans’ care. Last year, Senate Republicans blocked a major bill that would have expanded federal healthcare and education programs for veterans. And just last month, Tom Coburn, a GOP senator from Oklahoma, blocked the passage of a veterans’ suicide bill, despite the fact that 22 veterans kill themselves every day. Coburn insisted that existing programs already assist suicidal vets, and said this bill “actually throws money away."

We need to look more closely at these selective displays of concern. As Fallows reminds us, “For democracies, messy debates are less damaging in the long run than letting important functions run on autopilot, as our military essentially does now. A chickenhawk nation is more likely to keep going to war, and to keep losing, than one that wrestles with long-term questions of effectiveness.” 

The starting point of US disasters in foreign policy began with?

None of them was any bargain. You decide. 

Washington to bring criminal charges against David Petraeus?

U.S. Seeks Criminal Charges Against David Petraeus: Official

 |  By ERIC TUCKER  HUFFINGTON POST

Posted: 01/09/2015 6:14 pm EST  Updated: 27 minutes ago 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is weighing bringing criminal charges against former CIA Director David Petraeus over the handling of classified information, a U.S. official said Friday night.

The official said investigators have presented senior-level Justice Department officials such as Attorney General Eric Holder with information on the case to help inform a decision on charging the former four-star general.

The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Robert Barnett, a lawyer for Petraeus, declined to comment Friday night, as did Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the Justice Department.

Federal investigators have been looking into whether Petraeus improperly shared classified materials with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he admitted having an affair when he resigned from his position in November 2012. Agents found a substantial number of classified documents on Broadwell's computer and at her home, a law enforcement official has previously said.

Both have publicly apologized for the relationship. They have said their romantic relationship began only after he retired from the military and started at the CIA.

The scandal marked an abrupt fall for Petraeus, a man who led U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and was thought to be a potential candidate for president. Since leaving the agency, he still makes occasional public appearances, including at a Sept. 11 commemoration event in Denver.

It was not immediately clear when any decision would be made on whether to charge Petraeus.

The New York Times reported Friday evening that prosecutors had recommended to Holder that Petraeus be charged and that the attorney general, who plans to leave his position as soon as his successor is confirmed, had been expected to make a decision by the end of last year.

Holder and FBI Director James Comey are frequently quizzed during Capitol Hill appearances about the status of the Petraeus investigation, with some members of Congress critical over the amount of time the investigation has taken.

During a meeting with reporters at FBI headquarters last month, Comey was asked if he could say why the investigation had taken so long. Comey said he could, but would not.