WASHINGTON – The Justice Department announced today that a federal grand jury in Honolulu has returned a 10-count superseding indictment charging defendants Joseph Knoller and Bruce Schwartz, both of Los Angeles, as co-conspirators in a scheme to hold 400 Thai nationals in compelled service as agricultural workers in the District of Hawaii and elsewhere.

Governor Abercrombie and likely House Speaker Calvin Say have both come out against any across-the-board hike in the GE Tax.  But that doesn’t mean they won’t be hiking taxes to meet the state’s $800M budget shortfall.... 

“I would like to congratulate our new RNC Chairman on his election.  I am proud to have joined the other Island members of the RNC in voting for Chairman Priebus."

Last week Hawai`i Free Press took a look at the experience of Burlington, VT voters who eventually voted to repeal Instant Runoff Voting (IRV).  Today we are sharing a voting analysis by investigative reporter Lance Williams of CaliforniaWatch who evaluates a 21-candidate San Francisco Supervisorial election very similar to the one won by Tom Berg. 

Perhaps because at different points in the past four years he chaired commerce and appropriations, he got significant campaign contributions from players in the communications industry and from government defense contractors. Both Boeing and Northrop Grumman, among Inouye’s largest PAC contributors, each received millions in 2010 defense earmarks....

Since the majority of the Hawaii Senate Democratic Caucus has gone brain-dead on the subject of religious invocations before Senate sessions, here is a taste of reality from their lord and master, the world’s highest-ranking Manoa liberal, Barack Obama....

Hiding behind the benign sounding label, “Mokapu STEM School”, a religious cult with billions of dollars in assets is secretly trying use the charter school conversion process to take over Mokapu Elementary School located in Kaneohe on Marine Corps Base Hawaii. 

It's been called the Great Garbage Patch and "the most shocking thing" Oprah has ever seen: a massive island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean that, according to many reports, is twice the size of Texas, outnumbers plankton, and has killed millions of sea birds.

But many of those claims, according to a new analysis, are huge exaggerations. Others are downright false.

Honolulu –  Four more positions within the Administration were appointed by Governor Neil Abercrombie.  These positions include the Director of Office of Youth Services, the Executive Director of the Office of Aging, the Deputy Tax Director, and the Deputy for the Department for Commerce and Consumer Affairs (DCCA).

The museum will reveal the techniques it uses to preserve and protect objects in the 1821 Mission House, the oldest documented house in Hawai‘i.

Honolulu – Governor Neil Abercrombie today announced the appointment of Gilbert Kahele to represent Senate District 2.  Kahele fills the seat left vacant by Department of Agriculture Interim Director Russell Kokubun.

If the officers had done nothing and Arekat had proceeded to shoot someone, defendants undoubtedly would have been sued for failing to detain Arekat. One of the officers explained in her deposition that this case reminded her of a prior case in which the police had not removed a firearm from a person who exhibited signs of paranoia, and that person had used it to kill a person, resulting in a huge civil liability for the police department and the city. In this case, the defendants made a courageous decision to detain Arekat.

Video interview with the father of 9 year old Christina Taylor Green....

Honolulu, Hawaii – John R. Lott, Jr., author, activist, speaker and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, will be in town speaking on the topics of gun control, public policy and other points of interest at a dinner hosted at The Plaza Club Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 starting at from 6:30 p.m.

Implicit in Mr. Gates’s five-year assessment was the possibility that the North could soon solve one of its biggest technological hurdles: manufacturing a warhead small enough to fit atop a missile….

• House: Health Care Repeal Rule
• House: Reducing the amount authorized for salaries and expenses

...finger pointing by those seeking to assign blame has reached a fever pitch.  In articles today, Slate magazine, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Ben Smith of Politico attempt to tie alleged shooter Jared Lee Loughner to a strange website promoting a self-styled “King of Hawaii.” 

"As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal. & oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy."

"He was a political radical & met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question & he told me she was "stupid & unintelligent"

Threats of libel actions in UK courts were used to silence coverage of the financial connection between Barack Obama, Tony Rezko, and Iraqi ex-Baathist billionaire and lifelong Saddam Hussein associate Nadhmi Auchi during the 2008 campaign.  Hawai’i Free Press was one of the few news sources anywhere on Earth willing to defy the threats. 

Former Rep. Djou served on the House Armed Services Committee with Rep. Gifford.  The two of them co-sponsored the Truth-in-Spending bill in the 111th Congress and co-authored editorials together advocating for restraint in Federal government spending.  Djou and Gifford’s bipartisan cooperative relationship was a subject on televised debates in Hawaii and Arizona.