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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/reflecting-on-hiroshima-nagasaki-and-rimpac/" target="_self">Reflecting On Hiroshima, Nagasaki And RIMPAC</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 06 Aug 2020 10:01:44 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Remember Saturday morning, January 13, 2018? At 8:07 a.m. our phones buzzed with the emergency alert saying, “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Tensions had been high between the U.S. and North Korea. In September 2017 Donald Trump goaded Kim Jong-un, calling him “Little Rocket Man.” North Korea launched its latest missile in November 2017. It seemed plausible that Hawaii might be the target of another surprise attack, another Pearl Harbor. We in Hawaii had a collective existential moment that Saturday. As we approach 75 years since the use of atomic weapons on civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as we find our lives turned upside down by a pandemic, as we breathe after another hurricane — let us pause to reflect on what we can do about existential threats. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, known as the Genbaku Dome, is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan. It was the only structure left standing in the area where the first atomic bomb exploded on Aug. 6, 1945.Flickr: Pietro Zuco Both my parents’ families are from Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, my father’s immediate family was scattered far enough from their home in the center of the city to survive. My father, 13 years old then, was digging potatoes for the war effort. He was sufficiently impressed by the power of technology that he became a physicist, and he worked for Robert Rathbun Wilson, a former member of the Manhattan Project. As a Quaker, Wilson objected to the planned use of the atomic bomb on civilians. Leo Szilard was the only other physicist to object. World Domination The Manhattan Project involved the military, the scientists, the engineers, the trades, laborers — and was an industrial-scale undertaking. It was a secret weapons project to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. By August 1945, Germany had been defeated, and Japan was also already essentially defeated, its cities reduced to rubble. Harry Truman knew that, but so much had been spent on the Manhattan Project that return was needed for the investment. Dropping the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki also demonstrated to the Soviet Union that the U.S. was going to dominate the world after World War II. The justification that Japan would not have otherwise capitulated was a post-hoc rationalization. The Manhattan Project had barely scraped together enough Uranium-235 for the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima, but there was high confidence that the gun-barrel design would work. The more complex implosion design of the “Fat Man” plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, had been shown to be successful in the Trinity Test in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. If the demonstration of the destructive power of the atom bomb was the point, it had been amply made on August 6, 1945, with Hiroshima. Imperial Japan’s government hardly had time to understand what had happened there by August 9, the day of Nagasaki’s destruction. This makes Nagasaki a more serious crime against humanity than Hiroshima. But by then the “manufacture of consent” propaganda system had made the extermination of Japanese the point of the war. How else to explain the thousand-plane air raid on Tokyo after its surrender? My maternal grandfather was a physician. As a young communist, he escaped the Imperial Police and became a settler colonialist in Manchukuo, the puppet state that Japan had set up in Manchuria in the 1930s. Harbin, in Manchukuo, was the site of the notorious Imperial Army Unit 703, which conducted human experimentation and the development of chemical and biological weapons on Chinese. “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.” — António Guterres, UN Secretary-General At the end of the war, as Russian Cossacks invaded Manchuria, my mother’s family evacuated to Japan. My grandfather returned to Hiroshima and treated survivors of the atom bomb. He was practicing out of his home when I stayed there as a child. Digging holes in the sandy soil of his yard, I would come across charred roof tile. Grandfather took me for walks around the city. He pointed out the shadow of a man at the footsteps of a bank. He would tell me, “We Japanese are for peace, for we know well the stupidity of war.” The drive toward war has continued unabated with the Rim of the Pacific, the largest naval exercise in the world, taking place in the waters off Hawaii this month. While Hawaii achieved many days in May with zero new coronavirus cases, it never had the chance to attempt elimination in the way that New Zealand has. Hawaii’s residents returned, tourists arrived under the quarantine regimen, and the military and their dependents are exempt from quarantine. Overall, the military releases few statistics about COVID-19 among its personnel. On March 23, António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said, “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.” RIMPAC is happening this time. But it’s not too late to cancel it forever after this one. The post Reflecting On Hiroshima, Nagasaki And RIMPAC appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/neal-milner-how-a-pony-guy-or-a-bat-or-a-seal-could-help-gov-ige/" target="_self">Neal Milner: How A Pony Guy (Or A Bat Or A Seal) Could Help Gov. Ige</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 06 Aug 2020 10:01:38 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Tired of those depressing, ambiguous Hawaii coronavirus press conferences? Well, how do you think Gov. David Ige and the rest of that beleaguered podium crew feel? All that pressure. All that uncertainty. And our governor, a guy who does not love the camera and who the camera does not love, trying so hard to be dire yet stay on the sunny side. “When already, when already?” For their sake and ours, it is time to change things up, bring some pizzazz to the podium. It’s time to add a pony guy. A pony guy — official title “pony major” — is the solider in charge of the Shetland pony Cruachan IV who is the official mascot of The Royal Regiment of Scotland, a celebrated, elite unit closely associated with the British royalty. The pony major, whose rank is actually corporal, is Cruachan’s caregiver and trainer. (Don’t ask. The pony is also a corporal, recently working his way up from lance corporal, presumably without the benefit of a written test.) Lance Cpl. Cruachan IV is the pony, Pony Major Mark Wilkinson is his handler.Wikimedia/Cpl. Ben Maher But the main job of this duo of corporals is to march together with the Royal Regiment at all official functions, including those involving the queen. You can see them in action here and here. It’s definitely worth the time. These days, you are spending half your waking hours on YouTube anyway. Those videos clearly show how beneficial Her Majesty’s Royal Pony Production Process would be for Hawaii’s Coronavirus Briefing Process. First off, how can it not possibly help to have a cuddly animal on stage? And a pony to boot. Whoa Nellie! As you probably remember from your civics course, Ige is not a king and Bruce Anderson is not The Rt. Hon. Exalted Knight of Physical Wellbeing. Nonetheless, it’s easy to imagine one of our Founding Fathers, for instance Alexander — I forget his last name — saying to both of them: “My good sirs, may God bless your courage and steadfastness. But thy mien goodly lacks warmth and mirth.” In the UK, the people respect the pomp and salute the colors, but their hearts and their eyes are with the pony. Before and after parades, adults and kids ask the pony major questions about Cruachan and have their pictures taken. Queen Elizabeth, not known to be a schmoozer, is still surprisingly informal when she reviews the troops on the parade ground of Balmoral, her summer castle. No pompous Alec Guinness/Monte Python silly walk. Instead she sort of moseys while smiling at the soldiers standing at attention. Why not? She’s been doing this for 65 years. That’s 16 consecutive David Ige gubernatorial terms. But Her Majesty really gets royally relaxed when it comes to the pony, stopping to chat up the pony major, patting Cruachan and hoping that he will do his Balmoral Castle schtick of eating Her Majesty’s posy bouquet, which, as one British publication put it, “has won over the hearts and minds of millions across the globe.” Indubitably charming. Indubitably. With a pony major on the podium, if Governor Ige is asked a question he can’t answer, hey, Governor, just lean over and pet the pony. Wear a lei, let the pony eat it. Pony major advice to Bruce Anderson: Just fluff up its tail. Health Director Bruce Anderson with Gov. David Ige in the background at one the numerous press conferences the two have conducted in recent months. Picture a cute pony somewhere in the frame …Cory Lum/Civil Beat The process does more than distract and humanize. The pony and pony major are akin to a quasi-independent agency. Like the Federal Trade Commission. Quasi: The major and the Shetland are part of the team but yet also separate. As the Regiment’s Facebook page said on the pony’s birthday, “wherever our soldiers are, you can be assured that the beloved Cpl. Cruachan isn’t far from them!” And yet … Independent: The pony major marches  in formation and in uniform with The Band of the Royal Regiment of Scotland, but always a few feet off to the side or behind. The major is always in step, but he and Cruachan IV have their own independent agenda: to make themselves available to the public, especially after everyone else has left the stage. So after a COVID-19 briefing when all the COVID bigshots beat feet off the podium to get somewhere else — anywhere else — the pony major remains to take questions, maybe about the Shetland, but also quite possibly about the coronavirus itself. And why not? Considering the state of coronavirus knowledge, how bad could their answers be? (Nosy reporter: “Can you tell us exactly how many months it will be before we have a vaccine?” Pony snuffles, then stomps right foreleg four times.) The pony process, then, affords an independent, trustworthy source of information. Hey, just like Civil Beat! Horses as sources. Would the Hawaii coronavirus animal have to be a pony? No. In fact the handful of official British army mascots also include a couple of really cool goats, two Irish wolfhounds, and a big white horse called a “drum horse” because she has to carry the kettle drum in parades. (Right, the only mascot that has to work hard is a female. I’ll say no more.) All of those have historical symbolic ties to their units. Well, our only indigenous mammal is the Hawaiian hoary bat (ope’ape’a). That sounds like a fine choice to me, but for some it may feel kind of spooky having a dark, winged rodent creature swooping around the room as Josh Green announces the latest case count. Then how about a seal? Native enough and cute enough, with specialized musical circus skills that make for an appealing distraction. Yet Another Nosy Reporter: What’s the latest plan for bringing back tourists? Governor: Um … because of our local values … um … Seal: (performing on squeezy under-the-big-top horns, plays “Island Style”): “On the island we do it island style …” (Governor speedily vanishes.) Pony Major: Everybody sing along! That means you too, HPR. “From the mountains to the ocean from the leeward to …” This pony thing could start a trend in Hawaii. Goodness knows, rail officials would benefit. Time prohibits me from exploring which animals would be best for those HART press conferences. But I can say this: don’t rule out the hoary bat. The post Neal Milner: How A Pony Guy (Or A Bat Or A Seal) Could Help Gov. Ige appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/hawaiis-homeless-voters-face-hurdles-with-all-mail-system/" target="_self">Hawaii’s Homeless Voters Face Hurdles With All-Mail System</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 06 Aug 2020 10:01:36 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('Lisa Darcy tries every election to get at least a few more friends of hers on Maui to vote. This year, as Hawaii rolled out its first all-mail election, that effort intersected with the work she has done with the homeless community for several years through her nonprofit, Share Your Mana. But it proved to be a challenge every step of the way. Sweeps, ID laws, mail access and transportation all became barriers to homeless individuals casting their ballots and hampered the ability of service providers like Darcy who help them. Lisa Darcy, who runs Share Your Mana, poses with Victoria Nelson, left, whom Darcy helped get a mail ballot.Courtesy of Lisa Darcy Those issues have all been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic as well as the recent threat of Hurricane Douglas. With regular sweeps of homeless encampments, it’s hard to tell what district someone should be registered in. Darcy said it’s also been a challenge tracking down individuals who move often. Mail access is another issue. If someone doesn’t have friends or family to get their mail and they aren’t registered for mail delivery at a shelter, the only option is general delivery at a post office. Plus, registering and getting mail usually require some form of government ID, which for some individuals who may have lost those documents could take months to replace, Darcy said. However, ID requirements for registration in Hawaii aren’t as strict as in other states. In 2016, the Legislature added a provision to the law that allows the counties to register potential voters who don’t have a government ID or social security card but meet registration requirements, like being 18 years old. While state and county elections officials have met with providers on Oahu, outreach and group voter registration efforts have been hampered by the virus, according to Laura Thielen, executive director of Partners In Care. In an email, Thielen reported similar issues like acquiring an ID and mail access. Darcy has used her P.O. Box in Kahului to get mail ballots to some of the homeless she works with on Maui. And even if someone is able to get registered and has mail access, getting information to make an informed vote is still difficult. “It’s an absolute cliff of information,” she said. “People might not have data on their phones. They can’t rely on the internet to get that information.” Some people Darcy has talked to on Maui still think they’ll go to their normal polling place to cast ballots. And trying to figure all that out while thinking about getting by is another stressor. “They’re compounded by disabilities, mental health issues, just plain poverty issues. If you’re thinking about getting food for the day, you won’t put anything else in front of that,” Darcy said. Like voters with disabilities, Darcy feels that government officials haven’t done enough to tackle voting access issues facing Hawaii’s homeless population. With a statewide homeless population of 6,400, Hawaii ranks No. 2 in the nation for rates of homeless individuals per 10,000 people in the state. Depending on where they reside on the island, homeless people might need to travel a great distance to Maui’s only voter service center in Wailuku. The subject of how many voting centers to set up in the state has been debated in the last several months. Hawaii Elections Chief Scott Nago said he believes the counties have their reasoning behind the numbers and locations of centers already established. The county clerks have previously said they positioned the centers in population centers like Wailuku, Honolulu, Lihue and Hilo because residents would likely need to travel to those areas for other business and could access the centers along the way. Legal Action Possible Now, Share Your Mana as well as the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii have signed on to a letter asking for more voter centers on Maui and suggesting other ways to improve voter access. Lance Collins, a Maui attorney who has litigated other voter rights cases, and Wookie Kim of the ACLU sent a letter to Maui County Clerk Kathy Kaohu July 24 asking for two more centers on Maui as well as for bus fare to be waived for individuals traveling to one of those centers. Collins and Kaohu met Friday to discuss some solutions. In addition to those listed in the letter, the parties also suggested a shuttle service to the Wailuku voter center using county buses or using the clerk’s office for people who lack mail access, according to Collins. Attorney Lance Collins is working with Maui County on voter access issues.Cory Lum/Civil Beat That would allow a voter to spend more time making decisions on who to vote for as opposed to rushing through the ballot on a voting machine at one of the centers. Collins walked away from the meeting feeling positive, though he noted that there’s no decision made yet on changes and any change would likely be for the general election in November. “It seems there’s some willingness to make sure everyone has the opportunity to vote,” Collins said. Kaohu wanted to open at least one more center in Hana but couldn’t because Hawaii’s election law requires all centers to be open at the same times. A separate group is also calling for greater voter access. Honolulu Attorney Jeff Portnoy is representing Common Cause as well as other groups that advocate for voting rights nationally. Portnoy and the groups are calling for more voter centers statewide, enough to at least equal the number of district courthouses in the state. “We’re not demanding particular places, just greater access,” Portnoy said, adding that community centers or satellite city halls could be alternate locations. Solutions In Seattle In regards to homeless voters, Hawaii is not alone. Seattle, which has the third largest homeless population in the U.S., has similar problems when it comes to getting homeless people out to vote even as Washington nears the end of its first decade of all-mail voting. Hillary Coleman, a community projects manager at the Seattle/King County Homeless Coalition, says the biggest problem is getting homeless voters access to enough information and research to make informed voting decisions. Community organizations in Seattle partner with the county government to reach homeless voters.Angela N./Flickr.com The elections office there puts out a non-partisan voter guide, something Hawaii has eschewed in the past, but even that is not enough. Being able to do research from home isn’t a luxury the unsheltered have access to. Like elections officials in other states who advocate for in-person voting sites, Coleman said that access to voter centers in King County has been important, but the coronavirus has meant the county will pare down its centers from six to just two this election season. Like Hawaii, getting Seattle’s homeless registered and then getting them ballots is challenging, but some changes to Washington’s laws have made it easier. In Washington, voters don’t need a residential address to register, they just need to provide an address so they can be registered in a district. “No person registering to vote, who meets all the qualifications of a registered voter in the state of Washington, shall be disqualified because he or she lacks a traditional residential address,” the Washington law states. The Oregon secretary of state’s office puts out similar guidance. Hawaii’s law isn’t so specific, only stating that a residence, as far as the elections law goes, is a fixed habitation that a person has the intent of returning to when they leave. Mail access remains a struggle, but a service provider in the heart of Seattle offers free mail access. Coleman says it serves thousands of people. To bolster outreach efforts, King County elections officials partner with a network of nonprofits and community-based organizations to fan out and register potential voters. “They smartly realized that people with connections in the community will be in the best position to help understand access to voting,” Coleman said. This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems. The post Hawaii’s Homeless Voters Face Hurdles With All-Mail System appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/widespread-frequent-covid-19-testing-can-wipe-this-off-the-planet/" target="_self">Widespread, Frequent COVID-19 Testing ‘Can Wipe This Off The Planet’</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 06 Aug 2020 10:01:23 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('With Hawaii poised to reopen to tourists in less than a month – and schools set to restart even sooner – a testing strategy espoused by a Harvard University epidemiologist is being hailed by local academics, economists and medical experts as the best path forward for the state as COVID-19 cases surge. “Inexpensive, high-frequency, self-administered testing – as we wait for therapeutics and a vaccine – is the only way forward,” said Alexander Culley, a microbiologist and visiting professor at the University of Hawaii who studies viruses in the ocean and develops techniques to detect them. The plan being promoted by Culley and others calls for using relatively inexpensive, saliva-based “paper tests” that people can take themselves at home – daily to every few days – regardless of whether they have symptoms. People who test positive would know to stay home and to take a more sensitive test, called a PCR test, that generally has to be done by a lab or doctor. Medical personnel sealed COVID-19 swabbed samples into test tubes from a drive-through test site at the Kakaako Waterfront Park. New rapid saliva tests would be used in addition to swabs.Ronen Zilberman/Civil Beat Culley acknowledged the paper tests can’t detect small amounts of the virus the way the PCR tests can. But he said the tests can generally detect large amounts of virus that are present when a person is contagious. “The most important question is, ‘When are people infectious, and can we detect them when they’re infectious?’” said Culley, who is a professor at Laval University in Quebec. Dr. Scott Miscovich, a Hawaii physician who has led efforts to do more testing here, agreed. He said it is generally not in dispute that people tend to shed the virus only when their bodies are carrying enough to be picked up by the paper tests. “If we go to an every-other-day, at home test, we can wipe this off the planet, not just the State of Hawaii,” he said. To be sure, the idea of conducting widespread home testing using paper tests has far to go before it’s adopted in Hawaii. The paper tests haven’t been approved by the federal FDA. And even if they were, Hawaii health officials would have to go along with the plan. Janice Okubo, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health, didn’t respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Still, the idea is clearly gaining traction. Sumner La Croix, a University of Hawaii economist whose work helped guide the state’s plan for reopening the local economy, is scheduled to present the new testing scheme on Thursday to the Hawaii Economic Association. La Croix acknowledged the paper tests are not as effective as the PCR tests, but he echoed Culley and Miscovich, saying the ease of use and relatively low cost could allow for testing that’s frequent and ubiquitous enough to stop the spread of the virus. With Cases Surging Most Residents Oppose Reopening Hawaii reported a record 173 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, marking the continuation of a troubling trend of exponential growth in recent weeks. The seven-day moving average on Wednesday was 129 cases, which marked a seven-fold increase over July 5, when the seven-day moving average was 18 new cases per day. The July average was also a significant increase over the previous month: on June 5, the seven-day average was fewer then 2.5 new cases per day. With numbers surging, many Hawaii residents are worried about Hawaii’s plans to open schools by Aug. 17 and to ease a 14-day quarantine for visitors on Sept. 1. According to a Civil Beat poll released Wednesday, 54% of voters said they weren’t satisfied with state plans to reopen public schools, and 56% said they weren’t satisfied with the plan for tourism. The issue for policymakers, therefore, isn’t simply about getting the virus under control but also getting the public to feel safe enough to buy in. For La Croix and Carl Bonham, the executive director of the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, widespread paper testing – a concept that is getting traction around the nation – is the way to go. “It’s not quite as accurate as the other tests,” La Croix said. “But being able to do a lot more testing would isolate a lot more people, get them out of the population. That’s a surefire way to basically control the whole epidemic.” Paper tests are hardly the only solution. Earlier this week the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that the Honolulu technology company Oceanit Laboratories is developing a fast, saliva-based test that gives results in three to 10 minutes. The company’s chief executive, Patrick Sullivan, said the test should prompt a resurgence of visitors to Hawaii. Edward Desmond, administrator of the Hawaii Department of Health’s laboratories, told the paper he was hopeful about Oceanit’s test. Meanwhile, S&G Labs Hawaii on Hawaii Island is gearing up its testing capability to be able to conduct about 1,000 PCR tests daily with a turn-around time of one to three days, said Dr. Lynn Welch, the company’s chief executive. Welch agreed it’s key to restore tourism to revive Hawaii’s economy, and she said her lab has the capacity to serve the islands. She said S&G labs chose to do the PCR tests rather than less reliable “antigen” tests because the PCR tests are the gold standard. “Somebody might come up with an antigen test that blows our socks off,” she said. “Is that going to be before we have a vaccine? Who knows?” The post Widespread, Frequent COVID-19 Testing ‘Can Wipe This Off The Planet’ appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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document.write('<li class="rss-item"><a class="rss-item" href="https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/08/case-kahele-raised-1-4-million-despite-a-lack-of-competition/" target="_self">Case, Kahele Raised $1.4 Million Despite A Lack Of Competition</a><br />');
document.write('<span class="rss-date">Thu, 06 Aug 2020 10:01:18 +0000</span><br />');
document.write('WASHINGTON — Despite a dearth of competition in the Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Ed Case and state Sen. Kai Kahele, who’s hoping to join him in Congress in 2021, raised nearly $1.4 million in campaign cash between the two of them. Neither Case nor Kahele face a significant challenger in their respective races for Hawaii’s 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts, and  — given Hawaii’s predilection for electing Democrats — there’s little chance they’ll need that money to stave off a formidable Republican challenger in November. Federal Election Commission records show Kahele raised nearly $940,000 since Jan. 1, 2019. That’s more than double the $442,000 Case’s campaign raised during the same period. Hawaii state Sen. Kai Kahele has a relatively easy path to Congress.Cory Lum/Civil Beat When Kahele first announced his bid for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, which represents rural Oahu and the neighboring islands, he expected to be taking on U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who for many years was considered one of the state’s most popular politicians. Kahele launched his campaign just one week after Gabbard announced she would be running for president, and was able to harness the backlash both locally and nationally to fill up his war chest. By the time Gabbard announced she would no longer be seeking reelection, Kahele stood alone atop the field as no other major candidates decided to enter the race. “Kai started the campaign early and did benefit from the ‘Anybody But Tulsi Movement,’” said Alan Tang, a spokesman for the campaign. “That gave him a lot of momentum, not just in the campaign but in the fundraising.” Case, meanwhile, didn’t need to spend a lot of effort raising money in large part because he doesn’t have a challenger in the Democratic primary scheduled for Aug. 8. While he’ll face token Republican opposition in November, FEC records show no other candidate who has declared for Hawaii’s 1st Congressional District has reported raising any money. “He’s in a comfortable position, but I don’t think he’s taking it for granted,” said Tang, who also works as a spokesman for Case’s campaign. “He has been campaigning as he should be to get his name out there.” Backed By The Business Community One thing is clear from Case and Kahele’s donations: they have the backing of Hawaii’s business and political establishment. Early on, Kahele received the endorsement of three former Hawaii governors. Since then he’s added several other players in island politics to his list of public supporters, including U.S. senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, Case and numerous other members of the Hawaii State Legislature. The money coming to Kahele’s campaign comes from similarly well-positioned community members and business leaders, both inside and outside of the islands. The largest share of contributions comes from individual donors giving Kahele more than $200 apiece. Among them are the executives and employees of some of the state’s most influential and lucrative businesses — from real estate developers and investment firms, such as The MacNaughton Group and Tradewinds Capital Group, to the Capitol Consultants of Hawaii lobbying firm that was founded by George “Red” Morris and John Radcliffe. Kahele’s campaign also received significant contributions from government contractors, such as Pacific Marine & Supply, Navatek and Nan, Inc. Kahele, too, received significant money from political action committees despite the fact that swearing off PAC funds — particularly from corporations — has been en vogue among Democrats in recent years. Hawaii Congressman Ed Case doesn’t face a single opponent in the Democratic primary.Kuʻu Kauanoe/ Civil Beat Records show Kahele’s campaign received more than $151,000 from PACs representing some of the major industry players in Hawaii, including the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Matson and the Bank of Hawaii. Kahele, who is a Hawaiian Airlines pilot as well as a lieutenant colonel in the Hawaii Air National Guard, also took in money from a number of pilots associations and veterans groups, including VoteVets and With Honor, an organization that has an associated super PAC that spent more than $180,000 on advertising in support of Kahele’s campaign. A handful of prominent Washington Democrats also donated to Kahele’s campaign, including Schatz, U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman of California, who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, a revered civil rights leader who died last month. Election records show that no other Democrats running for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District raised any money to slow Kahele’s path to Congress. A handful of Republicans, however, have added funds to their campaign coffers, most notably Joseph Akana, a retired U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst who reported raising nearly $27,000. Much of the money appears to come from individuals sharing the same last name. PAC Support For Case Case received more than half of his money — nearly $268,000 of the more than $442,000 he raised between Jan. 1, 2019 and July 19, 2020 — through political action committees. Among his top donors were PACs representing the nation’s sugar and defense industries. He also received tens of thousands of dollars from PACs associated with companies and organizations with stakes in the tourism industry, including Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and the American Hotel & Lodging Association. The PAC for Elon Musk’s SpaceX also donated to Case’s campaign as did a number of committees representing labor and employee organizations, from the American Federation of Teachers and International Union of Operating Engineers to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and National Treasury Employees Union. Some of his top individual donors were his parents, James and Suzanne, and his sister, also named Suzanne, who is the head of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. The congressman also received donations from a number of prominent island real estate investors and attorneys, including Bert Kobayashi and Paul Alston, former colleagues at Outrigger Enterprises where Case was a top executive, and David Lassner, the president of the University of Hawaii. Case told Civil Beat last year that he won’t accept money from certain groups, such as the National Rifle Association. He also won’t take money from PACs or organizations that don’t disclose their own donors. Since returning to Congress, Case has voted to limit the influence of money in politics and advocated for more transparency and oversight of campaign finances. “Of course any time you get a contribution from somebody there’s going to be somebody else out there who says you’re beholden to them,” Case said, “but that’s not the way I run my ship.” The post Case, Kahele Raised $1.4 Million Despite A Lack Of Competition appeared first on Honolulu Civil Beat.');
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