Archive for July, 2015

Signature needed: Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s new job is defending Wall Street

Friday, July 10th, 2015

It’s the revolving door at its most despicable. Eric Holder spent six years as attorney general, and failed to prosecute banks for their criminal wrongdoing or put any bank executives behind bars. Now, he’s set to rejoin his old white-collar criminal defense firm, making millions each year helping Wall Street bankers avoid criminal consequences.1

Signature needed: Former Attorney General Eric Holder’s new job is defending Wall Street

Holder’s new job is already a national disgrace. The least the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees can do is make sure it isn’t criminal, as well.

Tell Congress: Subpoena former Attorney General Eric Holder’s communications with his corporate law firm while serving as head of the Department of Justice. Click below to sign the petition.

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/subpoena_holder?t=7&akid=14931.6095158.N2Q018

All Hawaii Stand Together! We Are Mauna Kea!

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015

Stop the 2015 Hawaii

“Committee of Safety”

     In 1893 the Hawaii Committee of Safety, a 13-member group, acted in a treasonous manner on behalf of big money sugar interests, with the assistance of the U.S. Marines, to illegally overthrow the independent Kingdom of Hawaii led by Queen Lili’uokalani. Today in 2015, another Hawaii Committee of Safety, made up of Hawaii Governor David Ige, Attorney General Douglass Chin, The State Dept. of Land & Natural Resources (DLNR) and the Office of Mauna Kea Management (OMKM) under the University of Hawaii, acting on behalf of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) corporation are preparing “Emergency” Rules against Native Hawaiians and others acting to protect Hawaii’s most sacred temple –Mauna a Wakea or Mauna Kea from further desecration by the $1.5 billion, 18 story TMT.

     The 2015 Hawaii Committee of Safety (HCS), like the 1893 Hawaii Committee of Safety, is using the phony claim of “Public safety” and the “threat of imminent harm” to rationalize its unjust, and blatantly, illegal actions. The HCS already blocked summit road access, shut off water and closed restroom to residents and visitors at the Mauna Kea Visitors Center in an attempt to force an end to protectors of Mauna Kea from continuing their 100 plus day vigil near the visitor center. The HCS also removed portable restrooms brought in by Mauna Kea protectors for sanitary use by visitors and protectors after the Visitor’s center restrooms were locked. Now, the HCS wants to create further civil and human rights violations and restrictions in the phony interest of “an imminent peril to the public health, safety,…” Such proposed rules would further restrict public access to Mauna Kea and impose penalties for violations. The proposed area for restricting constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, as well as public access and recreation amounts to 28 square miles, or 18,000 acres. The area covered by this emergency rule is described as any lands within one mile of the Mauna Kea Observatory Access Road.

     Please don’t let this happen. Act to affirm rights to free speech and assembly, rights of native Hawaiian cultural and traditional practices, including spiritual practices on Mauna Kea. For more information see http://kahea.org/blog/testify-against-proposed-emergency-rules-for-mauna-kea-on-july-10 Submit testimony by email opposing the proposed “Emergency” rules Item C.2 on the BLNR agenda Email testimony to kuulei.n.moses@hawaii.gov. Call or email Governor Ige’s office 1-808-586-0034 gov.contact@hawaii.gov Mahalo for your solidarity and aloha.

We Are Mauna Kea!

Sacred Over Money! NO TMT

  1. Mourn all victims of violence. 2. Reject war as a solution. 3. Defend civil liberties.
    4. Oppose all discrimination, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-Hawaiian, etc.
    5. Seek peace through justice in Hawai`i and around the world. Contact:
    Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.
    Phone
    (808) 966-7622. Email:ja@malu-aina.org http://www.malu-aina.org/

Hilo Peace Vigil leaflet (July 10, 2015 – 720th week) – Friday 3:30-5PM downtown Post Office

Jim Albertini’s testimony in opposition to DLNR “Emergency Rules” for Mauna Kea

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015

Aloha kakou,
I hereby submit testimony on Item C.2 on the BLNR agenda, for the July 10th meeting on behalf of our organization –Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action.

Our organization is strongly opposed to any so called “emergency” rules for Mauna Kea.  The proposed emergency rules are a blatant false claim of “imminent peril…” purposely designed to squelch peaceful protest of TMT, citizens first amendment rights, and Hawaiian traditional and customary rights guaranteed under the Hawaii State constitution Art. 12, sec. 7.  Those who have proposed such rules should be publicly reprimanded if not prosecuted for intent to violate civil rights.   Instead of these repressive rules, reopen the Mauna Kea Visitors center and restore water and rest rooms for residents and visitors alike.
Shame on Governor David Ige, the BLNR,  attorney General Douglass Chin, and Office of Mauna Kea Management for being a party to such disregard for human decency by denying water and bathroom facilities and proposing emergency rules as a political tool to stifle those wanting to protect Mauna Kea from further desecration.

Ku Kia’i Mauna!  Kapu Aloha!

Jim Albertini

Testify AGAINST Mauna Kea “emergency rules

Wednesday, July 8th, 2015
Please submit email testimony by Thursday.  See below.

Mahalo.

Jim Albertini

KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance is working in communities around our islands to protect Hawaii’s native landscapes, sacred places and unique way of life. www.kahea.org

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Aloha e,

Testify against proposed “emergency” rules for Mauna Kea. First, there is no emergency – no one has placed natural resources in “imminent peril.” Second, but more importantly, the “emergency rules” are pretextual. Their aim is rather to stifle legitimate, political speech to protect Mauna Kea against the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT).
WHO: We need to tell the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) NOT to approve “emergency” rules for Mauna Kea.
WHAT: “Emergency” rules proposed for Mauna Kea could authorize DLNR to severely restrict public access to the mauna and impose severe penalties for violations. These emergency rules are separate from the Office of Mauna Kea Management’s rules, which they held “open houses” on in late June 2015.
WHEN: July 10, 2015, 1:00PM (or later). Testimony signups from 8:45am-1:00pm.
WHY! To support the Kū Kia‘i Mauna, constitutional rights to assembly and political free speech, Hawaiian cultural practitioners in their vital practices, and public access, recreation, and enjoyment of the pristine environs of Mauna Kea.
DLNR’s proposed “emergency” rule follows:
Hawaii Administrative Rule (HAR) §13-123-21.2 Prohibited activities.
(a) The area covered by this rule is described as any lands within one mile of the Mauna Kea Observatory Access Road and referred to in this rule as the “restricted area.”
(b) No person shall at any time bring in to the restricted area or possess or control in the restricted area any of the following items: backpack, tents, blankets, tarpaulins, or other obvious camping paraphernalia.
(c) No person shall enter or remain in the restricted area during the hours of 8:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., except to the extent the person is transiting through the restricted area in a motor vehicle on the Mauna Kea Observatory Access Road.
Impacts of the Rule
The Access Road is 14 miles long, which means 28 square miles or 18,000 acres will be “restricted areas.” No one will be able to “camp” or even have a backpack in this 18,000 acre area. This area would cover 13,500 football fields.
Most troubling are the enforceable penalties for violating this emergency rule, which include: $2,500 civil fine (first offense) to $10,000 civil fine (third offense) (HRS §171-6.4), petty misdemeanor criminal liability (HRS §171-31.6), minimum $500 criminal fine (first offense) to $2,000 (third offense within 5 years) (HRS §171-31.6), up to 30 days jail (HRS §171-31.6), asset forfeiture of cars, etc. used in violation of the prohibitions (HAR §13-123-22 and HRS §171-31.5), and the loss of your hunting license.
How could this happen?
Agencies can do “emergency rulemaking” if it finds “an imminent peril to the public health, safety, or morals, to livestock and poultry health, or to natural resources” and that rule could only be effective for a maximum of 120 days, but BLNR could renew it. HRS §91-3(b). DLNR offered the vague rationale that the rules are proposed “to address impacts to natural resources that are occurring [in [areas within one mile of the Access Road] due to the presence of permanent encampments and their associated structures, facilities, activities, and impacts, as well as to eliminate the risks posed to public safety that result from the presence of numerous individuals that remain in those areas after dark[.]”
What do you think of DLNR’s reasons? Well, this is what we think:
Talking points:
We need to press BLNR to scrutinize the necessity of proposed rules and to assess the real impacts of these rules and the procedures through which these “emergency rules” gained traction.
  1. What evidence does DLNR have of “imminent peril” consequent to encampments near roads to Mauna Kea? Kū Kia‘i Mauna camps have remained by Hale Pōkahu, far from sensitive summit environments – how is their presence more of a threat than the 100,000 visitors and over 32,000 vehicles every year (i.e. over 270 people per day)? Kū Kia‘i Mauna have provided their own portable sanitation facilities, trashbags, and transported their waste away from the Mauna. How can DLNR justify a need for “emergency” rules when there is a long history of actual natural resource threats and concerns from the lack of management and enforcement in the summit area that continue to remain unaddressed?
  2. The state’s attempts to limit Kānaka Maoli rights to care for (un)ceded lands or to observe cultural practices in a sacred space violate the spirit of the 1993 Apology Resolution and rights guaranteed to Native Hawaiians under article XII, section 7 of the Hawai’i constitution. Protecting Mauna Kea and holding it in reverence as a sacred, spiritual realm are traditional and customary practices that are constitutionally protected.
  3. Would prohibiting and penalizing any activity near the Access Way prevent peril to “natural resources”? DLNR failed to identify the “peril” to natural resources that initiated their proposed emergency rule.
  4. The Kū Kia‘i Mauna have been an excellent conduit for the many and varied political and spiritual protective energies that have been brought to the mauna. How would forcibly removing this peaceful, organized force ensure the protection of public safety and natural resources?
  5. DLNR lacks documentation of imminent and serious threats to public safety and natural resources consequent to “camping” alongside the summit access road. “Campers” have rather sought to exercise significant constitutional and due process rights relating to the First Amendment and the right to assembly. DLNR’s proposed arbitrary declaration of “public safety” is a thin and illegal veil for its primary purpose in dispersing people working to protect a place sacred to Kanaka Maoli, in accordance with HRS 711-1107 on desecration and U.S. Public Law 95-341, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which includes Native Hawaiians.
  6. DLNR’s submittal did not explain how existing laws were not sufficient to address the alleged threats to public safety or natural resources.
What’s Next
We submit testimony on Item C.2 on the BLNR agenda, at least by Thursday 7/9 at 9am (needs to be 24 hours in advance). You can email DLNR administrator Ku`ulei Moses at: kuulei.n.moses@hawaii.gov. And we show up at the Honolulu BLNR meeting as early as 1:00 PM (or earlier if you want to sign up for public testimony). See you there!
Me ke aloha,
KAHEA: The Hawaiian-Alliance, Sacred Summits Committee
Our mailing address is:
PO Box 37368
Honolulu, Hawai’i 96837

Our phone number:
808-524-8220

Remembering The Greatest 4th Of July Speech Of All Time

Sunday, July 5th, 2015

Remembering The Greatest 4th Of July Speech Of All Time

by Frederick Douglass

What to the Slave (and the Native American and Native Hawaiian and many people living under U.S. bombs and regime change throughout the world) is the Fourth of July?

Here is one vivid paragraph:

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”

Read the full speech here

https://www.popularresistance.org/remembering-the-greatest-4th-of-july-speech-of-all-time/

 


Jim Albertini Malu ‘Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box 489 Ola’a (Kurtistown) Hawai’i 96760 Phone 808-966-7622 Email ja@malu-aina.org www.malu-aina.org