Posts Tagged Abercrombie

Governor Abercrombie’s scurrilous and unnecessary lie about Hawaiian language in his “State of the State” speech

Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie said something false in his “State of the State” speech on January 24, 2011.

It was not a mistake, and not a normal political lie. His statement was scurrilous because it serves to promote racial hostility. It’s always bad to stir up resentment and anger by one race against another, especially when the grievance has no basis in fact. Following the Tucson political massacre, our President has urged us all to speak with greater civility.

In the written press release of his speech, his falsehood was “In 1896 it was made illegal to teach in the Hawaiian language.” The sentence he actually spoke was even worse: “In 1896 it was made illegal to teach the Hawaiian language.” These are variations of a commonly told lie, which says that In 1896 Hawaiian language was made illegal.

Any of these sentences is usually mentioned in the middle of a long diatribe listing alleged historical grievances to show that Caucasians oppressed and abused ethnic Hawaiians, and Hawaiians are therefore entitled to apologies, repentance, and reparations from Caucasians.

A webpage provides full text of Abercrombie’s written speech, an audio podcast and a video of the speech (with timeline and closed captioning), and further analysis. See
http://tinyurl.com/4l5hdlv

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Akaka bill now being attached to “must-pass” legislation despite Akaka and Inouye previously deploring such a maneuver.

Sources in the Senate report that Sen. Inouye is personally working to jam through the Akaka Bill this month. He would do it by attaching the bill to an omnibus spending bill that his staff is writing in secret. According to Senate sources, Inouye would wait to offer that secret bill until just before the “continuing resolution” funding the government is set to expire. His colleagues would then be forced to either vote for the porked-up omnibus bill (with no public comment, little opportunity for debate, and certainly no chance of amendment) or reject the whole bill and deny the government the funding it needs to stay open. It’s a game of chicken.

Every lame duck session features an omnibus spending bill, sometimes called “the Christmas tree,” used by Senators and Representatives to give expensive gifts to their campaign contributors in the form of earmarks and riders. But attaching controversial and dangerous new policy legislation to an appropriations bill is unusual and unethical, especially when there’s no floor debate on it.

But which version of the Akaka bill will Senator Inouye try to attach?

Read the full essay at
http://www.angelfire.com/big09a/AkakaAttachOmnibusDec2010.html

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