Hawai'i (R) governor takes food out of hungry kids' mouths

[KamaAina]

as part of a power struggle with our Dem legislature. :grr:

http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=2273736

HONOLULU (AP) - Governor Lingle is being urged by social service agencies to release state funds appropriated to help the poor....

The groups are seeking the lifting of restrictions that are holding up the release of close to 25 (m) million dollars.

The money is earmarked for a variety of programs, including those that provide food for the poor and those that help victims of domestic violence.

The state administration says the governor is waiting to hear from the Council on Revenues, which is scheduled to meet Thursday.

Another TV newscast (Fox affiliate has no website!) showed empty shelves at various food banks on O'ahu. I suppose the hungry families will just have to sit tight until Madame Empress Linda I has all of her ducks in a row. </sarcasm>

Background: Karen Hughes' bosom buddy has discovered that she can hold up money that the Legislature, still very much Dem, has already appropriated, simply by having her Budget & Finance office refuse to release it while she drags her feet (not Karen's, thankfully!) waiting for the projections to come out. What do a few hungry kids matter when there are points to be scored against the "wasteful, profligate" Dems? </sarcasm>

And yes, this is the same woman who served as vice-chair at the recent NYC repuke-a-thon, wielding the gavel whenever Denny Hastert was otherwise occupied accusing George Soros of dealing drugs or whatever. Can you say "compassionate conservative"? That's OK. Mr. KamaAina can't, either!

[cheezus]

1. the conservative response

good! maybe this will get them to go get jobs instead of depending on the government to feed them.

[KamaAina]

3. The progressive rejoinder

Many, if not most, of the food bank patrons already have jobs. The cost of living, especially housing, is so high here that working-poor families often turn to food banks, right before payday, for instance.

And yes, I detected the sarcasm dripping from your original post!

Edit: Funky italics.

[wolfgirl]

2. kick...

the GOP thugs never cease to amaze me with their utter lack of compassion and the nerve to think themselves better than anyone else. Edwards is absolutely right - there are 2 Americas and when the majority finally figure it out...there will be hell to pay!

[LynneSin]

4. How in goddess's name did Hawaii end up with a Repuke governor

She has 1-termer written all over her.

[LibDemAlways]

5. Agreed.

Saw her on tv a while back and wondered how the hell she got elected in the first place. Hawaii is usually reliably Dem. What happened?

[Awsi Dooger]

6. Mazie Hirono was not our top choice, plus Lingle had great organization

Linda Lingle lost as a decisive favorite in the '98 gov race. In 2002 our top tier candidates, including a prominent mayor as I recall, fell out of the race very late. Hirono started far behind and briefly tied the polls, before getting hit by the same "switch party" wave that dominated gov races in 2002, if the incumbent was not running for re-election.

Lingle kept her organization intact thru 2002. I read Hawaii online newspapers in which her campaign personnel bragged how sophisticated their GOTV strategies were in relation to '98, something like "last time we knew we had supporters, this time we knew where they were and got them to the polls."

[KamaAina]

7. Simple. Take one wall-to-wall media blitz

of the kind the swing states are being subjected to now. (I watched a LOT of PBS that fall...) All paid for, I might add, with mainland money.

Add one questionable campaign finance investigation of a top Dem (Honolulu mayor Jeremy Harris), forcing him out of the race and making ex-Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono (comparisons to Laura Bush beckon) the leading Dem candidate. A fruitless "candidate-of-the-week" search for anyone with a pulse ensued, to no avail.

Throw in a record number of absentee ballots -- bear in mind how many part-year residents we have here, and that most people who can afford second homes here are repukes -- and what you have is a recipe for disaster.

We are hardly alone. Most "blue states" that you can think of are now saddled with repuke governors: Massachusetts (four in a row!), New York, Maryland, and of course Collie-four-knee-ya. And as this example demonstrates, the repuke agenda of suffering and misery can come down just as hard from a state house as it does from the White House.