For the first time since statehood in 1959, Hawaii’s population
declined for two consecutive years with fewer births, more deaths and a
greater number of residents moving to the mainland.
The trend is alarming because without enough people economic growth
could be affected, said Eugene Tian, state economist with Department of
Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
“That is something significant because with fewer people it
helps a little bit in the housing shortage, but there will definitely be
less spending consumption and that will reduce economic growth,” said
Tian, adding that 70 percent of gross domestic product is due to
consumer spending. “Because the U.S. economy in the last two years has
been growing faster than in Hawaii, people are looking for more
opportunities and a lower cost of living.”
Hawaii was one of only nine states with waning populations, the
latest Census Bureau report released this week shows. The others were
Alaska, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming
and West Virginia.
That comes with all sorts of implications, including a decreasing
demand for housing, which could lead to a slowdown or drop in home
prices, as well as a shrinking workforce in an already tight labor
market. The unemployment rate in the islands has hovered around 2
percent for most of the past year.
The state population dropped by 3,712, or 10 people per day, from
July 2017 to July 2018. There were 17,326 births, 12,660 deaths and
4,075 people migrating to the islands from foreign countries. However,
12,430 residents left Hawaii for the mainland during that same period.
Friday, December 21, 2018
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Trump bans bump stocks
The Trump administration on Tuesday banned the high-power gun
attachments of the type used in last year’s Las Vegas shooting massacre
of 58 people, giving the owners of “bump stocks” 90 days to turn in or
destroy the devices and blocking owners from being able to register
them.
President Donald Trump’s Republican Party typically supports gun ownership, and its members have fiercely fought off perceived threats to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms.
His administration, though, is sidestepping any potential debate in Congress in issuing a final rule on Tuesday that adds bump stocks to a definition of machine guns written 80 years ago, during the heyday of gangsters’ use of “tommy guns.”
The attachments use a gun’s recoil to bump its trigger, enabling a semiautomatic weapon to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which can transform the firearm into a machine gun.
Gun Owners of America said on Tuesday that it was going to court to fight the new rule and would seek an injunction. The group said the department was attempting to rewrite laws, the regulation would lead to bans on other weapons, and bump stocks do not qualify as machine guns.
On an earlier call with reporters, senior Justice Department officials said they were ready for any possible lawsuit and confident in the review of case law they conducted while writing and revising the regulation. The department received nearly 190,000 comments on its proposal for the regulation.
President Donald Trump’s Republican Party typically supports gun ownership, and its members have fiercely fought off perceived threats to the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms.
His administration, though, is sidestepping any potential debate in Congress in issuing a final rule on Tuesday that adds bump stocks to a definition of machine guns written 80 years ago, during the heyday of gangsters’ use of “tommy guns.”
The attachments use a gun’s recoil to bump its trigger, enabling a semiautomatic weapon to fire hundreds of rounds per minute, which can transform the firearm into a machine gun.
Gun Owners of America said on Tuesday that it was going to court to fight the new rule and would seek an injunction. The group said the department was attempting to rewrite laws, the regulation would lead to bans on other weapons, and bump stocks do not qualify as machine guns.
On an earlier call with reporters, senior Justice Department officials said they were ready for any possible lawsuit and confident in the review of case law they conducted while writing and revising the regulation. The department received nearly 190,000 comments on its proposal for the regulation.
Sunday, December 09, 2018
A Closer Look
12/6/18 - Trump's Witness Tampering; Wisconsin GOP's Power Grab
12/5/18 - Michael Flynn Is Cooperating with Robert Mueller
12/3/18 - Russia Probe Clouds Trump's G20 Summit
11/21/18 - Trump Turns on Allies, Stands by Saudi Arabia
11/19/18 - Trump's Weird Lie About Raking in Finland
11/15/18 - Trump Is Depressed After the Midterms
11/14/18 - Trump Panics as the Blue Wave Gets Bigger
11/12/18 - Trump and His Fellow Grifters Lie About "Voter Fraud"
11/8/18 - Trump Freaks Out After Democrats Win House
11/6/18 - Democrats Take Control of the House
11/5/18 - Trump's Closing Message for the Midterms
11/1/18 - Trump's Racist Fearmongering Is His Latest Scam
10/29/18 - Trump Attacks the Media as His Allies Blame "Both Sides" for Violence
10/25/18 - Trump Says He’s "Being Nice" While Lying About Health Care
10/24/18 - Democrats, CNN Targeted by Bombs; Trump's Caravan Lies
10/22/18 - Trump Campaigns for Republicans, Calls Democrats an "Angry Mob"
10/4/18 - GOP Pushes for Kavanaugh Vote After FBI Report
10/3/18 - Trump Melts Down over Dr. Ford's Testimony
9/27/18 - Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh Testify
9/26/18 - Trump Holds Crazy Press Conference to Defend Brett Kavanaugh
9/24/18 - Rod Rosenstein Chaos; Trump Attacks Kavanaugh's Accuser
9/12/18 - Trump Calls Puerto Rico Response "An Unappreciated Great Job"
9/6/18 - The GOP’s Corrupt Bargain with "Reckless" and "Erratic" Trump
8/15/18 - Omarosa Says Trump Knew About Hacked Emails in Advance
7/16/18 - Trump's Summit with Putin
5/7/18 - Rudy Giuliani Keeps Making Things Worse for Trump
4/26/18 - Trump Goes on Fox & Friends and Freaks Out About Michael Cohen
4/25/18 - As Macron Visits, Trump's Foreign Policy Makes No Sense
4/12/18 - Pee Tape Allegations; Paul Ryan Retires; Trump Attacks Mueller
4/2/18 - Trump's Easter Immigration Rant, Cabinet Turmoil
1/11/18 - Trump Attacks Feinstein, Makes Racist Immigration Comment
5/1/17 - Trump Admits Being POTUS Is Hard, Flubs the Civil War
and more (the playlist)
12/5/18 - Michael Flynn Is Cooperating with Robert Mueller
12/3/18 - Russia Probe Clouds Trump's G20 Summit
11/21/18 - Trump Turns on Allies, Stands by Saudi Arabia
11/19/18 - Trump's Weird Lie About Raking in Finland
11/15/18 - Trump Is Depressed After the Midterms
11/14/18 - Trump Panics as the Blue Wave Gets Bigger
11/12/18 - Trump and His Fellow Grifters Lie About "Voter Fraud"
11/8/18 - Trump Freaks Out After Democrats Win House
11/6/18 - Democrats Take Control of the House
11/5/18 - Trump's Closing Message for the Midterms
11/1/18 - Trump's Racist Fearmongering Is His Latest Scam
10/29/18 - Trump Attacks the Media as His Allies Blame "Both Sides" for Violence
10/25/18 - Trump Says He’s "Being Nice" While Lying About Health Care
10/24/18 - Democrats, CNN Targeted by Bombs; Trump's Caravan Lies
10/22/18 - Trump Campaigns for Republicans, Calls Democrats an "Angry Mob"
10/4/18 - GOP Pushes for Kavanaugh Vote After FBI Report
10/3/18 - Trump Melts Down over Dr. Ford's Testimony
9/27/18 - Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh Testify
9/26/18 - Trump Holds Crazy Press Conference to Defend Brett Kavanaugh
9/24/18 - Rod Rosenstein Chaos; Trump Attacks Kavanaugh's Accuser
9/12/18 - Trump Calls Puerto Rico Response "An Unappreciated Great Job"
9/6/18 - The GOP’s Corrupt Bargain with "Reckless" and "Erratic" Trump
8/15/18 - Omarosa Says Trump Knew About Hacked Emails in Advance
7/16/18 - Trump's Summit with Putin
5/7/18 - Rudy Giuliani Keeps Making Things Worse for Trump
4/26/18 - Trump Goes on Fox & Friends and Freaks Out About Michael Cohen
4/25/18 - As Macron Visits, Trump's Foreign Policy Makes No Sense
4/12/18 - Pee Tape Allegations; Paul Ryan Retires; Trump Attacks Mueller
4/2/18 - Trump's Easter Immigration Rant, Cabinet Turmoil
1/11/18 - Trump Attacks Feinstein, Makes Racist Immigration Comment
5/1/17 - Trump Admits Being POTUS Is Hard, Flubs the Civil War
and more (the playlist)
Saturday, December 01, 2018
George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States and the father
of the 43rd, was a steadfast force on the international stage for
decades, from his stint as an envoy to Beijing to his eight years as
vice president and his one term as commander in chief from 1989 to 1993.
The last veteran of World War II to serve as president, he was a consummate public servant and a statesman who helped guide the nation and the world out of a four-decade Cold War that had carried the threat of nuclear annihilation.
His death, at 94 on Nov. 30, also marked the passing of an era.
Although Mr. Bush served as president three decades ago, his values and ethic seem centuries removed from today’s acrid political culture. His currency of personal connection was the handwritten letter — not the social media blast.
Mr. Bush came to the Oval Office under the towering, sharply defined shadow of Ronald Reagan, a onetime rival for whom he had served as vice president.
No president before had arrived with his breadth of experience: decorated Navy pilot, successful oil executive, congressman, United Nations delegate, Republican Party chairman, envoy to Beijing, director of Central Intelligence.
Over the course of a single term that began on Jan. 20, 1989, Mr. Bush found himself at the helm of the world’s only remaining superpower. The Berlin Wall fell; the Soviet Union ceased to exist; the communist bloc in Eastern Europe broke up; the Cold War ended.
His firm, restrained diplomatic sense helped assure the harmony and peace with which these world-shaking events played out, one after the other.
In 1990, Mr. Bush went so far as to proclaim a “new world order” that would be “free from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace — a world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”
Mr. Bush’s presidency was not all plowshares. He ordered an attack on Panama in 1989 to overthrow strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega. After Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990, Mr. Bush put together a 30-nation coalition — backed by a U.N. mandate and including the Soviet Union and several Arab countries — that routed the Iraqi forces with unexpected ease in a ground war that lasted only 100 hours.
However, Mr. Bush decided to leave Hussein in power, setting up the worst and most fateful decision of his son’s presidency a dozen years later.
In the wake of that 1991 victory, Mr. Bush’s approval at home approached 90 percent. It seemed the country had finally achieved the catharsis it needed after Vietnam. A year-and-a-half later, only 29 percent of those polled gave Mr. Bush a favorable rating, and just 16 percent thought the country was headed in the right direction.
The conservative wing of his party would not forgive him for breaking an ill-advised and cocky pledge: “Read my lips: No new taxes.” What cost him among voters at large, however, was his inability to express a connection to and engagement with the struggles of ordinary Americans or a strategy for turning the economy around.
That he was perceived as lacking in grit was another irony in the life of Mr. Bush. His was a character that had been forged by trial. He was an exemplary story of a generation whose youth was cut short by the Great Depression and World War II.
...
In the years after the White House, Mr. Bush wrote his memoirs and divided his time between Houston and the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he was a vestryman of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church. He chose College Station, the home of Texas A&M University, as the site of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
After the earthquake and tsunami that devastated African and Asian nations in 2005, Mr. Bush collaborated with Bill Clinton, his former adversary, to lead private relief efforts that raised nearly $2 billion in the United States.
So close did the unlikely friendship of the 41st and 42nd presidents become, that the 43rd joked: “My mother calls him my fourth brother.”
In 1997, Mr. Bush made a parachute jump for the first time since bailing out over the Pacific. He did it again in 2000 to mark his 75th birthday — and still again for his 80th, 85th and 90th ones.
“Old guys can do neat things,” he said.
The last veteran of World War II to serve as president, he was a consummate public servant and a statesman who helped guide the nation and the world out of a four-decade Cold War that had carried the threat of nuclear annihilation.
His death, at 94 on Nov. 30, also marked the passing of an era.
Although Mr. Bush served as president three decades ago, his values and ethic seem centuries removed from today’s acrid political culture. His currency of personal connection was the handwritten letter — not the social media blast.
Mr. Bush came to the Oval Office under the towering, sharply defined shadow of Ronald Reagan, a onetime rival for whom he had served as vice president.
No president before had arrived with his breadth of experience: decorated Navy pilot, successful oil executive, congressman, United Nations delegate, Republican Party chairman, envoy to Beijing, director of Central Intelligence.
Over the course of a single term that began on Jan. 20, 1989, Mr. Bush found himself at the helm of the world’s only remaining superpower. The Berlin Wall fell; the Soviet Union ceased to exist; the communist bloc in Eastern Europe broke up; the Cold War ended.
His firm, restrained diplomatic sense helped assure the harmony and peace with which these world-shaking events played out, one after the other.
In 1990, Mr. Bush went so far as to proclaim a “new world order” that would be “free from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice and more secure in the quest for peace — a world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.”
Mr. Bush’s presidency was not all plowshares. He ordered an attack on Panama in 1989 to overthrow strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega. After Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990, Mr. Bush put together a 30-nation coalition — backed by a U.N. mandate and including the Soviet Union and several Arab countries — that routed the Iraqi forces with unexpected ease in a ground war that lasted only 100 hours.
However, Mr. Bush decided to leave Hussein in power, setting up the worst and most fateful decision of his son’s presidency a dozen years later.
In the wake of that 1991 victory, Mr. Bush’s approval at home approached 90 percent. It seemed the country had finally achieved the catharsis it needed after Vietnam. A year-and-a-half later, only 29 percent of those polled gave Mr. Bush a favorable rating, and just 16 percent thought the country was headed in the right direction.
The conservative wing of his party would not forgive him for breaking an ill-advised and cocky pledge: “Read my lips: No new taxes.” What cost him among voters at large, however, was his inability to express a connection to and engagement with the struggles of ordinary Americans or a strategy for turning the economy around.
That he was perceived as lacking in grit was another irony in the life of Mr. Bush. His was a character that had been forged by trial. He was an exemplary story of a generation whose youth was cut short by the Great Depression and World War II.
...
In the years after the White House, Mr. Bush wrote his memoirs and divided his time between Houston and the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he was a vestryman of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church. He chose College Station, the home of Texas A&M University, as the site of the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum.
After the earthquake and tsunami that devastated African and Asian nations in 2005, Mr. Bush collaborated with Bill Clinton, his former adversary, to lead private relief efforts that raised nearly $2 billion in the United States.
So close did the unlikely friendship of the 41st and 42nd presidents become, that the 43rd joked: “My mother calls him my fourth brother.”
In 1997, Mr. Bush made a parachute jump for the first time since bailing out over the Pacific. He did it again in 2000 to mark his 75th birthday — and still again for his 80th, 85th and 90th ones.
“Old guys can do neat things,” he said.
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