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Senator Lisa Murkowski Sells Out Conservatives — Again

By: RedState Insider (Diary)  |  July 17th, 2010 at 09:00 AM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has done it again.  Earlier this week we learned that Lisa Murkowski opposes the repeal of ObamaCare.  RS Insider has been informed that there is a strong push by Senate Appropriations Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) to pass S. 1011, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, also known as the “Akaka Bill,” this year with the active support of Senator Murkowski.  The bill, sponsored by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), sets up an unconstitutional race based separate government entity for Native Hawaiians  The lone Republican co-sponsor is none other than Senator Lisa Murkowski.  This is the same Lisa Murkowski who was elected Vice Chairwoman of the whole Republican Conference in June of last year and is supposed to lead against terrible liberal ideas — not for them.   

Over the past week the left has slandered the Tea Party movement with charges of racism.  News has broken that the New Black Panther Movement has been given preferential treatment by lawyers at the Justice Department.  The Akaka Bill will further inflame racial separatism and divide the nation. 

This bill enables fully assimilated ”aboriginal” people to withdraw from the jurisdiction of Hawaii into an ethnic enclave with its own government powers and immunities.  Supporters of this idea argue that it enables the ethnically “Hawaiian” (those with a single drop of “aboriginal” blood) to have their own government.  Conservatives argue that this bill is unconstitutional and promotes racial separatism.

Another faction of opposition to the idea are Native Hawaiians who don’t like the bill for some different reasons.  Native Hawaiians who support Native Hawaiian separatism and others who mistrust federal bureaucrats oppose this bill, because the legislation empowers the Office of Native Hawaiian Affairs, housed in the Department of U.S. Interior, to play a significant role in governing them.  Most Native Hawaiians just want to be left alone by the federal government and they don’t trust Washington, D.C. to protect Native Hawaiian’s proud history and heritage.  They further argue that the federal government wants to buy up Hawaiian lands in the name of protecting Native Hawaiians.  These two camps have legitimate concerns. 

Senator Murkowski supports this measure and Senators Inouye and Akaka are counting on her leadership skills to bring along other Republican Senators.  Alaska has a community of Native Alaskans who lived in geographically and culturally separate communities and this may explain why she agreed to support the measure initially.  One would hope that under further review, Senator Murkowski would reconsider her support for this constitutionally offensive proposed law.

The Murkowski position today is preposterous.  Native Alaskans in her own state, and Indian Tribes for that matter, lived in distinct communities, did not intermarry at significant rates, and typically maintained some kind of local or tribal government since Western contact.  Our Constitution contemplated dealing with Indian tribes in the light of that history.  Congress regularly dealt with these issues when admitting new states.  To establish a new law that would cut up the nation based on race flies in the face of the history of dealing with Native Alaskans and Indian Tribes.
 
Hawaii is very different from the Alaska example.  Hawaii is a melting pot.  Hawaii has a history of being a monarchy, then a territory of the United States prior to annexation.  The aboriginal peoples of Hawaii were long ago absorbed into the mainstream culture.  There was never a distinct tribe or any kind of native organization since becoming an American territory.  Tribal rights were not part of negotiations when Hawaii became a state in 1959.  Hawaii came into the United States proudly touting its interracial marriage rates and racial harmony.
 
The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act would have Hawaii go in just the opposite direction. The legislation Murkowski supports would have 20 percent of Hawaii’s population sucked into a made-up “Indian tribe,” give them their own government, and make it impossible for neighbors who can’t pass the tribe’s racial test to deal with them on equal footing.  Furthermore, Native Hawaiians live in all 50 states and you would have a new “tribe” that would span the continental U.S., territories, Alaska and Hawaii.  This new Native Hawaiian Government would be subject to different laws and would not be held to account in Hawaii’s courts.  These are serious concerns that Senator Murkowski may not have considered.
 
If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) pulls the trigger and moves to proceed to the bill, Senator Murkowski may be the 60th vote to join liberal Democrats to break a filibuster.  This bill has passed in committee and sits on the Senate Calendar ready for full Senate floor consideration.  Murkowski may be the deciding vote and has been called on by the Senators from Hawaii to help round up Republican support.

There has always been an odd alliance between the Senators from Hawaii and Alaska on these types of issues.  There are those who worry that the only reason Senator Murkowski supports the Akaka Bill is to get increased Alaskan pork from Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Inouye.  There are others who say that she supports it because she genuinely believes in the policy of dividing up Hawaii based on race.  It is difficult to say which is worse: craven pork-barreling and back-scratching, or utter indifference to racial division.  Either way, her current position is inconsistent with the constitution and conservatism.  The sad truth is that this is yet another example of Senator Murkowski turning her back on the Conservative movement. 

One fear on the part of sources for Red State Insider is that Senator Inouye may try to put this bill in one of the massive appropriations measures scheduled to pass later this year.  As an appropriator, Senator Inouye has great power to load up approps bills and he may try and bury this legislation in the dark of night in a must pass bill to fund the government into 2011.  If Senator Murkowski is complicit in this strategy, then she has zero respect for conservatives who want to see this bill fail in the light of day with Senators being forced to cast and up or down vote on a free standing Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act.

It gets worse.  A source that closely follows progress of the Native Hawaiian bill tells Red State Insider that “despite the recent spinning and posturing in the press, the likelihood of the (Native Hawaiian Bill) passing in the Senate this year is nil … unless .. a few votes can be wrangled from the Republican side to break any Republican (threat of a filibuster) and stop time-consuming amendments.”  The Senator who is tasked to round up votes is Murkowski, and sources tell me that she has been specifically tasked with rounding up the votes of the other three Republican women Senators. 

My source jokes that ”apparently Inouye is going to try to sweet-talk the four women Republican Senators, and, as the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he can really talk sweet! Picture promises of diamond earmarks…chocolate covered stimulus…gift packages of pork.” Murkowski will help to round up moderate Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).  Maybe Murkowski will take a run at moderate Senator Kay Baily Hutchison (R-TX).  If it is true that Senator Murkowski is the point person to round up votes, now that should be highly offensive to conservative minded constituents in Alaska. 

The Senators from Hawaii know that the window is closing and they are desperate to railroad this bill through the Senate while they have time.  They will try to pass the bill with Murkowski’s help either by passing the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act on the Senate floor or, with Murkowski’s support, bury the legislation in a must pass appropriations bill.  Dems may lose a number of seats in the Senate and this may be the last time that the liberals have a chance to set up this new race based government for Native Hawaiian people.

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COMMENTS

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  • RedBeard

    Stop the meddling. Stop the creation of dependency. Stop trying to micromanage the lives of Americans “for their own good.”

    This is a prime example of why a federal government shutdown over a stymied budget would be a grand idea. If the fools aren’t working, they aren’t screwing up our lives.

    But, of course, my comments here will probably be called racist in nature, by the usual loudmouthed leftists and entitlement pushers.

  • jimmyg

    After previously objechttp://www.hawaii247.com/2010/07/15/lingle-sends-letter-to-senators-encouraging-akaka-bill/ting to this bill, Gov. Lingle now supports it.

    • RedBeard

      Because she cares so deeply, or because she thinks it will curry favor in some quarters and advance her career?

    • http://www.suvstrategery.blogspot.com SoFiMil

      Gov. Lingle, as you point out, is Gov. of HI.

  • http://www.2010blog.net jsanzone

    This would seem to empower everyone from Lakota separatists to…the new black panther party. If one group can get its own trans-continental entitlement-based government based solely on race, why can’t everybody else?

  • Achance

    and got all you flatlanders more oil back in the ’70s. ANCSA was touted as a icon of enlightened relations with aboriginal people when it got the right of way for the Trans Alaska Pipeline freed from Alaska Native land claims. This stuff is real easy for all you people who live in states that either killed or deported all the aboriginal people two hundred years ago. I can’t wait until the people who built those mounds near Macon, GA want some compensation from Georgia and the US for their land. Oh, and the Creek and Cherokee might have a little beef with Georgia and the US, too.

    Just for the record, I don’t like ANCSA, nor do I like the notions of dependent sovereignty that underlie US-Indian relations elsewhere. Given only a choice between ANCSA and the Lower 48 scheme, ANCSA is much less separatist and the proposed Hawaii scheme seems sort of a cross between the two. That said, you cannot say that the Native Hawaiians were happily and willfully assimilated into White culture. When they were the Sandwich Islands under British influence, if not actual control, the British followed their colonial model of basically leaving the native people alone so long as they allowed the British to trade; the Hawaiian monarchy was largely a British creation, though the Russians and the French had also had a presence there and at times had installations there. We tend to whitewash the fact that it wasn’t just a tax on stamps that irritated the Americans enough to start the Revolution, it was the British prohibition on settlements and white American land claims west of the Appalachians, lots of our Founders had serious interests in lands west of the Appalachians.

    As American presence in the Pacific increased, Hawaii came more and more under American influence and the control of American business, largely agricultural, interests, though there was a significant whaling presence as well. The Hawaiian government was beset with intrigues and its civic life marred by attempted coups and revolts throughout the late ’19th Century. Like other aboriginal people in the “New World,” Native Hawaiian populations steeply declined as the result of death from disease, not from intermarriage and assimilation. To the extent that there was assimilation, it was largely the work of Prostestant missionaries and their unrelenting pressure on practices and beliefs of the Native people, something they did to Alaska Natives as well, going so far as to prhibit speaking the Native languages and in Hawaii even convinceing the monarchy to outlaw the practice of Catholicism, an act that brought about intervention by French forces.

    In any event, it is not coincidence that the first leader of Hawaii after the capitulation of the monarchy was named Dole and it depends on whether you believe the Cleveland Administration or the McKinley Administration as to whether the capitulation was a coup d’etat by American business interests backed by American troops or not. The US made it all legal and official by annexing Hawaii and establishing it as a US Territory in 1898. As a Territory it, like Alaska, was ruled by Mainland business interests and Presidential appointees until under pressure from the UN and Soviet anti-colonial allies, the US granted statehood and voting and representation rights to its two Pacific territories.

    Hawaii can be distinguished from Alaska by the fact that the US maintained title to most of the land in Alaska, even today very little of Alaska is privately owned. In Hawaii, the agricultural interests quickly took over all the suitable land and placed it in production, largely sugar and rice plantations. Much of the labor for the sugar plantations was imported from Puerto Rico and for the rice plantations from Asia. As was the case in Alaska, there was very little opportunity for employment or acquiring property for the Native people under the Territorial government.

    So, whether you like this scheme or not, and it certainly is no panacea, the fact remains that Native Hawaiians were dispossed of both their land and their poltical self-determination by US backed actions and ultimately by the US acting as a soverign to annex Hawaii as a Territory with only the most limited rights of self-government. Trying to claim that the Native Hawaiians just happily and willingly gave up their land and their right to self-determination is akin to White Southerners claiming that Black slaves were happily and healthily comfortable being slaves and betrays the arrogance and ignorance of people who killed all the aboriginal people around them hundreds of years ago.

    • nessa

      Why can’t they govern themselves through the system already in place? Run and elect candidates at the local and State level, voila! They are governing themselves. More than that strikes me as another form of reparations and with this coming from the Dems I am immediately on the alert for another expansion of the entitlement victicrats.

      • Achance

        until Statehood in ’59-60. They were both private fiefdoms for whatever interests had sway in Washington. If you had the right friend, you could get exclusive rights to all the salmon on a whole river in Alaska and put armed guards on your fishtrap to keep the residents, white and native, from taking any of “your’ fish.

        I’m not advocating this scheme in Hawaii and it appears to have the worst of both ANCSA and the dependent sovereignty schemes. But that said, this stuff looks a lot different in the places where the only “indians” are the casino owners than it does in places where aboriginal people are a significant percentage of your population and are not pushed into reservations.

        • cactusjack

          met a couple of the “old timers” who had lived there in territory days. Surprislingly (to me), they both preferred territory to statehood. Both had the same reason: there was only one level of government to pay taxes to. Lower taxes overall. That and the sense they practically owned the place before so many migrated after statehood

          • Achance

            Even into the ’70s when I first got here, you couldn’t afford to be poor here. It was a very high cost, high wage economy and you either got a good job that would allow you to live comfortably here or you left. Not so much statehood but rather oil changed that. It is still a pretty high cost economy, especially outside of Anchorage and Fairbanks, but the wages have come down considerably in relation to the other West Coast states and the Northeast. For years Alaska had the highest average wages in the Country but it is only number three or four now.

            You know, somebody must have voted for Statehood, but you won’t find anyone who’ll admit it. There’s a lot of mythology about the “good old days,” and only some of it has a basis in fact. And most people still only pay miniscule taxes but to hear them bitch you’d think they were in NY or NJ. Economic life in Alaska is simple- we cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you!

          • aesthete

            Business owners like the cheap labor and lower taxes; residents like the lower taxes and the feeling that they run the place. All that’s shot to hell now that unemployment’s high, their debt is worthless to investors, and the pro-statehood kids (mostly comprised of Puerto Ricans who live on the mainland) are gaining traction, but it’s still a pretty popular sentiment among the majority.

            Interesting history behind the Sandwich Islands, Art; I knew bits and pieces of it, but not much. What’s interesting is how similar this story is to a variety of Central American and Caribbean colonies. Panama, Cuba, Haiti, and many, many others were no strangers to political meddling on the part of business interests, US government ventures and “partnerships”, and haphazard investment. Had history gone a bit differently, we could easily be talking about the Philippine territories, the States of Cuba and Hispa?iola, or any other assortment of Caribbean or Pacific islands.

          • Achance

            and Compiled laws of the first decade or so after the Spanish American War and the Hawaiian cession, the US made it impossible for places with majorities of Brown people to become states. Getting Cuba was a real goal of The South and they wouldn’t have minded a chunk of Mexico as well. The Gadsen Purchase was done by Jefferson Davis as Sec War to give a possible railroad link from the slave-holding South to the Pacific. So, the Phillipines were promised eventual independence and kept in territory status until independence. Puerto Rico was never promised independence but later under anti-colonial pressure some moves were half-heartedly made towards granting independence or statehood. Both Alaska and Hawaii were too vital to US interests to be anything other than full-fledged territories with the right to achieve statehood,though only UN and Soviet Bloc pressure really moved the US that way. There was great pressure from the military to make both into pretty much strictly military reservations.

          • aesthete

            how the CSA in Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series got ahold of Cuba and some of the northern Mexican states. I wondered whether that was an artistic liberty, or whether there was some history behind it. Great series, that; had all sorts of interesting quirks for history buffs, like having a Maximillian emperor as ruler of a (more) dilapidated Mexico.

        • GreyCloak

          Native Hawaiians were dispossessed by American fruit companies (Dole, among them), and a lot of Central America was messed up by Chiquita Brands (there’s a reason the Marine Hymn includes “Halls of Montezuma”).

          Murkowski represents an Inuit constituency, among others. I don’t think they were consulted when Seward bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.

          Last week the Iroquois Nation, which INVENTED Lacrosse, was prohibited from participating in the same international competition that they had been participating in since at least 1985.

          After weeks of Obama’s State Department denying them support for their visas, Hillary Clinton gave them a last-day reprieve, but the Brits agreed with Obama: perhaps they remembered that Lieutenant Colonel George Washington had fought them when they were French allies.

          Clever move: the Iroquois were ready to go in New York for a week, but OUR SecState pretended that Britain’s Minister of State could somehow grant permission in LESS than 24 hours!

  • fpete13527

    Murkowski is formally in the ranks of Crist, Specter, and the Trigger Sisters from Maine…..pure progressive liberal. Murkowski needs to go……yesterday.

    I’m sending more money to Joe Miller now, as are all of my friends that live in Alaska. http://bit.ly/9cNP7T

    Murkowski is a disgrace.

    • Achance

      If Joe Miller wins the Republican Primary, it will only take the Democrats seconds to replace the unknown Sitka mayor with Tony Knowles, Fran Ulmer, more likely Fran, and with money pouring in from Outside union and enviro groups and all the foundations and such, the Republican circular firing squad will have scored another Republican’s head on the Democrat wall.

      • Kyle-MI

        The Alaskan GOP needs to clean house. I have yet to see a single GOP politician from Alaska that would in any way help the country or the party. We should target Senators and Representatives from states that have a better chance to be conservative.

        • Achance

          and its people do. So, it is pork if money gets spent on the huge military establishment here that is the sole major US presence in the Arctic and North/West Pacific? It is pork of the US spends money on the USCG presence in Alaska waters that overseas most of the Great Circle shipping routes to the Orient as well as the World’s largest and richest fisheries, fisheries dominated by Lower 48 companies BTW. Or on the FAA which provides ATC for all Great Circle and over the Pole flights to and from Europe and the Orient. It is your Congressional delegations that first broke all the US’ promises at statehood regarding land selections then locked up huge swaths of Alaska as parks, preserves, refuges, and National Forests and you complain that the US spends money to oversee its property here?

          And the whole “Bridge to Nowhere” campaign was just a propaganda effort by the Left Coast ports to keep Anchorage from getting the money for a connector between its port and the highway system that isn’t constrained by Elmendorf AFB or having to take trucks through downtown Anchorage. Putting cargo on trucks in ANC saves two three days over taking the cargo to the Left Coast and the Alaska Highway is on the Great Circle route from the Orient to the Interior US and Canada. It would have siphoned off a great deal of traffic from the US Left Coast. Doesn’t matter now, the Canadians were smarter and put in a top of the line RORO port at Prince Rupert, BC that connects with the Canadian and US rail system; not quite as direct as ANC, but more direct and less expensive than the Left Coast ports.

          The bridge in Ketchikan made an convenient target because KTN is so small by Lower 48 standards, but that was just an earmark within Alaska’s allocation of federal highway funds that didn’t increase Alaska’s allocation at all. The earmark was there to prevent exactly what ultimately happened to that money. Had it not been earmarked, it would have gone to the Anchorage/Railbelt area and KTN would have had no funding for the bridge. Saint Sarah didn’t reject the federal money earmarked for the KTN bridge, she spent it in the Railbelt.

      • henrybrooksadams

        Miller is a far more impressive candidate than you’re pretending he is. He has more pedigree/qualifications than either of the two sitting senators have, and he has the gravitas to pull it off. And if Knowles couldn’t beat Murkowski (Murkowski!) he sure as hell ain’t beating Miller.

  • avgamerican

    She was quoting talk show host Hugh Hewitt. She was in favor of re-electing McCain becaue he represents the GOP’s best chance to win Congress back. Multiply this trend of thinking and look what you wind up with. GOP reps that are willing to give the dems what they want. Leaders like Scott Brown. Celebrated by us red staters earlier this year as a victory for us, but look what just happened. Scott Brown joined ranks with the dems in passing the 2300 page Financial Reform Bill that does nothing accept protect those who gave us the financial crisis in the first place. Murkowski is the same. I propose to all of you that it won’t matter if the GOP wins back the House and Senate in the November election because it is full of of these kinds of reps. By the way a Fox News Poll shows that McCain is leading JD Hayworth by a 28% margin. Looks like political pragmatism wins out. Keep it up voters.

    • shadowtax

      Stop putting your trust in politicians. It’s unconstitutional! We need to always be mindful that politicians will not always do the rights thing, and will “sell out.” But we cannot give in to despair over the sad state of politics. It is so. It was so. It ever will be so. As a self-governing people we are called to constant vigilance. We will work tirelessly to elect new candidates but we must never trust them with the hope of our hearts.

      Representative democracy is hard work. We make hard choices.

      We supported Scott Brown. His victory remains a win for limited government. He is absolutely better than than any MA Dem alternative. Period. But not for him the country would be worse off. He opposes Obamacare.

      JD Hayworth may fail to defeat McCain, but the primary challenge puts pressure on Senator McCain. Maybe Hayworth can regain some credibility. Either way, both oppose Obamacare.

      Lisa Murkowski faces a primary challenge by Joe Miller. That election is August 24. Her defeat would improve the caucus.

      After 2010 the GOP caucus will have new blood. It will be better, yet it will disappoint us. It will be our job to keep working after that.

      Or we could give up on self-governance and become government consumers. I am not ready to line up for that Obamamoney.

      • liberty131911

        here, here!!!!

  • jcincy

    U.S. Constitution, Article III, Section IV. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

  • The_Rebel

    that if this is an unconstitutional race based separate government entity, then it should be easily recognized as such by the SCOTUS and quickly overturned. The publicity leading up to the decision should further damage the Dems and Obama as we head toward 2012.

  • meghan

    This is a race based hate “haole” scheme by a group of corrupt radical activists who believe they are owed and see visions of casino profits. Why should the citizens of Hawaii pay for the overthrow…because Bill Clinton, who for profit, apologized to the native Hawaiian’s (Kanaka) opening the door for retribution.

    For many it comes down to the bottom-line issues of should the people who were here first (even tho Kanaka was NOT) then invited people from around the world to come and call Hawaii home, should they have special rights. But Native Hawaiians are NOT the indigenous nor aboriginal people of these islands and there is ample anthropological evidence to that fact. They begged for admission the union for over 60 years and have totally assimilated. Hawaiians have become part of the fabric of America serving at the highest level of government, science, the arts and the military with more than 15 Medal of Honor winners. As a class/group Kanaka’s are owed nada due to their race. Charity should always be based on need and NOT on color nor creed nor arrival date.

    A recent study by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University shows that native Hawaiians don’t need any help and are doing as well as any other ethnic group. And when one sees that KS/BE is the worlds richest trust and OHA (Office of Hawiaan Affairs) takes 20%… and we still have Kanakas living on the beach? Something does not smell right. And let’s be clear here… native Hawaiians are owed however EVERY SINGLE THING the US federal government committed to (DHHL, Trust, etc.). and of course help should always come based on need and not the color of one’s skin. The host culture of Hawaii is America and that includes native Hawaiians like other races and nationalities. Now that is not to say we shouldn’t honor, celebrate and preserve the very special native Hawaiian culture— we should, can and do. Another observation is that when one looks at the amount of government handouts and expenditures for this state and to native Hawaiians (over 500 special programs!!) the USA would indeed be financially better off without Hawaii! We, of course, will be keeping Pearl and our other bases in perpetuity as the blood of our men and women have earned that.

  • SirGladiator

    The single biggest point about all this is not simply how liberal Murskowski is, but if she’s willing to do this ‘now’ in the middle of a GOP Primary race, imagine how liberal she’s going to be once its over! We definitely need to help her Conservative opponent win this Primary. Races like these really provide great opportunities for pickups, because even though its already a Republican seat, its still a liberal seat, and we aren’t going to get the change until we have a Conservative majority. Winning this Primary will be quite similar to winning the General in Arkansas this November, a very sizable shift to the right!

    • henrybrooksadams

      This is exactly right. If she doesn’t feel boxed in now, how will she feel later? This is especially true because the GOP will be too chicken-sh*t to kick her out of leadership because they’re a bunch of insecure men who think they have to have a woman — any woman! — in leadership. They can’t replace her with a freshman, so even if they have Fiorina or Ayotte or even McMahon to pick from, they’ll still be stuck with Lisa M. for a few years more.

  • realskinny

    The “Halls of Montezuma” refers to the actions of the USMC during the Mexican War and has zero to do with any fruit company. Most of Central America was a disease ridden hellhole and abysmally poor before sanitation practices developed during the building of the Panama Canal were put in place. United Fruit’s influence may or may not have been negative on balance. They certainly bribed local officials and acted as they pleased for several decades but they also built port facilities, railroads and infrastructure. And they provided badly needed income to people who otherwise would have been even poorer. I have no idea how this balances out with hindsight but it is in the past.

    All of this talk about land being stolen is in the past. My Scottish ancestors had their property stolen from them by the Romans and the English. So what. It is a novel legal theory that says because some one is of the same ethnic group as some anonymous victims in the past, they are entitled to redress from all non members of the ethnic group now living regardless of any relationship to the anonymous perpetrators of the crime. I might as well say I am entitled to payment from all banks today for the money my father lost in a bank failure in the ’30s.

    As for Hawaiian’s land being stolen, when the first whalers and missionaries arrived in the Sandwich Islands all property belonged to the King. None of the Polynesian subjects were allowed to own anything (or have any other rights). There was no private property until the Haole’s established it. If we hadn’t annexed Hawaii, the British or Germans would have. In the late 19th century every maritime nation needed coaling stations and was grabbing up every far flung port they could. The Germans almost went to war with the US over The Philipines.
    Meghan is correct. This is a scheme by corrupt activists.

  • p3orion

    Setting aside an “ethnic enclave with its own government powers and immunities” sounds suspiciously like laying the groundwork for pockets of Sharia law in the United States. After that, reparations for anyone with a drop of African blood (even those not at all descended from American slaves, like our Dear Leader.) Next in line, Mexican-Americans, whose rights to the whole southwest have been trampled.

    I can hear it now: “The Hawaiians did, it, why can’t we? What are you, racist?”

    November can’t get here soon enough.

    • grox

      Add reparations to that list of future targets along this track.

  • grox

    Snow & Collins are not MODERATE anything, they are LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE politicians and if truth in advertising applied would have to be labelled as such.

  • mikerazar

    Oh the poor indigenous people. How they have suffered. Whose ancestors didn’t suffer?

    Why not just require everybody in the world to give a DNA sample? Determine whose forebears lived where 3000 years ago. Send everybody “home”. If you are unlucky enough to be a mongrel (like 99% or more of humanity), you can be a slave to the true owners of the land to make up for the crimes of your ancestors.

    Now that’s progressive!

  • chihank

    Tea Party Express endorsed Joe Miller. The Dems are calling on all Republicans to distance themselves from Tea Party Express for Mark Williams’s comments on the NAACP. I think GOP candidates like Sharron Angle, Ken Buck, and Joe Miller, who received TPX support, should say nothing about the TPX being expelled from the Tea Party Federation.

    • Scope

      There is no national recognition of the Tea Party. The Tea Party Federation is the one that should be expelled from everyone’s memory, if anyone knew about them to begin with. They are trying to co-opt the movement that started out being, and must remain leaderless. Thinking they have such a big voice is laughable, and, if they think they are better than the Tea Party express tour, they are pathetic. They are gutless wonders who are shaking in their boots because the NAACP called the Tea Parties racist. They have fallen for the lefty game. What pukes.

      • mikerazar

        but how can I be sure? There is no official organization; there are no leaders; there is no agreed upon set of principles. Are there local chapters espousing views I find abhorrent? I don’t know. Are there leftist infiltrators? Beats me! Are there racists? Are there communists? Can I safely exclude anything?

        The lack of central organization is both a strength and a weakness. There are no safe generalizations about the movement. For the time being, it has worked out, but ultimately there are no permanent grass root movements. It should come as no surprise that various groups will try to co-opt the movement.

        I have no solution, just my usual cynicism.

  • f2000

    can we get a similar bill going, but substitute native Hawaiian for Constitutional Originalist?

    We can skip repeal of Obamacare and FinReg, and just declare ourselves subject to a separate government from the progressives.

  • merryj1

    is an idea that I’d like to see gain traction! Can’t you just see the Progressives trying to juggle their books, after all of the taxpayers have been deleted from the IRS roster, leaving only Earned Income Credit recipients to pay for all those entitlements? Heh.

  • f2000

    The rest of us would be blamed for running up the tab and leaving the poor with the bill (without an ounce of intended irony).