Free Republic

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, came out Tuesday in strong agreement with the Afghanistan assessment put forth by General Stanley McChrystal and promised to fully fund any forthcoming troop increase there. The stance of the powerful Hawaii lawmaker is the opposite of his House counterpart, Wisconsin Democrat David Obey. Inouye is also taking a starkly different tone from the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, who has said he opposes sending more combat troops there. But after returning from a weekend trip to the region, Inouye said that his meetings with troops,...

A struggling Hawaii bank received a $135 million federal bailout last fall two weeks after staff from the office of Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, a big investor in the bank, called federal regulators about the aid application, according to a report in ProPublica Tuesday. Bank regulators had designated Central Pacific Financial as a marginal candidate to receive federal assistance, according to documents cited in the report. But soon after the phone call from Inouye's office, the Treasury directed millions of dollars to bolster the bank's capital reserves. Inouye, D-Hawaii, owns shares in the bank that totaled between $350,000 and $700,000...

Hawaii senator helps bank he founded get aid Central Pacific Financial did not meet criteria, holds bulk of Inouye's wealth June 30, 2009 WASHINGTON - Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth. The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.,...

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth. The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal...

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye's staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth. The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm's losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal...

Inouye reported ownership of Central Pacific shares worth $350,000 to $700,000, some held by his wife, at the end of 2007 [5]. The shares represented at least two-thirds of Inouye's total reported assets. Inouye has requested a delay in filing his annual financial disclosure for 2008, which was due this spring, and he declined to provide the current value of his investment. Since the end of 2007, the bank's stock has lost 79 percent of its value. Central Pacific was founded in 1954 by a group of World War II veterans including Inouye who were emerging leaders in Hawaii's Japanese...

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, signaled Tuesday that he is giving serious consideration to a proposal that would split the lucrative contract to build the Air Force's next fleet of aerial refueling tankers between the two rivals vying for the work. Inouye, who also chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, told reporters that he plans to hold subcommittee hearings on the proposal, which has been publicly pushed by key House Democrats but soundly rejected by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Northrop Grumman Corp. and EADS, the European consortium behind Airbus, won the $35 billion deal last year to build 179...

EarmarkWatch is an experimental distributed research project that contains data for Fiscal Year 2008 earmarks from the House and Senate Labor-HHS-Education bills and the 2008 House Defense Bill. It does not contain 2009 earmarks. Sen. Inouye (D-HI), the Senate appropriations chair, has Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education earmarks totaling $96,600,000. For this appropriations bill, Sen. Inouye (D-HI) ranks in the 100th percentile.

Senate legend Robert Byrd, approaching 91 this month and hailing a “new day in Washington,” said he would voluntarily give up the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee with the new Congress. “To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven,” said Byrd, who had fended off earlier challenges this past spring and summer. “Those Biblical words from Ecclesiastes 3:1 express my feelings about this particular time in my life. “I have been privileged to be a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee for 50 years and to have chaired the committee for ten years,...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye provided a campaign boost Saturday to embattled Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, predicting that his colleague from Alaska will win re-election and overturn his conviction on appeal. "I am absolutely confident that Ted Stevens will be sworn into the Senate while he appeals this unjust verdict," said Inouye, D-Hawaii, a longtime friend of Stevens. "I am certain that this decision in Washington, D.C., will be overturned on appeal." Stevens was convicted last month by a jury in Washington on seven counts of lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in...

HONOLULU - U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, the third most senior member of the Senate, married Irene Hirano in a small private ceremony in Beverly Hills, Calif. The 83-year-old Hawaii Democrat, dressed in a dark suit, and Hirano, who wore a white suit, were wed Saturday at All Saints' Episcopal Church, and then left for Carmel, Calif., for their honeymoon, according to a news release issued by the senator's office. Inouye's son, Ken, was best man, and Jennifer Hirano served as her mother's maid of honor. The wedding ceremony was limited to members of the immediate families. Irene Hirano is president...

Sen. Daniel Inouye has apologized for suggesting that Sen. Barack Obama's private high school in Hawaii was elitist. Inouye said before his state's Feb. 19 Democratic caucuses that voters know Obama was born in Hawaii and graduated from one of its high schools, "but he went to Punahou, and that was not a school for the impoverished." "To suggest that Punahou maybe set his life plan in place, I find it very interesting," Inouye said Punahou, located in Honolulu, is one of the island's most prestigious private schools. Inouye, 83, graduated from McKinley High School, a public school near Punahou's...

Congress: Nearly five decades after statehood, the U.S. House passes a bill classifying American citizens by race and establishing apartheid in Hawaii. Is the U.S. about to have its own separatist movement? We have observed that if there was ever a place that came close to Martin Luther King's dream of people being judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, it is Hawaii. "One of the greatest examples of a multiethnic society living in relative peace" is how the state's longtime U.S. senator, Democrat Daniel Inouye, once described it. Last Wednesday, the House...

On Monday, August 27, news services broke the story that Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, pleaded guilty in early August to lewd conduct in an airport restroom... Craig is hardly the only member of the Senate with a propensity for dropping his pants at inopportune moments... Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has allegedly sexually harrased or abused at least 10 women. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., reportedly engaged in a sexual affair with an engagd lobbyist, Ron Dotzauer,then gave him a personal loan to help him with his subsequent divorce and threw cash his way... Gerry Studds (re-elected six times after having sex...

Washington, D.C. — Belly up. It's feeding time in the nation's capital. Congress is deliberating 12 appropriations bills that are supposed to be passed by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, and already we've seen some good examples of excess spending for lawmakers' pet projects back home, otherwise known as "pork." According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a government watchdog group, there's $30,000 requested by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for the educational group "A+ For Abstinence," which runs a program called coolvirginity.com; there's $34.5 million that one influential appropriator, Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, has sought for...

Sen. Daniel Inouye Named in one of “Top Ten” Sex Scandals By Andrew Walden, 10/4/2006 11:18:09 PM Evidence is emerging that Democrat operatives may have held transcripts of resigned Florida Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s salacious instant messaging conversations and emails for months if not years in hopes of using them in an “October surprise” in order to defeat Republicans at the polls. The danger posed to underage Congressional pages is obvious -- but what is only now becoming evident is the danger to sitting Democrat Senators and Congressman as old sex-scandals re-emerge. The media frenzy is having unintended consequences for...

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye said Tuesday he is supporting Ned Lamont over Sen. Joe Lieberman because of the Connecticut lawmaker's contention that the Democratic Party doesn't stand for mainstream America. Inouye, who campaigned in Connecticut for Lieberman prior to the Aug. 8 primary, issued a statement endorsing Lamont and citing Lieberman's recent criticism of the party. Lamont upset Lieberman in the Democratic primary and the three-term senator is running as an independent in hopes of holding his seat. "After the primary, Senator Inouye was most disappointed and unhappy when Senator Lieberman remarked that the Democratic Party no longer...

House and Senate Democratic leaders have joined together to urge President Bush to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq this year. The move is part of an effort to shake the notion that Democrats are split on the Iraq war and keep the focus on what they see as a winning issue against Republicans. Twelve Democrats, including the Senate and House minority leaders and ranking members of key committees, wrote President Bush on Sunday about the matter. "In the interests of American national security, our troops and our taxpayers, the open-ended commitment in Iraq that you have embraced cannot...

WASHINGTON - Everyone is saying that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s days are numbered, thanks in part to increasing calls by some former generals for Rumsfeld’s resignation. But Rumsfeld was hired by George W. Bush to do precisely what he has done to the consternation of the generals who are now coming out to complain about him. When President Bush brought Rumsfeld back to the Pentagon, the president told him to shake up the Pentagon, to transform it from the Cold War structure and culture that it was stuck in to a new force with strategies that could respond to...

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (NNS) -- Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, Lt. Gov. James Aiona, and Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Gary Roughead joined past and current crew members of USS Honolulu (SSN 718) to bid farewell to the nuclear-powered attack submarine at a ceremony April 15, at Naval Station Pearl Harbor. Keynote speaker, U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who commanded Honolulu from 1991 to 1993, said the submarine performed exceptionally well throughout its career. “She was consistently the most reliable ship in the squadron, whatever squadron she was in," he said. "Her complex systems always worked well…even the anchor...

Tribal Clients And Associates Of Jack Abramoff Have Contributed Over $3.1 Million To Democrat Party Interests Between 1997 And 2004. (Campaign Finance Analysis Project Website, www.campaignfinanceanalysisproject.com, Accessed December 2005; Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed December 2005) National Democrat Party Affiliated Committees Received Over $1.2 Million From Indian Tribe Clients And Lobbying Associates Of Jack Abramoff. (Campaign Finance Analysis Project Website, www.campaignfinanceanalysisproject.com, Accessed December 7, 2005; Political Money Line Website, www.tray.com, Accessed December 7, 2005; Internal Revenue Service Website, www.irs.gov, Accessed April 21, 2005) The Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Received Over – $430,000 The Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC)...

SENATOR CALLS ON BUSH TO TAKE DOWN ATTACK AD Sat Dec 10 2005 16:41:38 ET Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement: "As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it. "The Republican...

SENATOR CALLS ON BUSH TO TAKE DOWN ATTACK AD Sat Dec 10 2005 16:41:38 ET Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement: "As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it. "The Republican...

Today, Senator Daniel Inouye, the Ranking Member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his service in World War II, released the following statement: "As a Veteran of World War II, I know what it’s like to fight a war and put your life on the line every day. I also know what it takes to win a war, and I know that politics and an attack machine like the President’s plays no part in it. "The Republican Party’s latest ad is a shameful and disgusting attempt to distract the American people from...

The U.S. Senate is scheduled tomorrow to decide whether to clear the way for the most odious, anti-American piece of legislation in memory: S. 147, the "Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act." Incredibly, as of now, more than 61 senators are expected to vote to begin a process that would ineluctably unravel the United States as a nation. This legislation has been advanced in the spirit of pandering that has come to characterize all too much of our national political life. In this case, the pandering is on behalf of an ethnic community that is largely a figment of some politicians'...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, an Army veteran who lost his right arm in World War II, criticized Republicans on Saturday for not doing enough to help troops fighting in or returning from Iraq. In the Democrats' weekly radio address, Inouye said Senate Republicans were focusing on legislation sought by the gun lobby while ignoring the needs of troops. On Tuesday, the Senate put off completion of a $491 billion defense bill to act on the National Rifle Association's top priority: shielding gun manufacturers and dealers from liability suits stemming from gun crimes. "For years, we've heard the president...

Sen. Daniel Inouye (news, bio, voting record), D-Hawaii, an Army veteran who lost his right arm in World War II, criticized Republicans on Saturday for not doing enough to help troops fighting in or returning from Iraq. In the Democrats' weekly radio address, Inouye said Senate Republicans were focusing on legislation sought by the gun lobby while ignoring the needs of troops. On Tuesday, the Senate put off completion of a $491 billion defense bill to act on the National Rifle Association's top priority: shielding gun manufacturers and dealers from liability suits stemming from gun crimes. "For years, we've heard...

 Lingle and Akaka say Kyl is mistaken the bill creates a "race-based" Hawaiian governmentSenate Republican opponents are sharpening their attack on Sen. Dan Akaka's bill for native Hawaiian recognition. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., called the Akaka Bill "the creation of race-based government for native Hawaiians." In comments submitted to the Congressional Record and reprinted by the Republican Policy Committee, Kyl warned that Akaka's bill, S-147, could lead to Hawaii leaving the union. The Akaka Bill defines a process in which the federal government, through the Department of the Interior, would recognize a native Hawaiian governing body. Senate Republicans have agreed...

Has the deal been violated? Not Voting (For Cloture of Owen) - 1- Inouye (D-HI) The deal...A. Votes for Certain Nominees. We (the undersigned) will vote to invoke cloture on the following judicial nominees: Janice Rogers Brown (D.C. Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit) Inouye is a signatory to the deal, the deal said they all would vote to invoke cloture, he didn't vote.........deal just got broke.

By February of 1975, frustration about the filibusters had grown so intense that a majority of senators, mostly Democrats, favored using the nuclear option. They pointed to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution, which reads, "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings." So in a series of votes on complex parliamentary procedures in the winter and spring of 1975, the Senate established its right to set and alter the rules of the Senate with a simple majority vote, free from the threat of filibusters.

Follow is a list of the US Congressmen and Senators that officially acted to intimidate, threaten, and suppress the broadcast of Stolen Honor by Sinclair Broadcasting. They, along with their agents who threatened advertisers, sued shareholders, and ginned up false 'public outrage', and with the deafening SILENCE of the corrupt liberal media, succeeded in suppressing the free speech of decorated war veterans.

"John Kerry's campaign trail amnesia extended today to his record of proposing intelligence cuts totaling $7.5 billion while serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee, cuts so radical even his fellow Democrats criticized them. John Kerry's attack is another example of his flailing efforts to defend a record that is out of the mainstream." - Steve Schmidt, Bush-Cheney '04 Spokesman Kerry's Dismal Intelligence Record Kerry Was On Senate Select Intelligence Committee For Eight Years (1993-2000). (Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac Of American Politics 2000, 1999, p. 1796; Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa, The Almanac Of American Politics 1998,...

In the 1990s, John Kerry served eight years on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Despite such incidents as the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the bombing of the Khobar Towers in 1996, Kerry proposed intelligence cuts throughout the 1990s and even asked his colleagues in 1997, "Now that [the Cold War] struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow?" Fortunately, many of his liberal-Democratic colleagues understood that there were other threats, such as terrorism, that still abounded; it was rare for them even to agree with his proposed slashing of the intelligence budget....

Leading Democrat Warned Kerry on Intelligence Cuts Writing on his blog, Citizen Smash brings to light the transcript of a 1994 Senate floor speech by Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye, a forty-year member of the Senate and World War II veteran. Senator Inouye offers pointed criticism of an amendment to slash funding for defense and intelligence programs -- an amendment authored by John Kerry: Madam President, if I may, I would like to say a few words about amendment No. 1452, an amendment submitted by the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry]. The amendment offered by Senator Kerry would reduce the...

                                    U.S. Senate                                 Committee on Armed Services,                                Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.       The President,       The White House, Washington, DC.           Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern        over recent developments in Iraq.           Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution        supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in        convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations        Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and        destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This        effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed        its...

<p>Who do our Congresspersons think they're fooling? As they ponder a pork-laden energy bill and a multi-trillion-dollar Medicare prescription drug benefit, some have chosen President Bush's Iraqi reconstruction request as the place to make a stand for fiscal rectitude.</p> <p>The issue is whether to exploit Iraq's future oil revenues by giving some of the aid not as a grant, as the White House insists, but as a loan. The Senate voted last week to make $10 billion of its $18.4 billion reconstruction package a loan. Though the House voted all the money as a grant, that schizoid chamber passed a non-binding motion Tuesday instructing conferees to adopt the Senate position.</p>

[ED. NOTE: Following are excerpts from the 1998 Congressional Record. They are EXTREMELY revealing as to who was wringing their hands over the danger posed to U.S. security by Iraq and its WMD just five years ago, and who was calling Iraq’s actions that year a "crisis." These debates led to passage of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, WHICH MADE REGIME CHANGE IN IRAQ UNITED STATES POLICY. Please bear with this long post. It’s crucial ammunition for anyone who wants clear, unambiguous evidence of Democrat hypocrisy on Iraq and WMD.] [BEGIN EXCERPTS: Click link above to search the full...

They healed together after World War II. They served together on the floor of the United States Senate. And while the late U.S. Sen. Phil Hart of Michigan, former presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and current U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, came from different backgrounds and formed different political leanings, their names together will now be synonymous with Battle Creek's most famous landmark

Before you even read this piece, I want you to open a new e-mail and send the link to everyone in your address book. Yes, it's that big - and it's the kind of news you never would have heard about without the so-called new media. I've posted here a letter from the Senate Committee on Armed Services to President Bill Clinton on October 9, 1998. It reminds the president of the February resolution authorizing military force if Saddam failed to comply with UN Security Council resolutions "concerning the disclosure and destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." June 5,...

<p>U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was home ill yesterday with what appears to be a flu bug, his Honolulu office said.</p> <p>Inouye, D-Hawai'i, missed the Senate's 90-8 vote to create a commission to look into intelligence failures and other government missteps before the Sept. 11 attacks and recommend how to prevent future disasters.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON – Sen. Daniel Inouye emerged at the center of an impassioned Senate session today, with Democrats firing back at President Bush for accusing the Senate of not caring about national security. Majority Leader Tom Daschle demanded that Bush apologize to Hawai'i's senior Democrat and other war veterans in the Senate. Inouye followed with a rare off-the-cuff Senate speech, declaring his concern for America, lamenting the possibility of war against Iraq, and accusing Bush of being divisive.</p>

<p>A decade ago, as the United States prepared for war with Iraq, Sen. Dan Inouye was an eloquent voice of opposition.</p> <p>The Hawai'i Democrat, who lost his right arm fighting for the United States in World War II, said in January 1991 that he was not one to shrink from a fight but the United States had not exhausted its options in dealing with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.</p>

(Waikapu, Maui-AP) -- U-S Senator Daniel Inouye predicted this year's election campaign will be one of the "dirtiest and most vicious" in Hawaii's history. In a talk on Maui yesterday, Inouye noted the recent arrests and prosecution of several Oahu politicians and said that "just by coincidence the only ones who're called in are Democrats." When asked if he was implying that the prosecutions are politically motivated, Inouye said, "What other conclusion can I reach?" That drew a sharp retort from Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle. He said the decision to prosecute is based on evidence and violations of law, not...

Residents in the Makiki-Tantalus area continue to spot wild pigs in their neighborhood despite a recent state-sponsored hunting season to control the animals. Around 11 a.m. yesterday, Lynda Sakraida spotted a large wild pig near the 3.5-mile marker along Tantalus Drive. The pig retreated into some bushes after being spotted. "The pig population has worsened over the years," said Sakraida, a 19-year resident of Kalaiopua Place. Like Sakraida, other Tantalus residents see a continuous need to control the pigs they say cause soil erosion and damage to native plants. So state officials are considering another hunting season in the same...