Speak up about the TPP
The Transpacific Trade Partnership (TPP) and Fast Track details have not been very well reported in the mainstream press. West Hawaii Today printed five stories March 8 through May 5. None of them mentioned the danger of the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) which is very alarming. It includes extraordinary new rights and privileges granted to foreign corporations and investors that formally prioritize corporate rights over the right of governments to regulate and the sovereign right of nations to govern their own affairs. Eighty-five percent of the trade advisers are affiliated with corporations.
The vote in Congress on Fast-Track for the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a corporate trade deal we are not allowed to read — is coming down to the wire, and big business is pulling out all the guns. Fast Track has passed out of the Senate and congressional committees. It allows no amendments and limited debate on the TPP or any other trade deal.
Our members of Congress — Republican or Democrat — are under a lot of pressure right now to pass this secretive corporate trade deal that hurts American jobs.
We need less, not more corporate power. Your voice counts.
If you have not contacted your representative and senator before, it is simple to get their phone/email: congressmerge.com/onlinedb/cgi-bin/newseek.cgi or you can call the United States Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121. The switchboard operator will connect you with the office you request.
Gail Jackson
Waikoloa
Kenoi should push for revised ethics code
People from both sides of the island have been beneficial recipients of the governance by Billy Kenoi. The improper use of his pCard threatens to overwhelm all the good he has done and likely will be the focus in the future when his name is mentioned. The immediate loss is Billy’s credibility, while the long term loss, is to the county and possibly to the state in terms of an even-handed administrator with a bright political future.
One of the underlying components of rehabilitation, is admission of wrongdoing and correcting and/or mitigating the error. For years, Billy has proposed a revised ethics code for the county that has to date, not gained any traction with past councils. While we may be struck by this irony, consider who would be a more appropriate advocate for code revision. If he were to champion significant changes with a segment dedicated to misuse of county funds, which the pCard obviously was, who in the council would deign to vote against it?
As it now stands, the balance of Billy’s term will be spent fending off demands for recall, interviewing with investigative entities and simply being a lame duck mayor with his political reputation in shambles. Were he to work toward the needed revision of the ethics code, he would in some measure have salvaged a real plus from an otherwise dismal end of his mayoral tenure.
Pete Webber
Kona