HELP SAY "NO!" TO CLARE CONNORS FOR US ATTORNEY FOR HAWAI`I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALSO CALL  -

Senator Elizabeth Warren - (202) 224-4543

Senator Bernie Sanders - (202) 224-5141

 MAUNA KEA KIA`I OPPOSE CLARE CONNORS AS US ATTORNEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hawai`i News Now - October 27, 2021

Some Native Hawaiians are objecting to President Joe Biden’s choice for U.S. attorney in the 50th state, saying Clare Connors treated dozens of elders like criminals when her office prosecuted them for blocking a road while protesting the construction of a telescope in Hawaii.

“She has acted aggressively towards the Hawaiian people during all of our stand for Mauna Kea,” said Kealoha Pisciotta, one of the protest leaders.

Pisciotta and other Native Hawaiians who oppose the telescope believe the summit of Mauna Kea is sacred. They say building the Thirty Meter Telescope on the state’s tallest mountain would further desecrate a place already defiled by a dozen other observatories.

The 38 Native Hawaiian elders prosecuted for obstruction were in their 60s through 80s and many of them are community leaders. Four were found not guilty in August. One was found guilty last month after a separate trial, fined $500 and sentenced to one day in jail, which he won’t have to serve if he avoids further violations for the next six months. The other cases are pending.

Pisciotta said she’s concerned about Connors being named U.S. attorney because Native Hawaiians have been deprived of their land and their right to self-determination since the U.S.-backed overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.

“I think of her as a danger to many situations in Hawaii because she doesn’t have to seem to have the compassion or the aloha that is needed considering our political situation,” Pisciotta said.

HEWA ALERT - URGENT ACTION NEEDED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Needing all Kia’i and a supporters to contact the Hawai’i Congressional Delegation Re Biden’s nomination of Clare Connors for US Attorney!!! 

THE CONFIRMATIONS HEARINGS MAY HAPPEN THIS THURSDAY!!!
 

Who to call -
The Congressional Delegation contacts to express your opposition to Clare Connors being nominated as the US Attorney.  Senator Mazie Hirono (who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee):   (202) 224-6361 (DC Office), 522-8970 (Hawaii Office) and Senator Brian Schatz: (202) 224-3934 (DC Office), 523-2061 (Hawaii Office).
 

Here is the Mauna Kea Aelike/Consensus Building Ohana’s statement on the matter:
 

STAND UP AND OPPOSE THE APPOINTMENT OF CLARE CONNORS TO U.S. ATTORNEY
 

President Biden says he cares about Indigenous peoples and social justice, but he doesn’t appear to include the Hawaiian people in that claim, because he has chosen to elevate Hawaii’s Attorney General, Clare Connors, to the position of U.S. Attorney for Hawaii. And equally egregious is the sad fact that Hawaiian leadership in the state’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has given Biden’s nomination of Connor’s tacit approval. 

Moku Nui Aelike/Consensus Building Ohana would like to make it clear that we oppose Connors’ promotion. In our experience, she does not respect Hawaiians as the Indigenous people of Hawaii, and she certainly does not respect our cultural and legal rights. She has done the exact opposite.
 

Clare Connors is responsible for the arrests in 2019 of 38 of Hawaiian kupuna (elders). Connors is also responsible for the ongoing judicial prosecution of these kupuna, whose so-called crime, in Connors’ estimation, is that they stood up in protest to protect our most sacred site, Mauna Kea, from further abuse and destruction by the state. She directed all of the threats of violence against our kupuna and kia’i (protectors).
 

For Hawaiians, it is unconscionable that Biden, and presumably the “State of Hawaii” would promote Connors to a position that will give her more power to federally harass and abuse Hawaiian people, particularly our elders. There is an obvious racial component to what Connors has perpetrated here against us, and the fact that OHA and other Hawaiian leaders have not spoken out about Connors’ mistreatment and prosecution of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) is absolutely unacceptable.
 

We cannot allow her to be given more power to make life for Hawaiians more painful and brutalizing than it already is, particularly given our inability to exercise our legal and moral rights to self-determination.
 

We are calling upon OHA and other Hawaiian leadership to join us in speaking out against the confirmation of Clare Connors for U.S. Attorney.
 

/s/ Moku Nui Aelike/Consensus Building Ohana

A BRAZEN ATTACK ON THINGS HAWAIIAN

Honolulu Civil Beat - January 29, 2020

Why is the attorney general of Hawai`i issuing a subpoena for documents belonging to a Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance?

KAHEA is a grassroots group opposing, in part through civil disobedience, the development of the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea, and it has been fighting subpoenas in court. 

Advocates for Hawai`i nonprofit organizations say that the subpoena “seems to be a pretext to attack an organization that may not share the same point of view as the investigating agency.” 

KAHEA has objected to the subpoenas, and the case ended up in the First Circuit Court this week, where the judge punted the case back to the opposing parties.

The attorney general claims KAHEA has violated laws regulating nonprofits by supporting alleged illegal protests. 

Another charge, that the group has been late in filing its financial reports, was essentially dismissed out of hand by First Circuit Judge James Ashford, who remarked, “It’s a little hard for me to get excited about the Form 990 oversight.”

KAHEA’s attorney says the subpoenas are a politically motivated overreach that violates the free speech rights of the protestors. 

It turns out that the attorney general has also issued subpoenas to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which helped fund the protests, and to Hawaiian Airlines to try to get names of people who donated frequent flyer miles to the protestors.

Leaders of the Hawai`i Association of Nonprofit Organizations (HANO) called “foul” in a recent op-ed for Hawai`i’s Civil Beat. They went on to note that this kind of move taints the cooperative relationship forged to date between nonprofits and state regulators:

For many years, the nonprofit community in Hawaii has worked alongside the AG to safeguard Hawai`i’s charitable assets to foster an environment under which both charities and their regulator maintain a healthy nonprofit ecosystem. This cooperative effort has helped Hawaii’s nonprofit community to be better stewards of their charitable assets.
Recent actions by the AG, however, threaten that ecosystem by introducing doubt regarding the motivations of regulatory actions.
While we support the protection of our state’s charitable resources, we disagree with the idea that a legitimate nonprofit organization’s participation in nonviolent protest, assisting those that are, or free expression, should be grounds for investigation. The targeting of organizations expressing opposition — and in particular, to government—is undemocratic and erodes our civil society. This is not what Hawai`i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations and the nonprofit sector stand for.

We’ve seen this type of unconstitutional overreach employed before when the rights of indigenous people come up against corporate interests. 

Actually, it’s a surprise the judge did not quash the measure in its entirety.

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