Blizzard warning for Hawaii*.

*The highest part of Hawaii Island, not the entire island chain. The ten-day forecast for Honolulu shows storms, with a high of about eighty degrees. But it’s still kind of neat, hey?

Looks like more eruptions in Hawaii are likely.

I think that I went to Kilauea.

Officials warned residents and airplanes to stay away from part of Hawaii’s Big Island after a plume of ash from the Kilauea volcano rose 12,000 feet into the air… The US Geological Survey issued a red alert Tuesday, which means a major eruption is imminent or underway and ash could affect air traffic. The USGS’ Michelle Coombs described the situation as ” very hazardous for aviation” and said her team isn’t quite sure what caused Tuesday’s slightly more intense ash emissions.

I don’t quite remember, and neither does my wife (which is kind of reassuring, because if my wife doesn’t remember it then it’s obscure). At any rate: this is a very real problem that Hawaii’s having right now, and I hope that everybody there will please stay safe. Which means no lava selfies. …Which I will admit is the sort of stupid [expletive deleted] that I might have done when younger, so I can’t be too cutting about this.

Elections tonight: Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi.

150 delegates at stake, and not a WTA race in the bunch.  Results will be tracked here: gonna be a late tonight on these, folks.  Hawaii we’ll probably find out in the morning, in fact.  If I had to put money down… Ted Cruz takes Idaho.  Donald Trump takes Mississippi, maybe: Cruz is possibly surging there big-time. Trump may have a better margin in Michigan, but John Kasich is likewise surging there, if not quite so big-time. And it’s not-Trump in Hawaii (too many voters with Chinese and Japanese ancestry there, and the state relies on Asian-Pacific tourism too much). I favor Marco Rubio for that race, but for no really scientific reason.

But that’s just my guesswork.

[UPDATE: rather better night for Trump in Michigan and probably Mississippi than I expected or perhaps only hoped, alas. They’re gonna call both pretty soon.]

Hawaii officially kills its state Obamacare exchange.

We knew that this was coming, but it’s now official: “Hawaii is taking its troubled ObamaCare insurance exchange off life support, the governor’s office announced Friday, the latest addition to a growing number of state exchanges forced to close after operations became unsustainable.”  And there’s the question that I have been meaning to ask about this entire situation: at what point are we – and by ‘we’ I mean ‘Democrats’ – going to admit that states apparently cannot reliably maintain their own Obamacare exchanges? Because, based on the way that blue-state exchanges have been imploding left and right, there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Republican governors were pretty smart to mostly avoid that nonsense.

H/T Instapundit.

Moe Lane

PS: Remember: federal subsidies going away is a federal problem, not a state one. The administration decided that they knew best here, so they get to fix their own mess.  With all due speed. And I think that I speak for everybody when I note that further Democratic whining is inappropriate at this juncture…

I know I should be upset about Chinese attempts to meddle in Hawaii…

…but I am too busy being entertained at the charming naivete of ‘Hawaiian independence advocates.’  They are apparently all blissfully unaware that the only reason that they are not instead ‘seditious secessionists’ and currently spending long prison terms on the mainland is because the US government has rightfully calculated that arresting and convicting them for that isn’t worth the PR hassle.  Or even really justifiable; based on what I saw in Hawaii, the Hawaiian independence movement mostly exists to man extraordinarily truculent and aggrieved roadside stands for haole tourists.

You may safely assume that we will not be giving up Pearl any time soon, in other words.  Also: we will give Taiwan what we will give Taiwan, Chinese inferiority complex over their amour propre nonwithstanding.

Moe Lane

PS: Yes, yes, I’m sure that Barack Obama cannot wait to give back Hawaii to the secessionists, not to mention destroy our ability to project power in the Pacific.  Just as soon as he gets his marching orders from the People’s Republic of Luna Soviet-in-Exile and finalizes a deal with the Hollow Earth, no doubt.  Seriously, guys: nobody in the Democratic party wants Barack Obama to be the last Democratic President, which is precisely what would happen if we gave up Pearl. It’s fun to ascribe horrible motivations to this President, not least because he seems determined to live down to them; but there are limits.

NYT: Sen. Daniel Inouye (D, Hawaii) reportedly the Gillibrand Groper; and, oh, yeah, he might have raped a hairdresser once.

Wait, what?

With his deep baritone and courtly manner, Mr. [Daniel] Inouye was revered by his colleagues and was a powerhouse in both Hawaii and the Senate, where he was a reliable supporter of women’s rights.

But in an all but forgotten chapter of his career, the senator had been accused of sexual misconduct: In 1992, his hairdresser said that Mr. Inouye had forced her to have sex with him.

Her accusations exploded into a campaign issue that year, and one Hawaii state senator announced that she had heard from nine other women who said they had been sexually harassed by Mr. Inouye. But the women did not want to go forward with their claims.

This is, I swear to God, the first that I have ever heard of this.  Apparently it was a 1975 (and afterwards) alleged incident that came up in the 1992 election, and it got buried.  Thoroughly. Way down deep, and the ground tamped down with a shovel. Why?  …Well, the NYT of 1992 was unusually blunt: Continue reading NYT: Sen. Daniel Inouye (D, Hawaii) reportedly the Gillibrand Groper; and, oh, yeah, he might have raped a hairdresser once.

Colleen Hanubasa sues to extend polling in Hawaii. Desperately? …Perhaps desperately.

It’s Blue-on-Blue electoral lawfare in Hawaii, so sit back and enjoy:

The suit [filed by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D] will ask the five justices for a restraining order to delay Friday’s vote because the people in the Puna district need more time.”People are definitely without water, definitely without electricity and it’s going to be a while,” she said.

Elections officials decided immediately after the storm to cancel walk-in voting at two polling places because residents and workers could not access the sites. Those are the only places where people can vote on Friday. Hanabusa said other residents who could not get to their polling places should also be allowed to participate in the second-chance vote and election officials aren’t being fair to them.

…and that last sentence is the key point, really. Hanabusa trails kinda-incumbent Senator Brian Schatz by about 1,700 votes. Making that up in the Puna voting district (which has about 8,000 or so registered voters) is a kind of a tall order. Making that up, say, statewide, is not.  Mind you, sitting lame-duck Governor Neil Abercrombie – who got trounced in his own primary – is probably not going to be helpful when it comes to doing more than the bare minimum necessary to assure voting.  After all, arguably it was his appointment of Schatz over Hanabusa to the US Senate in the first place that got him into this mess…

Moe Lane

PS: Yeah, it’s a really mixed-up situation in Hawaii right now. Especially if Republican Duke Aiona wins the gubernatorial election.

At least one upset in Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie loses primary, Schatz clings to lead.

Ace of Spades HQ’s Decision Desk projects it as follows:

Continue reading At least one upset in Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie loses primary, Schatz clings to lead.