Stronger laws needed for uninsured drivers

IT’S TIME FOR SOME ENFORCEMENT and a STRONGER LAW

There are way too many uninsured vehicles on our roads.

I had two incidents with uninsured local drivers. They were at fault, and my insurance increased 100 percent!

When an uninsured is busted by police, they are told go get insurance AND SHOW THEY HAVE IT. They go get insurance, show police (no ticket anymore), they keep insurance for a few days, cancel it, and we are back to square one

How about a NO BREAK POLICY? No insurance means a $1,000 fine the first time. If they don’t pay the fine, the license is suspended for six months

It’s time all our drivers on Maui acted responsibly

BRIAN EGAN, Lahaina

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Pandemic resulted from cruelty to animals

Fifty million Chinese locked down! Fifteen countries affected! Confirmed cases in the U.S.!

These dramatic headlines announce one more pandemic caused by our abuse of animals. Indeed, 61 percent of the 1,415 pathogens known to infect humans originate with animals. These so-called zoonetic diseases, claiming millions of human lives, include Asian flu, Hong Kong flu, West Nile flu, bird flu, swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola, HIV, SARS and yellow fever. The pandemic “Spanish” flu of 1918 may have killed as many as 50 million people worldwide.

Western factory farms and Asian street markets are virtual breeding grounds for infectious diseases. Sick, crowded, highly stressed animals in close contact with raw flesh, feces and urine provide ideal incubation media for viruses. As these microbes reach humans, they mutate to defeat the new host’s immune system, then propagate on contact.

Each of us can help end these deadly pandemics by replacing animal products in our diet with vegetables, fruits and whole grains. These foods don’t carry flu viruses, or government warning labels, and they are touted by every major health advocacy organization.

They were the recommended fare in the Garden of Eden.

The Internet offers ample recipes and transition hints.

LEX NAKAHARA, Lahaina

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Change DHHL through the Hawaii Legislature

We must have modern tools to prevent foreclosure on Hawaiian Home Lands. Our people are not deadbeats. They are not being given the tools learned from the national mortgage crisis that saved families and homes when 2008 happened!

We can’t change DHHL at DHHL. We have given them our best policy approaches. We must change DHHL through policy at the legislature.

We are citizens, too. All we are advancing is common sense proven tools that save homes for our fellow citizens… for homestead families, too!

Contact your senator to champion Senate Bill 2526.

Kanaka forward – Hawaiian Homesteaders can! I know our people are suffering. Take 60 seconds to turn suffering into stability!

ROBIN PUANANI DANNER, Homestead Community Development Corporation CEO

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State shouldn’t fund law enforcement presence at Mauna Kea

To watch state agencies and the Hawaii State Attorney General’s Office ask for more money from the Hawaii State Legislature is almost as pathetic and uncomfortable as watching them all scramble for answers.

Everyone is looking to the other to explain to the legislators exactly why they are there with their hands wide open wanting more money. There are a few problems in requests for this new funding.

Hawaii residents haven’t even seen the breakdown of the last $15 million the state gave them for the Mauna Kea reimbursements. We first were told that the money was allocated for the Hawaii Fire Department and Hawaii Police Department… then we were told it was just to reimburse HPD. Then there was a point where the City Council refused to take the money.

Gov. Ige later made a public announcement that we (protestors) have spent $15 million in Mauna Kea expenditures. If law enforcement has already been pulled by Ige, and all our state and county equipment has been pulled, the Department of Land & Natural Resources has left, and DHHL doesn’t have a problem with the illegal camping by the protestors (that is completely destroying our ecosystem), then what’s the problem? Where is the need for all this extra money?

Try going to OHA – ask for some of that fraudulent money they stole from all of us. That should cover more than what you all need for your “so-called” upcoming Mauna Kea protesting expenditures.

Has the State of Hawaii completely lost its mind? We know that none of our government, state and county representatives have any ethical morals left… but seriously?

And your citizens are scraping for a dollar raise annually toward a higher minimum wage – while others are pillaging and living out in the streets – while you all intentionally ignore what’s going on in hopes it will just all go away?

I say the heck with all of you. Start looking for all that missing money you stole from all the taxpayers.

The legislature shouldn’t give a dime more to any of these individuals until they first find all that stolen money.

In the meantime, ask yourselves, how does it feel to want?

LISA MALAKAUA, Hilo