No one locally is reporting on this, but in case you were out having a lovely Mother's Day weekend and a real life, you might have missed knowing that one of Hawai‘i's two U.S. senators is so upset that he's dropping f-bombs on X and apparently endorsing elected officials interfering with the work of federal agents.
What he's referring to are reports that the Trump administration is weighing arrests of Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) and LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) over an incident Friday, May 9, outside a Newark, New Jersey Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
You can read more about that at a range of outlets. Here's the Axios take, which quotes DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin as saying, "These members of Congress storming into a detention facility goes beyond bizarre political stunt and puts the safety of our law enforcement agents and the detainees at risk."
It also quotes the spokespeople for the representatives, denying that they stormed anything.
New York post has its take here.
Here's what Homeland Security shared about the incident:
The agency also posted this clip, in which Rep. LaMonica McIver is looking somewhat less composed.
Of course, it didn't take long for people to catch Schatz contradicting himself, with plenty of his own "No one is above law" intonations on X.
That was in April 2018 and he was, given the date, most likely talking about that time FBI agents raided the offices of Donald Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, stemming from allegations against him in the Steele dossier.
We've learned a lot about that dossier in the years since.
"As Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation revealed, Perkins Coie, the law firm hired by the Clinton campaign, paid Fusion GPS more than $1 million, $175,000 which was used to fund opposition research designed to undermine then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump," reported The Federalist in March 2022.
"Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele to compile negative and false secondhand accounts designed to tie Trump to the Kremlin that were subsequently fed to corporate media reporters and government officials. This coordinated effort by Clinton allies, some of whom have been indicted for lying to the FBI, to lie about their political enemies sparked the Obama administration’s efforts to spy on Trump and his campaign under knowingly false pretenses.
"For lying about the purpose of campaign funds, the FEC ordered Clinton’s campaign to pay $8,000 to the commission in the next 30 days. The Democratic National Committee was also fined $105,000 for the same violation."
Keep that in mind as we re-read his May 10, 2025, post:
"These people are completely fucking out of control and of course I’m going to say that but we need to hear some Republicans stand up for lawful behavior or we are going to take a very dark and possibly permanent turn as a nation."
We're in total agreement. Some people are completely out of control. But which people?
Now about that F-bomb. The easy shot I could take here is that it makes Schatz look like he is out of control. But the truth is both worse than that ... and more ridiculous. According to reporting by The Hill, Democrats have taken to speaking as though they were characters in a Quentin Tarantino movie.
The swearing, we're told "reflects their sense of crisis," according to one expert quoted at The Hill.
I disagree. I think it's a performance of crisis.
The hope is that you, the audience, will think, "Wow, things must be really bad, just look at how much these Senators are swearing! That's not like them, they're usually so dignified!"
But it's fake swears. It's a tough guy put-on. And it's an incitement to your rage, an encouragement that you should also turn on and attack anyone with whom you disagree. It's OK. Senators are doing it!
We'll see if this new Sweary Schatz gets any traction here at home in the Islands, but you can't figure out how you feel about it if no one tells you about it ... so I'm telling you about it.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
