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Daily Smile

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Smile 26 2 5

<title>Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026</title>

Just like a cartoon...

Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

WEB square crop Hayley Lehman Headshot RGZ1636

Haley Lehman

Government & Politics

Kanani Aton stepped into a new role as recovery officer for the County of Hawaiʻi on Monday. 

 in July to institutionalize disaster recovering operations. Mayor Kimo Alameda made the role a permanent position within his administration.

As recovery officer, Aton will lead and coordinate the County's disaster recovery operations, work with state and federal partners responsible for disaster recovery programs and funding, oversee community engagement, according to the bill.

The bill states, "establishing a disaster recovery framework within the office of the mayor that activates, when necessary, will reduce institutional learning loss between disasters, enable a more efficient transition from emergency response to recovery operations, and strengthen the County's capacity to secure and effectively deploy state and federal disaster recovery resources, while maintaining ongoing, community-informed engagement throughout the recovery process."

Alameda stated in a news release that recovery planning requires year-round commitment, as shown through the Kona low storms and Hurricane Lala.

From the start, our administration has made it a priority to improve disaster response and recovery – including coordination between government agencies, nonprofits and the community – and Kanani will play a key part in that effort," he stated.

Aton, of Hilo, obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Hawai'i and her master's degree from Heritage College, according to her LinkedIn.

She most recently was as a senior project manager for 

the Kamehameha Schools ʻŌiwi Leadership Institute for five years. She previously served as a public information and disaster recovery specialist with the Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense Agency and a public information and education specialist with the Hawaiʻi County Department of Water Supply, according to the news release.

my focus will be coordinating the efforts of County departments, State and Federal partners, and affected communities to deliver a recovery that is well organized, inclusive, and builds long-term resilience for Hawaiʻi Island.”

Kanani Aton

<title>Hawaiʻi County hires first recovery officer</title>

The County of Hawaiʻi announced Friday that Kanani Aton will coordinate the county's disaster recovery operations as the recovery officer.

Hawaiʻi County hires first recovery officer

Krishna Jayaram, the City and County of Honolulu’s newest managing director, told Aloha State Daily that he sees himself as a problem solver who wants Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration to be efficient and serve the public.

“I want us to be just a well-run machine by the time we’re done: a professional place, getting things done, the internal wheels are all moving smoothly,” he said. “I’d like there to be a culture and a pride in that.”

The Honolulu City Council confirmed Jayaram as managing director on Aug. 12 after former Managing Director Mike Formby 

from the position in May to become CEO of Pacific Marine and Supply Company, a conglomerate of industrial maritime companies. Jayaram had been serving as the acting managing director in the interim on the mayor’s staff of 29 people.

“The Mayor’s the big visionary. He’s the one who articulates the direction the city needs to go in or should go in,” Jayaram said. “I see my job as part of that vision making but also ensuring and making sure departments are executing on that vision.”

Jayaram said that while his time in the role is limited, with just over two years left in Blangiardi’s second term, he works to engage, support and guide the departments in accomplishing the mayor’s priorities.

Public safety is always top of mind, Jayaram said, adding he is “making sure that police, fire, EMS, ocean safety, that they’re all functioning to the best of their ability.”

Jayaram applauded Chief David Lazar, who joined Honolulu Police Department 

 to reassign 100 officers to patrol to increase the number of officers on the road and reduce overtime costs. The department graduated 32 officers from its academy on Friday.

Jayaram said that he aims to bolster the Department of Emergency Management during the next two years.

“Living here, you always sense the vulnerability to climate-related, weather-related catastrophes, but this year in particular it was sort of constant, and we all felt it constantly,” he said. “We don’t want to wait until something truly bad happens to take action. We want to get started now.”

The city added 13 positions to DEM in this years’ budget, increasing the staff to 30, and Jayaram would like the city to build a new emergency operations center.

Jayaram said that the city is strengthening the Department of Ocean Safety, which was created in 2024. The city is opening a new ocean safety facility in Kailua this week and will move the ocean safety headquarters to a Kakaʻako warehouse in the coming months.

“We want to really give them the tools to be the best department they can be,” he said.

The administration is also grappling with what Jayaram calls “big picture issues: the cost of living, housing, addressing the houseless.”

The housing policy division within the Department of Housing and Land Management is developing a planning tool with city data to visualize housing on the island in 3D and how changes in zoning laws could change development potential.

Outside of the public eye, Jayaram and his team are thinking about the “internal, non-sexy efficiencies of government.” For example, he said they are considering hiring practices, training for city employees, and succession plans as the baby boomer generation retires.

One of those internal processes that the public may not think about until it doesn’t work well is how the city procures goods and services, he said.

“Government is regulated in how it does that, because we want to make sure it’s fair and impartial and transparent, but the fairness, impartiality and transparency makes us a bit slower, and in a lot of our eyes, it makes us so slow that we can’t deliver the goods and services that we want to deliver as quickly as possible,” he said.

The mayor’s office started an internal procurement working group in 2024 after hearing from departments that employees struggled to do their work because they couldn’t procure the goods and services they needed, he said. For example, Honolulu Fire Department struggled to procure fire apparatus.

The office hired 10 people to the procurement team, which he called a straightforward approach, and is working on an initiative to improve training new hires on the procurement process. The mayor’s office also hired a consultant to evaluate the procurement process and present the city with a plan to improve it.

 Blangiardi selected Jayaram to serve as the city’s first 

 in November 2023 to serve as a bridge between the mayor’s office and the LGBTQ+ community after the city received a score of 60 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign annual 

, which evaluates how cities across the nation support the LGBTQ+ people who live and work there, in 2021.

Jayaram said that connections have strengthened over the last three years, and city earned a perfect score from the Human Rights Campaign in 2025.

“Now, I might be a bridge but I’m one bridge of many,” he said.

Jayaram said that it never crossed his mind that he would work as the managing director of a city. He grew up in Long Island, New York, and worked for a corporate law firm in New York City after graduating law school in 2000.

 as an attorney for the New York City Law Department and the San Diego Office of the City Attorney before moving to Hawaiʻi to be closer to family in Japan in 2010. Since then, he’s worked for the city in the Department of the Corporation Counsel and the state in the Department of the Attorney General before moving to the managing director’s office in 2022 to serve as Formby’s deputy.

Jayaram said that he has no ambitions of running for mayor.

“I love working for mayor,” he said. “For me, I think I’m in the role that’s right for me, and I don’t think that mayoral role is right for me.”

Jayaram said that most of his time is spent in meetings with city departments, stakeholders and state officials. One of his goals is to increase the public’s trust in local government, he said.

“I hope to think that our local communities that we serve would look at us and think ‘this is a group of people who know what they’re doing, they’re ethical, they’re hardworking, they have the communities’ interest at heart, they’re getting things done for the good of the community.’”

MDO Krishna Jayaram Managing Director

<title>Managing director wants Honolulu to be 'well-run machine'</title>

Krishna Jayaram became managing director of the City and County of Honolulu in June. Aloha State Daily sat down with Jayaram to learn about his priorities and goals for the next two years.

Managing director wants Honolulu to be 'well-run machine'

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta Headshot

Kelli Shiroma Braiotta

Food & Dining

elevated dining concept called Girl Dinner

The restaurant is bringing back Girl Dinner for the holidays, and this 2.0 version is designed to share, according to chef Chris Murakami.

“It’s like a revamp of the original Girl Dinner; it’s reinvented, but still has the same things that everyone loves,” he says. “Instead of a marshmallow, we have a peppermint bark (for dessert).”

Girl Dinner is available from today until the end of January 2027. Diners can choose from the holiday classic ($190) or the holiday reserve ($290); both options are designed to share between two and four people, and they are served on a platter.

The holiday classic includes 2 ounces of ikura with crème fraiche, chives, cornichons and olives; Caesar salad; crispy chicken nuggets; Maui Onion chips; golden hash browns; and chocolate peppermint bark and signature lips lollipops for dessert. The spread also includes four martinis or one bottle of Champagne.

The holiday reserve includes all the same contents, but features 2 ounces of caviar instead of ikura.

Individuals could swap out the martini for a glass of wine instead, according to general manager Sarah Mendoza.

“It’s our take on ‘home for the holidays,’” she says. “We’re really bringing the ladies together to sip and gift exchange.”

The Dotted Line girl dinner 2 0 110226

<title>Girl Dinner returns to Honolulu for the holidays</title>

Earlier this year, The Dotted Line launched an elevated dining concept called Girl Dinner, in line with the social media trend. The downtown Honolulu restaurant brought back Girl Dinner 2.0 for the holidays; this version is designed to share among two to four people, and includes festive desserts like peppermint bark.

Girl Dinner returns to Honolulu for the holidays

Thanksgiving is coming up on Thursday, Nov. 26. Whether you’re dining out or looking for an at-home feast, check out the following options:

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"100 Sails Restaurant & Bar"}]

: The Thanksgiving dinner buffet costs $109 per adult ($54.50 per child ages 6 to 10 years old). Highlights include kiawe-smoked prime rib that’s carved to order, kiawe smoked brisket, ‘ahi poke, assorted sashimi, snow crab legs, salt and pepper shrimp, caramelized mushroom linguini, roasted turkey leg and turkey breast, holiday stuffing, temaki sushi, Prince bread pudding, pumpkin crunch haupia crunch pie and more.

The brunch buffet costs $111 per adult ($55.50 per child ages 6 to 10 years old). It includes many of the featured dinner buffet offerings — including kiawe-smoked prime rib, kiawe smoked brisket, roasted turkey leg and turkey breast — but also includes breakfast offerings like Prince fried rice, a waffle station and an omelet station.

: Dinner buffet 5 to 9:30 p.m. Nov. 26-29; brunch buffet 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Nov. 26

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"53 By the Sea"}]

: 53 By the Sea’s Thanksgiving take home packages are available for pre-order online and via phone.

The standard Thanksgiving dinner set ($250) is designed to feed four people and includes:

The deluxe Thanksgiving dinner set ($750) is designed to feed eight people and includes:

: In-person pick-ups from 8 a.m. to noon on Nov. 26

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: fishcake Honolulu, 307C Kamani St., Honolulu 

: C4 Table’s Thanksgiving holiday menu ($370) is designed to serve four to six people. It includes:

: Pick-up from 2:30 to 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25 at fishcake Honolulu 

: Email pre-order with name (first and last), telephone contact number, number of meals/additional sides, and preferred pick-up time slot to 

: Chart House Waikīkī’s traditional turkey dinner ($65) includes butter and sage roasted turkey, savory cornbread stuffing, mashed or baked sweet potato with rum butter, pan gravy, creamed spinach and cranberry relish. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hy’s Steak House"}]

: This Thanksgiving ‘ohana feast to-go ($585) is designed to serve eight to 10 people. It includes:

: This special Thanksgiving dinner ($40) includes butter herb roasted turkey, homemade stuffing, mashed potatoes, turkey gravy, green bean casserole, candied yams with toasted marshmallow, grilled corn on the cob and a dinner roll. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Merriman’s Honolulu"}]

: This Thanksgiving prix fixe menu costs $140 per person ($45 for children ages 12 years and younger). It includes:

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"MW Restaurant"}]

: This Thanksgiving family feast ($725) is designed to feed six to eight people. It includes:

Pre-orders must be placed by Tuesday, Nov. 24.

: Pick-up from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Nov. 26

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Plumeria Beach House"}]

: The all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving buffets will include a carving station, chef specialties and a variety of desserts. They cost $145 per adult ($55 per child ages 6 to 12 years). 

: Nov. 26, brunch buffet 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; dinner buffet 3 to 8 p.m. 

: This Thanksgiving package ($285.95) is designed to feed four to six people. It includes sliced roast turkey, turkey gravy, housemade stuffing, pineapple-glazed ham, garlic mashed potatoes, spicy ‘ahi on sushi rice, fresh cranberry sauce, and pumpkin crunch squares.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Buffet at Hyatt"}]

: Hyatt Regency Waikīkī Beach Resort & Spa, 

: This Island-inspired Thanksgiving buffet costs $110 per person (50% off for children ages 6 to 12 years, $5.99 for children ages 5 years and under).

[{"type":"text","text":"Buffet highlights include:"}]

discount is not valid for holiday menus. 

The Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort, Waik

: This Thanksgiving takeout feast ($595) is designed to serve eight to 10 people.

: Pick-up from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 26.

Upon arrival, guests should pull into The Royal Hawaiian porte cochere (valet) and check in with the team; staff members will bring your Thanksgiving feast directly to you. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Umi by Vikram Garg"}]

: Halepuna Waikīkī by Halekūlani, 2233 Helumoa Road, Honolulu 

: This special Thanksgiving dinner features a three-course ($110 per person) or four-course ($150 per person) menu.

The three-course menu features a soup or pasta (premium upgrade optional), main course and dessert; an optional wine pairing ($50) is available. The four-course menu includes an appetizer (premium upgrade available), soup or pasta (premium upgrade available), main course and dessert; an optional wine pairing ($70) is available.

[{"type":"text","text":"Featured dishes include:"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Zippy’s Restaurants"}]

: Zippy’s is offering a variety of Thanksgiving packages to choose from:

[{"type":"text","text":"Whole turkey package, $214.95; serves eight to 10 people"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Half turkey package, $124.95; serves four people"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Whole turkey only, $95.95; serves eight to 10 people"}]

: Pick-up Wednesday Nov. 25 or Thursday, Nov. 26

Thanskgiving 2026 Zippys 102826

<title>Where to go for Thanksgiving 2026 – part 1</title>

Where to go for Thanksgiving 2026 – part 1

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

As Hawai‘i voters begin receiving their ballots for the general election, they may ask: What does Constitutional Amendment Question 2 actually mean?

 to the state constitution will be on the ballot this election. One of those is self-explanatory — should the state Senate be allowed 60 days to appoint judges and justices between April and January, instead of the current 30 days — but the other may seem complicated.

Constitutional Amendment Question 2 asks whether the state should allow the counties to issue “Resilient Infrastructure for Shelter and Equity bonds” — or RISE bonds — to help fund public improvement projects. These bonds would be repaid by future tax revenues on the new developments funded by said bonds, without imposing additional taxes or raising tax rates, and would be exempt from the counties’ debt limit.

The proposed amendment was introduced in the state Senate this year with the stated purpose of attempting to lower the development costs of affordable housing. As noted in 

 — the measure introducing the amendment — the development of new homes requires large up-front investments in water, drainage and other infrastructure.

Rep. Luke Evslin, chair of the House Committee on Housing, said Wednesday that the solution to this has been either to pass on those up-front costs to homebuyers, leading to rising house prices and a lack of affordable housing, or to raise taxes.

RISE bonds would, in theory, present a third option by allowing counties to fund that infrastructure, with the debt being serviced by future increases in tax revenue specifically generated by those selfsame new developments made possible by the infrastructure.

This is not an original concept; 48 other states, excluding Hawai‘i and Arizona, use “tax increment financing bonds,” which operate on the same principle.

Evslin told Aloha State Daily Wednesday that it’s only due to a quirk in Hawai‘i's constitution that the state doesn’t also use these bonds. He said the constitution as written does not permit the counties to issue such bonds, hence the need for a constitutional amendment.

Evslin emphasized that the bonds do not bring an increase in taxes. The property taxes paid by new homeowners in a new development made possible by the bonds will be at the same tax rate as any other comparable development, but the revenues from those taxes will go to pay off the bond, rather than back to the county.

However, Gov. Josh Green said Wednesday that this does not mean the bonds will reduce the counties' tax revenues, as the tax revenues generated by these new developments do not currently exist. Rather than reduce existing revenues, the bonds will simply redirect some future revenues.

Furthermore, the amendment would exempt RISE bonds from counties’ debt limits, which Evslin said means a county could issue any number of the bonds — although, he added, because developments funded via the bonds will still require taxpayer-funded services such as police and fire department responses, counties will likely be judicious in how many they issue.  

Evslin said that the tax increment financing bonds are typically structured conservatively so that the municipality that issues them takes on little to no risk. He said in the event of a disaster wiping out the infrastructure investments — something he said has happened in California — typically the bondholder, not the municipality, is left holding the bag.

The proposal was nigh-universally popular as it passed through the legislature, with major unions such as the Pacific Resource Partnership and the General Contractors Association of Hawai‘i voicing strong support of the amendment. This week, the Chamber of Commerce Hawai‘i urged members to vote yes on Question 2. 

One of the few people to testify against the proposal, Hawai‘i County resident Cindy Freitas, warned about the potential for lost tax revenue and the lack of guardrails for how much of a county’s tax base can be captured by the bonds.

But Green and several other lawmakers spoke in favor of the amendment Wednesday. Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi said there is a roughly 28,000 unit deficit of housing on O‘ahu, which he said RISE bonds can help to reduce.

Kaua‘i Mayor Derek Kawakami called the bonds “a monumental change to how we fund infrastructure,” adding that, after the many disasters of 2026, it is clear that the state’s resilience is dependent on having modern and reliable infrastructure.

“Communities can only be as resilient as the roads that connect us,” Kawakami said.

Evslin

<title>So what is a RISE bond anyway?</title>

Voters may wonder what Constitutional Amendment Question 2 means when they receive their ballots this week.

So what is a RISE bond anyway?

Higa headshot white shirt square

Sterling Higa

Columnists

Hawai‘i History

Last week, I wrote about the Hawaiʻi Republican Party and its need to 

An identity is a way of seeing the world and moving through it. It tells you which problems are problems and which solutions are allowed. It is a sense of how one relates to other people, and to God. What is true of a man is true of a party, which stands for some things and against others.

The mistake is to imagine an identity can be built in a “secular” way, with the ultimate questions left politely at the door. But every identity rests on faith. The questions of politics are always second questions. The first ones are older: Who are we? Where did we come from? What must be done to make things right?

Last week, I noted that no party in Hawaiʻi speaks for the 6 in 10 adults here who are Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or Mormon. This is true of the Republican Party, too, though its platform runs under the banner of faith, family, freedom. A slogan is not a creed.

The core problem with the Hawaiʻi Republican Party is that it pays lip service to the God of Scripture, and lip service is a kind of service He has never accepted.

Few of the party’s leading figures can say how the faith shapes their decisions, and it shows in the platform, which is less a philosophy than a pile of them.

Brenton Awa, who is running against Jill Tokuda to represent Hawaiʻi in Congress, has a hyperlocal focus. He has tried twice to ban foreign ownership of land, which the U.S. Constitution will not allow. He has gone further and 

 for office: “If you’re not born and raised, you should not be leading because if you’re not born and raised you ain’t looking out for the people born and raised.”

Awa was raised in a Mormon community and now and then invokes God in a speech. Beyond that, the public record is silent on what he believes, and a voter is left to guess.

Lieutenant governor candidate Daniel Anthony goes further than Awa down the Hawaiʻi-for-Hawaiians road. A lifelong sovereignty activist, Anthony does not embrace his American citizenship. He has argued that the militaries of the world, 

 included, should bid for the rights to Pearl Harbor.

He holds the genealogy of Hawaiʻi’s old religion, in which man is the younger brother of Hāloa, the kalo plant. He has urged us to make a place for Hāloa in our homes, borrowing the language of Genesis to say we must be “

Meanwhile, others in the local party are still keeping house in the conservatism of William F. Buckley, the Yale man and Catholic who stitched together the postwar coalition. Traditionalists, libertarians, and anti-communists were held together by the Soviet Union, which had the decency to be an enemy everyone could agree on. Thirty-five years after the Cold War, the coalition has come apart, and some of its members have not yet heard.

Others have gone all in for the Trump realignment of the party, which owes much of its success to American evangelicals. But that realignment is held together by a personality, and personalities retire. It remains to be seen where the national party goes in 2028. Neither J.D. Vance nor Marco Rubio has yet gathered a coalition broad enough to lead it.

The Hawaiʻi-for-Hawaiians line cannot win in a state where Hawaiians are a minority. Worse, as Anthony shows, its logical end is animus toward the United States.

And beneath Anthony’s worldview is a cosmology hostile to the Christian account of creation. It is hard to see how a party hoping to represent the 6 in 10 can platform men who deny that faith’s first chapter.

It’s often remarked that politics is downstream of culture. But culture is downstream of worship. What we worship, and how, shapes everything we think about politics. There is no identity apart from worship; there is only an identity that has not yet admitted what it worships.

Gary Cordery, the Republican candidate for governor, began his run as the champion of conservative evangelicals. He went so far as to trumpet some of their fringe conspiracy theories. That was a ditch on one side of the road. Like Trump, he gave in to the temptation to feed the base its baser appetites.

Cordery has since moderated, tacking toward the middle. He has even made common cause with Anthony. And here he seems to have found the ditch on the other side, trading a conviction for a coalition.

The gap between the two men’s accounts of creation is not small.

Hawaiian tradition traces the origin of man to these events. Wākea (Sky Father) and Papahānaumoku (Earth Mother) bear the islands and a daughter, Hoʻohōkūkalani. Wākea desires his daughter. With his priest Komoawa he devises the kapu nights and the ʻaikapu, the sacred eating restrictions, as a religious pretext to separate himself from Papa and lie with Hoʻohōkūkalani.

Their first child is stillborn and buried; from the grave grows the kalo, Hāloanakalaukapalili. The second child, Hāloa, is the first human and the ancestor of all Hawaiians and their chiefs. Papa discovers the deception, curses Wākea, and takes another husband. Wākea then takes other wives.

So at the origin of man, in this telling, a husband deceives his wife, lies with his daughter, and then takes other wives. And the religious law is invented to serve his appetites. The kapu system governed everything from eating to sacrifice for centuries. The tradition remembers the kapu as born of a lie told to cover incestuous lust. Most myths flatter their makers. This one does not.

The Christian account is otherwise. Man and woman have dignity because they are made in the image of God.

Where does the dignity of man come from in the Hawaiian account?

Nowhere. The genealogy was used to justify the rule of a few chiefs over many commoners. The kapu system justified slavery, human sacrifice, and the ritual subjugation of women. It stood for centuries and fell in 1819, 40 years after Cook.

That is the distance between Cordery’s faith and Anthony’s. It is not a policy difference. It is a difference about what a man is.

Gary Cordery claims the title “statesman.” He might imitate the greatest statesman Hawaiʻi has had.

The greatest period of civic flourishing in Hawaiʻi’s history was led by a God-fearing man, Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III.

He did not start that way. In his youth Kauikeaouli was a drunk. He kept Kaomi, a man, as his favorite companion and made him a kind of co-ruler. He carried on an affair with his own sister, Nahiʻenaʻena, and got her with child.

The child died within hours of its birth in 1836. Nahiʻenaʻena died a few months later.

After that, the king seems to have turned from his sins and toward Christ. Whatever one makes of the timing, the history is plain: something died in the man, and something better grew in its place.

Then came the Declaration of Rights of 1839 and the Constitution of 1840. Within a decade, Hawaiʻi was a modern nation. Nearly everyone could read, and the world took notice.

Kauikeaouli did not get there by softening his faith to please the room. He wrote it into the constitution: “no law shall be enacted which is at variance with the word of the Lord Jehovah, or at variance with the general spirit of His word.” And God blessed the Hawaiian kingdom.

Cordery would do well to follow Kauikeaouli. And Daniel Anthony should follow him, too. The greatest Hawaiian to rule these islands turned from idols to Christ. 

Civic renewal for Hawaiʻi will not come from a political party. It comes, as it always has, from God. But God will not bless a people that keeps its idols. He never has. He is, on the other hand, famously willing to bless the ones who put them down.

King Kam III

Can my kids afford to stay? Who will care for my mother? ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why Hawaiʻi Republicans should start with the questions local families ask.

Parties

Hawaiʻi Republican Party should put Hawaiʻi first, not the national brand

House Republicans are one seat from a rule that lets them force floor votes. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why a tactic without a goal is a chainsaw without a tree.

Hawaii Republican Party logo 16x9

Hawaiʻi Republicans could force House floor votes. What are they for?

<title>The Hawaiʻi GOP’s real problem isn’t its platform</title>

Today, a party that runs on “faith, family, freedom” has a lieutenant governor candidate who traces mankind to the kalo plant. ASD opinion columnist Sterling Higa on why civic renewal in Hawaiʻi starts with what we worship, and why the greatest Hawaiian statesman — Kamehameha III (Kauikeaouli) — is the proof.

Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

ASD Staff

Reporter

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Daily Smile: Thursday, February 5, 2026

Authors

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