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1 week ago | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner |Richard Wiens
What just happened at the Capitol is one more chapter in the story of how our lawmakers roll. We can better understand Hawaiʻi’s 2025 legislative session by stepping back from that long list of bills that passed or failed. Get a fuller picture instead by thinking of our Legislature’s work in terms of five T’s: tropes, traps, triumphs, trudges and finally trends. Taken together, they form a tapestry of legislators’ work.
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2 weeks ago | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner |Richard Wiens
Commentary Teachers will have to walk a fine line, but itʻs not OK to pretend our democracy is functioning properly. Teachers will have to walk a fine line, but itʻs not OK to pretend our democracy is functioning properly. How do you teach civics when all hell is breaking loose? Civics used to teach that we live in a democracy and what we have to do to maintain that.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
Save your conspiracy theories. You’ll never know why David Lassner fired Craig Angelos unless they tell you. With no warning, University of Hawaii President David Lassner fired UH athletic director Craig Angelos. Lassner won’t say why. Those supporting the AD have filled in the blanks with their own explanations, which can be described this way: All conspiracy theories but no facts.
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Nov 21, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
Commentary You'll outgrow all those assumptions that are based on how old you are. Then they come roaring back. You’ll outgrow all those assumptions that are based on how old you are. Then they come roaring back. My friend’s wife was recently diagnosed with pre-leukemia. No treatment needed for now, the doctor said.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
For some people, it may have seemed as if their entire lives depended on the 2024 presidential race. What can you do when politics has sucked all the life out of you? By “you,” I mean not the activists or the pundits, but rather ordinary run-of-the mill Democratic voters who had never paid as much attention or become so afraid until Donald Trump came along.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
The recent search for a new University of Hawaii president seemed to go pretty well. But running a university isn’t easy. The recent search for a new University of Hawaii president had some glitches, but overall, it was acceptable. Good searches don’t guarantee good results, though. Before we look at why, consider this. Top leaders in public positions don’t last long.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
There really are plausible reasons why half the country wants to give the ex-president his job back. Weird, isn’t it? The presidential election is too close to call, which means that about half the country will vote for Donald Trump. Yet Democrats know so little about his supporters and care even less. There are two parts to this. The first involves why people have such willful ignorance about the presidential race.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
Fans with an emotional attachment to a college team are essential and, in the case of the University of Hawaii, elusive. The University of Hawaii football program has a money problem – and in college football money talks. But so does culture. UH football has another challenge that’s unappreciated and never discussed. That one isn’t economic. It’s cultural: The disappearance of a certain kind of fan who might be harder to replace than a broken stadium or a chronically pinched revenue stream.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
Admit it, aren’t you a bit jealous of people who are disengaged from the circus that the presidential election has become? Low-information voters, about a fifth of the electorate, have very little knowledge of politics. They are disengaged, untethered. Maybe that makes them bad citizens, but they’re also something else: role models. Low-information voters are the canaries in a coal mine of overwhelming politics.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
civilbeat.org | Neal Milner
Typically these joint appearances by the two top presidential candidates are watched mainly by voters who have already decided. An expert on presidential debates recently said this: “The effects of 2024 debates are unlikely to vary much from prior election years.” Oops. He said that recently but not recently enough.
