As unimaginable as it may sound, the resignation of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), may have thwarted Faleomavaega's ambitions to rise to the chairmanship of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a prospect that undoubtedly sends chills up the spine of House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi and other senior leaders in her party.
All the stars would have had to line up right next year for it to happen but it is quite possible that Democrats could retake the House while Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA), the full committee chairman, and Gary Ackerman (D-NY), the second ranking Democrat on the committee, were losing re-election battles. That scenario would put third ranking Faleomavaega in line to become chairman.
As unlikely as it would seem for Berman and Ackerman to be be in trouble in their safe seats, they will be running in newly configured districts, thanks to redistricting resulting out of the 2010 census. If Democrats were to catch a wave, normally the two veterans would be among the least likely to be in trouble. However, a new non-partisan redistricting commission has thrown Berman into the same district with another senior Democrat, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). There is said to be no love lost between the two men and, if they should decide to square off against each other, there is no certainty in the outcome.
Meanwhile, in New York, the state legislature must redraw the district lines in a way to adjust for the loss of two seats as a result of decennial reapportionment. There has been a gentleman's agreement that one seat would be eliminated in the Republican leaning upstate area and the second seat would be taken from the New York City area, where Ackerman's constituency is.
Now that Weiner has resigned, it makes the job easier for the legislature, which simply can eliminate his seat and make all the other incumbents, including Ackerman, safe for re-election. So, if Berman were to lose next year, the Democrats still should have Ackerman in place to block Faleomavaega's rise. Of course, Democrats still would have to win back the majority and it is much to early to tell if that could happen.
But more than likely, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. American foreign policy should be safe for another two years. Nonetheless, all three men are getting up there in years (Berman is 70; Ackerman is 68; and Faleomavaega is 67) and Faleomavaega has been in poor health for a number of years. The retirement of death of any of them would change the equation. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Faleomavaega Praises Reelection of Dictator despite International Community Views
Caspionet, the state run national satellite television channel of the Republic of Kazakhstan has seized upon the comments of one person, Faleomavaega, to declare on its website, http://www.caspionet.kz/eng/general/Eni_Faleomavaega_congratulates_Nursultan_Nazarbayev_on_victory_in_elections_1302327535.html
That “the US Congress believes that the early elections in Kazakhstan demonstrated transparency and freedom of choice.” Caspionet goes on to say Faleomavaega noted that this transparency and freedom of choice “was because of the officials of the country and especially Nursultan Nazarbayev.” Capionet quotes Faleomavaega as saying: “For a country like Kazakhstan with some 40 religious organizations, 65% Muslim and 20% Russian Orthodox, I think speaks well to the fact that it has rather tremendous religious freedom, allowing the people to express their own personal religious preferences.
Oh, my, my.
Of course, the respected international Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) saw it a bit differently. According to a Reuters News Agency report, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/kazakhstan-election-osce-idUSLDE7330D120110404, “Kazakhstan's presidential election revealed the same shortcomings as past polls,” with International observers noting “that reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialize."
Reuters went on to quote Amb. Daan Everts as saying "Regrettably we have to conclude that this election could and should have been better." Everts is Head of the long-term election observation mission deployed by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Faleomavaega’s continued fawning support for Kazahkstan’s long serving dictator comes as no surprise, as he has lent his backing to the Kazakh president in the past and has also warmed to other dictators as well, including Fiji’s Frank Bainamarama.
But his comments here are so completely at odds with the findings of international observers, and are so embarrassing, one has to believe that Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is an editor, will quickly and quietly bury them. Prediction: you will only read this story here. The links to the Reuters and Caspionet stories are provided above, lest you think we are exaggerating.
That “the US Congress believes that the early elections in Kazakhstan demonstrated transparency and freedom of choice.” Caspionet goes on to say Faleomavaega noted that this transparency and freedom of choice “was because of the officials of the country and especially Nursultan Nazarbayev.” Capionet quotes Faleomavaega as saying: “For a country like Kazakhstan with some 40 religious organizations, 65% Muslim and 20% Russian Orthodox, I think speaks well to the fact that it has rather tremendous religious freedom, allowing the people to express their own personal religious preferences.
Oh, my, my.
Of course, the respected international Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) saw it a bit differently. According to a Reuters News Agency report, http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/04/kazakhstan-election-osce-idUSLDE7330D120110404, “Kazakhstan's presidential election revealed the same shortcomings as past polls,” with International observers noting “that reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialize."
Reuters went on to quote Amb. Daan Everts as saying "Regrettably we have to conclude that this election could and should have been better." Everts is Head of the long-term election observation mission deployed by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
Faleomavaega’s continued fawning support for Kazahkstan’s long serving dictator comes as no surprise, as he has lent his backing to the Kazakh president in the past and has also warmed to other dictators as well, including Fiji’s Frank Bainamarama.
But his comments here are so completely at odds with the findings of international observers, and are so embarrassing, one has to believe that Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is an editor, will quickly and quietly bury them. Prediction: you will only read this story here. The links to the Reuters and Caspionet stories are provided above, lest you think we are exaggerating.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Obama Ignores Faleomavaega
Prior to President Obama's recent trip to Chile, Faleomavaega made a fervent public plea for him to put Rapa Nui on his agenda with the Chilean president. Joined by lame duck Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), who will retire at the 2012 election apparently without his Hawaiian Sovereignty bill (Akaka bill) enacted, Faleomavaega wrote an opinion piece for the Honolulu Star Advertiser that called on the U.S. to take the lead in protecting human rights on Chile's island province in the Pacific.
As has been the case in virtually ever cause he has ever undertaken in Congress, his pleas went unheard, as Obama declined to raise the issue in Santiago. Perhaps Faleomavaega suspected that would be the case but did not worry about taking another blow to his prestige, knowing his sister-in-law, an editor at his home town daily paper, Samoa News, would bury the story and preserve his ability to fool his consituents. It may have been a pretext for him going to Rapa Nui himself, as we predicted he would.
Anyone who thought Faleomavaega's travel wings would be clipped in this Congress, now that he has been stripped of his subcommittee chairman, has been sadly mistaken. The first quarter of 2012 has just come to a close and already he has been on a congressional junket to Australia and New Zealand, stopping in Pago Pago each way just long enough to get fuel and give the people his middle finger and Rapa Nui and has announced he will be going to Korea. Even with Republicans in charge and tight congressional budgets, he has found the money to keep on traveling.
What makes this visit to Rapa Nui so absurd is that he has absolutely no power or authority to do anything about the situation. What makes it sad is that while he was in Rapa Nui, the new president of SgtarKist was making his first visit to American Samoa. This was precisely the time Faleomavaega needed to be home to sit in on the meeting between the new head of StarKist and the governor to plot a course to keep the cannery in the territory.
And of course, his fans just keep cheering him on. Atta boy, Eni. We have just one plea to Eni: any issue you really care about, please keep it to yourself. Once you get involved, it ia guaranteed you will be on the losing side.
As has been the case in virtually ever cause he has ever undertaken in Congress, his pleas went unheard, as Obama declined to raise the issue in Santiago. Perhaps Faleomavaega suspected that would be the case but did not worry about taking another blow to his prestige, knowing his sister-in-law, an editor at his home town daily paper, Samoa News, would bury the story and preserve his ability to fool his consituents. It may have been a pretext for him going to Rapa Nui himself, as we predicted he would.
Anyone who thought Faleomavaega's travel wings would be clipped in this Congress, now that he has been stripped of his subcommittee chairman, has been sadly mistaken. The first quarter of 2012 has just come to a close and already he has been on a congressional junket to Australia and New Zealand, stopping in Pago Pago each way just long enough to get fuel and give the people his middle finger and Rapa Nui and has announced he will be going to Korea. Even with Republicans in charge and tight congressional budgets, he has found the money to keep on traveling.
What makes this visit to Rapa Nui so absurd is that he has absolutely no power or authority to do anything about the situation. What makes it sad is that while he was in Rapa Nui, the new president of SgtarKist was making his first visit to American Samoa. This was precisely the time Faleomavaega needed to be home to sit in on the meeting between the new head of StarKist and the governor to plot a course to keep the cannery in the territory.
And of course, his fans just keep cheering him on. Atta boy, Eni. We have just one plea to Eni: any issue you really care about, please keep it to yourself. Once you get involved, it ia guaranteed you will be on the losing side.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Business as Usual for Faleomavaega while American Samoa Sinks
If proof ever were needed that Samoa News, the territory's only independent daily news source, has not a clue what is going on around it, the paper's recent coverage of Faleomavaega's latest travel provided it. While the Governor was in Washington fighting a last ditch effort to get federal assistance for the territory's tanking economy--with unemployment now over 20%, Samoa News was headlining Faleomavaega's "speaking out" about the need for Pacific Island countries to be included in trade talks between Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.
Was he doing so from his office in Washington, between meetings and appointments with the governor and federal policymakers? No. Eni was on his latest and one of his most inappropriate trips abroad: for a conference in New Zealand focused on U.S.-New Zealand commercial relations and a quick dash to Australia to discuss intellectual property rights. Nowhere in the paper, at which his sister-in-law is an editor, can a question be found about why it was necessary for him to be on this trip while his governor was in Washington trying to save the territory in the face of sharp reductions in federal spending.
Adding further insult to injury, the nine-member congressional delegation of which he was a part, stopped in American Samoa to refuel in both directions, pausing only long enough for a quick ride into town on the return leg of the trip. Not for lack of trying, the Governor no doubt will come home empty-handed. Eni was back in Washington in time to take his seat last week at a House oversight hearing on territorial issues but his major contribution was to rebut the Governor's contention that the rise in the minimum wage was the major factor in the territory's economic crisis.
One wonders if they even met at all.
Faleomavaega already has announced he will be traveling to South Korea.
Was he doing so from his office in Washington, between meetings and appointments with the governor and federal policymakers? No. Eni was on his latest and one of his most inappropriate trips abroad: for a conference in New Zealand focused on U.S.-New Zealand commercial relations and a quick dash to Australia to discuss intellectual property rights. Nowhere in the paper, at which his sister-in-law is an editor, can a question be found about why it was necessary for him to be on this trip while his governor was in Washington trying to save the territory in the face of sharp reductions in federal spending.
Adding further insult to injury, the nine-member congressional delegation of which he was a part, stopped in American Samoa to refuel in both directions, pausing only long enough for a quick ride into town on the return leg of the trip. Not for lack of trying, the Governor no doubt will come home empty-handed. Eni was back in Washington in time to take his seat last week at a House oversight hearing on territorial issues but his major contribution was to rebut the Governor's contention that the rise in the minimum wage was the major factor in the territory's economic crisis.
One wonders if they even met at all.
Faleomavaega already has announced he will be traveling to South Korea.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Governor: Faleomavaega is a Rogue Delegate
Open warfare once again has broken out between Governor Togiola and Delegate Faleomavaega, but this time with a vengeance not seen in the past. Why? According to a Radio New Zealand report, it is widely believed that Togiola will make a bid for Faleomavaega's seat in Congress next year. Togiola, who is served his second elected term after completing the unexpired term of his late predecessor, is barred by law from seeking re-election.
Sensing the potential competition from the powerful governor, the second longest serving chief executive in the territory's history, Faleomavaega last week fired a shot across Togiola's bow when the governor asked the Fono for a tax increase to cover the government's current deficit. For his part, arguing against the tax hike, Faleomavaega pointed out that the federal government has sent down nearly a billion dollars since 2005, so the government should not be broke.
Now Togiola in a letter to the Fono leadership that played as a page one story in Samoa News has called Faleomavaega a "rogue delegate in Congress" in whom the ASG executive branch has "lost confidence."
In his letter Togiola said Faleomavaega stated his "views on our use of federal funds that publicly disgraces the territory, and requires a considered and definitive response." Togiola says that Faleomavaega's suggestion that federal funds could be used to cover the government's shortfall in local revenues is the "kind of public demagoguery (that) is a witless call for corruption." He went on to say "It is the nightmare of every inspector general in federal departments and federal agencies as well as the Department of Interior, who are charged with safeguarding federal funds for only authorized use."
To have used federal funds to cover a shortfall of local revenues, the "publicly delivered message" of the Congressman "is not only illegal, but with the intent he espouses, this becomes the promotion of criminal acts," the governor points out, adding that local and federal grants are operated separately and federal funded operations are "in good order."
According to the governor, the Congressman's "call for corruption" in the use of federal funds to offset shortfall in local revenues "is such an embarrassment to the territory." He also said "I know that no other government of a U.S. territory that has had to put up with a constantly attacking and overreaching Congressional Delegate, as we do in American Samoa."
The next move is up to Faleomavaega. The delegate announced that despite American Samoa's budgetary crisis, he is returning to the Foreign Affairs Committee and already is planning a fact-finding trip to South Korea. Since he has been in and out of Seoul over the years as if it were Chicago, it is hard to believe he can find any new facts, but that's another story. In the meantime, it does not appear his call for the Fono not to enact new taxes has fallen on deaf ears, as the governor's bill is moving apace through both houses.
What the governor left unsaid in his letter is that the shortfall in revenues was iteself caused by Faleomavaega's failure to stop the minimum wage increase in 2007 that drove out one cannery and forced the other one to downsize significantly. A lot of wages on which revenues would have been collected have been permanently lost.
Sensing the potential competition from the powerful governor, the second longest serving chief executive in the territory's history, Faleomavaega last week fired a shot across Togiola's bow when the governor asked the Fono for a tax increase to cover the government's current deficit. For his part, arguing against the tax hike, Faleomavaega pointed out that the federal government has sent down nearly a billion dollars since 2005, so the government should not be broke.
Now Togiola in a letter to the Fono leadership that played as a page one story in Samoa News has called Faleomavaega a "rogue delegate in Congress" in whom the ASG executive branch has "lost confidence."
In his letter Togiola said Faleomavaega stated his "views on our use of federal funds that publicly disgraces the territory, and requires a considered and definitive response." Togiola says that Faleomavaega's suggestion that federal funds could be used to cover the government's shortfall in local revenues is the "kind of public demagoguery (that) is a witless call for corruption." He went on to say "It is the nightmare of every inspector general in federal departments and federal agencies as well as the Department of Interior, who are charged with safeguarding federal funds for only authorized use."
To have used federal funds to cover a shortfall of local revenues, the "publicly delivered message" of the Congressman "is not only illegal, but with the intent he espouses, this becomes the promotion of criminal acts," the governor points out, adding that local and federal grants are operated separately and federal funded operations are "in good order."
According to the governor, the Congressman's "call for corruption" in the use of federal funds to offset shortfall in local revenues "is such an embarrassment to the territory." He also said "I know that no other government of a U.S. territory that has had to put up with a constantly attacking and overreaching Congressional Delegate, as we do in American Samoa."
The next move is up to Faleomavaega. The delegate announced that despite American Samoa's budgetary crisis, he is returning to the Foreign Affairs Committee and already is planning a fact-finding trip to South Korea. Since he has been in and out of Seoul over the years as if it were Chicago, it is hard to believe he can find any new facts, but that's another story. In the meantime, it does not appear his call for the Fono not to enact new taxes has fallen on deaf ears, as the governor's bill is moving apace through both houses.
What the governor left unsaid in his letter is that the shortfall in revenues was iteself caused by Faleomavaega's failure to stop the minimum wage increase in 2007 that drove out one cannery and forced the other one to downsize significantly. A lot of wages on which revenues would have been collected have been permanently lost.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Faleomavaega Fails Again
In response to Faleomavaega's plea to the Government of Chile not to remove protesters occupying a hotel over traditional land ownership issues on Rapa Nui, the Government of Chile promptly evicted the protesters. The outcome is nothing new for Faleomavaega, who has been on the losing end of scores of causes over his 22+ years in Congress. What is different this time is that he dragged Hawaii Sen. Dan Akaka (D) into the issue, so now the both of them have gone down in flames. And so it goes.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Faleomavaega Takes On New Cause: Rapa Nui
Stripped of his floor vote, stripped of his committee chairmanship and reduced in personal office budget, Faleomavaega has to be more clever than ever this year to keep up his frenetic pace of travel and he already may have found a way. Congress always has set aside funds for Members to return home during recesses to connect with their constituencies. Faleomavaega rarely has gone home during these recesses over the years, preferring instead to use the time to travel abroad on a series of adventures.
But last week, to the surprise of many, he showed up in Pago Pago. The local leaders must have been stunned. And he also signaled what may be his next big cause: Rapa Nui landowners. To give him some cover, he had Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka (D), himself a native Polynesian, cosign a letter to the President of Chile expressing concern over current unrest of Rapa Nui natives over land issues.
So, while we are unsure how he will find the funding, as a minority party non-voting delegate to the House, to go to Rapa Nui, we do expect any day to read about him being on the island locking his arms in solidarity with the native people.
Bet on it. Take it to the bank.
But last week, to the surprise of many, he showed up in Pago Pago. The local leaders must have been stunned. And he also signaled what may be his next big cause: Rapa Nui landowners. To give him some cover, he had Hawaii Senator Daniel Akaka (D), himself a native Polynesian, cosign a letter to the President of Chile expressing concern over current unrest of Rapa Nui natives over land issues.
So, while we are unsure how he will find the funding, as a minority party non-voting delegate to the House, to go to Rapa Nui, we do expect any day to read about him being on the island locking his arms in solidarity with the native people.
Bet on it. Take it to the bank.
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