So I'm sure most of you know our next speaker Scott Horton is someone who really has single-handedly Changed that narrative that we spoken of especially when it comes to the war in Afghanistan. I mentioned his book It's called fool's air and if you haven't read this book Be ready for some footnotes Because Scott annotates everything. He is done. I just read this last night in his lifetime of doing Various radio shows. He's done 5,000 interviews and almost all of them fighting against this Crazed warfare state that we find ourselves in please welcome Scott Horton. All right, so Jeff Deist asked me to speak today on alternative media But this is my first opportunity and maybe my only opportunity in my life to share a stage with Ron Paul So first I'm gonna tell you about Ron Paul Lou Rockwell and Jeff Deist Ron Paul's former chiefs of staff Dan McAdams, of course Ron's closest advisor for 20-something years and co-host with Dr. Paul of the most important show on YouTube the Liberty report Carol Paul his loving wife since sometime in the 1960s. I guess Y'all just don't understand the greatness of this man Y'all don't love him like I do Ron Paul is simply the greatest hero in American history He's certainly my greatest hero and being a skater and a libertarian I have a lot of heroes Seriously, I have a bust of Ron Paul in my office His name is on the super majority of my shirts Dr. Paul is the best kind of libertarian He always knows his facts and opposes the very worst things about our government the most and first and he always tells the truth As Anthony Gregory says Ron Paul makes Thomas Jefferson look like James Madison And what is Ron Paul's libertarianism, but true American? liberalism that Jeffersonian liberalism untainted by socialism and progressivism and only a little bit of conservatism and That's okay because Ron Paul's conservative personality his purest capitalist economics and Republican Party political affiliation helped him during his presidential runs in 2008 in 2012 to open the minds of millions of Americans to adopting an anti-war position They had previously been persuaded could only be held by hippies and Hollywood know nothing know it all liberals Have y'all ever seen the great documentary for Liberty how Ron Paul watered the withered tree of Liberty By rye and keeler her It's more than a documentary about Ron Paul's 2008 campaign It's about the birth of a whole new libertarian movement in America It's more and it's better than you would think. It's really a wonderful film. I hope you'll all look at it The key to it, of course Was Ron's clash with Rudy Giuliani over the causes of the war on terrorism in the May 2007 GOP debate The USA started it Dr. Paul insisted Prescribing Americans the most bitter pill But millions of people rallied to his message. They knew it was true They hated the war, but they didn't want to identify with utopian and helpless hippies or Michael Moore the gluttonous Hollywood millionaire communist hypocrite Ron Paul told them they didn't have to if you like your identity you can keep it So Let me ask you and I've been giving a lot of speeches since the book came out and to a lot of libertarian party groups I'd like to ask how many people here are libertarians because of Ron Paul Oh, man. Well, it is a Ron Paul event. Okay And now how many of you are libertarians because of the Giuliani moment the fight between Ron Paul Rudy Giuliani in 2007 okay, we have a few and at every speech I give where I ask that question hands go up And you'll see in that documentary for liberty just how important that was Now my Giuliani moment story is actually from 10 years previous in 1997 I was up late in the middle of the night. This is when Ron Paul had just come back to Congress from his semi-retirement and return of medicine and I looked and it was C-span reruns three in the morning or something and there's this little old congressman Saying mr. Speaker. I have here in my hand proof published in the British papers today That president George Bush. This was senior Was selling chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein even during Operation Desert Shield in the build-up to the war in the fall of 1990 and I like to enter this into the federal record there, sir And I thought oh my god. I can't believe this a congressman just accused George HW Bush essentially of treason on the house floor and then I looked at the bottom and it said Ron Paul are Texas and I thought no way you got to be kidding me and in fact in 2007 when he started running for president David Beto and I started writing articles together to run at Lee Rockwell comm Supporting his candidacy and one of the things I did was I went digging through the speeches and I found that speech from 1997 and I really had remembered it right That there he was that courageous to to accuse a Republican president Not just violating the law but violating the very concept of what most people would think it would mean to be the president of the United States And I've been a big fan ever since in fact I used to drive my cab around and I would give copies of his speeches to the people of my cab You can imagine right? Hey, did you know there's one good congressman no really one and he's really good and There were these two speeches they went together the first one was a republic if you can keep it and The second was called. Sorry mr. Franklin. We're all Democrats now and This is some good times there that's in several and you know one more story in 2005 Just before in fact the day that Katrina hit New Orleans Which was really the beginning of the end of the credibility of the Bush administration But that day it was Ron Paul's birthday party and they held the barbecue as they do usually most every year for Ron Paul's birthday party And he got up there and he gave an anti-war talk to a room much smaller than this This is before the presidential campaigns the room was entirely full of almost all just local Republican voters and constituents And he got up there and he gave him an anti-war talk and he said listen I know the president is from Texas. He's in my same party. I feel a lot of pressure to support what he's doing I know a lot of you people support what's going on in the war But I'm here to tell you it just isn't right and then he went through and he explained how America started the terror war how the September 11th attack and the rest of them were blowback from American Imperial policy in the Middle East and I sat there and I watched a room full of Republicans nodding And they knew that even if they didn't agree with him 100% they knew he was telling the truth They knew that they trusted him They knew that he was doing what he thought was right and that was good enough for them Good enough to really move that needle and you know what? I have to think that after a week of George Bush and his government doing nothing to help the drowning people in New Orleans That those same constituents must have been thinking back on Ron Paul's speech Just as so many other Americans were looking back at the Bush government and wondering whether these guys really know what they're doing Like they said they did in the first place And it was really something to see anyway And also want to say about Ron Paul I've interviewed him on my radio show 30 times now since 2004 And he always knows what he's talking about on any issue no matter what it's not just that He knows about economics that he knows about libertarian political theory, but if I ask him about Korea He knows everything about Korea if I ask him about Afghanistan He knows everything about Afghanistan if I ask him about Iran's nuclear program He knows everything about Iran's nuclear program He really is an expert and of course always tells the truth Now you might remember from the clash with Rudy Giuliani The argument was two parts the first part was they hate us because we've been bombing them for 10 years before 9-11 ever happened That rang true and people got that immediately But then he said something that confused people even supporters. He said but now bin Laden is glad that we're there Now we're doing exactly what he wanted by invading and People thought well, I don't get it You're saying they attacked us because they want us to leave now. You're saying that they're glad that we're there Well, he was right about that. I'm gonna share with you this one small part from my book It's fool's air and it's on sale now audio book available If you think you could stand nine hours of this In 2010 this is when bin Laden was still alive his son Omar who's one of his non-terrorist sons Hamza is the bad one Omar bin Laden gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine He said my father's dream was to bring the Americans to Afghanistan He would do the same thing he did to the Russians. I was surprised the Americans took the bait I so much respected the mentality of President Clinton. He was the one who was smart When my father attacked his places, he sent a few cruise missiles to my father's training camp He didn't get my father, but after all the war in Afghanistan, they still don't have my father They have spent hundreds of billions Better for America to keep the money for its economy in Clinton's time America was very smart Not like a bull that runs after the red scarf. I Was in Afghanistan when Bush was elected My father was so happy This is the kind of president he needs one who will attack and spend money and break the country I'm sure my father wanted Senator John McCain more than Obama in 2008 McCain has the same mentality as Bush When the reporter asked Omar bin Laden if he thought Osama bin Laden would launch any more attacks against the United States He replied I don't think so He doesn't need to as soon as America went to Afghanistan his plan worked He's already won. And so this really goes to show the important point As Dr. Paul said in that debate if we think we can just go around the world doing what we want and not have to suffer the Consequences not to study the truth of what's really going on that we do that at our own peril and that's the situation that we find ourselves in today where after 18 years our government is still following Osama bin Laden's script and Reacting exactly in the way that he wanted to All right So of course it was not all about the wars Though that was the key Ron Paul before during and since his presidential campaigns and if he saw his speech as a little talk last night It was really great Ron Paul stands for what is after all the essence of the American creed Unalienable natural rights for all people and during his two campaigns He gave what amounted to the greatest ever speaking tour on behalf of peace liberty a free economy sound money and the rest Those campaigns certainly did more to advance the ideas of liberty than anything else in our lifetimes perhaps in history He changed the world His warnings about the then coming 2008 crash also has helped to prevent the worst anti-capitalist narrative from becoming dominant They did try to blame George Bush's laissez-faire free market policies But it didn't really stick Because of the work that Ron Paul had done in attacking the economy from the free market point of view before the crash ever happened And Part of this was because dr. Paul put on this massive propaganda campaign for freedom right when Americans really needed it the most Okay, might have been a couple of years early But still what dr. Paul did was remind American society that liberty brings us together That it allows us to tolerate each other's differences of opinions and actions freedom is what we all have in common It's at the end of the day what we all care about the most and agree about Freedom of religion freedom of speech a free press guns fair trials for the accused protections from torture the right to keep what we earn to take care of our families and our businesses But in America today the failures of the Bush Clinton Neo-liberal centrist consensus in the post-Cold War era have become too dire to propagandize away in Reaction the worst of the left and the right are becoming more socialistic and more nationalistic Then of course they react against each other even more And it really is a shame The neo-liberal so-called moderate centrists have just about ruined everything They take our libertarian concepts of self-government and property rights and pervert them into an international Crusade to install a global regime of what Bill Clinton called free markets and democracy meaning really policies that favor American business interests and Installing and backing compliant governments around the world with bloody force if necessary We libertarians have Murray Rothbard the neoliberals have Thomas Friedman He says global trade and capitalism can only exist with the mailed fist of the US government to enforce it It turns out the government is looking for work. And so they agree with him And what they've done is they've killed millions of people They've spread chaos across southwestern Asia wasted uncountable trillions of dollars disgraced all of our names and did it all in the name of the American way Dragging the good name of individual rights market economics and regular elections through the mud Just as so much of the rest of the world are also undergoing major reactions Against this peculiar American freedom of the neo-liberals Corrupted by money power and the ideology of American exceptionalism Which claims that murder is just fine when US government employees do it in the name of freedom and progress They've dealt these concepts significant blows But Charles growth hammer and the unipolar moment are both gone The world wonders what is next The horrors of the totalitarian states of the last century show us what could happen If humanity embraces new consolidations of power by strong men of the left or right against the crumbling American order But there is hope for America After all at the root of modern liberalism is the belief in equality and freedom for all and At the root of American conservatism is the attempt to conserve that same old liberalism of the American declaration Under these traditional viewpoints the USA isn't supposed to be a world empire anyway It's surely the path to our self-destruction So the American people and our country are actually giving up nothing that we should want to have When we give up our world empire In peacetime as dr. Paul said last night so many of the rest of our problems will be much easier to resolve I look at the division in the country now Between left and right and obviously there were lots of problems in the 1990s too, but I chalked the current Level of division and vitriol between left and right in America up to George Bush's decision to evade invade Iraq in 2003 half the population Damned and cursed the other half for refusing to support America's war to defend this country From Saddam Hussein who attacked us on September 11 and The other half of the American population went no you dummy Saddam didn't do it or the war would have started a year and a half ago and the level of Hatred between the two sides in fighting over that and of course once the torture scandal broke and Bush and the Republicans Insisted that the entire American right line up to support their torture policy just helped to double You know that feeling of division that the left and the right the blue and the red no longer are members of the same country anymore And this is why Ron Paul's message is so important as the centrist so-called moderates Really the worst extremists of our era are discredited and fade away Dr. Paul shows the country why our radical opposition to the disastrous policies of the liberals and conservatives is the true moderate middle of American politics in a moderate is Walter blocks middle name kind of way The reason we all fight so terribly is because the government has made it so there is so much at stake By insisting on the depoliticization of American life, we will see so many of these conflicts fade away Now is the time for our movement to supplant the consensus of the liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats who are running this country into the ground with libertarians Trying to call their most destructive policies to a halt We have already seen some advances on this front do a no small measure to the catastrophes our opponents have created The politicians are the enemy, but the masses of Americans really aren't so bad When the gap between the truth and the conventional narrative is so vast and When the gap between the truth and the way things should be are likewise so vast This is the best opportunity for libertarians to not only recruit new people to our movement But to help lead the best of the left and the right to help them to get their Priority straight to help us end the very worst things our government does first justice dr. Paul does Okay now Jeff wanted me to talk about my own experience in alternative media So I'm going to do that. Otherwise. I would just continue talking about how much I love Ron Paul for the rest of the day Or maybe to talk to you about Iraq war three again But this realignment between the best of the left and the right this has been my mission since I started on pirate radio in Austin in 1998 To try to bridge that gap between the populace left and the right to fight the elite and protect freedom. I Admit it hasn't worked that well, but I'm trying I've never really tried to join up with mass media My first show was say it ain't so on the community pirate radio station free Radio Austin 97.1 FM in Austin Which was mostly hippies and earth-first environmentalists and some right-wing militia guys We're all fighting the power and exemplifying that same spirit That same agenda here After the FCC cracked down on free radio Austin some friends of mine started another pirate radio station chaos radio 95.9 FM which lasted through almost all of the George W. Bush years This is where I started the interview show under the name of Philip Drew back in 2003 I also used to call congressman Paul's weekly update recorded message 888 3 2 2 1 4 1 4 and Play that live over-the-air every week and Jeff. Where's Jeff? I'm sorry. I did lie to you a couple of times A Jeff wouldn't let me interview dr. Paul on pirate radio. So I told him it wasn't Hey, it was wartime It still is All right, then of course there's anti-war.com where the show has been featured since 2007 This is where we get most the most bang for our anti-war buck probably anywhere and all credit to Eric Garris Jason Ditz Justin Romando, Angela Keaton, Margaret Griffiths and the rest of the crew there at anti-war.com and Possibly interesting to you guys curiously even to me I guess is that I've been on KPFK 90.7 FM in Los Angeles for seven years now now Every single other host on there is a leftist. I'm the only libertarian on there my show is called anti-war radio I'm on every Sunday morning and Even though I don't quite fit in with the rest of the crew there They don't mind my point of view on other matters They figure I guess that even though I'm bad on everything else at least I'm really good on war and It goes to show that that's their priority it is Pacifica after all it was founded for anti-war purposes generations ago and So they still have their priorities straight and allow me to do my show there At first it was hard for them to understand that I'm not from somewhere to the right of Dick Cheney But they figured it out. It took them a while Okay, now something that's been very important to all of us Of course has been the advent of Facebook and Twitter And a huge effect that they've had on the internet for good and for ill The promise of these sites of course is the potential for a great expansion of all of our audiences Though from the beginning they've also been a double-edged sword Killing great comments section communities and blogs from all places on the political spectrum. I Get fed I got fed up and quit Facebook back in 2014 when they first started really changing the algorithms to punish alternative media I Would post an interview of Ron Paul and get just a few likes and shares Whatever exactly they thought of me I was sure that more than just a couple of my six thousand friends and followers would want to listen to and like such posts The people who hung around on my Facebook page the community of people of friends there vanished Facebook started demanding money to show my posts to anyone. I called their bluff and walked away Now Twitter is doing the same thing to their timelines and are banning people with unpopular opinions The centralization of the internet onto these sites is already showing its major weaknesses That one can be made to disappear from discussion at the whim of a few Silicon Valley executives In bed with the government and corrupt think tanks like the Atlantic Council Which is funded by arms dealers and foreign governments primarily to promote the permanence of the NATO Alliance Don't like their policy? Then you're a Russian agent and have to go Honestly, I was really happy to quit Twitter I was wasting far too much of my time for far too little reward on that site Cold turkey was the only way to go My temporary ban along with Dan McAdams during the Peter Van Buren troubles a couple of months ago This gave me a good opportunity to finally do so a Worst stage of internet oppression now looms First they came for the extreme right and the truthers De-platforming them as they call it from virtually every web 2.0 service and even including kicking them off of major corporate servers like go daddy.com At this rate banning their servers from access to American ISPs Banning them from the internet entirely is not far off Nor is the targeting of libertarians and leftist alternative media sites many of which have already been D-ranked by Google and ghosted and banned by Facebook and Twitter Facebook purged at least dozens maybe hundreds of libertarian-minded political pages like those of cop watch and the anti-media just a couple of weeks ago in Reaction to these in reaction to this we have seen the advent of a few alternatives such as mastodon and mines Perhaps one of these will take off Perhaps someone will invent a standalone app that negates the need for us all to join any one site in order to network with friends family and ideological fellow travelers and opponents Now here is why all this matters so much This week the New York Times finally ran two major stories on the suffering of the Yemeni people at the hands of the American Saudi war there The administration now finally says it's time to start wrapping things up after three and a half years of slaughter at the end of 2018 Public pressure Including perhaps especially through social media has really helped regular people from the right left and libertarians to force at least some congressmen and senators to introduce resolutions to try to stop this war and Finally for the New York Times to admit how bad things there have gotten The fact that the Saudi crown prince tortured and murdered a regular writer for the Washington Post The same way that they and the United Arab Emirates have been torturing and murdering Yemenis for the past few years Also seems to has helped to have helped to raise awareness of the tragedy of the US's war there as well, of course But right now We're still dependent Our pressure from below can push but it takes the New York Times and the Washington Post and the pressure on them by us For their change in narrative to really change the narrative where it counts in DC Sorry to report that's true, but I think this week's New York Times stories Help to prove it Right now I'm actually trying to get away with reforming the transcript of a talk. I gave on the internet To turn that into my next book about the war on terrorism And I'm thinking about getting another old-fashioned daily radio show So I'm not really sure if I'm using these technologies, right? I Seem to seem to have gotten a better reaction from the book then 5,000 interviews over all these years So I guess people really do still you know crave the deep dive and the old technology to get the real truth through But as the great comedian Bill Hicks once said you do what you can So let's all do what we can to spread the message of peace and liberty while we still can You're all ideological capitalists and I supply books Say his law says that you have to demand them. I'm pretty sure that's how that works Thank you all so much


Mark Coleman, and we are here with another episode of Talking Tax on Think Tech Hawaii. Thank you very much for being with us. I'm the co-host, along with Tom Yamachika, who is president of the Tax Foundation of Hawaii, and a prolific writer of columns that you can see on his website, the Tax Foundation of Hawaii website, and in newspapers around the state. I'm with the Grousford Institute of Hawaii. Today, we're going to talk about a recent article of his, his latest article, which was called Owning in a Burn Zone. And he was talking about the predicament that private property owners in Lahaina find themselves after the whole town burned down in early August with all the plans to rebuild it. There's a lot of questions about how the town is going to be rebuilt. And he brought up some, Tom brought up some really interesting points, primarily suggesting that we have to remember that there are private property owners in Lahaina whose rights as property owners need to be, be respected. But yet, of course, there's also government concerns and the community at large that has to be considered. So in addition, we have Jonathan Hilton with us today. He's a policy researcher at the Grousford Institute of Hawaii, which is where I work also. And Jonathan has been doing a lot of research recently into the Lahaina situation, Maui's stoning codes in particular, which will play a factor in the rebuilding of Lahaina. So Tom, how about first we get you to explain a little bit more about what prompted you to write this article. I noticed that you did cite a really good article by John Hill in Civil Beat, which comprised consisted of some interviews with private property owners in Lahaina, how some of them feel like their rights are being ignored.   So could you like summarize that for us and what your views are on that? Sure. These days, there's a lot of talk in the news and elsewhere about rebuilding the burn zone. That was once Lahaina. It was the former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. And the question is, you know, can or should it be restored to its former 1800s glory? Should it be keeping a character as a picture, picturesque, but sleepy little fishing town? Or should it be something else? Obviously, government will have, you know, some role to play in the rebuilding. And there have been community meetings that have kind of attended to address what the rebuilt Lahaina is going to look like. But there are, you know, folks who kind of came away from that meeting going, wait a minute, listening to these people talk about all their plans for the property, but it's not their property. All the rules they wanted. It's absurd. The socialist mentality, they think they own the land. That's a direct quote from, from, from John Hill's piece. Right, right. He put some developer in Maui is saying that. Yes, right. So, so let's kind of explore, you know, what is going on in Maui. What private property rights are what the government's role is, because, you know, I mean, as a tax program, we look at the government's role a lot. And let's talk a little bit about where the lines are. Yeah, I like it in Tom and John's article. And actually, you pretty much said very much the same thing. And what does it mean to own land in the US? In large part, it means that you get to choose what you do with it. But there are limits, master plans, zoning, building codes, et cetera. In theory, these are larger, these are reflection of largest societal values. But what I liked in your article was how you pointed out that although there's some master planning and zoning will probably survive scrutiny, officials should not be going hog wild with restrictions on new development or risk claims that private property has been taken. We talked about that a little bit, you and I offline yesterday. Could you explore that concept a little bit? Yeah, when I talk about property being taken, I'm talking about, you know, the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution says that private property shall not be taken except for a public purpose. And if that happens, there needs to be compensation paid for. You know, the government can't just take your property for no reason. So, for example, and I'll bring Jonathan in on this at this point. There have been a lot of proposals about exactly how should they be allowed to rebuild? I know the Grasswood Institute, Jonathan's work, we've proposed that people whose homes burned down. Well, like you pointed out in your article, it was kind of there was a lot of construction in Lahaina that didn't meet code, modern code. And and so one proposal was to let people be exempt from modern building codes. They were they were operating under exemptions from, you know, they were grandfathered in, so to speak, as the codes were developed. And now when they rebuild, do they have to meet modern code or can they can they build like what they used to build? Jonathan, what's what's what's your take on all of that? If a property was completely destroyed, it's probably going to have to rebuild under modern building code. So there's a question of how does the county offset some of those burdens because the building code today is stricter than it would have been 50, 60, 70 years ago when a lot of these houses were put up. So there's a discussion of what code requirements should be imposed on some of these houses. And there's and so maybe if all of the modern building code is what these houses are going to have to be rebuilt under, there might be room for the county to almost compensate the owners for those stricter requirements and say, maybe we would give you some some zoning density that you would be allowed to either use on your land or to sell to someone else, kind of as a compensation for the fact that you're going to have to rebuild with all of these stricter standards in place. Well, let's let's kind of start off with with the zoning laws. Now, when we're talking about zoning laws, the general rule is you you you build to the zoning codes that were in effect at the time you build. And if the zoning laws change, which they do over time, then you're usually allowed to keep what you got. But if you make some kind of substantial alteration to your property, then you got to comply with the current codes. But a number of the structures that were there in La Hina when you know, when it burned down were, of course, 70, 80 years old. And if they hadn't done any substantial structural renovations, they were under 70 or 80 year old rules. So number one is there's a realization at least some of the rights or the the rights that you have as a grandfather in under the old rules don't exist anymore because like everybody's got to substantially rebuild. So the the justification for keeping under the old old rules has kind of gone away.  And I guess the first question is, is that a taking? And is that something that's been within your research, Jonathan? I haven't looked into the Fifth Amendment implications of of rebuilding in a burn zone yet, although I I'm going to go do that right after we get off this call for sure. Yeah, there's there's a whole body of law regarding what they call inverse condemnation, which basically says that if you substantially change the use that property is going to be put while somebody is on it, then at some point you cross the line and you got to compensate people because there's a taking under the Fifth Amendment. And and these issues came up, like, for example, when Hawaii Kai was being built because there was a lot of zoning changes when the Hawaii Kai development was going up. And a lot of litigation happened back then. Well, you know, one problem with the Lahaina thing is that people are homeless and this has to be this can't take forever to find new homes for people. Gary, Gary Kubota, former star bulletin, star advertiser, router, he wrote a really great column on Tuesday and the star advertiser, an opinion column, and he was the title was Rebuild Lahaina Town Soundly and as Quickly as Possible. I loved what he was saying. He says, let's not get caught up in the global warming discussions and pushing back the locations of homes and businesses from the shoreline in Lahaina, when it was a fire that destroyed the town, not the ocean, taking away the use of the Harborfront property would be government overreach. And then he says if Amsterdam and Venice can find solutions to keep existing businesses in or near structurally in near areas in structurally sound buildings, so can Lahaina. So again, I'm wondering how much leeway the county is is what going to be willing to give local homeowners and businesses to rebuild their homes quickly, which would require, I think, some exemptions from those from the zoning codes, waivers of fees that will that cost money and other things to kind of get in the way of doing things quickly around here. Jonathan, what do you know about how the governor's emergency proclamation applied to his housing proclamation versus what's going on at the county level from Mayor Richard Bison? Yeah, I want to get into that, but real quick, just by way of comparisons, so the the the Paradise Fire in California in 2018, that happened in November of 2018, and the first certificate of occupancy was issued in July of 2019. So it was less than a year after that fire that people were able to start rebuilding to some extent. Now I need to look further into whether or not the state of California or the local government provided any sort of waiver or incentive for quick rebuilding. But obviously it's possible. But to comment on the emergency proclamation, so the second emergency proclamation that Governor Green issued in October, he did specifically exempt Lahaina. And on the other hand, Mayor Bison's emergency proclamations, he's issued several of them and they're not they're not just specific to housing. They cover a lot of different things. But right now, those emergency proclamations at the county level are not going to have much of an effect on rebuilding because no one's allowed to rebuild anything right now. As far as I know, EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, the county, they haven't even cleaned up the entire burn zone. So those emergency proclamations would not really have a real effect until the cleanup is finished. Yeah, nobody's issued any building permits at the moment, right? Yeah. Tom, what I what I read in the papers just the other day was thousands of Maui property owners, primarily in Lahaina, haven't yet given government permit, haven't yet been given government permission to clear their debris. Altogether, three hundred and five thirty five hundred homes were lost in Lahaina and upcountry Maui and only about nine hundred people have been able to get government permission to remove debris. I mean, this whole thing is like being run by. It's a snail fest, practically. I don't even know that I remember one of the early complaints was that the insurance adjusters weren't allowed to even go in there and assess what's what's happening. I don't know where that stands now. But so the and one of the rules that Mayor Bison talked or the County Council approved the debris removal bill in mid-October, just about a month ago. And and I think and part of that was that had to do with. Under the bill, homeowners could offer a government program of removal administer by the federal emergency management agency. And then there was another one, an alternative of which they hadn't really explained yet. But according to one article I read, it costs thousands, tens of thousands of dollars get this stuff removed. And so I don't know. It's a really complicated situation. What do you think about that? Well, you've got to start somewhere. If you have like toxic substances on the on on your property, you've got to get rid of them first. Is there is there? Well, I'm just wondering if there's a quicker way to do things it does seem terribly complicated and there are safety considerations. Jonathan, what's your take on that? I think the county is currently looking at a place they can put a landfill in order to put some of this toxic debris. Because again, this goes back to the building code discussion. You had a lot of materials that were used in houses built 60, 70 years ago, I think asbestos that are not allowed today because they can be hazardous. And so all of that's burned. And you don't want that getting into the ocean or the drinking water. And so even trying to figure out a place to move these debris to does take consideration. We can't put this in a normal landfill. Obviously, you wouldn't want any of that sapping into the drinking water. So it is complicated. And I don't have a clear answer for exactly how you run a cleanup of a burn zone. And so my focus is my research on what happens, what once people are allowed to rebuild, how do we make that as streamlined as possible so people don't have to move to the mainland or another island? Yeah, Tom, you were talking about that in your article about how once let's just say the debris did get all removed and people were allowed to proceed, we would have the issue of zoning, maybe possible waivers of zoning codes so people could rebuild similar to what they used to have. But also you were suggesting that there's the issue of infrastructure, the roads and the water lines. And the electrical power. Yeah, the problem is that cities don't exist by themselves and they don't exist in a vacuum unlike maybe rural properties. You need to have some form of sewer. You have to have some water lines. You have electric for the more enlightened lighting. You'd need cable TV or other kinds of communications infrastructure. And that's something that government has to do. Well, behind it probably grew organically. You know, it was not a master plan community like they've been trying to do with Kakaako, for example, on Oahu they didn't go in and kick out everybody and then start laying in the sewers and with the long range futuristic vision of a community. That sounds like one of the options that a lot of the visionaries for Lahaina want to do.  So it's a similar situation. It's a clear piece of property now, except that there are individual property owners there. So that's the quandary, isn't it? You just can't walk in and start planning a way to your heart's content to meet whatever vision you might have about restoring. Yeah, I mean, when you plan a planned unit development like Mililani, you basically have the developer own all of the land first and then they can, you know, they can make all the decisions at that point. That's fine. They can create rules on what kind of houses you can have, what kind of houses you can't have, what kind of setbacks you can have, what your floor area is, what your ratio is. And all of that they can put into a document called CCNRs, Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions, which new buyers in the property either sign up for or they don't get in. But at least at that point there's an element of choice as to whether you're going to accept those restrictions or not. Right, kind of like private zoning in a way. Yeah, but the big difference is that for the folks in Lahaina, they own the property already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it didn't have those restrictions before. People are proposing restrictions now. And I mean, is that really fair to them? Yeah, Jonathan, what would you suggest should be, you know, what would you recommend for the future of Lahaina? Some of the, in terms of zoning waivers or changes or whatever. So to begin with, you have to, if the county has plans for the houses that were burned down, they know what the density was. They know what the setbacks were. They know the floor area ratio and all of that. So what the county could do is, if they don't want everyone in Lahaina to rebuild exactly with the same density that it had, you know, because of the, because zoning codes have been updated, they could allow people to sell that additional density somewhere else or add it to their home in a different manner. Alternatively, they could simply allow people to rebuild to the previous density level they had. You know, a lot of the businesses and shops on Front Street probably were not built with modern zoning code. They didn't have setbacks or parking requirements that you would have to have now. And the county could waive that if it has the building plans. Obviously, if it doesn't, that's another issue. But in addition to zoning, you also have to think about special area management permits, and you have to deal with those. And because so much of Lahaina was near the ocean, that may factor into the situation. I don't know what the answer is there. Well, certainly, one possibility is for Lahaina to be designated some kind of special district like Waikiki is now. And I don't know whether that's helpful or hurtful, but it certainly makes the rules different and uniform within, you know, within the community, but maybe non-uniform everywhere else. Yes, that could help. Well, yeah, there's so many competing visions for the place. It reminds me of the protests that we're trying to keep tourists out. And a lot of those people weren't even from Lahaina. They weren't even from West Maui. We have all kinds of visions to preserve the waterfront, setbacks, kind of what Gary Kubota was talking about, what you were talking about. But ultimately, I think it's going to be up to the property owners and working closely with the county. Is your sense, Jonathan, that the county is open to waivers and working along the lines you suggested? I think the county is going to be open to some changes. Just yesterday, the council was having a meeting about trying to make it easier for prefabricated homes to be assembled. There was a company there presenting, trying to ask the county about emergency shelter on county-owned land. All of that would be built with prefabricated homes. So they'd panelized homes, they'd come in, and they'd be able to put them up in days. Whether or not that materializes, that's a different question. But it does indicate that there are conversations going on about some more innovative ways to address, at least the temporary, housing needs. Yeah, and when the economists weighed in on this, they kind of raised another issue in that they thought that if the same density levels were maintained, the property values would escalate well beyond what the workforce needed in the city could afford. So I think it was Carl Bottom who suggested that density levels should be allowed to rise. That we should have some high-rises, maybe off the, you know, back toward the hills. Maybe a low-rise apartment, right? Perhaps. Lower high. A multi-story building. Yeah, you pointed that out. And I think that's an excellent idea, frankly. If property owners are, I mean, they're in a real bind. A lot of them might sell, are probably going to sell. They can't afford to stay here in Hawaii, you know. So, or in Lahaina anyway, maybe they'll have to move in with family elsewhere throughout the state. So they have those funds now. There's a government proposed fund set up. Tom, you heard about that, where they want to maybe offer a certain amount to victims that apply. Yeah, that's our next article. Yeah, you wrote about that already. You suggested that idea. And then, boom, that came out from the governor's office a little bit, you know, more than one. Well, they said they were thinking about it for three months prior to that. Yeah, well, they would be exonerating. They would be letting go of any future claims, you know, in terms of lawsuits and whatever. Does that, how about that as an idea to help out the people in the short run? Does that make sense? We think it's a great idea, but it deserves a lot more discussion than we're able to give today. Yeah, I'm just worried that the folks there are going to be living in hotel rooms or shelters on the beach or whatever for a lot longer than it then should be because of all of the concerns, all of the restrictions on home building in this state. Jonathan, have you got any last thoughts about what could be happening over there? I'd like to give kind of a PSA later today, the Maui County Council, or I guess later on Wednesday or Thursday, whichever day this is, I guess I'm lost. The point is, Maui County Council is considering a bill related to property tax relief, and that factors into this as well because individuals who might be looking at a high property tax bill otherwise could consider selling because their home's not there anymore. Their property taxes go up, they don't have an income, they don't have a home, so I'm glad that the council is looking at the question of how do we provide relief to people so they're not forced to sell or the county even comes in and forecloses on the property because they couldn't pay the property taxes. Absolutely. So a lot of that conversation is happening. Yeah, me too. And Tom, I wish we had talked a little bit more about property tax relief. They have been doing a good job, I think, trying to address that issue even at their own expense, or at least in terms of the county coffers. But you know, Tom, you closed your article. We definitely need a careful, well thought out community design that older and newer property owners and renters can choose to participate in. That's about the way, that's about it, right? Well, yeah, that's the best of all possible outcomes. I don't know if it's going to happen, but that's what we need. Well, let's hope it does. For the sake of Lahaina and Hawaii in general, it's a real sad situation and we need to see the best of it come out. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Jonathan, for being here. Thank you, Tom. Good to see you again. And we'll see you all again in about two weeks. I hope here on taxing, talking tax on think that Hawaii. Aloha.


Going on everyone, Sam here with late in sports cards, ripping a six box F1 mixer, 22, top scrim formula one hobby in late number 32, random team style. There's a look again at your random results. As always, you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the link in chat. I do see that Eskimo, I'll change it after. I meant to do that, I had all the intentions of doing it and for some reason I didn't. So, look, start with light, you can tell it's light four cards per pack, 16 packs per box. Good luck here, everybody. Here are Nicholas Latifi for Williams, Max Verstappen, Speed Demons for Red Bull. It's gonna be John D'Arvala, Pink Raywave to 75, 61 of 75 for Prima, F2 Prima, how's it look? I can't do anything about it. Raywave is Mercedes, and George Russell Refractor for Mercedes. So what's happening is because more like one person bought more than one spot and you go to sort it, it takes away the other ones they bought and only has the one. The one, right. So, I mean, that's the only way I could print it. Yeah, that's fine. But if it, because it keeps them being an issue, we're gonna have a problem. Lewis Hamilton, Purple Green. Because I'm not gonna be able to keep up. No, I know. Now, it should be fine after the next one. John D'Arvala, again, Green Raywave to 99 for Prima. Prima spot doing well here, out of nowhere. There's Danny Ricardo Speed Demons for McLaren. Nicholas Latifi Refractor, Williams. Taylor Porsche, Raywave on top, Voltaire Botos from Mercedes. Mercedes dual. Checkered Flag Refractor for Nando Alonzo, for Alpine, nice one there. Oliver H, picking up the Alonzo Checkered Flag Refractor. Marcus Armstrong Refractor, F2's Future Stars, and a Mini Diamonds, Max Verstappen, Grand Prix Winner in Belgium to 299 for Red Bull. Very nice. Refractor Luham, Grand Prix Winner at Great Britain. Landstroll, base. And last back of the first light box, there's a JQ's Future Stars, Raywave and Ancerfoot. Base, base, and base. Do it for box one of light, box two of light. Now, I would say you could just recap anything under a hundred, is that what we were doing? Yeah, that's what we were doing. Been a minute since I've done one of these six boxers, come on, next up, empty. Again, guys, we've got five to go on the second WWE Prism at Random Pack Style, five to go. Let's get that filled on up. Refractor Yuki Sunoda, Alpha Tari, Lewis Hamilton's Speed Demons from Mercedes. Logan Sargent, F2 Carlin on the Raywave. And Refractor Jack Duhan for Virtuosi. There's an orange-red Lewis Hamilton on the multi-color, one per box, from Mercedes. For Kyle, got trolled by that card, maybe it was the impersonals, one night. Joe Guan Yu, Mini Diamonds Rookie, $2.99 for Alpha Romeo, by one of those dual-colors that aren't numbered. They're like a red-green or something. Hi, C-doll. Later. Pink, Esteban Ocon, $75 for Alpine. He was like, I'm gonna orange this one. He's like, oh, I think we got a red, I think we got a red, and it's red. Who's up? Steamer's out there. Steamer the Month Club out there, Sebastian Vettel. Ian, you're not getting a show, right? Oh, it's like Game Pass. Oh, yeah. I could get it, I just had one of them. Refractor Yuki Sunoda? I don't know if it's a space one, I thought. True. I ran into that, I had to delete the older MLB.  The Diamond Dynasty team's decent in this. Mike Cracks for Aston Martin, principal card. Basin base. It's a lot more like as far as like off-building stuff that's really... Yeah, there's a lot more content in it, which is good too. Yeah. Charlotte Leclerc on the Refractor. And Franz Tost, that is Green-Ray-Wave the 99 for Alphator. Lou Ann, Refractor. Speed Demon's Leclerc. Liam Lawson, Future Stars. What's up, Jonathan? Oh, Jonathan. How you doing, buddy? Space and base. Yeah, yeah, someone told me on Twitch, CW. And Ralph Boshun, nice one there. Yeah, I got to switch to Timebox, because I literally was in the middle of doing stuff that does that and I got distracted. Another team just came in for our PYT layer. Yeah, I just actually shot an email. I forwarded your email to... Dude, why does it keep doing this? I forwarded your email over to Sorting and Shipping for you, where I saw that, yeah. They'll run into, I would say another potential would be if you already have an order number for it and the order went through, you should be okay. If not, try doing it on a different card. We have individuals run into that on a pretty regular basis. Again, guys, just 23 a spot on that WWE Prism, which keeps adding their team, taking away to an inventory for whatever reason, because it just likes to make my life a little bit harder. Dude, it did it again. Well, he's good with this. What are we doing here? Yeah, five to go. There we go, again, five to go. There is actually five to go. Chen Bullock Bashee Refractor. Again, that breaks soon. Got four of those, Lewis Hamilton. Again, just $23 a spot. Get your random pack in a box at WWE Prism. Definitely a lot of fun. You got basically a one-in-six shot in an auto, plus guaranteed Prism, like Silver, Rey Wave, numbered card, Balteri Botos Refractor, not on that variation. That's a true gold, Total Wolf, to 50. Nice one there for Mercedes on the principle card. First one is sold out, number 21 is sold out. We're down to five, seven, and seven, so pretty much halfway sold out and all the rest. There's a red-green Max Verstappen, not numbered for Red Bull, very cool. George Russell, let me get some Star Wars breaks. Got to fill up later on in the shift as well. Got Esban O'Conn to $199, Purple Checker for Alpine. Esban O'Conn. There's a Rey Wave, Mick Schumacher. And Refractor, Charles Leclerre, non-variation for Ferrari. Leclerre. Leclerre, Charles Leclerre, Nicholas Latifi, Speed Demons. Refractor Verstappen, Grand Prix winner, United States, 21. Leclerre on the Speed Demon for Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton, Rey Wave. Grand Prix winner, round of 15. Base pack on the back there. What's up? Same for a 20 case, but we'll play our break. Lewis Hamilton. We did it. That's what we did when Balmain Chrome came out. We did 10 hobby, 10 choice, ended up being like 700 a spot. There's a Marino Sato. Nice one there. Be cool to do. I mean, we're doing a three case there, which is good. What's up? What's going on? Richard for short. And mini diamonds, Esban O'Conn, $2.99 for Alpine. Brats on that Alpine. I think we are now sold out on tiered random team style of, make sure that didn't oversell real quick. Tiered random team style of contenders. I think we are sold out on that now. Yep, we are sold out on that. So thank you guys very much. Yeah, the SGC break sold out in literally like an hour. I was like, oh my God, bro, it's nuts. Oh, what's going on, man? How you been? And now we're on to our three hobbies. Lando Norse, Dan Ricardo. That's a Richard Vashor refractor for, try it. Purple Green Jack Doohan for Virtuosi. There's a Lando Norse refractor, non-variation for McClaren. Regular refractor. And Lewis Hamilton, F1 award winners refractor for Mercedes. Doohan, Ace, and one insert on the back. Fractor, Sebastian Vettel for Aston Martin. Fernando Alonzo, Speed Demons. Everybody's having a great Tuesday as well. Happy 10 box Tuesday. Doohan, you've formed me the one freshest rookie to purple to 399. Alfa Romeo, true purple. Got Gold Checker, Marino Sato for Virtuosi, 32 of 50. Grats on that. Those are clean, I love the checkered flags like color dude. They're so nice. Sebastian Vettel, Azerbaijan driver of the day. And guys, just five to go in that WWE random pack style. Number 22, we have one up after this. Then we've got the second one. Master of Staff and Speed Demons. Then we've got two more after as well. We'll seven to go and then we're into Star Wars and then baseball. George Russell, refractor, Ace, thank Donnie. Donnie just dropped you guys that link again. Minidiamonds, 299, Red Bull award winners. Fastest pit stop. Very cool. Thank you there, Chris taking a spot in Star Wars. We're down to now 14 to go on that one. Thank you, Chris. Appreciate you, buddy. Yeah, nice. Again, 23 bucks a spot on WWE random pack style. Definitely a good price on that. Pretty much guaranteed something. Guaranteed some cards, which is good. That's never a bad thing, getting cards for sure. Big on that, big on getting some cards. Fractor. I'm a big buying the pack style. Oh, big pack style guy. Big pack style guy. Liam Lawson, F2 car lane on the Gold Auto. All right, so on there, going to Bobby on that triple spot, 18 to 50. Grats on that auto, very nice. First auto of the break. George Russell, refractor. Got Gold Checker, Ayumi Iwasa, 15 to 50. Louis Hamilton, purple checker to $198.9 for Mercedes. Wilco sold us out on that with the Bob Ross Monopoly. What's up? And there's Slack, Will goes, sold us out on that with Bob Ross Monopoly. Probably a little later. Probably, probably. Unfortunately, yeah. Ace, Yuki Tsunoda, speed demons. There's a refractor, Callan Williams, future stars for F2 Trident. Dude Trident's hit a ton in this. Out of nowhere. There's Nicholas Latifi for Williams, Midi Diamonds, $2.99. George Russell, speed demons for Mercedes. Lendo Norse, refractor. Driver of the day, Amelia Romagna. Ace, there's Max Verstappen. Driver of the day, Monte Carlo. Checker flag, refractor. Charlotte Lecler, more Phoenix PYTs coming in as well. Purple Esteban Ocon, $2.399 on the true purple. For McLaren, Nick Claren. Purple Green, Fernando Alonso, that's going to Alpine. Ace, Voltaire Botox, Grand Prix winner, Turkey, 2021. Frederick Vesti, refractor for ART. That'll do it for box five slash box two of hobby. And box number three and final, F1 hobby. F1 growing hobby. There's Midi Diamonds, Kevin Magnuson for Haas, $2.99. Midi Diamonds. Sergio Perez, speed demons for Red Bull. Haas, refractor. Latifian Albon for Williams. Fractor, Jo Guan Yu, rookie for Alfa Romeo. GQ's refractor. And Jack Duhan, refractor auto for Virtuosi. Rats on that, Wanzi. A gold's coming out of this. Fractor of Lance Stroll and gold checker, Voltaire Botox for Alfa Romeo. There you go again, Wanzi. Alfa Romeo, Voltaire Botox. Dana Ricardo, speed demons. It's just me and you tonight, I think it is, right? It's always. Let's use that, yeah. JQ's Van Amsterdam foot refractor. Not Van. No, usually there'd be. No one else keeping me sane. Bunch of knuckleheads out there. Sergio Perez, the 399. Bahrain, got in the heyday with you, Bryson and Alex out there. It was like a day here. Pretty much. There's Jo Guan Yu for Alfa Romeo. Checkered flag refractor. Later, Lane. Good. Don't get color on these a lot. It's gonna be for Carlin, Liam Lawson, 12 to 50 on the gold. Those are very tough to hit, gold, I have to say. So that's awesome. Kinderats on that. Purple green, my crack. Very cool. For Aston Martin. God, I couldn't think of it for a sec. Cardo refractor. Yeah, I'd be wrong, like delay. Now something else is messing up. Shopify. Why not? Yep, my Shopify's too slow. Cause like, I don't, we not getting the emails when orders come in. Cause like we've got Brian S and Jorge, both the orders in. Refresh it. And Max Verstappen refractor. Still a quick recap here, everybody. Yeah, and these are usually pretty quick, so. Not too shabby. Do much, unfortunately. Greenson 99, we had Frans Tost, Jahan Daravalla. Pinks we had to 75, Jahan Daravalla. Esban Ocon, now golds to 50. Literally, this is all the golds we had, dude. That's kind of wild. Toto Wolf, Marino Sato, Yuma Iwasa, Volterry Botas, that was Liam Lawson. We had Jack Doohan Auto and Liam Lawson Gold Auto to 50. That will do it for the break. Thank you guys again for the fill. Next up, we've got WWE.