Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Musings: Hooser's Swiss Schtick

How many misstatements can Councilman Gary Hooser make in 2:45 minutes?

A fact check of his recent speech “defending Kauai” at the Syngenta shareholders meeting in Basel, Switzerland, turned up nine.
And that doesn't count his pre-fabrication; namely, this promise, issued in the press release distributed by the organization he heads, Hawaii Alliance for Progression Action:

Hooser will be speaking as an individual relating his individual experiences, thoughts and concerns and not in his official capacity.

But when Gary began to speak at the Syngenta meeting, nearly the first words out of his mouth were:

I presently serve on the Kauai County Council. I'm a lawmaker.

He then gave a rundown on his past work experience at the Senate and office of Environmental Quality Control (omitting his numerous failed campaigns and seat-of-his-pants re-election to the Council).

He never even mentioned HAPA.

In fact, he made like he was speaking for all of us:

And I appreciate your patience with me allowing me to share the message from my community.

Now on to the rest of those failed fact checks, in order of utterance:

Gary: I'm also here today to present a petition, a petition from thousands of our residents of our small island.

Fact: The petition was circulated throughout social media, and it's highly doubtful that all the signers were from Kauai.

Gary: Only 60, 65,000 people live where I live and we are very, very concerned about our community and the impacts that Syngenta has in our small community.

Fact: All 65,000?

Gary: Right now, Syngenta sprays enormous amounts of atrazine in the fields around the homes, schools and hospitals where we live.

Fact: Syngenta has just one field that is near public facilities. Field 806 is about one-third mile west of the westernmost property line of Waimea Canyon Middle School. It is even further away from KVMH and residences. 

The Good Neighbor Program reporting website shows Syngenta used 1,188 pounds of atrazine on 1,527 acres in 2014.

Gary: Syngenta sprays enormous amounts of paraquat.

Fact: The Good Neighbor Program reporting website shows Syngenta used used four pounds of paraquat over eight acres in 2014.

Gary And you do it daily.

Fact: Syngenta does not spray paraquat or any restricted use pesticide daily.

Gary: There are four other restricted use pesticides that are applied daily around homes, schools and hospitals where I live.

Fact: In field 806, restricted use pesticides are applied one or twice a week for roughly eight weeks. The field is planted once a year. That's a maximum of 16 applications — each taking about 10 minutes — annually. 

Gary: Imagine if you had to drive around, live in a community surrounded by GE test fields and every day, every day you know that they're spraying toxic chemicals in the areas around where you live.

Fact: Again, nothing is sprayed every day. And Gary doesn't actually live anywhere near any fields.

Gary: Imagine if the schools in your community had children getting sick like they do in my community and going to the hospital in ambulances, throwing up, while Syngenta is spraying fields right next door.

Fact: Syngenta doesn't spray field 806 until after 3 p.m. Though some kids were transported to the hospital from Waimea Canyon School in ambulances at least once, a number of years back, none of them were diagnosed with pesticide exposure. And the field is one-third mile away, not right next door.

Gary: Imagine if the doctors in your community, like the doctors in my community, are concerned about birth defects, who believe there is 10 times the rate, the national rate, of birth defects in a small hospital where I live.

Fact: Dr. Jim Raelson raised concerns about birth defects, but after his words were misused by the anti-GMO movement, he issued an open letter to clarify. It reads, in part:

The point I tried to make to Council members was that we don't know for sure if we truly have a problem of true clusters because it has not been adequately studied but as clinicians we are seeing suspicious clusters of disease. We also don't know about cause and effect but if we are seeing a true cluster of a disease that has been linked to low level exposure by good studies done elsewhere then that in itself is grounds for real concern that we are seeing serious health problems.

And in response to birth-defect fear-mongering, Dr. Graham Chelius, a Westside ob-gyn, also published a letter to the editor in The Garden Island that stated:

There is not an increased rate of cardiac defects of any kind on the Westside of Kauai.

At that point, HAPA and Kauai Ohana member Fern Rosensteil, who was surreptitiously filming Gary's talk, was forcibly removed from the Syngenta meeting. End of Gary's tape.

By that time, he had uttered one lie every 18 seconds. 

Why can't Gary make his case and tell the truth?

Gary also demanded that Syngenta withdraw its lawsuit challenging Bill 2491/Ordinance 960, the bad bill that Gary and Center for Food Safety wrote, that was overturned by a federal judge, and is now on appeal.

The Syngenta shareholders took no action.

But Gary got what he really wanted: Coverage in the Swiss media — again, using the only cache he has, which is Councilman — by telling the same mistruths he told Syngenta shareholders. 

Demagoguery at its finest. 

And since he blew off a Council meeting to attend, your tax dollars at work.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fern didn't appear to be forcebly removed as she was filming on her way out and the camera work was pretty stable. Did you see both parts of the video? You know politicians always bend the truth to make a point. This was a boon doggle to begin with. Maybe da Hoos is gonna start importing Swiss chocolate.

Joan Conrow said...

No, I didn't see the second half. Do you have a link?

Anonymous said...

I think he ought to be censured, reprimanded or sanctioned by the City Council for misrepresenting himself and Kauai constituents. He can't be recalled unfortunately, because the county charter only provides for recall of elected officials with four-year terms. What incredible gall to indulge in international grandstanding when he barely eked by in the general election.

Anonymous said...

Hooser is a worthless POS. I am truly disgusted with his misrepresentations and lies.

Anonymous said...

Da Hoos always uses his Council position be the preface of his speeches. He by lack of clarification implies that he is acting on County business. It is a lie, but what the f*ck do you expect from desperate ego hounds and headline hunters. His message did get out. The Syngenta shareholders could give 2 pieces of Swiss Cheese about anything Gary said.
Meanwhile, the Council rolls on sans Gary. But somewhere in the Ethics Code there MUST be some sort of language that prohibits a Councilman from acting as if he were on Official business for the County unless DULY authorized.
One man sho' can pack a bunch of lies in a couple of minutes. Embarrassing for Kauai's people and especially the Council. The Council don't got no power for any Resolution if they got one of their members acting under the shroud of County Approval. Unless our Council or Ethics Board do something, they are allowing every COUNTY worker the right to represent themselves as the authorized face of the island.
But as the Council lets Da Hoos get away with his public "Bite Me" remarks said to a State Representative, I guess the Council has by their silence and inaction given tacit approval for Da Hoos to act as County spokesman and cut the Swiss Cheese anywhere he wants.

Dawson said...

9 misstatements in 2:45? That's only one every 18 seconds! Da Hoos is slackin'! He used to be able to spit mistruths faster than grease spatters from frying bacon.

Must be all that strudel and chocolate.

Come home, boy. The Kauai Chapter of Liars Anonymous misses you.

Robin Clark said...

I heard that Herr Hooser made quite an impression on the Swiss and that on the basis of his appearance he was offered a job as a taster at the Lindt factory. He was about to take it when his scientific advisor, Dr. Fernie, told him that chocolate is GMO (which is correct as it contains soy products.

He had a minor problem in that the Swiss thought he was from Indiana, which after all is the Hooser State. Everytime he said Hawaii they said "wir gut, danke."

Anonymous said...

Oh boo-freaking-hoo. So what if Gary wasn't there for a council meeting?! The votes would go 4-2, 4-2, 4-2, instead of the usual 4-3, 4-3, 4-3 since Mel locked up the council using agrichemical dollars. Mel will STILL always get his way.

As for what Gary said to Sin-genta folks, there's no way to even know what damages those companies are causing these islands because the state has "no money" to conduct health assessments. It would be futile anyway because as people get sick from pesticide exposure, KVMH tells them they don't have resources to treat them, so people are forced to leave Kauai for treatment and either go to Honolulu or the mainland. No one registers how many Kauaians have been forced to seek medical treatments off island.

And Joan is right: Not one fuck was given about Gary presenting in Switzerland because the shareholders couldn't hear him over the sounds of the money they are rolling in at the expense of our health.

This whole debaucle is not about GMOs anyway. Go and eat all of the processed corn laden crap you want. This is about pesticides, which poison the dirt and groundwater. Pesticides do not know when to stop killing.

Why do so many countries ban open-air testing?? What do those countries know that we refuse to acknowledge?? Apparently Mel Rapozo, his three council lovelies and even our esteemed mayor know more than the policymakers of those countries.

Anonymous said...

I just checked Mel's campaign spending reports and saw no contributions of "agrichemical dollars." I was surprised to see that, but happy none the less.

Anonymous said...

Should an ethics inquiry be submitted since Gary continuously misrepresents himself with the induendo that he is speaking as "a member of the County Council" when he should be representing himself as a regular resident of Kauai? UMMMM!!!

Anyone know who chairs the Kauai ethics board?

Anonymous said...

Hey.Syngenta put Hooser on the front page: http://www.syngenta.com/global/corporate/SiteCollectionImages/Content/news-center/thumbs/2015/agm2015/agm-2015-podium.JPG
The picture of the Syngenta panel is priceless: the two Swiss and the Belgian members seem to be trying to avoid a foul smell from the their left while the English speakers, a Brit and Mack, the American CEO, look like they have detected a keela wheeffa over there where someone dressed in his lucky rug in front of a backdrop of really tasty GMO's is fixing to cut a few more whoppas. I hope Syngenta didn't buy the Swisstrotting trio from Kauai any schitzel and rivella.

Anonymous said...

Why isn't Gary also protesting the golf course poisoning, which runs right off into Hanalei Bay and Anini right after exposing all the workers and residents and anyone driving near there? The wealthy guys are buying and spraying tons of pesticides right in Princeville, it has got to receive as much attention, like um would the richest folks in the world be happy to find out the new Konohiki in town is all about massive quantities of pesticide use. Where's our public notice, where's your outrage. I don't want pesticides used, please recognize the problm is pesticides, not corn. Killing all the grass on the rolling slopes of Princeville is a massive amount of toxics. It's still dead, so we can assume more and more poisons are being sprayed there.
What are they spraying?

Anonymous said...

Joan, you hit the nail on the head! I haven't seen the video yet, but after reading this, I don't really need to because it's just Gary up to his usual BS. He can't even come up with new lies, he's just using the old busted myths on some new people. 80 votes got him in this term and he has the balls to claim he speaks for the whole island. He knows everyone here is sick of his shit. I hope he had a nice vacation and plans on moving to Switzerland.

Anonymous said...

I heard a guy died once when he fell into a vat of hot chocolate. Oh, Gary...!!!!

Anonymous said...

80 votes got him reelected and he skips the Council meetings to go to Switzerland?

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. There is a vague resemblance.

https://kidzshowz.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/augustus-gloop2.jpg

Anonymous said...

10:44am and 4:44pm, I agree. Hooser should be reprimanded, sanctioned and a complaint filed with the ethics board. He DOES NOT speak on my behalf nor was he supposed to speak on the "community's" behalf!! He was there in his official capacity given the statements he made in making like the entire island supports his cause. pilau!!!

Anonymous said...

Isn't support for ordinance 960 the official position of the county? Joan, you are checking the big fists facts against the good neighbor reports, so how are you checking the veracity of those? Or are you assuming and taking on face value that info? Since it is now public that you are working for Monsanto cheerleaders, do you really expect anyone to take you seriously? I did and am no fan of the fistees. But now me thinks you have squandered your credibility as a journalist by taking Monsanto money. Too bad.

Joan Conrow said...

Except I haven't tsken any Monsanto money, so you obviously are both misinformed and lacking credibility yourself. As for the Good Neighbor disclosures, they're backed up sales data. And whether 960 is the official position of the county is debatable. In any case no one designated Hooser spokesman except himself.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 9:24: Ordinance 960 is not the county's law. It was declared invalid by a federal court, which ruled that the Council had no authority to pass the legislation they did.
That's a point Joan didn't touch on. Gary claimed the company was violating our law. Nope. The 2013-2014 Council violated the law passing that piece of...um, legislation.

Anonymous said...

You go on an international stage, you bring your "A" game. To show up with a passel of easily refutable falsehoods. Bush league.
What an embarrassment to the progressive cause, Gary! Whatever happened to the principles that the 1990s Gary Hooser so well embodied?

Anonymous said...

Why doesn't Syngenta call him out or sue him for defamation or something?

Anonymous said...

Give it up Joan and let us in on the real story behind your wrath and disdain for da hoos!

Joan Conrow said...

what, lying, pandering, demagoguery, advancing fa national agenda at the expense of his own community, using his office to gain cache and neglecting his paid council duties while he promotes the interest of his "nonprofit" don't bother you? These are precisely the sorts of politicians journalists are supposed to expose!

Anonymous said...

"The Good Neighbor Program reporting website shows Syngenta used 1,188 pounds of atrazine on 1,527 acres in 2014." You omitted Lumax in your underestimation of Atrazine use on the Garden Isle. Lumax contains 1lb of atrazine per gallon of product.

Anonymous said...

Question: James Tokioka was in the news just last week and is under an AG felony investigation for intentionally filing a false campaign finance report. Ross Kagawa is double dipping, working full time for the State and full time for the County. Mel Rapozo is an excop on steroids, Derik Kawakami's campaign manager and police commissioner best friend was busted by FBI for gambling, Dee Morikawa is a the dullest tool in the shed. But you give them all a pass. Why? Is Hooser more dangerous because he is smarter and more shrewd? Why?

Joan Conrow said...

Actually, Hooser is dangerous because of other "s" words that come to mind:sly, slick, self-deluded, self-aggrandizing….

I've skewered all those politicians, repeatedly. And there's nothing wrong with Ross working both jobs. He makes the meetings.

Let me ask you a question: Why are you so threatened by my coverage of Hooser that you repeatedly try to distract and discredit?

Anonymous said...

2:20pm Mel and Ross was 1 and 2 in the last election. Yukimura 5th ha ha, Hooser 7th (diarea that night), Bynum 12th (finally!) What you can't handle the truth? Hooser is a clown, Joan is spot on.

Anonymous said...

@ 2:20pm individuals like you should try and run for office, run a campaign and get people to believe in you to try and make a difference. You just criticize and talk shit.

Unknown said...

In Agronomy 151, they teach future farmers, and future agronomist, the difference between dirt and soil (if you didn't already learn in FFA). Beyond that, we learn how chemistry works to control weed and how that chemistry decays in the soil. No, we're not poisoning the ground. Here is a small sample of the things we learn. http://weedscience.unl.edu/teaching