Thursday, November 3, 2016

Musings: High Drama

Kauai prison warden Neal Wagatsuma admitted yesterday in federal court to screening violent rape movies at the jail and calling women prisoners demeaning names like “whore.”

But according to Hawaii News Now's coverage of the whistleblower trial, Wagatsuma claimed the films had “therapeutic value” and his derogatory comments toward females inmates were taken out of context:

"When somebody does something wrong ... it's about chastising them. It's a good thing," he said.

Really, Neal? You're not a therapist. You admitted you don't even have any mental health training. Who the hell are you to be developing some homespun therapy that satisfies your own perversions and pornography addiction?

Former prison social worker Carolyn Ritchie filed the suit, claiming she was forced out of her job after she reported Wagatsuma's bizarre behavior. As Hawaii News Now reports:

Ritchie said it was wrong to show images of rape to women prisoners, who had often suffered from sexual abuse themselves.

No shit. That alone should get Neal fired, and as I've previously reported, there was way more going on than just that. What will it take to get him out of that job?

In other law enforcement news, the Hawaii Supreme Court declined to hear Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho's appeal of a ruling that determined he has no authority to suspend or otherwise discipline the police chief. Instead, the county charter gives that authority to the police commission.

And so ends four years of bad judgment and impulsive behavior on the part of the mayor, which resulted in a serious stain on the record of Police Chief Darryl Perry. Not to mention all the legal fees, along with the cascading domino effect among KPD personnel that tarnished several careers and most recently manifested in Assistant Chief Mark Begley's discrimination and retaliation suit against KPD and the county.

Meanwhile, Chief Perry is in South Carolina, being interviewed in the department's final phase of accreditation. It's been a long, nine-year process to improve standards at KPD, made all the more challenging by the mayoral drama.

Speaking of manufactured drama, Teri Tico and Keely Brosnan (wife of Pierce) have teamed up to produce more total bullshit on the GMO issue, a film called “Poisoning Paradise and the Revolution to Save Hawaii.” 

It manages to trot out every lie about the seed industry, thanks to the use of bogus "news reports" written by paid operatives and interviews with serial liars like Jimmy Trujillo, John Aana, Malia Chun, Fern Rosenstiel, Andrew Kimbrell and Alika Atay. 

They even have Gary Hooser and Dustin Barca making like it was a “grassroots movement.”

Well, except for all the money, bad legal advice and paid agitators supplied by Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network, Earthjustice and other mainland groups.

I especially liked the part where Andrea Brower tried to whitewash the mob theatrics and utter failure of the movement:

When you're motivated by love... you're an unstoppable force.

Uh, until you get to court and your stupid bill is found to be illegal, along with all the other anti-GMO legislation in the state. 

And then the paid activists went home, and the voters rejected the instigators — candidates Fern, Dustin and Baby Hoos went down in flames, with Daddy Hooser circling the drain — and the supposed “revolution” was revealed as a total sham.

I especially loved seeing how the film now has the antis fighting with one another:
Katie is the one with the delusion. We all know the overwhelming majority of antis —including Teri and Keely — live on the Northshore, miles away from the fields. Perhaps that's why Teri and Keely abandoned their plans to screen their pulp fiction at the Waimea theatre, where it was sure to get blowback from those who know. 
Oh, yes, Hoku remembers how pilau Pierce showed his true colors, and his disdain for Hawaiians, when he stole Aunty Cathy Ham-Young's taro patch water. Just like the rest of us recall how Pierce got a TVR permit to increase the resale value of his oceanfront house, and then landscaped the public beach using chicken shit.

As for Teri, she started the beachfront development at Wainiha II, subdividing three lots by Camp Naue that now contain her house, with its illegal ground floor rental in the flood zone and for sale sign, and four TVRs. Plus she never took a stand on the Brescia burials or fought to protect the public shoreline there.

You know. A true “aloha aina warrior."

Of course, it's not surprising that Teri, who turned fabrication and victimization into a lucrative career as a personal injury attorney, is continuing on the same track in retirement.

Still, I'm not sure what's worse: Presenting a totally false impression of Kauai — "one of the most toxic agricultural environments in all of American agriculture" omg, wtf? — or pretending that a rag tag bunch of narcissists and borderline personalities were waging a revolution.

Meanwhile, another group of extremists is threatening more havoc: the feral cat people. In a new Outside article with the sensational title "Hawaii's Crazy War over Zombie Cats," Kauai Community Cat Project director Basil Scott is quoted as rejecting the feral cat ordinance process and saying:

“Believe me, there’s a bunch of junkyard dogs out there ready to pounce. We will bare our fangs and make life very difficult for them. My side is famous for that.”

Oh, joy. Another group of well-funded, fanatical loudmouths on the wrong side of science.

Once again, there's big money behind no compromise:

The crusade is led by several well-funded nonprofits like Alley Cat Allies and Best Friends Animal Society, the latter receiving $80 million in contributions in 2015, including donations from industry giants PetSmart and Petco. PetSmart Charities has given tens of millions to animal-welfare groups, and it has supported workshops on how to lobby local governments to adopt TNR.

And once again, it's using the same strategy as the anti-GMO crowd:

The problem with Scott’s arguments—aside from the pet-abandonment issue, which everyone agrees needs addressing—is that the majority of the evidence doesn’t support them. “Basil’s an engineer, so he knows all the lingo,” says Bill Lucey, who heads up the Kauai Invasive Species Committee and also sits on the ordinance-writing committee with Scott. 

“But basically he takes a lie and he repeats it over and over. ‘TNR works, TNR works, TNR works,’ like if he says it enough it will come true.”

Sound familiar?

35 comments:

Anonymous said...

Joan, "Of course, it's not surprising that Teri, who turned fabrication and victimization into a lucrative career as a personal injury attorney, is continuing on the same track in retirement.

Still, I'm not sure what's worse: Presenting a totally false impression of Kauai — "one of the most toxic agricultural environments in all of American agriculture" omg, wtf? — or pretending that a rag tag bunch of narcissists and borderline personalities were waging a revolution."

So Joan's an expert on the law and psychiatry now? At least Teri is still practicing law which she is certified in by the State of Hawaii unlike Joan who was once an uncertified journalist and now an at large propaganda mouthpiece for "science" which she has no background in. The only victims Joan sees are poor corporations just trying to feed everyone at steady diet of BS. Talk about Narcissists this will never see print because one of Joan's cardinal rule is "don't criticize Joan".

Anonymous said...

The Star Advertiser says the jailed women divulged their sexual pasts while being filmed and the Warden calls them whores. Just wow.

Manuahi said...

I am so pleased that our elected officials and government employees can have their long running cat fights on the taxpayers' nickle. Or should that be Franklins? No wonder we have no money for road improvements.

Joan Conrow said...

Gosh, 8:34, you managed to get it wrong on all counts. And per usual, you skirted all the many issues presented here and made it all about me.

Anonymous said...

After Billy Kenoi was found not guilty & a KPD Lt. Found guilty of stealing $75,000 from a grant and only having to serve 60 WEEKENDS!?!? (So she can keep her job and work?? Tough sentence) In jail, do you think anything is gonna really happen to the warden? I think not. Slap on the wrist if anything.

Keep up the good work n sifting through the BS that most are too lazy to do.

Anonymous said...

My sister retired from KCC she was a jail guard there for 20 years...She is no longer on this earth.......but let me tell you ..if she was ...she would surely be a witness for the Prosecutor...

Anonymous said...

Letʻs see. In yesterdayʻs blog, a Maui council candidate, called other candidates "scrubs." In todayʻs blog, some Kauaʻi locals are called "serial liars", along with that Maui candidate. So is it bad for the Mauai candidate to call others "scrubs", but OK for this blog to refer to others as "serial liars"? Is there any difference between these accusations? Or are they both "name calling?" Interested to hear what readers of this blog think about name calling. Is it appropriate at all? Are there better ways to communicate without name calling?

Anonymous said...

There is no prosecutor in this case. It is a Civil case. Your departed sister, you think, would be a witness in favor of what the warden was doing?

Joan Conrow said...

@9:36

I know it's difficult for some readers, like you, to practice the art of discernment, but there is indeed a difference between name calling and descriptive phrases, just as there is a difference between a man running for public office and a woman writing her personal blog.

Anonymous said...

wow, wow, wow. Sugar and Pineapple poisoned the land way before the corn and sunflower seeds. Now that Bayor is in the corn business, they not dishing out money to the anti's anymore..........

Anonymous said...

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Musings: High Drama":

How many years or decades have the warden been doing this?

Even if he had a doctorates degree in psychology, there should have been a red flag raised and for the male prison guards to not see that it was wrong to do what the warden was/is doing then the whole prison system is now been compromised.

Anonymous said...

Everyone hates personal injury attorneys......until you need one. True story.

Please don't hate on someone because they champion the cause of the little guy.

Every day personal injury attorneys fight huge multi billion dollar insurance companies who could care less about the truth or the plaintiff. The overwhelming majority of insurance companies never pay what is fair to the aggrieved.

The insurance companies have a huge PR machine to make all PI attorneys look like scum bags and all plaintiff look like liars. This is simply not true.

I know. I am a PI attorney and have spilled blood, sweat and tears for the little guy for two decades. It is difficult and stressful work.

Mahalo.

Anonymous said...

Kenoi uses his government credit card to buy alcohol at a strip club. Kapua steals $75,000 from KPD. Wagatsuma shows porn at his jail. Chiba runs a gambling operation and he goes to jail and loses his job. Who did he piss off?

Anonymous said...

To 8:34 AM:

Maybe Teri's attorney's license should be re-evaluated; see below.

If the trailer is any indication, her film is a deceitful piece of propaganda that will further divide our community and give non-Hawai‘i viewers a completely false impression of Kauai and what goes on here.

"The Judiciary, State of Hawai‘i, Hawai‘i Rules of Professional Conduct.

PREAMBLE: A LAWYER'S RESPONSIBILITIES

[1] A lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice.
.....there are Rules that apply to lawyers who are not active in the
practice of law or to practicing lawyers even when they are acting in a nonprofessional capacity....See Rule 8.4 of these Rules."

MISCONDUCT.
Rule 8.4.
It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:
(c) engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation

Anonymous said...

@9:11 AM - What did your sister tell you?

Anonymous said...

And still another movie that features Chun and Barca that glorifies the antis. WTF? http://hilopalace.com/ Tico and this other guy compete for best fistee movie awards?

Anonymous said...

They didn't abandoned their plans to show the movies at the Waimea Theater. They were turned away because the West side wants to see films of importance and relativity to us. Not a propaganda film full of lies and untruths.

Anonymous said...

anyone got a good lawyer joke ?

Anonymous said...

November 3, 2016 at 12:13 PM
What? Because of the BS attorneys every medical plan cost is going up. Every Chiropractor fills their greedy pockets with the "referrals".
Sheesh. Maybe an occasional "little guy" needs help, but the vast majority are greedy lawyers encouraging their clients to go for it.
Just as Bynum and other BS County workers get their average 300K per lawsuit, do doth the the many others try to "collect".
Good estimates from MDs and Insurance Companies are that 80 f8ng percent of the plaintiff claims are malarkey. We all pay for your bad actions.
But Teri did collect millions from Koloke. She builds illegal in Haena and collects form another group of illegal houses (built in floodplain with no permits)....
A world of greedy lawyers, panting bonanza "let's sue 'em" plaintiffs and a legal system that lets it all go on.
Advice to all. Shut up, get a job, tell the truth, take care of your kids and obey the law.
Da Hoos has been awful quiet lately. He and mason are a couple of mutes. At east JoAnn hasn't changed during election season. Of the three she is the best.
Go vote. And by the way....Arthur Brun ain't only about GMOS...he cares about the kids and community. He deserves at least one vote...and a new face would be good for the Council.

Anonymous said...

1234. Everybody knows the police commissioner could've avoided jail time had he cooperated with the FBI. It was his decision not to talk so quit the pity party. All he had to do was give up a few names and he'd be a free man.

Anonymous said...

@6:28

You have obviously ate all the insurance companies crap about Plaintiff's and Plaintiff's attorneys fed to you by the media and fed to the media by the insurance companies.

You should be ashamed of yourself. You are closed minded and have no compassion for others. I should hope you never find yourself in a position where you need an attorney.

Anonymous said...

sometimes it is best not "rat" on "certain" people. loose lips sinks ships along with you in it.

Anonymous said...

Sure the lawyers are partly responsible for high insurance and other costs just a Realtors are partially responsible for high market prices. But primary responsibility must fall with us who ignore common sense and are oblivious to known hazards. One of the best solutions to this are curbs on tort awards and insuring that the plaintiffs in frivolous law suits are materially punished.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with that 8:00 AM.

Anonymous said...

Mills rampage was a false flag to distract Kauai's attention from the warden rape videos and Watanabe letting a rapist leave Kauai on his scheduled trial date for a Las Vegas partycation. This is a typical dirty pig planned to game the system. Just like when Kapua was busted for stealing 75K from the Feds then a bank robbery in Kapaa went down with the police chopper already in the area to catch the robbers. It took Mills one hour to go from rice st to Kmart and KPD couldn't catch him then it took another 6+ hours from the crime spree to locate him when they could have announced his escape the day earlier at 830pm missed head count and all this happened at the wardens rape video jail? Come on now any fool would see this BS from a mile of blood alley stretch that the stupid county is going to pass. Yes the fucktarded county is going to approve people to get drunk at the golf course after losing money from gambling every golf hole then go on blood alley and create an accident that is probably going to kill someone or their drunk self. Like the stupid water dept put a fricking speed bump in the middle of the highway in front of market place Kapaa.

Anonymous said...

Any bets that the hapless KPD officers were called in to earn overtime on the Mills chase, yet it was a member of the public that actually led to his apprehension. More pay hikes and retirement spiking for KPD. Shameful. Instead of patting each other on the back, member of KPD should just acknowledge that this is what we are paid to do.

Anonymous said...

Every time Perry leaves Kauai or is suspended something BAD or murders and deaths happen on Kauai.

It's not a good thing to know that the chain of command in KPD is incompetent or involved in these cases.

Review when Perry was suspended and how many people died in Kauai at a few at the hands of KPD officers.

Remember Amber Jackson, Aurero Moore, Nola Thompson, and Lauren Kagawa was all murdered.

Now the family who killed Moore gets another KARMA when their family is killed at salt pond and 2 committed suicide the fast year.

Something is not right in KPD.

They knew Mills had escaped at the 830 pm headcount and no announcement until his first criminal act of robbing a bank on rice st at 830 am?

How can this happen?

There's something wrong with the judicial system on Kauai.

This is the same people who was in charge when Perry was suspended and all hell broke loose on Kauai and in KPD.

Does not look good for Kauai with a police dept that the public cannot trust.

Anonymous said...

What about the Jon Togioka murder at salt pond?

Anonymous said...

We may just need a strong Prosecutor who will let the Judges know....No more Mister Nice Guy. We will Prosecute to the full extent of the law, not just the soft ball low level dopers who always the hard sentences, but also the Big Bad Boys, the Hard Guys will also get hard jawed Prosecutions.

Anonymous said...

Fuck Arin is connected with KPD and Iseri-Carvalho and that's a known fact.

What do you think is going to happen to the officer who ran over and killed the kid on the west side of Kauai?

His case will be dropped if Arin is in charge as PA because KPD supports her. Kollar filed charges against the blue code of silence and that took courage because he use to work for KPD as a legal rep.

I'm not 100% in support of Kollar but he is a better choice than KPD and Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho's puppet Arin and Mendes.

You all must have forgot that both were deputy prosecuting attorneys when Shay was in charge and cost the county millions with her criminal acts. There's more to the story and for both of these females to stand by Iser-Carvalho should concern all of Kauai and the star of Hawaii. They didn't say anything or raise any concerns over POHAKU: which was a program created by Shay to protect her criminal family, friends and whomever paid to play that garnered favorable treatment.

Remember also that Lauren Kagawa was killed in their watch. The PA witness was set up and murdered at a family beach where kids were out there playing and riding their bikes. The Tim Bynum debacle, when the PA coached the planning dept in what to say and to lie under oath. The many EEOC complaints and settlements.

Arin cannot run the PA because her relationship with Shay will lead Shay back into the PA office where she did so much damage and hurt people and people were killed and died on her watch.

I believe that Kollar isn't perfect but he is the right choice for Kauai with all the background that has surfaced and all the Shibai that is going on and has been a plague on Kauai for decades.

"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." -Lord Acton


Anonymous said...

Don't forget about the murder at salt pond and also the Darren Galas murder trial spectacle.

Wild times on Kauai

Anonymous said...

The bank robber only got 5 years last time?
Not sure if that was current prosecutor or federal, but c'mon a bank robber?
And KCCC, you let a drug addict bank robber escape and don't immediately inform the public? WTF?

Anonymous said...

I was in the jail for 5 months. The warden there should have been out of there years ago. He used to really pick on the women in front of everyone. Really cruel stuff and he would know all the details of their crimes and would pull them out in front of everyone. Never saw anything like it. That jail was so crooked and it was run by a couple of guards who'd grant favors to the "boys" like bring in hamburgers for certain people. Neal was a real piece of work.

Anonymous said...

KCCC has already been infiltrated and for a non guard who was an admin to raise concern is a huge RED flag.

How many guards listened and participated as the watch on dirty during the warden's sick acts?

And not one of the guards raised concerns?

Why?

Why would any person inmate or not be subject to watch rape videos then forced to tell male guards, male inmates (some sexual predators) and the warden about being sexually assaulted and abused?

Why?

What is wrong with this picture?

What the fuck are people at KCC drinking or smoking?

The warden and all the guards on duty should that were involved face criminal charges for those heinous criminal inhimane acts.

But on Kauai, it will never happen. When rapists can take Las Vegas vacation when they suppose to start trial, when murderers can manipulate the judicial system and the judges, when cops protect drug dealers/ring leaders, and when all is infected with a sick lust for money, power and brotherhood with the GOBAG this is what happens.

Mills was a patsy.

Anonymous said...

At least KPD got Black Friday money. Just in time for the holidays: overtime gravy pay for an act of collusion.

There's only 2 ways in and out of Koloa by roads for authorize use so why didn't KPD block the Lawai and tree tunnel entrances and exits?

Let the BB gun robbery run wild, he's not really a real threat and let the time clock run as long as it can so the CHECK get enough meat for mice Christmas Presents or to pay for annual Las Vegas gambling trips.