Sylvia in the Center
Hawaii's lieutenant governor may be in trouble
Hipsta Pravda wants us to care about a dinner four years ago (emphasis mine):
[Hawaii] Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke sat with two men and a woman at a restaurant in January 2022 and left with two $5,000 checks for her campaign war chest.
One of the men is now well-known: Ty Cullen, the then-state representative who, unbeknownst to his colleagues, had been arrested for bribery and was gathering evidence for the FBI. The other, Tobi Solidum, was a lobbyist and businessman who had come with his stepdaughter, Kristen Pae.
Sometime that week, Cullen recorded a legislator investigators would describe as “influential” accepting $35,000 from someone, apparently in a paper bag, according to the Department of Justice.
Luke told Civil Beat last year she never took $35,000 from someone in a meeting with Cullen, and she maintains that. But she is now suggesting she could be the lawmaker referenced by federal officials — and that the dinner with Solidum may be the one the DOJ referenced in a court filing — even though the amounts of money differ.
According to Luke, Solidum was her neighbor and Cullen’s friend.
Public records show Solidum did business with Milton Choy, the man convicted of bribing Cullen, and that the men gave political donations in tandem on more than a dozen occasions in recent years.
Choy was a powerful influencer who was unknown to the public, including myself, until a few years ago. Choy and people in his circle gave $25,100 to Luke between 2014 and 2019. $25,100 plus the two donations of the $5000 at the dinner equal $35,100, close to the reported $35,000. Coincidence?
Hipsta Pravda has a long table of recipients of Choy and Choy-adjacent money.
Choy was just one member of a hidden puppetmaster class:
The people that effect the most influence are out of the public eye, flying under the radar while exerting considerable leverage. The politician is ultimately just a figurehead, more like a distraction, while the real work goes on in the background. It's all Kabuki Theatre.
Let’s return to the January 2022 act of the endless show:
Luke did not report the [$10,000 in] donations from Solidum and Pae to the Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission until last weekend, after Civil Beat asked about it — an omission she called an error by her campaign staff.
Until four years after the 2022 election!
I don’t know if Luke is running again for lieutenant governor in 2026. I don’t care. Politicians of the One Party are interchangeable. And the One Party almost always wins. Which is why our state senate was so Diverse!™ in 2018:
Alas, it’s a little red now - but still MAGA-free.
Hawaii’s elephants are tame. They are in part a sop to a tiny minority of freeee-market ideologues - and in part the last remnant of the Maoli-Haole (Native-White) Alliance.
Yes, there was once a time when the Republican Party was the Native Hawaiian party. A time that has been memory-holed. I didn’t know about it until I read Chad Blair’s Money, Color & Sex in Hawaiʻi Politics:
Many Hawaiians relished the power that enable them to attract patronage, services and even cash payments from the whites who controlled Hawaiʻi during Republican rule, and a few believed that politics along racial lines might restore the islands to native control.
But then came the revolution - and the rise of the One Party in the Great Reversal, an event that still puzzles me. That no one talks about. Why does no one celebrate the end of White supremacy and the beginning of ‘true democracy’? I don’t think our masters want us to look too carefully at the turning of the tables. At the continuity that it disguises.
Instead, we’re supposed to freak out about Lt. Gov. Luke.
I don’t know what she did or didn’t do. I have no insider knowledge. I only have the two Pravdas - blue Honolulu and even bluer Hipsta - and I don’t trust either one.
I also don’t trust most of the commenters who buy into the system. Most complain about the One Party but I bet all but a handful still vote for it. And that handful usually votes for the Other Party. The false ‘alternative’.
Nonetheless, there are gems - or at least particles of gem dust - to be found in the comments of the Pravdas1:
At the very least, the Campaign Spending Commission has to look into the unreported $10,000 contribution. This is a serious violation. People have paid stiff fines for smaller infractions.
I returned the [unreported $10,000] contribution [in March 2022] because after Ty Cullen was charged with a crime, and because of his close relationship with Tobi, I felt uncomfortable.
If I didn’t report $10,000 to the government, you think I’d get off so easily? I wondered about that after reading this comment:
Try not paying taxes and call it a clerical oversight and see what happens to you. These crooks are shameless.
Here’s what another commenter thought of her excuse for not reporting:
Clerical oversight..yeah right. We know the how this goes..there will be a coverup. She will run for re-election and win and people get fooled again!
Who’s brave enough to give the IRS a similar excuse?
*I think I might try this one on my taxes this year.
But maybe $10,000 is just chump change in her world:
*It must be quite the lifestyle to not remember much about a dinner you were handed at least $10k, paper bag or no!
It would leave a deeper impression on us peasants:
*Amnesia, denial and finger pointing. The oldest tricks in the book.
I’d definitely remember who contributed $10 - 30,000 to my campaign! Even years ago!
Lt. Gov. Luke earlier claimed being “meticulous” in reporting campaign contributions. I guess she had a brain f@rt?
This comment puts the $35,000 in perspective:
Sylvia Luke raised approx 1, 456, 000 dollars for her 2022 campaign including a 50,000 dollar loan. […] The briber is a convicted criminal turned FBI informant to gain favor with law enforcement . The amount of monies alleged at this point in time is 35,000 dollars . If the investigation proves wrongdoing , it seems to me she made a foolish decision for relatively a small reward.
Let me provide further perspective. In my first post on the $35,000 mystery, I mentioned Stewart Olani Stant (emphasis mine):
The public corruption probe also captured the former director of the Maui County Department of Environmental Management accepting $2 million in bribes to direct sole-source contracts to [Milton] Choy’s companies.
Stewart Olani Stant was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison on Feb. 8, 2023.
"Tip of the Volcano of Corruption in Hawaii's Government"
Humans can’t deal with scale. We are finger-counters in a world of big numbers, as I tried to explain almost a year ago:
$2 million is fifty-seven times greater than $35,000:
Yet Stant is not fifty-seven times more infamous than Lt. Gov. Luke, who has not even been charged. I confess I forgot Stant’s name even though I mentioned it here just a month ago. The media is barely mentioning him even though he is part of the same scandal.
Which to me feels like business as usual. These commenters might agree:
What will Lukes demonicratic loyals pull from their playbook to follow?
I used poor judgement?
I will personally organize a panel to see that this does not happen again.?
I thought it was a ham sandwich?
Nothing to see here, she said she didn't do it. Like another female democrat once said, what difference at this point does it make. This being a totally "D" state when she runs for office again she will be elected again.
"I don't remember"
"I can't recall"
"I'm not sure"
"It could be, but I can't say 100%"Nothing changes in the nei [i.e., Hawaii2]. The corrupt unions and their voting, brainless minions make sure of that.
Way to go, Democrats! Are we really surprised, be truthful. Dems here have been doing it to us every year for decades and decades. Yet the thousands of union dolts play follow the leader - no brains of their own evidently - and vote whoever the union heads say to vote. Hawaii gummint is a complete joke.
The more you hear, the dirtier you feel. Bribes run deep and free with one corrupt Democrat Party rule, it's almost second nature for them. No one feels they did anything wrong, the ethics bar of the Democrats is so low. Every time the Feds get going on the investigation, they delay, and use lawfare to distract the investigation until another corrupt Democrat is elected President and they call the whole thing off.
And honestly, I bet these kind of things have been happening a lot in the past and it is nothing new! Ask the old timers who were in politics, many illegally accepted money and gifts!!! Nobody may admit it, but come on. It happens not only in Hawaii, but all the other 50 [sic] states!!!
*I hate to be a pessimist but don't see the State government becoming less corrupt. You can't humiliate or embarrass these current politicians into doing the right thing. Very sad.
**Even if she is cleared of criminal wrongdoing, this is the kind of dirty pay-to-play politics that has gone on far too long in Hawaii. Do we need any more evidence that the political game they play is corrupt?
Is Luke just a distraction? From … Trump?
With all the embarrassing mess-ups by Dementia-In-Chief lately, his local minions are looking for a Sylvia to kick.
Nah. First, note that a lot of kickers wear blue boots:
It's not just the MAGA crowd. A lot of folks with Ds behind their names are shaking their heads.
One commenter even likened Luke to Trump:
Ms.Luke is either a relative to the Pathological LIAR - TACO Trump or she has been taking LIAR Lessons from him. In the meantime, the Absolutely CORRUPT Hawai’i Democrats WILL COVER THE BRIBE UP !! The smugness of the ONE Party controlling Hawai’i WILL BE REPLACED, just as the Republicans were swept out of control decades ago [in the aforementioned revolution]. EVERY EMPIRE COMES TO AN END at some point…….
In fact, this supporter of Gov. Dr. “Body Bags”, MDeeee (The One Party), is afraid Lt. Gov. Luke will bring down her hero:
*Governor Green better run away from her as fast as he can. He’s getting national attention for his job performance and has a long career ahead.
The good doctor not only “kept us safe during Covid” but also saved us from dethwaves. He could save the whole USSA from Trumpism!
Seriously, ditch soterism (a belief in saviors) and apply the substitution test (emphasis mine):
amazing to see the amount of people defending - without exculpatory evidence - Sylvia...seems overtly political...a simple test is swap out Sylvia's name with Trump and see what the response would be...but, the TDS cult will give Sylvia a break because she is one of them...no breaks for political enemies...zero integrity...
all the fake shock and surprise...that's it! case closed! nothing to see here! and, nothing any of you can do about it...the AG [attorney general] will slow roll the "investigation" beyond the statute of limitations
The story is already four years old. How long before time runs out?
the media will burry the story...no way will the democrats ever sabotage their female minority future governor candidate...not a chance...but, if the name was Trump, it would be a totally different story because, obviously, its all about politics […] that is the government you voted for...
That test does work in the other direction too. Imagine how vax-hating Trumpists would react if it had been Biden who declared himself “father of the vaccine”. If Tim Walz rather than JD Vance were so close to Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel. I’m sick of red excuses.
maybe this is how we get such one-sided and corrupt government in Hawaii. we learn our Lt. Gov. wasn’t honest and potentially took bribes, and your response is to say it’s manini [= small] and a non-issue- and then pivot to complain about Trump.
can we not hold ALL elected officials to some sort of ethical/ legal standard? manini or not, we need to clean house whenever and wherever we can. there is zero accountability here and these officials know it.
I do think the $35K scandal is a distraction - but not from Trump. Look at the micro level. At Luke given platforms to set the record ‘straight’:
Doesn't anyone connect the dots here? The SA [Star-Advertiser = Honolulu Pravda] is trying to distract the people with the mystery $35K cash in a bag. While our Lt Gov is admitting to corruptly accepting dubious donations. Yes, corruptly. If you think the politicians don't know the score when checks come from "family" members isn't a way to skirt donation limits, is just fooling themselves. And if they get caught with their corrupt hands in the cookie jar. They claim "I didn't know" excuse and then returns the money from other donation sources.
The attempt is trying to clean up a dirtied politician. Hoping that the voters will forget or think "nothing to see here".
The attempt is working, judging from some of the comments. Keep in mind that the vast majority of Hawaii residents do not read. I suspect a majority has no idea Luke is under suspicion of anything. Many might not even be able to name her!
Then look at the bigger picture - bigger than even Stant’s $2 million bribe (emphasis mine):
Sylvia Luke is about to be fed to the lions. That way the incompetent and corrupt dems can show the people they’re on it and corruption will not be tolerated. In the meantime, this kind of stuff goes on all over the state at every level of government on a daily basis. Our one-party state is a Land of Monopolies. Like all monopolies, it breeds incompetence and corruption, both of which Hawaii has an abundance of.
My theory is that Luke upset somebody and is getting kicked out of the club which will carry on as usual.
Nothing will really change …
It will also be a long time before the dems get replaced in Hawaii. Their stranglehold on politics run so deep it's near impossible at this time. There are just too many people whose livelihoods are dependent on their insider connections.
*Hawaii has the best government that money can buy.
It gave us Da Rail [to nowhere] and will soon gift us with Da Stadium [another pointless government construction project]...after years of talk story [Pidgin for ‘blather’] of course.
*Have heard he [Gov. Green] wants to run for president and thinks he has the next 4 years as governor in the bag, which doesn't surprise me because the bar is in hell with local politics and Hawaii voters vote based on name recognition.
… though at least this incident woke up one commenter:
Legal campaign contributions get reported, this was "overlooked" for years and has only surfaced now. It's a feeble attempt to turn the whole public corruption scandal into a silly little misunderstanding. If you happen to be really dumb (or really complicit) you can sign off on that. Everybody else should feel like they are being insulted. I'm ashamed to admit I held this ladies' sign on a public street corner, I apologize for the endorsement.
I respect anyone who admits they were wrong.
I’ve been wrong. So. Many. Times. But not about The One Party. I never believed in it, not even when I was on the Left. I thought Communism was the answer! See, I was wrong.
I’ll close with a commenter reminding us that
this is the Lieutenant Governor—first in line to replace [Gov.] Josh Green [The One Party]. That should worry anyone who thinks basic competence still matters in public office.
All comments are from this Honolulu Pravda story unless starred. Asterisks link to individual Hipsta Pravda comments. (Honolulu Pravda has no links for individual comments.)
“Nei” is short for Hawaiʻi nei ‘this [beloved] Hawaii’. Nei ‘this’ has affectionate connotations.