Lanny Sinkin’s Remarks on the West Hawaii Today article of 9-21-15…

Here are Lanny Sinkin’s FaceBook remarks on the WHT article in the last post. As usual, Lanny brings a very fact-based, grounded response to this whole “possibly blown out of proportion” WHT media presentation about “threats”, and the “Royal Marshals”. Below are a couple of highlights, from my view.

“The King sent a letter to the Governor saying that the King was contemplating whether to send Marshals to the Mountain to protect those attempting to stop desecration by TMT. Creating a law enforcement component is part of the process for restoring a functioning Kingdom Government. Calling upon that component of the government to protect those being abused by a foreign power on Kingdom soil is perfectly appropriate.

“The picture [in the WHT article] is worth a thousand words. The armed agents of the “State of Hawai’i” are assaulting those who are truly enforcing the law.”

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Lanny Sinkin Facebook post of 9-21-15

Sometimes a reporter and headline writer can spin a story to lose its real meaning. The King did not “threaten” to send Kingdom Marshals to the Mauna. The King sent a letter to the Governor saying that the King was contemplating whether to send Marshals to the Mountain to protect those attempting to stop desecration by TMT. Creating a law enforcement component is part of the process for restoring a functioning Kingdom Government. Calling upon that component of the government to protect those being abused by a foreign power on Kingdom soil is perfectly appropriate.

The picture is worth a thousand words. The armed agents of the “State of Hawai’i” are assaulting those who are truly enforcing the law.

Ultimately, the King decided that the Hawai’i Supreme Court is going to end this matter in the near future. He fully expects the Court to find that the Board of Land and Natural Resources violated the Due Process of opponents of TMT by granting the permit for TMT before conducting the contested case meant to determine whether the permit should be granted.

As to the King’s involvement with the Protectors of the Mountain, I received a call from one of the Protectors telling me that the Office of Mauna Kea Management had put in place new rules that required anyone wishing to worship on the Mauna to show up at 1:00 p.m. to go up the Mauna with a Ranger, stay for no more than an hour, and be accompanied by no more than nine other people. The next day, I drove to the Mauna and interviewed a number of the protectors. I confirmed the new OMKM rules. I brought the information to the Kahuna of the Temple of Lono and the King. Four days later, I filed suit in Federal Court in Honolulu challenging those rules as an unconstitutional violation of the rights of spiritual practitioners. The plaintiff is the Kahuna of the Temple of Lono. The suit has the full support of the King. The OMKM withdrew the rules shortly after the suit was filed. The suit continues based on the DLNR rules.