Guthrie Scrimgeour writes about politics and public safety at a local newspaper in rural Hawai‘i.
Charles Littlejohn, a former IRS contractor, leaked the tax returns of the rich to show the public how the uber-wealthy game our tax code. Now he’s facing potential prison time. They’ve nabbed the wrong criminal.
Before the embers were even cold in Lāhainā, Maui, survivors of the wildfires started reporting cold calls from land speculators hoping to scoop up Hawaiian properties at bargain prices — proving once again that capitalists never let a good crisis go to waste.
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t work the land on his Hawaii ranch, but he and other wealthy landowners still benefit from huge agricultural tax breaks. The scheme allows the superrich to hoard wealth at the expense of the general public.
Local news infrastructure is collapsing. As I’ve seen firsthand as a local reporter, the only interventions are coming from wealthy investors, who are often angling to gin up positive coverage for themselves. To change that, we need publicly funded local news.