Use VINs on AVs
My understanding is that vehicle identification numbers, VINs, are imprinted at various places on automobiles, not just one, easily destroyed place. Is it possible to use these to determine who was the last registered owner of the vehicle and bill them for moving and recycling of the abandoned vehicle?
This could save money for the county (they must have access to the numbers from the state) and it would encourage people to transfer titles so that they no longer are responsible for the fees. If this is not feasible, could someone from the county explain why?
Mary Beth Hilburn
Captain Cook
Let cannabis convictions walk
I read Gov. David Ige wants $6 million to pay Arizona to house our prisoners. Riots from overcrowding, youths put in with adults, etc.
Hawaii should follow the lead of Canada and many states in releasing those with minor cannabis convictions. It was all a government lie to begin with, the evils of cannabis. Those wrongful laws have destroyed thousands of lives and stolen millions in asset seizures. Let’s correct this mistake and not hide our heads in the sand.
Tom Pyne
Kona Highlands
Report doesn’t exonerate, but we’re still left with Trump
The Mueller Report is in. I assume that Attorney General Barr’s letter accurately describes the report. As a liberal Democrat, I accept that Robert Mueller could not find evidence of conspiracy between Russia and any Trump campaign personnel sufficient to justify prosecution. I also accept that there was considerable evidence, on both sides, of obstruction of justice by President Trump.
Consequently, charges of collusion are now dead. But the issue of what to do about a president who arguably has acted in numerous ways to obstruct a federal investigation of his own conduct still lives on.
General Barr has stated that the Mueller Report “does not exonerate the president” of obstruction. Nonetheless, he and Deputy Rosenstein have determined not to charge the president. Note that there is no question that such evidence exists! Both Mueller and Barr say so. But Barr has elected not to prosecute. That does not mean that the president is innocent. It just means that Barr has personally decided not to proceed. The issue for our country is what to do, if anything, about a president who remains in office in spite of official determination that there is evidence of his attempts to obstruct the investigation of himself.
Impeachment seems out of reach given the refusal of Senate Republicans to break rank with their duplicitous president who continually surrounds himself with persons of questionable judgment, some of whom have confessed their own guilt.
What remains?
We are left to watch a president who, apparently struggling with mental decline, flails about incited by his own vindictiveness, venality, mendacity and ignorance. He undoubtedly will stumble over additional legal tripwires as he continues to act on impulse rather than wisdom.
We must hope that government bureaucrats and the few statesman-like Republicans will somehow enforce the guard rails in the interest of our security. Trump’s natural inclinations toward revenge, personal greed and self-aggrandizement must be contained for the duration of his presidency.
John Sucke
Waimea