TMT construction begins Monday 15 July

[Kaimana]

quote:

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Originally posted by ironyak

Again, the U.S. Supreme Court has already settled this in 2008/9 - the State of Hawaii owns title to the lands outright.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_Resolution
"The legal effect of the Apology Resolution was addressed in the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court of March 31, 2009, which held that the 37 "whereas" clauses of the Apology Resolution have no binding legal effect, nor does it convey any rights or make any legal findings for native Hawaiian claims. The Court concluded that the Resolution does not change or modify the "absolute" title to the public lands of the State of Hawai'i. The decision also affirmed that federal legislation cannot retroactively alter a title given as a part of statehood in general."

Or for more legal analysis - https://www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/art...lic-lands/
"The Court said that neither of the two substantive provisions of the apology resolution – one that apologized for the role of the U.S. in overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy, and another that disclaimed that the resolution served to settle any claims against the U.S. – affected Hawaii's right to sell the land granted it by the U.S. when Hawaii was admitted as a state."

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Read their excuse about the "whereas" clauses and tell me that it makes any sense to you. Be honest. lol.

Now here's the legal definitions I could find for whereas "When whereas is placed at the beginning of a legislative bill, it means "because" and is followed by an explanation for the enactment of the legislation." " law- used at the beginning of an official document to mean ‘because of a particular fact’"

Also the Apology Resolution isn't even needed to prove they never annexed Hawaii. There is no treaty, congress has no power to annex a sovereign nation into the US as a territory and even if you want to make the argument that the joint resolution was advice and consent given to ratify the old treaties presented(which is something that not even the US argues) the Senate did not vote with 2/3rds consent of all Senators present(42 to 21, with 26 abstentions), which is explicitly stated as needed to ratify a treaty.