Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) Wonders If Her State Was Prepared For An Attack
An emergency alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile was blasted out to Hawaii residents on Saturday, causing chaos for 38 minutes. The false alarm caused a national security panic, and raised questions about the ease with which a mistake like this can be made.
Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa represents the first district of Hawaii. She was on her way to lunch when the alert was sent. The congresswoman says the real problem was the inability to retract the mistake. "Someone clearly wasn't watching," she said. The incident raises concerns that the state would not have been ready to handle an actual attack.
Congresswoman Hanabusa was one of many who did not receive the missile alert on her phone. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called the incident unacceptable. The Congresswoman believes his frustration lies in the time it took to retract the alert, and the fact that all residents didn't receive the alert, or the retraction.
As a gubernatorial candidate in 2018, the congresswoman says this mistake is an exact example of why Hawaii needs better leadership.
With a government shutdown five days away, Congress is moving into crisis mode as Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces an insurgency from hard-right Republicans eager to slash spending even if it means curtailing federal services for millions of Americans.
Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey announced on Saturday that he will run against Sen. Robert Menendez in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate next year, saying he feels compelled to run against the three-term senator after he and his wife were indicted on sweeping corruption charges.
