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 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Japanese-American senator hits Zinke over ‘flippant’ response on preserving internment sites 
 
 Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) on Thursday called it “flippant & juvenile” for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to respond to a question about preserving internment sites with a Japanese greeting. 
 
 “The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke,” tweeted Hirono, the first U.S. senator born in Japan and the first Asian-American woman elected to the chamber. 
 
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 During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing earlier in the day, Zinke was pressed by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), a fourth-generation Japanese-American, to commit to refunding a National Park Service program that offers grants toward the preservation of confinement camps where Japanese-Americans were held during World War II. 
 
 “Are you committed to continue to grant programs that are identified, I believe, as the Japanese American Confinement Sites grants program which were funded in 2017? Will we see them funded again in 2018?” Hanabusa asked. 
 
 “Oh, konnichiwa,” Zinke replied, deploying a Japanese greeting typically used in midday. 
 
 After a brief silence, Hanabusa corrected Zinke, using the Japanese greeting for “good morning.” 
 
 “I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu,’ but that‘s OK,” she said. 
 
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 Zinke’s remark later drew scrutiny from the Hawaii senator online. 
 
 “What you thought was a clever response to @RepHanabusa was flippant & juvenile,” Hirono wrote on Twitter. 
 
 After the brief exchange at the hearing, Zinke said funding for the grants “probably got caught up” by larger 2018 budgetary items, and vowed to work with Hanabusa on the matter. 
 
 “I will look at it and I will work with you on it because I think it is important,” Zinke told her. 
 
 Hanabusa, who said her two grandparents were subjected to internment, framed the program as a necessity during the hearing. 
 
 “I sit before you the granddaughter of two internees, both of my grandfathers were interned during World War II,” Hanabusa said. “It is essential that we as a nation recognize our darkest moments so that we don’t have them repeat again.” 
 
 ||||| Let’s all hope President Donald Trump’s next candidate for secretary of state isn’t Ryan Zinke. Because as evidenced by a stupid blunder on Thursday, diplomacy isn’t his strong suit. 
 
 The incident centers around Zinke’s tone-deaf reaction to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), whose grandfathers were incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II for their Japanese heritage. She said one of her grandfathers, a U.S. citizen, didn’t speak about the painful experience until much later in life. 
 
 Hanabusa shared the detail Thursday morning in a hearing with the interior secretary, seeking to persuade him to restore around $2 million in grant funds for organizations dedicated to preserving the memory of that ugly chapter in American history. 
 
 “I believe that it is essential that we as a nation recognize our darkest moments so that we don’t have them repeat again,” Hanabusa urged Zinke. 
 
 “My grandfather was born in Hawaii and is a citizen by birth,” Hanabusa noted during the hearing. Despite being a U.S. citizen, however, he was imprisoned in an Oahu camp called Honouliuli ― though the prisoners there used a different name: “jigokudani,” or “Hell’s Valley.” 
 
 After listening to her concerns, and for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Zinke responded to the U.S. representative with a cheery and extremely tone-deaf “Konnichiwa!” 
 
 The phrase ― which, let’s remember, Hanabusa’s grandfather imprisoned on Oahu was a U.S. citizen ― means “good afternoon” or “good day” in Japanese. If you’re wondering what sort of reaction it prompted from the audience, here’s a perfectly good summary: 
 
 House Natural Resources Committee Democrats 
 
 A short yet painfully awkward silence followed, as indicated by the shocked woman in the above photo. 
 
 Hanabusa broke the tension with a terse, “I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ [good morning], but that’s OK.” 
 
 Several social media users, including many Asian-Americans, took to Twitter to express their disappointment over Zinke’s handling of a sensitive topic. Some labeled his choice of greeting as “racist”: 
 
 Once a friend of mine accidentally said “Konichiwa” to a Japanese waitress in a Japanese restaurant when he meant to say “Arigatou” and spent the meal so mortified he barely ate and also, Ryan Zinke is racist af. https://t.co/VwsT7RVKzY — shing yin khor (@sawdustbear) March 15, 2018 
 
 Hanabusa had been inquiring specifically about the Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, which Congress established to preserve sites where Japanese-Americans were detained during World War II, a time of rampant anti-Japanese sentiment. As the congresswoman mentioned, Trump’s 2019 budget proposal, unveiled in February, would eliminate funding for the program ― a move widely criticized by Japanese-American activists. 
 
 “The JACS grant program is an important component of our country’s recognition of the egregious wrong that was done, and the need to remember and preserve that history so that it not be repeated,” the Japanese American Citizens League wrote in a statement.
– Perhaps Ryan Zinke wanted to show off his foreign language skills at a hearing Thursday, but it ended with reprimands in very plain English. Politico and HuffPost report the Interior secretary attended a gathering of the House Natural Resources Committee and was asked about a commitment to $2 million in grants to preserve WWII's Japanese-American internment camps; President Trump's proposed budget for next year doesn't include that funding. Pressing Zinke for a pledge was Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, whose grandfathers were among those detained in the camps during the war. One of her grandfathers, a US citizen kept in Oahu's "Hell's Valley" camp, couldn't even talk about his experience there until he was much older. After relaying that background, Hanabusa asked Zinke: "Will we see [the grants] funded again in 2018?" To which a smiling Zinke replied, "Oh, konnichiwa," which Politico notes is a Japanese greeting used midday; the hearing was taking place in the AM. After a pause, Hanabusa filled Zinke in on the correct terminology, answering, "I think it's still 'ohayo gozaimasu,' but that's OK." Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, herself born in Japan, slammed Zinke later on Twitter, posting: "The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke. What you thought was a clever response to @RepHanabusa was flippant & juvenile." Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, born in Thailand, was more direct, tweeting, "Nope. Racism is not ok." No word from Zinke on the kerfuffle, but he said at the hearing he'd work with Hanabusa on the funding "because I think it is important." (He's still facing questions about a $139K door.)