This is the front cover of the card mailed out earlier this year on behalf of McDonalds Corporation inviting legislators and staff to attend the company’s 2009 Legislative Reception scheduled for this afternoon.

Inside the card, the invitation lists a group of the company’s suppliers that will be present, and requests RSVPs be sent to the public relations firm Communications Pacific.

Last year, I complained that Hawaii Superferry had failed to disclose substantial lobbying expenses, and the company later admitted to hundreds of thousands in previously unreported costs.

I have no reason to think that McDonalds lobbying efforts are in the same league as those of the Superferry, but the company’s legislative reception has become an annual event at the Capitol, while its related expenses have not been reported on lobbyist reports filed with the State Ethics Commission.

This small photo, taken with a cell phone during the 2007 Macdonalds reception, shows Ronald McDonald clowning around in the hallway while displays and tables by the company and its many suppliers display their goods and services.

I expect this afternoon’s reception will feature more of the same.

Jim Dooley has a good wrap-up in today’s Advertiser on the Pali Golf Course shooting trial and the look it provides at local organized crime. The case involves “protection” offered to illegal gambling games back in 2003-2004.

But those gambling operations are still flourishing despite this prosecution. News coverage of this often-quite-visible gambling is nil until or unless a case comes to court. There have been several gaming operations over the past couple of years in older buildings along Kalakaua Avenue in the area from Kapiolani up to Fern Street. They are active in one location for a short period of time, then move on. At least two have been raided by police. Other gambling operations allegedly have moved a few blocks way to the Sheridan Street-Keeaumoku area, residents of the area say.

Click here for a list of bills that have passed through the House or Senate and moved along to the other side. Tomorrow is the deadline for all but the budget bills, which will follow shortly. Bills still alive after this “first crossover” deadline deserve your more serious attention to weed out the undesirable or dangerous measures.

News junkies will want to read this interview with business reporter David Milstead about the demise of the Rocky Mountain News.