Right-wing Republicans in the Senate, assisted by Senate Democrats Scott Kawasaki, Bill Wielechowski and Donny Olson, are betting on high oil prices to pay inflated dividends and provide state services in the next fiscal year. It’s a reckless gamble, one that should be reversed by the House-Senate conference committee on the budget.
Read MoreSens. Lisa Murkowsi and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young crossed party lines and voted for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that Congress approved last summer. The most vocal opponents of what they did are Republicans who first claimed that the state was shortchanged, only to drop that argument when the multi-billion-dollar scale of the Alaska portion became obvious to them. The new argument is that the law contains too much.
Read MoreSen. Dan Sullivan wants to overturn the court precedent on abortion rights, but he and his PR man in D.C. can’t possibly say that to Alaskans.
Read MoreNot much has changed since Palin couldn’t identify what newspapers she was reading in 2008, claiming she read “all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.”
Read MoreA Supreme Court decision Tuesday makes it critically important for the Legislature to act now and preserve what former Gov. Sean Parnell called the “moral obligation” to create a sustainable source of funds for post-secondary scholarships.
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy and Administration Commissioner Corri Feige are putting on a big government overreach act for the Dunleavy reelection campaign. They have branded a harmless little dock in a remote part of the state as an enemy of the people—built without a state permit—and an illegal blight that must be removed—or else.
Read MorePolitical news coverage in Alaska stands to improve with the opening of an Alaska branch of States Newsroom this month. I say this with confidence because of the skills, integrity and experience of the four editors and reporters who will be running the independent Alaska operation—Andrew Kitchenman, Yereth Rosen, James Brooks and Lisa Phu.
Read MoreBallots are due to be returned by June 11. You have only one choice on this primary ballot. The four candidates getting the most votes will advance to a special general election in August. Ranked choice voting will be used to decide that race.
Read MoreIn trying to ban Murkowski and others, the Republican cancel culture enthusiasts are saying there is no room in the organization for anyone who questions Donald Trump or veers from party doctrine.
Ted Stevens would have no place in this party and neither would Wally Hickel, Jay Hammond, Clem Tillion, John Butrovich, Arliss Sturgulewski, Terry Miller and dozens of others I can think of who had the ability to think for themselves.
About three-quarters of the collection went to new homes in Alaska, for which my family is grateful. We regard this as a way to honor my brother and recognize his love for public libraries. He could no more pass up the chance to spend time in the library than he could pass up a chance to eat.
Read MoreOur family decided that Terrence, who died in 2020 of stomach cancer, would want to see his books and other items go to people that might find something valuable in them, keeping the reading light lit for a while longer.
Read MoreOne obvious question is whether Nick Begich III accepts the debunked conspiracy theories promoted by his father, Nick Begich II, that candidate Begich is benefiting from as a part owner of the family publishing company. Another one is why Begich III’s income from his share of the company posted a big one-year increase. He reported an income from Earthpulse Press of between $100,000 and $1 million, up from a range of $15,000-$50,000 the year before.
Read MoreSen. Dan Sullivan doesn’t want to talk about Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her campaign, except to say he supports incumbent Republican senators.
Read MoreSenate candidate Kelly Tshibaka failed to let Alaskans know that this was a pay-to-play situation with Trump, as it is with the other Republicans who cough up the coin and pretend to be something other than paying customers.
Read MoreImproving the failing Port of Alaska in Anchorage so that it can withstand earthquakes and meet future demands for commerce is an essential infrastructure project that Alaska can’t afford to ignore.
Read MoreFive of the six Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. trustees, with the notable exception of Chairman Craig Richards, have now agreed to sit for depositions with investigators hired by legislators to look into the firing of Angela Rodell. Richards, a political ally of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, has hired Robin Brena as own attorney to deal with this matter, a sign that he is not in agreement with the others, though Richards claims otherwise.
The notion that Putin has nothing to do with the spike in oil prices that followed the attack on Ukraine and the removal of Russian oil from world markets is complete nonsense.
Read MoreRepublican Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka said she would make the “morning after” and birth control pills illegal. She claimed that all birth control pills are “abortifacient,” meaning they are drugs that cause abortions.
Read MoreThere was never any real doubt about how Sen. Dan Sullivan would vote on the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who is to become a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read MorePalin’s lawyers didn’t want the jurors to see the video of her singing and dancing in the bear costume as that would suggest that her opportunities to get publicity for herself and her reputation hadn’t been as damaged as she claimed in the lawsuit.
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