If the dunderheads claim that Murkowski can’t mention that she is a Republican because the party has not declared her to be a “member,” only a “participant,” it will be an interesting case about freedom of speech that Murkowski will win.
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This contract is exactly what it looks like—a sweetheart deal to get $50,000 in state money to a trusted campaign worker without requiring any real work.
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This deserves a state ethics complaint about Dunleavy’s absurd no-bid $50,000 contract to a key campaign worker and an APOC complaint about the independent Dunleavy campaign group that isn’t at all independent.
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On May 10, Terry Gardiner and his friend John Sund left Seattle and began rowing home to Ketchikan in a 17-foot rowboat.
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The Dunleavy campaign, not the state treasury, should be paying Dunleavy PR men Dave Stieren and Andrew Jensen, who should return to the private sector where they can resume their complaints about bloated government.
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After the Texas children’s massacre, the New York Times asked every Republican senator, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan about their position on strengthening background checks for people who want to buy guns. They had nothing to say.
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“It’s just too bad lawmakers don’t worship education funding as much as reelection-size dividends. The budget approved by lawmakers spends a lot more on dividends than it does on state funding to K-12 public education.”
By Larry Persily
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By any standard, the debt to her lawyers or to a secret benefactor is a liability that Palin should reveal to Alaskans. She is continuing a costly libel lawsuit against the New York Times.
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A “hopeless volunteer,” Glenn Hackney called himself. He was always one for tortured wordplay and a fan of P.G. Wodehouse. There was nothing hopeless about the man.
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The Alaska Legislature gave final approval to its budget in the closing minutes of the legislative session Wednesday, approving a payout to Alaskans of more than $2.1 billion in dividends and to offset energy prices pumped up by the war in Ukraine.
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Under the bill headed to Dunleavy’s desk, third-graders who can’t read well, based on a standardized test, will have their parents called into school to decide their children’s educational fate. The parents will have to sign a waiver saying they know the kids are failing and are not prepared for fourth grade before the child is allowed to advance to the next grade. This is going to be humiliating for some kids when they are blamed by their parents for not reading.
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Alaska legislators will debate a final budget today that includes total cash payouts to Alaskans ranging from $2.1 billion to $2.5 billion. The per person amounts would be from $3,200 per person to $3,850, the latter number contingent on gaining a super majority vote and the backing of Republicans in the House.
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The state is going to end up making cash payments to Alaskans that will probably exceed $1 billion or $1.5 billion. The Republicans, all with their eyes on the election, are trying to whip up hysteria that anything less than $3.6 billion in cash payments is an insult, but they don’t understand the word “billion” or the need to plan for the next time that oil drops to $50.
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The U.S. House of Representatives lists 13 financial disclosure reports filed by the dozens of U.S. House candidates competing in the upcoming Alaska special congressional election. Some of the high profile candidates not on the list are Sarah Palin and Josh Revak.
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The Senate budget was based on the wish and prayer that oil prices for the fiscal year starting July 1 would remain higher than they have been for many years. Even so, the budget contained a deficit of more than $1 billion that would have to be covered by drawings on savings and federal funds.
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“The $1,050 deficit for FY23 is based on $101 oil. If the actual price is merely in the mid $90s, we zero that out and then we're either into the CBR (without a 3/4 vote) or an overdraw from the permanent fund. Yes, at this moment we're sitting on a large slug of short term money. So we ‘can’ afford a fat dividend. It's just incredibly shortsighted and irresponsible.”
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Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is strong-arming House members with secret promises and threats about what he will or will not veto to get them to vote to approve the Senate’s reckless budget. Alaskans need to know what he is telling legislators to try to get them to do his bidding.
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As of this month, the Dunleavy administration says it wants to hire someone to repeat what was to be done under Kelly Tshibaka, which is to “complete IT and procurement consolidation.”
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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.
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Sens. 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.
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