If you haven’t done so already, read the latest investigation by Kyle Hopkins of the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica.
Hopkins’s investigation of the deaths of Jennifer Kirk and Sue Sue Norton reveals an outrageous failure of the justice system in Alaska.
Read MoreA reader writes that the questions I put to Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office about the delay in selecting potential judicial nominees for a vacant federal court position in Alaska were of the predictable kind, all guaranteed to produce pat answers. I missed the big picture, the reader said.
I thought it over and came to the same conclusion.
It is not mentally rewarding or enlightening to read Sullivan’s pre-packaged statements that senators have many different ways of recruiting and vetting nominees for federal judicial appointments, and that his new committee is nonpartisan, etc.
Read MoreThe Dunleavy administration ignored the legislative limits placed on the hiring of former President Donald Trump’s lawyer for $600 an hour for the continuing anti-union crusade that has cost hundreds of thousands.
A legislative audit has concluded that the Dunleavy administration acted illegally, spending $315,034 that it did not have legislative authority to spend with Consovoy McCcarthy.
Read MoreSen. Dan Sullivan’s committee to pick right-wing judicial nominees, led by former Gov. Sean Parnell, has already met twice, with no public notice, and plans to continue operating in secret, according to Sullivan’s office.
Read MoreCiting a host of transportation regulation violations by the state and safety questions, the Committee for Safe Communities is seeking a preliminary injunction, pending a trial, to decide if the Kinross ore-haul plan “can ever go forward in light of public nuisance laws, general public safety and particularly the safety of our children.”
Read MoreThe inescapable Kinross “Just the Facts” ad campaign in Fairbanks could benefit with more facts about its ore hauling project.
The company has a highly selective notion about just what Alaskans should know. The facts about corporate economics are nowhere to be found.
Read MoreI’ve written many times about the wasteful state contract Gov. Mike Dunleavy has with Washington, D.C. publicist Mary Vought that now pays her $5,000 a month.
No one has ever justified this expenditure, which will soon top $200,000 in total since 2020. Vought’s husband is playing a key role in plotting by Donald Trump to seek revenge on his political enemies if he is elected in 2024.
Read MoreIt took him a long time to get to this point, but Sen. Dan Sullivan has made the right call on Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s obstruction of promotions and transfers for hundreds of military members over an unrelated Pentagon policy about access to abortion.
Read the Congressional Record to see what Sullivan and other GOP senators had to say about five dozen senior military members who are stationed in limbo because of the Alabama senator who likes to be called Coach.
Read MoreLast week at a conference in Saudi Arabia, Gabrielle Rubenstein, one of the six trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund, predicted that the group would make a fundamental policy shift this week that would transform the fund into a $100 billion operation within three to five years.
Read MoreIn Sen. Dan Sullivan’s quest to create a federal judge to his liking, his questionnaire of leading questions stops just short of asking applicants, “Who’s your favorite Alaska senator?” and “What are the three things you like best about him?”
Read MoreThe Permanent Fund trustees rejected key measures in a proposed strategic plan Monday, declining to raise the investment target rate of return or approve borrowing additional billions to increase private equity investments, the main elements in an attempt to try to speed the growth to a $100 billion fund.
Read MoreDeven Mitchell, the executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, should tell Alaskans if he believes the claim on a document prepared by someone on his staff—that the Permanent Fund is harmed by public discussion and should be allowed to meet in secret.
Anyone who believes that should not be working for the Alaska Permanent Fund or serving as a trustee.
Read MoreThe trustees, all appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, are behaving as if speed is essential. They have misread the moment.
Read MoreThe document package just posted in advance of a Monday meeting demonstrates to me that the six trustees of the Permanent Fund have no business in trying to approve a new strategic plan that incorporates fundamental changes in policy. The Legislature and the public must be more involved.
Read MoreNo one wants to admit that the Dunleavy administration screwed this up big time. No one wants to admit how easy it would have been to fix this problem in state regulation months or years ago by amending the language to legalize the Kinross trucks on Peger Road and the Johansen Expressway.
Read MoreWith Vic’s passing at 99, the key players are all gone now, though we are left with a priceless record that will allow future generations to hear directly from those who helped create the state.
Read MoreFar-reaching changes about future operations of the Alaska Permanent Fund—aimed at turning the $75 billion fund into a $100 billion fund—are on the table for the Oct. 30 special meeting planned by the six-member board of trustees.
Read MoreThe latest draft report from the Dunleavy energy task force makes a stronger pitch for subsidizing our old friend—the gas pipeline—and injects the phrase “regret cost” into the debate about importing LNG to Alaska.
Critics will say that this has become a bullet line task force, which is no surprise. Enstar needs natural gas to survive as a utility and will be the bullet line champion.
Read MoreThe Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation trustees plan to meet Oct. 30 to decide on a future strategy to accelerate the process of turning the $75 billion fund into a $100 billion fund.
Just about every step the six trustees are talking about, however, should not be taken without support from the Legislature and a great deal more public involvement.
Read MoreThe trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation approved a proposed $900,000 travel budget for the next fiscal year, but it turns out that some travel is not in the budget at all—with business class travel paid for by private investment managers the fund has contracted to do business with.
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