Robert Kennedy Jr., who claims that no vaccines are safe, seems like the change that Americans voted for, according to Sen. Dan Sullivan.
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The belated state decision to post an 80-ton limit on the Richardson Highway bridge over the floodway is tantamount to an admission that the state was wrong and that an official action was needed before the Kinross trucks began to roll.
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If Dunleavy was counting on Trump allowing him to announce his hiring for a job in Washington, D.C., Dunleavy got a little ahead of himself Tuesday.
About an hour-and-a-half after promoting an announcement and joint appearance with Dahlstrom, Dunleavy canceled it without explanation.
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Dunleavy and AIDEA are wrong about the Alaska Constitution.
The guidance contained in Article VIII of the Alaska Constitution is not “Say yes to everything and anything.” It’s to make resources “available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.”
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Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been fawning over Donald Trump for as long as he’s been governor.
Now he says, he looks forward to working with Trump “to make Alaska great again.”
We’ll soon see whether Dunleavy has said “Trump is the best” enough times and at sufficient volume to qualify for a top job in the second Trump administration.
Read MoreOne month before Robert Sarten, 5, was murdered, the Alaska Court of Appeals upheld a 2022 court conviction that Cedar Mae Sarten had recklessly endangered the life of her child when they were in an exam room at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in July 2020. Robert was 16 months old at the time.
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Coupled with an bipartisan coalition in the Alaska Senate with Sen. Gary Stevens as president, this move makes it likely that the 2025 Legislature will be a good deal more effective and productive than the 2023-24 version.
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It was fitting that the Times took note of Fineberg’s passing in its obituary section, a recognition given to accomplished individuals deemed significant or quirky enough to warrant the attention of a national audience. He was both accomplished and quirky.
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NEW PROPOSALS FOR Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed $9 million public relations campaign aimed at the leaders of resource development companies and investors are due today.
This is not the job of a PR worker. It requires a miracle worker. Without cheap electricity, Alaska is not a prime location for data centers. It doesn’t have cheap electricity. It has talk about cheap electricity.
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The Dunleavy administration is trying for a second time to spend up to $9 million on a public relations campaign aimed at executives and investors in mining, forestry, transportation and other industries, having cancelled the first effort because the state was unhappy with the results.
The request for proposals was first issued August 15, with a requirement that firms be at least 10 years old, have “five years or more experience in providing public relations support for Alaskan issues or entities” and three years of “worldwide” experience.
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Donald Trump has added new lies to his package of falsehoods about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, claiming that the refuge could have been supplying oil by now to all of Asia, including China and Japan, had he remained in the White House.
He also is now claiming that oil from ANWR would have prevented the war in Ukraine and helped the U.S. provide all the energy that Western Europe requires. He has lied in the past that money from ANWR oil is the key to saving Social Security.
There is no end to the money miracles that would come from ANWR oil, according to Trump, who has been repeating and inflating bubble-brained lies about ANWR since 2017.
Read MoreThe office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy contacted me today to report a “glaring error” in this blog post and suggest that I take down the post and rewrite it. According to the governor’s spokesman, Russell and Mary Vought ended their long-time marriage in 2023.
Now we know more about the Vought relationship than we do about what Mary is doing for $5,000 a month under a no-bid contract that has been extended time after time since 2020.
Mary Vought is in charge of PR for the Heritage Foundation, which led Project 2025. Russell Vought is a key contributor of Project 2025. They have two children.
“Families comprised of a married mother, father and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” says Project 2025.
Read MoreI’m sure it is uncomfortable for former Sen. Mark Begich and former Sen. Tom Begich to have their nephew, Nick Begich the Third, espousing ideas that contradict the positions taken by Mark and Tom during their days in office.
But with their deliberate silence about Nick III, they are effectively endorsing him.
Tom Begich submitted a column to the Anchorage Daily News saying he’s fed up with Donald Trump and his “enemy within” threats.
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Suzanne Downing, the voice of Trumpism in Alaska, whined Sunday about those comparing Trump’s rally to a pro-Nazi event held at the Garden in 1939.
Downing, who advertises herself as “A Force for Good,” falsely claimed that Hitler headlined the event in 1939 at what she falsely called “Madison Square Gardens.”
There is no evidence that Hitler ever traveled to the United States.
According to Downing’s logic, which she falsely claimed is the Democrats’ logic, all of those who have ever appeared at the Garden are now to be branded as Nazis.
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“Sadly,” Senate candidate Rep. Mike Cronk of Tok complained on Facebook a few days back, “politics of negativity has become the norm. Voters are tired of it. Again, thank you for your support and voting positive!”
“Where there is fear, there is often desperation. Where there is desperation, integrity and character are too often compromised,” Cronk claims.
Sadly, that paean to the power of positive thinking comes from a guy who is lying about his Senate opponent, Borough Assembly member Savannah Fletcher.
Read MoreThe Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, which limits public involvement to whatever it can get away with, plans to act Wednesday on a plan to draw $20 million from a slush fund for new oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Before AIDEA acts, there should be a real public hearing with real public notice. Something far more than the limited opportunity that AIDEA is giving Wednesday at 9 a.m.
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At first glance, the obvious hole in the new Dunleavy data center drive is that he started it with a September 5 form letter to top executives of the tech companies, a missive that was no better than a piece of junk mail.
The state employee or employees who wrote the letter for Dunleavy didn’t even bother to revise the text of each letter to mention anything specific about Microsoft, Google, Apple or Meta in the body of the message, simply referring to each company as “your organization.”
It didn’t matter if he was addressing Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook or Satya Narayana Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, the letter was exactly the same.
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If Donald Trump wins the presidency a second time, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has an exit strategy from the struggles of state government.
“I would not rule it out,” Dunleavy told reporter Nat Herz when asked about whether he would seek a job under Trump. Dunleavy said he hasn’t had “that conversation” with Trump.
Dunleavy could have responded that he intends to fulfill his duties as governor and that he has no intention of quitting. “I would not rule it out,” is what a politician says when he is dreaming of a new job.
Read MoreThe longer this ridiculous bureaucratic battle goes on, the more money and time will be wasted and the more uncertainty will be created about which road projects will move ahead and which will be delayed or cancelled.
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Former Anchorage Rep. Tom McKay should not be drawing his state paycheck as a legislator. Under state law he is no longer a legislator, regardless of House Speaker Caythy Tilton’s claims.
Read the state law—a legislator who resigns immediately cannot withdraw that resignation. McKay resigned when Gov. Mike Dunleavy rewarded him with a new job that McKay is ineligible to take for at least a year.
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