The Permanent Fund claimed at first that all information about the investments made by McKinley and Barings were secret, including the names of the companies. The state claimed that it would be entirely up to the two financial management companies to decide what Alaskans would be allowed to know.

As I wrote here on December 6., 2021: “The real danger is that secrecy can be a tool to hide public investments from the public to avoid controversy and public discussion. It can also be a tool that allows political influence to decide who gets the benefit of state money.”

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Questioned on CNBC if he was trying to dream up ways to defend outlandish schemes from Trump, economic adviser Kevin Hassett claimed that making Canada the 51st state is not outlandish at all.

Hassett didn’t sound like a guy with a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He sounded like a dropout from Trump University.

No one believes that Canada is going to become the 51st state, but the price that supplicants pay to pacify and please the playground bully is to tell him he is always right about everything and call him “Sir.”

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The job of saying no to $50 million for the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority has gotten a lot easier than anyone expected.

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The state secretly ordered the contractor—after its report was finished last summer—to revise the work it had done and set salaries at the 50 percentile for many employees. Lowering the benchmark would lower the cost and widen the gap between state workers and other employees..
This deception, for that is what it is, goes against the letter and spirit of the state law requiring government transparency.

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Rep. Nick Begich the Third didn’t tell Alaskans the full story when he praised himself for getting the House of Representatives to pass two bills on February 4.

The Begich bills were copied word for word from bills introduced by former Rep. Mary Peltola.

The hearings on both took place in November, before Begich took office, and they won unanimous backing from the Republican-controlled resources committee.

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It is a safe bet that the contractor discovered that the state is not paying enough to remain competitive, which is the real reason why Dunleavy is sitting on the study.

Had the contractor’s research shown that state pay rates are more than competitive, copies of the state salary study would have been in every mailbox of every politician in Alaska last summer.

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The Anchorage Daily News had the best coverage about Trump’s emissions about the Alaska gas pipeline. Read it here.

Elsewhere the news was not so good.

“President Donald Trump today announced a joint venture with Japan for the Alaska LNG project,” Alaska Public Media reported.

There are no signed documents about a joint venture. That’s because there is no joint venture.

This truth was completely missing from the Alaska news coverage.

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A new video from a campaign group that appears to be aimed at elevating Gov. Mike Dunleavy on the national scene claims that the Dunleavy policies that have worked so well in Alaska should be exported to 49 other states.

Dunleay allies, including Alaska Airlines pilot Bob Griffin, have created the new Dunleavy support group, called “Future 49,” in which Dunleavy and Trump are the lead characters.

“Alaska’s Golden Age is here,” the support group says, thanks in large part to Trump and Dunleavy.

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The Dunleavy administration continues to claim that drafts of the $880,000 state salary study are secret, which contradicts a state law that says draft reports are public documents.

But a more egregious action took place last week when the Dunleavy administration refused to tell legislators and the public what data it asked the salary study contractor to provide last summer.

The state redacted a key phrase from an $80,000 contract amendment that conceals a major change in state policy, setting a lower target for state pay rates.

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I expect the meeting between Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and President Donald Trump Friday will be followed by noise from the White House about Japan backing an Alaska natural gas pipeline.

Trump will declare victory and strut upon the stage, praising himself, but as Macbeth moaned about the course of all life, look for a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

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Elon Musk, who bought the presidency and the Republican Party for $290 million, claims he has shut down a U.S. agency that bankrolls the International Republican Institute, a organization head by Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Sullivan is the chairman of the International Republican Institute, which is supposed to advance democracy worldwide.

The institute’s grants include tens of millions from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Sullivan is silent about the Musk attack.

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The headline above says it all.

So why have Alaska’s Republican leaders had their mouths sealed about the dumbest trade war in history?

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Rep. Nick Begich the Third should have condemned the dumbest trade war the moment it was announced.

Instead, they hide, probably secretly sending thoughts and prayers that no one will notice.

The Legislature needs to fill this leadership vacuum by declaring that Canada is Alaska’s closest and best neighbor and we have a relationship that will be damaged by Trump’s antics.

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There’s an easy way to get higher fourth-grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress standardized test, the one that Gov. Mike Dunleavy is using as a public relations weapon to brand public education in Alaska as a failed system.

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Good policies are in the eye of the beholder. In Dunleavy’s eye, anything that helps push public dollars toward home schools and charter schools—and away from neighborhood schools—is good policy.

Dunleavy wants to give more power to his appointees on the state school board to create charter schools, bypassing local school boards. Local governments and the University of Alaska—controlled by regents appointed by Dunleavy—would also be able to create charter schools.

He also wants to give cash incentives to teachers for three years, an approach that would do nothing to keep teachers more than three years.

He does not support any permanent increase in the base student allocation, the major means of support for public education. Dunleavy wants to direct funding into the things he likes—charter schools, correspondence, home schools, etc.

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Legislators, who received a 67 percent raise a couple of years ago, will want to distance themselves from the salary commission and any suggestion that they are taking care of themselves.

This will be a great opportunity to amend the bill and to reject the automatic raises and to eliminate the commission, which was set up to allow legislators to avoid voting on salary increases to take care of themselves.

In theory, a real independent commission would work.

But Dunleavy destroyed the credibility of this organization in 2023 and it can’t be salvaged. Dunleavy removed all former members of the commission and replaced them with a compliant group and a prearranged plan to approve raises for Dunleavy, the lieutenant governor, top Dunleavy employees and legislators.

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Perhaps Dunleavy will create a new child care task force to study the work of the first task force.

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The State of the State speech Tuesday included a sermon about school choice from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, along with his flawed interpretation of the Harvard charter school study.

The only choice that Dunleavy needs to make is to support public schools in Alaska.

The Alaska Constitution spells out the mandate, which is to “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the state.”

What the Dunleavy speech didn’t include was any mention of the message he sent earlier Tuesday to some Alaskans by email urging them to testify Wednesday against a House bill to increase education funding. He should have come clean with all Alaskans about this.

“Speak out against HB 69 and demand accountability in education funding,” he said in his email, not in his speech.

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The Alaska Legislature has yet to be given a good reason to hand over the $50 million that Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants for the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority for a gas pipeline study.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corporation can’t find a private company willing to pay $50 million for the final design and engineering work on a proposed gas pipeline unless there is a pledge to get that money back from the state.

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I had expected that those Republican legislators who are afraid to counter anything emitted by Donald Trump would be intimidated into voting against House Joint Resolution 4 in Juneau today.

The measure in the Alaska Legislature calling for the retention of Denali’s traditional name should have been approved unanimously, but 10 Trumpists voted against it.

The House Rules Committee held a hearing on the matter Monday, creating a revised measure that was approved 28-10, with Rep. Kevin McCabe calling for reconsideration. Passage of this resolution won’t stop Trump, but it’s a good idea to get this on the record.

The arrogant way in which the Trump edict came about, issued with no attempt to consider the opinions of Alaskans, will help ensure that the mountain remains Denali, not McKinley, to Alaskans.

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In his State of the State Speech Tuesday night, Gov. Mike Dunleavy will recycle the empty education slogans that constitute his alleged education reform plan, which met with statewide opposition last year and will do so again.

Dunleavy will use his speech to mention the Harvard study on charter schools that he has been promoting for the past year, misrepresenting the contents. He has repeatedly failed to acknowledge the flaws and weaknesses in that study, which have been exposed by a diligent Fairbanks high school math teacher.

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