GOP Lineup Goes Byzantine
~A hoarde of Byzantine gold coins
The shakeup in the Alaska GOP continues. Our three party system (Dems, Republicans, and Tea Partiers) is going “byzantine,” according to the Alaska Ear. Yes, it’s inside baseball, but that’s really the only baseball that counts.
The powerful finance committee is where bills go to live or die, and it seems like a couple of entrenched GOPpers find themselves on the outside looking in – or potentially so. Bill Thomas (R) who was assumed to be a fixture in said committee, finds himself suddenly in a race for relevancy with the awesome, out-of-nowhere Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins. Their race, as you may recall, is literally tied at this point. Absentee ballots counted between today and Wednesday will determine the outcome. To the victor goes the seat on finance.
Mike Hawker, whom everyone assumed would land the powerful co-chair spot – didn’t.
Ear was planning to explain how the seat got saved for Thomas and how Alan Austerman of Kodiak ended up co-chair of Finance instead of Mike Hawker, who seemed to have an inside track to that plum assignment. Alas, the story is way too long and byzantine, so you’ll have to ask the players to explain it to you themselves. The takeaway from people who seem to know is that Bill Stoltze cleaned Hawker’s clock, politically speaking.
The Mudflats likes long, byzantine stories of wonkishness and skulduggery, but alas doubts if “the players” will lay it all out for us over tea and scones. So, we will be left to use other means to discover how Bill “the Naked Baker” Stoltze, who was the catalyst of illegal coordination between the Republican Governors Association under Mitt Romney, and the Palin for Governor campaign in 2006 [Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, Simon & Schuster], ended up not only keeping his job, but getting re-elected, and now sitting in this position of power and authority. An ethical compass is not required to clean political clocks.
Meanwhile, the Republican takeover of the Senate seems to be heading right where we thought it would.
In 2011, the coalition, comprised of 10 Democrats and six Republicans, refused to follow the House’s lead and pass Parnell’s tax-cut plan, with leaders saying they didn’t have the information needed to make a sound policy call. This year, the coalition failed to agree on a comprehensive overhaul. The Senate ultimately passed a proposal aimed at encouraging production from new fields but it died in the House. A bill Parnell introduced during special session was criticized by lawmakers in both parties and chambers before he pulled it.
Thanks to mccain,.palin,romney these three stooges buried the republican party for a spell,now only the low informed states would learn that they have been duped for past 6 yrs.Republican and there clowns need to retire with a face of shame they will never cover
http://helenair.com/news/opinion/readers_alley/reader-upset-about-edit-of-ap-story/article_53a08dd8-32cb-11e2-a3f1-0019bb2963f4.html Fight is on over edit of one word in Helena,MT Independent Record on Obama’s Asian trip. Comments are predictable depending on your POV.
Iromney alert. According to Greg Sargent,Willard’s vote total has shrunk to 47.5% and could end up at 47%. Delicious irony with a side of humbiliation.pie.
Andy Singer has some great cartoons. They are worth viewing—especially the ones he entered in the Grambs Aronson Cartoon contest.
His cartoon ” The Republican Brain” hits the nail on the head.
http://www.andysinger.com/index.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7407452n The GOP has gone BERZERK-O. The “Nuge” can’t believe people don’t see him as a moderate. I confess I did not watch this. My computer is so slow it takes an hour or more to load and show a two minute clip. I hope someone with a faster computer and cast iron constitution can stomach this.
I confess I did watch. I also missed whatever touched off terrible Ted’s powder magazine-bad hearing/no CC for video and no transcript. This tool has anger issues.
I watched , and would like to use the “cast iron skillet” to knock some sense in his head. What an idiot!
It’s guys like these that need to crawl back under a rock!
Krugman’s on a roll:
” today’s Republican party is an alliance between the plutocrats and the preachers, plus some opportunists along for the ride — full stop. The whole party is about low taxes at the top (and low benefits for the rest), plus conservative social values and putting religion in the schools; it has no other reason for being.”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/the-new-republicans/
Florida nutjob,bomb-thrower Alien West conceded his seat to Dem Murphy early today. One less rwnj in the House of Ill Repute.
Heard that McCain may lose his Chr of his powerful committee due to term limit.
Hope this is true. Could be that he will be on Indian Affairs committee.
Just where he needs to be—-Out on the prairie!
American Indians/ Alaska Natives do NOT need that doof anywhere near them… or even in the same building or on the same street .
No sirree bob.
Doof was all over getting rid of a number of things which benefit rural communities. Keep him in a coat closet somewhere.
The quote below from a recent Krugman column seems to be the other side of the coin of Republican pigheadedness.
Corey Robin makes the case that it’s fear of loss of power – over employees/co-workers, wife and kids. Because one has no power going in the other direction. In fact – and here comes the Krugman quote – the uncertainties of modern life make for huge amounts of anxiety. But, as he points out, your church and your traditional marriage aren’t going to save you from economic ruin.
I’m guessing that Alaska’s ex-Arkansas pipeline workers and slope-wives realize that if/when they lose their oil industry job, they’re toast. Poor. No other job prospect in sight. Medical bills likely to mount with age. Will even the twin hammers of poverty and medical costs finally crack through the shell of Republicanism? No. That would entail admitting that they backed the wrong power group and got left holding the bag for their foolishness. Can’t have that.
“Every time you read someone extolling the dynamism of the modern economy, the virtues of risk-taking, declaring that everyone has to expect to have multiple jobs in his or her life and that you can never stop learning, etc,, etc., bear in mind that this is a portrait of an economy with no stability, no guarantees that hard work will provide a consistent living, and a constant possibility of being thrown aside simply because you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And nothing people can do in their personal lives or behavior can change this. Your church and your traditional marriage won’t guarantee the value of your 401(k), or make insurance affordable on the individual market.”
We Outsiders are eagerly awaiting an outcome. Good luck, AK.
No one has yet identified the AK Senate seats up in 2 years. Today I read that French’s is another one. Geisel is another, who/where else? Should be 1/3. Shift me into the correct website. SOA’s sites are not very progressive friendly.
I want the Byzantine explanation before the members of each chamber is sworn in. If it’s a legislative rule, question the validity, if AK Constitution is cited, take it to the max. If there’s a “gentleman’s agreement” about hierarchy, expose it. The “Naked Baker” is a great visual with which to shame these guys. “The Emperor Has No Clothes”.
Am I really of base here. Please advise. n
I think it is time to re-wire the Republican brain. Is there a master switch somewhere in the ciruit with the label honesty that has been turned off? Would that it could be so simple.
While on the national scale we have yet greater madness. And even greater dishonesty.
Ah well, the world, or at least this fraction of it within my ken, watches in awe. But they also know what the prime mover behind the enormous animosity towards this administration is about. You see the rest of the world, the 6,900,000,000 people who do not live in the US, are aware that the animus is all about being one of the other.
An instructive example might be to study what happened in Rhodesia AKA Zimbabwae for those too young to remember.
A parallel study could be done of the RSA and it would be informative because even though they were in some resects even more polarized, they managed to transition marginally more successfully.
The whole world is undergoing this transformation. The is animus between many many groups across the globe. Dominant minorities will ultimately be overcome.
Pass the bottle.
From KINY news online in Juneau today:
“Kreiss-Tomkins now leads Thomas by 28 votes
It was tied on Friday afternoon, but Democrat Johnathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka now leads incumbent Republican Bill Thomas of Haines in the race for a Southeast House seat by 28 votes.
That word coming from Elections Director Gail Fenumiai as the result of a count of 86 absentees this morning. Those ballots were postmarked by Friday’s deadline for ballots mailed from within the U. S. The new total shows Kreiss-Tomkins with 4,110 votes and Thomas with 4,082 votes.
The deadline for ballots cast from overseas is Wednesday. Right now Feunmiai says there are 26 special absentee ballots that are eligible to be counted if official ballots don’t arrive by Wednesday.”
I am holding out for this to hold him right into a victory!!
This was on IPTV last night, and I was able to find the video on the internet.
All about the most powerful and control of our country.
Our politicians are bought and paid for.
This video is 53 mins long, but well worth the time.
http://www.iptv.org/video/detail.cfm/31139/inle_20121113_001401_independent_lens_park_avenue_money
I think it’s time to re-read The Republican Brain.