Leg Office Space for Hate Group?
It’s not every day that an experienced legislative staffer gets ousted, and banned for life from rehire by the legislature. What could cause such a response from the Committee on Legislative Ethics in the Alaska State House? How about literally giving legislative office space and the keys to the Legislative Offices to some guy from an anti-muslim hate group? Oh, you Mat-Su Republicans can still surprise me after all these years. Before the start of the new legislative session, Rep. Shelley Hughes (R-Palmer) has announced the “resignation” of her Chief of Staff Karen Sawyer after the ruling came down. Hughes…
Laptops of Love!
Are you looking for a way to help kids that will fill you with the spirit of Christmas? Yes, you are. Today Rep. Les Gara and the foster care group, Facing Foster Care In Alaska (FFCA), are launching the third annual Laptops for Foster Youth Holiday Drive. Over the past two years this drive has resulted in approximately 200 matches for youth in Alaska! “Laptops are crucial to helping youth improve their chances of success in school, and establishing normalcy in very disrupted lives of youth who often have very few material possessions,” said Gara, a former foster youth whose father was killed…
Parnell Pounds the Table
There’s an old saying, “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.” But in Alaska, when it comes to cutting oil taxes, that strategy really isn’t a winner. With all-time high levels of employment and investment on the North Slope, and the oil companies raking in record profits, the facts are definitely not on the side of the Big Oil Tax Giveaway. With a constitution that requires Alaska to reap the maximum benefit for our natural resources, the law…
The Choices of Monsters
Born and raised in Alaska, Glen Klinkhart is a retired Anchorage Police Department Detective, a State Certified Police Officer, and Chief Executive Officer for DigitalSecurus, the largest Computer Security Firm in Alaska. He is also a father, lecturer, and author of A CyberCop’s Guide to Internet Child Safety, and the upcoming Finding Bethany. After the mall shooting in Oregon last week, my best friend asked me a question which weighed heavily on her mind, “Why? Why does someone do something horrible like this?” Needless to say, her question is now being asked by people all over the country,…
Begich Arms for 2014
Senator Mark Begich (D) doesn’t toe the line every time Harry Reid whistles. And he’s certainly been a thorn in the side of Yellow Dog Dems, and caused much hair pulling and kicking of trash cans for progressive Alaskans, particularly in the area of resource development. All that said, the Democrats in the Senate are a family, and even the wayward kid gets some TLC. Harry Reid knows, as do we all, that 2014 is going to be an interesting race for the Senate in Alaska. It will be Mark Begich (D) vs. any one of a long string of Republicans…
Track Palin to Divorce
Huh. That was quick. And apparently it is news. So sayeth the Washington Post. After 23-year old Track Palin and his wife Britta, 22, watched a 48-minute movie on the impact of divorce on children, …they filed jointly for divorce. This means they’ve agreed to a settlement, including property, finances, and child support. The couple, who had been dating since high school, married in April of last year. The wedding of the jean-clad couple, at Hatcher Pass, Alaska, was reported after the fact in a gushy People Magazine article by Lorenzo Benet. Benet authored the equally gushy Sarah Palin biography Trailblazer,…
Pozonsky-gate. The Plot Thickens.
But wait, there’s more! Not only did the hiring scandal of former Pennsylvania Judge Paul Pozonsky into the Parnell administration touch strange corners of Alaska politics, it seems that the Judge’s checkered history in Pennsylvania is not just limited to destruction of evidence in 17 drug cases, but it now appears he’s been doing some inappropriate favors for frackers in the name of keeping information from the press and the public by inappropriately sealing records. Are we shocked? No, we are not. Alaska politics are such that it takes a lot to consider something scandalous, let alone a soap opera….
Alaska Readies for Voter Photo ID Bill
Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee, reportedly plans to introduce a voter photo ID requirement in the Alaska Legislature. He says this photo ID law isn’t based on the so-called “model statute” developed by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization that promotes conservative model legislation. Even though Lynn is a member of ALEC. In state where village residents, who famously vote Democratic, don’t have or need a photo ID, this law will provoke a lawsuit before the ink is dry on Captain Zero’s signature. It’s all about equal protection. If you have a photo…
Pozonsky-Gate Demands Answers
I hate messy breakups, and boy did we have one this week. Former Pennsylvania Judge Paul Pozonsky resigned as a workers’ compensation hearing officer for the State of Alaska Thursday, just days after I started asking exactly how he got hired. Pozonsky apparently got the job after a closed application process was reopened just long enough for him to apply. For some reason, the fact that the former judge was under investigation by a Pennsylvania grand jury for ordering the destruction of evidence in 17 court cases, and that he resigned from the job last June after being stripped of…
The Audacity of Failure – She’s Back!
She ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 and lost. Then she took one of the most beloved and successful non-profits on the planet, set it on fire, and shoved it out to sea like a viking funeral pyre, before resigning in disgrace. Then she wrote a book with the painfully prosaic title “Planned Bullyhood,” in which she called members of Planned Parenthood “a bunch of schoolyard thugs.” So, what’s next for Karen Handel, disgraced and ostracized former head of the Susan G. Komen foundation? She’s considering a run for the U.S. Senate, of course. If she ran, she would…