The Anti-Greta, Climate Change & the Alaska Senate Race
By Zachary Brown She stood in the roiling crowd, amid clean-cut college kids and potbellied dudes in cowboy hats and media men dashing this way and that. Her stringy blonde hair, her dark eyeliner, her sneakers and the flannel tied round her waist, all gave a picture of punk defiance. How ironic, I thought, given the suit-wearing merchants of the status quo she represents. They chose someone small and thin as a garter snake for their enormous, dreadful task. Meet Naomi Seibt: the anti-Greta. The GOP needed an answer to Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has gained astonishing traction…
Book Banning Comes Back to Palin Country
Not since the old days when Mayor Sarah Palin of Wasilla tried to ban Howard Bess’ Pastor, I’m Gay from the Wasilla Public Library has the Mat-Su been embroiled in a book banning kerfuffle. Now, it’s the School Board. BANNING BOOKS Pandemic, science denial, the erosion of our democratic pillars of government, civil unrest, rising authoritarianism… seems like the perfect time to add book banning into the mix. We’re still a step away from outright burning, but the Mat-Su School Board just voted 5-2 to BAN from high school curricula the following five books, and The New York Times’ teacher…
Alaska Republicans Say the Darndest Things
TALL TALES from Juneau Eyes on the Dunleavy Disaster NEVER LET A GOOD DISASTER GO TO WASTE That’s the hallmark of Republican politics. Remember the Patriot Act that got shoved through during the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – chock-full of provisions to trample civil liberties and violate the Constitution? It was basically ready to go, and waiting for an opportunity. Well, don’t think that COVID-19 isn’t going to have its own set of nefarious legislation that gets implemented during these days of crisis when people are looking the other way. We’ve already seen public money dumped into funding the private…
Don Young – King of CoronaDenial
TALL TALES from Juneau Eyes on the Dunleavy Disaster It’s Day 4,836 of the stay at home mandate. At least that’s what it feels like. We hope you are all staying well, taking good care of yourselves and each other, and following the stay-at-home direction from the state. We need you. Now, on to the usual shenanigans: THE DC DELEGATION Congressman Don “I call it the beer virus” Young has stopped backpedaling, and is now OUTRIGHT DENYING that he poo-pooed this pandemic, urging high-risk seniors to go about their daily lives as though nothing was happening, just a few…
Juneau in the Time of Coronavirus
TALL TALES from Juneau Eyes on the Dunleavy Disaster Despite the slow-down in activity across the state, things have been hopping in Juneau. And as usual, most of the activity centers around the budget, the PFD, supplemental funding, and what to do with the limited funds we have. We’re cleaning up after a summer of natural disaster, and heading into an uncertain future of pandemic. And floor sessions in the House are the same old bare-knuckle fight we’ve become used to. This is because the minority wants you to know something. They want you to know that they really really…
Gov. wants to know if you’re “done venting” yet
You could practically hear the eye rolling as he stared at his watch. It’s hard to say when that might be; are we “done venting” about the horrendous cuts to the university system? Are we “done venting” about skyrocketing charges at the Pioneer Homes? Are we “done venting” at incompetent, partisan cronies, and conservative talk radio hacks making six figures? Are we “done venting” about disingenuous promises used to get into office? Are we “done venting” at extreme cuts to Medicaid, homeless services, pre-K, agriculture programs, and public safety? Thumbing his nose at the Constitution and rights of workers?…
Failure as a Conservative art form
Hey kids, it’s Word Thursday! Whether you find it grotesque, or humorous (or both), the transmogrification of Governor Dunleavy from a humble Wasilla man of the people into a self-glorifying Trump wannabe continues before our very eyes. And it’s not really a stretch to say that the governor thinks he’s Tundra Trump because he is literally saying it himself… while gazing meaningfully into the middle-distance. It’s not clear why the State Senator who voted against a budget so he could get thrown out of the caucus so he could justify quitting so he could get an early…
FACE it – Time for Don Young to go.
TOTALLY NOT WORRIED. NOPE, NOT WORRIED AT ALL… The beleaguered governor who said he “wasn’t worried at all” about the recall effort has spent the last week being “not worried” on national TV and in the White House. The guy who spent most of his political life grousing about “federal overreach” and how those darn DC bureaucrats need to stay out of Alaska’s business is now begging for dollars in the Oval Office. Literally. The schmoozing has resulted an extended meeting in the White House on “personal business” which basically means who knows what the governor has promised or…
Gov is definitely NOT scared of the recall. Definitely.
OH, LOOK! No worries about changing the name of this newsletter any time soon, because they just can’t get over the fact that he’s tall. A new pro-Dunleavy group has sprouted up like a mushroom in the night. “Stand Tall With Mike” has just registered itself with the Alaska Public Offices Commission as a political group whose mission is to “oppose signature collection effort to recall Governor Dunleavy.” You know – the signature collection effort that the governor is completely not worried about and was totally not the reason for the ouster of his former chief of staff, Tuckerman…
They’re back! Personnel problems
One thing you can say for Alaska – we know how to recycle. We may not do that well with aluminum cans, but politics? That’s another story. RECYCLE! Remember the guy that Gov. Dunleavy nominated to be the Commissioner of Administration and who got a little too creative with his resume and lied to the Senate by claiming that he was a frozen yogurt entrepreneur which he wasn’t, and eventually had to withdraw in shame? Well, he’s back. Jonathan Quick has now shown up as a candidate for the Kenai Borough Assembly. There’s just been a complaint filed with the…