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December 3, 2024

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No Time for Tuckerman -

Thursday, August 3, 2023

The Quitter Returns! -

Monday, March 21, 2022

Putting the goober in gubernatorial -

Friday, January 28, 2022

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…

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Parnell Hiring Scandal leads back to Dyson, Kopp, Palin

Chuck Kopp, Chief of Staff to Republican State Senator Fred Dyson, and a two-week Palin administration official, dismissed over a sex scandal is now at the center of another firestorm – the controversial hiring of his brother-in-law Paul Pozonsky by the Parnell administration. Pozonsky, a Pennsylvania judge under investigation for destroying evidence (including crack cocaine and cash) in 17 criminal cases was hired by the Parnell administration as an Alaska hearings officer. He was given the job despite his late application, the fact that the current investigation has stripped him of his ability to hear cases, and that he was…

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Alaska’s Accountability Moment

Some folks talk a good game about that popular notion of “accountability,” but don’t really care for the concept when it’s applied to themselves. Exhibit A: Tuesdays’s critical election, which will determine the balance of power in our state. Our state’s biggest political fight—oil taxes—is often misreported as a dispute over whether to cut taxes for multinational oil companies, and this is simply inaccurate. Both sides of the debate are open to such a tax break. The only difference, and it is a crucial one, is whether such a break is tied to the often promised increase in production, or…

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Back to the Sidewalk – Again!

The high drama of last summer’s sidewalk sitting may be back again in September. Mayor Dan Sullivan didn’t like that a homeless man protesting his draconian attitudes and policies toward the homeless was sitting outside City Hall on the sidewalk. He glowered out of his window in the tall tower, gazing to the sidewalk below and decided to bring the long arm of the law down upon the lowly “protester.” And then, to the mayor’s horror, he realized that there was actually no law prohibiting Anchorage residents from sitting on the sidewalk. It really hadn’t been an issue during the…

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Parnell Tries to Silence Alaskans

If Alaskans’ drinking water, children or fishing streams are at risk, Alaskans should have a say. That’s the radical supposition of Rep. Les Gara (D-Anchorage). The governor, on the other hand, proposes to eliminate public input on pesticide use that could contaminate waters where Alaskans fish and get drinking water. Did you expect anything less? “If someone’s plans risk poisoning our drinking water or fishing streams, Alaskans should have a say,” said Rep. Gara. “Alaskans have a right to fish our streams, drink our water, and hunt without fear that our resources will be contaminated by toxic pesticides. If the…

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Militia Trial: Insider Witness Surprises

Michael Orion Anderson is on the stand when I arrive in court at the 2-4-1 Militia Trial, also known as the US vs. Scheaffer Cox, Coleman Barney and Lonnie Vernon. Anderson is the “insider” that the prosecution promised to produce for the jury in their opening statement. But what we learn from Anderson doesn’t quite live up to the previews. It’s not that his testimony isn’t dramatic or compelling. It’s that and more – a desperate suicide attempt in prison, destroying a hard drive with a hammer, a first person account of an enraged FBI informant threatening to slit the…

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The Strange Tale of Schaeffer Cox

In the vast pantheon of strange and eccentric Alaskan political figures, a relative newcomer in the field really stands out.  And believe me when I tell you that in Alaska, it takes a LOT to stand out. I submit for your consideration one very young and equally charismatic Schaeffer Cox – founder of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia, and organizing member of Fairbanks’ Second Amendment Task Force. At a meeting of the group back in 2009, Cox drafted a declaration stating that the United States Government must be abolished if it further restricts gun rights. Many signed the declaration, including another…

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North Pole Republican Wants to Eliminate Government Regulation… of Food

~Want some yummy fish? You’ve got to hand it to Alaska State Rep. Tammie Wilson. Right in the middle of the “pink slime” debacle that is turning stomachs across the nation, and increasing scrutiny on what we are putting in our mouths, she’s got a project – and it’s worse than pink slime. At least that gelatinous cow-part goo was designed to preserve food.  She wants to deregulate food – even hazardous food. Just like many of her right wing cohorts, she thinks there’s just too much government regulation these days, specifically at your local farmers’ market. Sanitation is overrated…

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The Return of Occupy: Beaten, but Not Down

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.  ~Pablo Neruda My head hurts. Three months after my arrest during an Occupy Wall Street protest on #D17, and two days away from my meeting with the Assistant DA about said arrest, I got beaten just outside of Zuccotti Park. I wasn’t the only one, and I have no doubt I won’t be the last. The NYPD has complete authority in this town. I hate using the term “police state,” but when I saw a girl thrown from a bus and tossed to the ground, in handcuffs, having…

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Florida’s “Walking While Black” Shooting — Could It Happen In AK?

by Linda Kellen Biegel I’ve been waiting to see what crappy legislation (considered to be “a lesser of evils” by legislators who desperately want to trade for votes on their own bills, or shore up their second amendment credentials) would show up this session. Ding, ding, ding, ding…we have our winner! House Bill 80 has cropped-up as one with a long list of sponsors in both the House and the Senate. As we are told, HB 80 sailed through the House and now has “broad bi-partisan support” in the Senate. What is HB 80? It is another bill that has…

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