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November 21, 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

Internal Emails Reveal Joe Miller Campaign Distancing Itself from Tea Party

[Cross-posted at The Huffington Post] Sorry, Tea Party Sugar Daddy. Looks like your sweetie really isn’t that in to you.  Now, don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t mind spending your money like a drunken sailor trying to stumble his way into the halls of the nation’s capitol, but to be seen with you in public? Well, frankly he thinks you’re just a little embarrassing. There is no question that Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller has been treated like a king by the Tea Party Express.  Last June, he received their full endorsement.  He was a long shot back then. …

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Murkowski’s Write-In Campaign–What Are Her Chances?

  The supporters have been rallied, the big announcement has been made and Senator Lisa Murkowski is off and running on her whirlwind write-in campaign! So what are her actual chances of winning? 1) There is the problem of her name. Lisa Murkowski…doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue or the pen.  However, it looks like a write-in won’t be as stringent as was once thought.  Just “Lisa” would not be enough according to outgoing Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell. However, voters would not need to spell Murkowski’s name correctly if “intent could be ascertained” according to Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai…even “Lisa…

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Joe Miller: Alaska’s Craziest Catch — Help Get This On the Air!

Republican candidate for US Senate, Joe Miller, burned-up the airwaves before the primary saying that cutting-off federal funds to Alaska is his highest priority as Senator. Now, he’s trying to backtrack just a few short weeks later. We’re not going to let that happen. We at Mudflats are excited to see the first video spot come out of the Netroots for the 2010 election cycle. Blue America PAC and AmericansforAmericaPAC.com, two cutting edge Netroots political action committees, are launching a daily video campaign targeting GOP/Tea Party candidates every day from today through Election Day, November 2. We’re especially pleased that the first…

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Voices from the Flats – Donald Craig Mitchell

The following is an op-ed by Donald Craig Mitchell, an attorney and historian who lives in Anchorage. He is the author of Sold American: The Story of Alaska Natives and Their Land and Take My Land Take My Life: The Story of Congress’s Historic Settlement of Alaska Native Land Claims, which in 2006 the Alaska Historical Society named as two of the most important books that have been written about Alaska. *********************************** CAPTAIN ZERO VERSUS COMMISSIONER OF ADMINISTRATION Donald Craig Mitchell With the world watching, two months ago in Fairbanks in front of a crowd of cheering fans and jeering…

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Palin Puppet Show.

Well, once again Rupert Murdoch’s hand (aka The Wall Street Journal) has found its way up the backside of the Sarah Palin sock puppet. Yes, I apologize for that imagery. Whoever wrote her latest op-ed piece doesn’t even try to make it sound like it was actually written by her. They’ve  just given up.  Who cares anymore, anyway?  She’s got Facebook ghost writers, book ghost writers, and now a ghost WSJ op-ed writer.  And one of her last tweets that promised she couldn’t wait to have less politically correct tweets “fly from [her] fingertips” got squashed by some unknown handler….

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Odds and Ends – Cabbage, Landfill, Venom and Mud.

Pass the Slaw! Those long summer days always make the giant vegetable exhibit at the Alaska State Fair interesting.  This year was even more exciting than usual…if you consider staring at giant vegetables exciting. A world record green cabbage tipped the scales at 125.9 pounds, with a 21-inch diameter head, and a leaf span of about 5 feet. In the shadow of the giant cabbage was another world record breaker, an 82.9 pound rutabega. Dump da Dump Dump… The City of Emmonak is about to receive a $3.2 million loan and a $1.4 million grant from stimulus money to construct…

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A Year of Sarah Palin. What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.

[This article is cross-posted at The Huffington Post] What a difference a year makes. A year ago today, after being stunned by McCain’s VP pick, I had finished writing a piece called “What Is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan’s Perspective.”  It’s hard to imagine a time when the country was asking “Sarah Who?” but it was only one short year ago. One of the selling features of Sarah Palin was her astronomically high approval ratings in the state of Alaska. After all, how could a governor have positives in the high 80s or low 90s and be anything less than an…

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Voices from the Flats – Oil Lust & Dodging Bullets

Bob Shavelson is a reformed attorney with backgrounds in biology, chemistry, and environmental sampling and compliance.  He was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Oregon’s Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation, and has considerable experience in toxics, the Clean Water Act, and Right-to-Know issues.  Prior to joining Inletkeeper in 1996, Bob worked in the United States Senate, Oregon’s Senate Majority Office, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, and the University of Oregon’s Ocean & Coastal Law Center.  He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the National Waterkeeper Alliance and the Cook Inlet…

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Netroots – Turning Red Districts Blue: Organizing for Change

  One of my favorite panels at Netroots Nation was the panel discussion entitled Turning Red Districts Blue: Organizing for Change. Panelists were David Atkins (moderator), Darcy Burner, Adam Lambert, Democracy for America’s Arshad Hasan, Matt Browner Hamlin, and Eden James. Matt Browner Hamlin spoke about his time as Mark Begich’s online communications director in the 2008 campaign. MBH:  The challenge in Alaska is how do you get from a population which is only 23% Democratic to a vote of 50% +1. It was a big hurdle. Most Alaskans are registered as Non-Partisan. What helped the Begich campaign was the…

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Viral Videos and Progressive Politics

One of the seminars I attended at Netroots Nation was called “Inclusive Footage – How Viral Vdeos are Impacting Progressive Politics” The term “exclusive footage” is a hallmark of mainstream media, dating back to the earliest days of broadcasting.  With the advent of the Internet and YouTube, exclusive footage is rapidly being replaced by inclusive footage, or video taht traverses the globe faster than any singtle media outlet can control.  As seen in footage from Iranian protesters, video has escaped the confines and control of governments and the media, and now anyone with a camera and PC can produce and…

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