Negotiating With Healthcare Terrorists
We’re just a few days from launch for critical portions of the Affordable Healthcare Act. Republicans in Washington, D.C., are so freaked out they’ve taken the economy hostage and threatened to shoot it. Conservatives with “support the troops” on their car bumpers have no problem cutting off paychecks to soldiers in a doomed bid to “protect” Americans from affordable health care. I’ll bet the list of things they want before they’ll agree to pay the nation’s debts was made by cutting words out of magazines and pasting them on a piece of paper. In case I’m being too subtle, this…
Palin Disappointed by Potential Clinton Nomination
Red Alert! We have a potential political situation here, people. Perennial thinkin-about-it candidate and Fox News on-again off-again noisemaker Sarah Palin is at risk of being disappointed. Disappointed in YOU, America. That’s right. You may not live up to the expectations of the ex-half-governor. Sit with the shame for a moment. Sit silently. Palin has announced via her megaphone at Fox News that she would be “disappointed” in the American electorate if Hillary Clinton becomes a serious candidate for president in 2016. The woman on whose shoulders Palin stood with her Naughty Monkey pumps, humbly thanking her for putting “16…
Alaska Defends Abuse of First Alaskans
I read a story in the Daily News last week and felt sick. A tribe found a non-tribal man unfit to parent a child from the tribe. The man then proved their judgment sound when he kidnapped the child’s mother and almost beat her to death. The Parnell administration has now swooped in, four years later, to defend the abuser. Why now? Why this guy? Why are state resources going to defend a convicted wife-beater? I realize Michael Geraghty, the state’s attorney general, doesn’t want to explain these decisions to “lay people” like you and me. That’s unfortunate because we…
Don Young & the 47% Double Down
Remember that guy? The one with the hair, and the teeth, and the blonde wife, and the dog? Starts with an R… Give me a minute, I’ll get it…Don’t tell me, don’t tellll meeeee…… Romney! Remember when Mitt Romney was running for President, and then that thing happened, and he was speaking at a fancy private, closed-door fundraiser and told his fellow second and third-generation hand-me-down elites that 47% of the country were a bunch of good-for-nothing lazy freeloaders who didn’t do anything, and just mooched off the system? And then that guy videotaped it and released it to that…
Palin: In or Out, or In… Or Out. Maybe.
In the never ending edge-of-your-seat boredom that is Sarah Palin’s future “political career,” we’ve got some hot breaking news! Remember how she wasn’t considering a senate run in Alaska? Then, she was… unless someone other than Joe Miller and Mead Treadwell stepped up to run. Nobody has. Still just them. Yet now she says she currently has no plans to run. Someone else can do it. But she’s also not ruling anything out. She’s not closing the door. Back in the day, an open door was God’s message to “plow through.” Now, it’s merely an option. It’s just there, open,…
Parnell & Crew “Summit” Mt. Hypocrisy
Two weeks ago I wrote about the upcoming, state-sponsored “Federal Overreach Summit.” Well, Alaska, they dug to the bottom of the barrel and managed to make a meeting of it — trotting out all the usual tea party nonsense about how tapping Alaska resources without having to answer to the feds on environmental issues is the embodiment of democracy. But this summit wasn’t just a pathway to pillaging resources. It was a dog-whistle concert for every wing nut they could get in the door. The governor’s policy director, Randy Ruaro, said there had been a funding request for “proactive science.”…
Don Young Attacks Federal Employees, Goes Hitler
The “Congressman for All Alaska,” Don Young (R) was a featured speaker today at the Federal Overreach Summit in Anchorage. Young, who has a reputation for being outspoken, outrageous, and often politically incorrect was in rare form. After railing on what he perceives as the intrusion of the federal government into land and resource issues in Alaska, and into our personal lives, he castigated the EPA, the DEC, the National Parks Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers, saying they “do nothing.” He also had a harsh message to federal employees in general who number 22,887 in his state of only…
Gov Parnell Smacks Down Feds
Yesterday, a “Federal Overreach Summit” began in Anchorage. For two days, lawmakers and administration officials will gripe about the “feds” and what is described as intrusion into Alaska’s affairs. But the federal overreach discussed on the first day of the summit didn’t touch on Stand Your Ground law, or issues of reproductive choice, or gay marriage, or even voting rights which have been so much in the news as of late. This federal overreach is quite specific, and gets to the heart of what this administration considers important. It’s all about land use and resource extraction. A Department of Natural…
Domino’s Pizza Trashes Alaska Seafood
Why do you hate Alaska, Domino’s pizza? The new “Powered by Pizza” ad campaign for Domino’s Pizza asserts that good ideas and American innovation begin over pizza. It’s the food of brainstorming sessions, cutting-edge garage bands, and geeky future startup pioneers. Domino’s isn’t really my thing, but it’s a clever, upbeat sort of ad—something a little different, and inoffensive. Or so I thought. They seem to have taken a cue from our former half-term governor who isn’t content to simply promote her own ideas, but must also create a fictitious “evildoer” to knock down in the process. And we, on…
Alaska: Hand Out, Finger Up
The State of Alaska has one hand out palm up, and the other raised with one finger prominently extended — again. The upcoming “Federal Overreach Summit” to be held at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage seemed like a tea party function. I don’t have a yellow flag with a snake on it or a three-cornered hat, so I didn’t pay much mind. Until this week. An email found its way to me from a Department of Natural Resources employee. Karrie Improte signed an email announcing the “very interesting news; on page 1 there is an announcement on the Commission sponsored…