This Is Just The Beginning…
A dozen years ago I had an opportunity I never sought out or wanted. Not in my wildest dreams did I think I’d sit across from an admitted sex offender and discuss his crime. It wasn’t on my radio or television show. It wasn’t for an essay, until now. First, a little background. I was assaulted at an early age by a teacher at my Christian school. He hurt the older girls much worse, but it was enough to make me keep a secret, and stew on it, and harm myself in ways I wasn’t conscious of. It happened again…
Send in the GOP Clowns
It’s politics as usual in Juneau. As Alaska burns, Alaska Republicans bloviate. We’re staring down the barrel of multibillion-dollar state budget deficits as far into the future as we can see. Are the Republicans majorities in the Legislature acknowledging that their misguided spending and tax policies got us into this fix? Are they prepared to set a new course? Not bloody likely. Rather than rolling up their sleeves, trying to come up with constructive solutions, they’re trotting out the usual gimmicks to divert public attention from their failures. So, by the lights of legislative leaders, what’s the big problem in…
Click Bishop Takes a Page from Palin – Reads Dr. Seuss
Republican Senator Click Bishop, whose district covers land from Fairbanks to Valdez took a page from Sarah Palin and read a story by Dr. Seuss to the Alaska State Senate. Well, it wasn’t quite a Dr. Seuss original – more of a revision of Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham seen through the filter of government overreach. Unlike Half-Term Palin’s teleprompter read at CPAC last year (when she held the book as a prop), Click seems to have actually written the words down in a copy of Green Eggs and Ham. I’m hoping that he bought a new copy and didn’t ruin one of from his grandkids….
Dear Mr. President, “I believe,” is not good policy
An open letter to President Barack Obama: Dear Mr. President, As a woman who worked very hard to make sure your last opponents were not elected — walking door to door in the snow on your behalf, registering more than a thousand Alaskans to vote, exposing Palin in the national media, etc. — I feel obligated to write you about a few of my concerns. Your secretary of the interior, Ken Salazar, recently told reporters asking about Shell’s recent drilling permits and Alaska’s Arctic, “I believe there’s not going to be an oil spill.” Sir, he just wrote the headline for the first oil spill under…
A Fool’s Errand – Brought to You by Rep. Kyle Johansen
By Carl Johnson While preparing to head off alone into the bowels of the Death Star to disable the tractor beam holding theMillenium Falcon captive, Obi Wan Kenobi rhetorically asked of Han Solo, “Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?” I think of such questions sometimes when my legislators act foolishly. You don’t have to be a lawyer to be a state legislator. You also shouldn’t have to know all the relevant facts in relation to a proposed law in order to sponsor it. But somewhere along the way, someone who knows the law and the…
Rep. Don Young Loses it in House Resources Committee Meeting (Video)
Apparently someone put something in Don Young’s oatmeal this week. OK, yes… he’s got something in his oatmeal every week, but this week he got an extra helping. Or perhaps he jus needs a bran muffin instead. Or perhaps the propeller beanie he wore to the Resources hearing a few days ago was a liiiitle too tight. Whatever the reason, our “Congressman for All Alaska” was busily at his favorite hobby of seeing how many Alaskans he can get to put bags over their heads. This time, his display came when speaking with Dr. Douglas Brinkley, an “ivory tower elite,”…