GOP Senator Says Firearm Might Help Pass Agenda
FINANCE FIREWORKS About the most exciting thing to happen so far in the current special session was the fireworks display in the Senate Finance Committee this week. Granted ‘fireworks’ by Senate Finance Committee standards sounds to most people like ‘stern words’ but for the Senate Finance Committee, that’s FIREWORKS. The purpose of the meeting was to hear from Alexei Painter, the Director of Legislative Finance, to summarize the fiscal situation of the state and to go over the governor’s heinous hacking of the budget. The governor got uniformly raked over the coals for his vetoes. Donny Olson (D-Golovin) was extremely…
TALL TALES from Juneau – The Catastrophic Failure Edition
**This post is reprinted with permission from the Alaska Democratic Party** If you miss the musings of Jeanne Devon, creator of The Mudflats, the good news is that she’s still writing – only this time it’s for the Alaska Democratic Party. She’s got a weekly (sometimes more) newsletter that will fill you in on all the “you can’t make this shit up” goings on in the great state of Alaska. If you originally came here for the Palin shenanigans, let’s just say you’re going to feel right at home. This is like the old “Oyster Roundup” Mudflats’ feature on steroids….
Legislature Cuts the Brake Lines
A friend of mine just returned from Juneau. “Shanny, it’s a scary ride down there. The wheels are still on the bus, but the brake lines have been cut.” Elections have consequences, and the result of November’s vote put us all on the same ride. There are multiple bills introduced this session, written up by Outside think tanks funded by John Bircher millionaires. So, besides the lack of brakes, the people driving the bus are under the influence of much more intoxicating influences than their constituents. Now it would seem the bus has decided to go off road and take…
Parnell Pees in the Pool
The critical vote on a controversial bill involving the dumping of cruise ship waste in Alaska waters has been put off until next week. This is good news. Your outrage, and contacts with your legislators are having an impact. The cruise ship dumping legislation favored by Governor Sean Parnell would kill key provisions of a 2006 citizen’s initiative, voted in by the people, that required cruise ships to meet clean water standards at the point of discharge by the 2016 cruise season, instead of allowing them to release sewage, heavy metals, and other waste into “mixing zones.” Mixing zones are…
Jesus Gets Punked by Exxon
Election day may be over here in Alaska, but now is when the fun begins. The results of a couple close races are hinging on absentee and questioned ballots yet to be examined, and shiny new lawmakers are angling for committee assignments and chairmanships. Pundits, meanwhile, examine and expound upon the results of the Citizens United meets Big Oil meets Jesus campaign machine. Let me be one of them. During this time, it’s good to remember the lessons of the past. The genius of Ronald Reagan was his ability to unite two completely different groups of people—with completely different policy…
The Wrath of Captain Zero
Well, somebody’s still mad. After he didn’t get his way during the legislative session, he broke his crayons and went home. After Governor Sean Parnell’s embarrassingly botched special session that cost Alaskans upwards of $30,000 a day, in which his woefully underprepared administration tried in vain to get the Alaska Senate to green light his second $2 billion dollar a year, no-strings-attached, prezzie to the oil companies, he’s now got another plan. Revenge. It didn’t register with the governor that Alaskans actually didn’t like his oil tax plan. They didn’t like the idea of moving $10 billion over the next…
Parnell Kills His Own Special Session. Blames Senate. Pouts.
Things aren’t going well for Sean Parnell. It all started last week when he called the legislature into special session to talk about three things, the most difficult and contentious of which was oil and gas production taxes. The governor sent his team to Juneau with a bill. For purposes of readability, we’ll refer to this bill (SB3001) as what it is metaphorically – a cow pie. Hatching the Idea What the governor wanted in this new “hybrid” bill was to give all kinds of breaks to big oil companies for fields that are already producing, and not so much…
Quitter 2.0 – Parnell Breaks Hockey Stick, Says ‘Puck You.’
And the crowd goes wild! Remember when I compared the Resources Committee meeting of the State Senate to a hockey game, and said I thought that they ought to have a rule just like in the peewee leagues, where when one team is like 20 points up they just call the game so the other side can slink away and lick their wounds instead of continuing to endure the public humiliation? Well, guess what? Even though that rule doesn’t exist, Bryan Butcher, Bruce Tangeman, and Co. have been recalled back to the locker room. That’s right – Parnell’s…
The Senate Heros vs. Captain Zero – Get Ready to Rumble!
The internet is a beautiful thing. How else could a political junkie snuggle into the couch in jammie pants with a cup of coffee, and commiserate with other like-minded souls for an event that rivals all this baseball stuff that everyone else seems to be talking about. I speak to you of…. (dramatic pause) the Alaska State Senate Resources Committee Meeting to discuss the governor’s newest oil tax plan. Before you roll your eyes, and click to anything but this, hear me out. Especially if you’re an Alaskan, this is one of the best reality TV shows around. It’s got…