Tune in to the Shannyn Moore Show!
Well, it’s hard to break the live blogging bug. Now that Shannyn is on five days a week, I won’t be hosting live blogging every day, but can’t resist doing it occasionally.
Today, Shannyn’s guest will be Dr. Gershon Cohen. For some required reading, explaining his story and how once again the corporate influence rears its ugly head in Alaska governance, click HERE.
You can live stream The Shannyn Moore show HERE, or tune in to KUDO 1080am on your Anchorage radio dial!
Call in to the show at (907) 569-1080
Also, I’m happy to announce that I’ve been invited to pop in on Shannyn in the studio on Thursdays for “Thursdays in the Mud.” (If anyone has a better name than that, let me know!)
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Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are breaking up? Wow. Who could have ever predicted that one.
Sean Parnell is SP 2.0, the new version of the same old crap. Go back and check out that link above and read the article about Dr. Gershon Cohen.
Assembly member Bill Starr is at it again. We’ll hear more about that too.
And of course, more discussion about the horrendous supreme court decision last week. Ugh. Democracy… it was nice while it lasted.
Callers are still surprised to hear Shannyn back on the air. Are you in Alaska listening locally? Tell ten friends! This is how we start getting our voice back on local radio.
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Talking now about Dr. Gershon Cohen. He’s been working on wastewater disposal issues. He is one of Alaska’s finest scientific minds, and he was offered one of 11 positions on an advisory board to make recommendations to the DEC about “mixing zones” and associated economic issues.
He was one of the people involved in writing the cruise ship ballot initiative a few years ago. Alaskans statewide voted in 2006 for cruise ship to meet all the regulations about pollution of water that everyone else does. They were previously allowed all kinds of exemptions that the towns in the area were not. The industry was violating all kinds of things relating to water quality, so we instituted a $50 per head tax to help deal with a lot of the issues caused by cruise ships. They were also required to pay income tax. This industry was making a fortune, and registering in foreign ports to avoid taxes.
Also, the cruise ships would give passengers lists of their “favorite” places to shop. It cost a lot of money to be on the list, and local retailers were shut out.
Gershon Cohen is on.
He’s been relieved of his duties on the board. Not sure who was responsible for his removal but it’s clear that the cruise industry weighed in and pressured to have him removed.
This is really chilling – that the cruise ship industry can dictate that someone so incredibly qualified and endorsed by the state and the DEC be ousted. The DEC commissioner who caved to this pressure is about to become the third in line for the governorship. AND he also holds the power over the permitting process for The Pebble Mine, the most dangerous and contentious mining issue in the state that will end up endangering Bristol Bay fisheries.
Corporations have veto power over our society. Dr. Gershon is citing Citizens United v. FEC. He said he’s seen things like this over and over, but this situation is one of the most brazen he’s seen in more than 20 years.
All his committee would have done is make recommendations, but yet the industry is alarmed just by his presence? They just have a knee-jerk reaction and don’t want him involved. So, they can throw their weight around and remove him… just because. The only other reason to get him off the committee is because they know there are plans in the works to change the makeup of the committee.
So here’s the sequence: Thrilled to have him on the committee >>> cruise ship industry puts pressure >>>> You can’t be on the committee because you’re an “advocate.”
ANYbody from an NGO is going to be an advocate. Fisheries people advocate for fisheries. Cruise ship people advocate for the industry. So, what is the deal with the heavy handed response?
What about Pebble Mine? There has always been a strong push from industry for weak wastewater regulations. Under Murkowski there was pressure to allow mixing zones in fish bearing waters which has always been illegal.
Last year DEC took over permitting of discharge permits. Until then it was run by the EPA in Seattle out of a regional office. After a number of years of requesting, the DEC took over from the feds. There’s a lot of skepticism that they can even handle or understand this. There could really be a problem, because consultants who will apply to write these permits are affiliated with industry. There is a lot of overlap there that does not protect the public interest.
If DEC is now writing these permits, they need to be hearing from all sides.
Right wingers are blaming the $50 a head cruise ship tax for the downturn in the cruise industry. Umm… have they noticed the economy lately? Studies and surveys show that this tax has not hurt the industry at all. When it was first implemented, everything went up, then the economy tanked.
Go to movetoamend.org and sign the petition for a constitutional amendment separating corporations and state!
Are you ready for your daily dose of Vitamin Democracy? It’s what you can actually DO to make a difference.
DEC Commissioner Larry Hartig is going up for confirmation to become the third in line to the governorship. Do you trust his judgment? 907-465-4648 will tell you who your legislators are. Let them know what you think.
State Senator Bill Wielechowski is on the air! He is also concerned because corporations now have unlimited financing power thanks to the supreme court. And now we have corporations exercising their muscle to come in and dictate to an administration that they want someone off a commission or off a board because they’ve spoken out for clean water. The position of the DEC Commissioner is very important and makes huge decisions about water and air quality in our state. Pebble Mine is a good example. If you have a commissioner who is bending to lobbyists and special interests its really concerning.
He talked to Larry Hartig on Friday. Hartig said he didn’t boot him off because he was not qualified. He’s probably the most qualified person in the world. So that raises red flags.
He booted him off because he was an “advocate.” Makes no sense because he’s the one that put him on the board three weeks before!
Hartig admitted that he had gotten phone calls from the cruise ship industry complaining about his appointment. Wow.
Senator Wielechowski said that phone calls and contacts are hugely important. Unless you hear from constituents, they assume everyone’s happy with the way the situation is going.
Industry will want Ralph Samuels (R) in office. Why would this administration be doing favors for the cruise ship industry? Hmm. Might it have something to do with the fact that now the cruise ship industry can spend whatever it wants in political advertising?
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Corporations are buying science. Sad but true.
Cruise ship industry is buying the DEC (Gershon Cohen) and the oil industry is buying the University (Dr. Rick Steiner).
Dr. Cohen is back stating that Dale Robertson who started the Tea Party organizer is appalled by the supreme court ruling. Nice!
Hanging out with ya, AKM… translating some Civil War letters in my possession… MAN! Appears that this particular soldier was fairly illiterate. Very interesting information, when I CAN read it.
*waves* This was a bit spur of the moment. Glad you’re here. AKM
“I hope we shall crush in its birth, the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge OUR GOVERNMENT to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the LAWS of OUR COUNTRY.” Thomas Jefferson (founding Father) I second this statement.
Although I like do your name Thursday in the Mud…
“Thursday Mudslinging” was the first thing to pop into my head…
Or “Mudslinging with AKM”
glad i learn something new every day…i never was keen on taking a cruise except an Alaskan cruise but now that i know about some of the shenanigans I think i’ll pass
Thursdays on The Flats sounds a bit less negative (ie, mudslinging) than does “in the Mud.” Just my humble opinion.
hmmm… trying to get the livestream thru the link, above, but it requires that a microsoft product be downloaded to listen. I no longer use microsoft products on this ‘puter soooo… lemme see if I can get thru from Shannyn’s site.
I agree with Shannyn….people eat too many chemicals.
“Mud Pie Thursday”. Wait a minute, mud pie everyday! (sorry, once again my thoughts turn to chocolate- I can’t control it!)
Of course corporations buy “science”!! Just look at the asbestos, pharm and tobacco industries!! It’s been going on for a long, long time.
Being “bought and sold” is not limited to Alaska. Monsanto is a great example… they’ve been doing it for decades on the environmental side.
The SCOTUS vote was 5-4… all we need is a timely heart attack to one of the hyper-active 5.
Egads..11 degrees. It’s up to 57 here today. Of course, it’s raining cats and dogs and windy as heck! It will all freeze soon enough!
Prescription drugs do not degrade biologically… and the so-called treated sewage contains much higher levels of the treating ingredients than do land-based outflows.
Why do I think that federal laws (ie, EPA) apply to cruise ship discharges? My memory is that Carnival, Princess, etc., have faced enforcement actions on this very issue in the waters off Florida, Georgia… even Maine.
Mudpies with mudpuppies?
Shannyn is losing me on this facism comparison. …
How about Thursdays From The Flats?
Apropos the cruise ship question, Royal Caribbean has been doing ‘business as usual’ on Haiti all through the problems of the past two weeks just 60 miles from Port-au-Prince. Notably MOST egregious was NOT making their fleet of a dozen or so ferries, permanently stationed on Haiti, available for service in Port-au-Prince to off load supplies from ships during the first ten days. Now the USN and USCG seem to have the big port up again, but the attitude of RCCN says it all.
RCCN claimed to be ‘bringing relief supplies’ which if not a total FUNCTIONAL hoax is a smoke screen.. There is virtually no road access to their ‘Private island’… by design, to facilitate keeping ‘those people’ out… along with huge fences and armed guards, etc…, etc…
Now one can vacation in a ‘gated community’… uuughh…
A short GOOGLE will bring up the issue, I believe TNR did a piece as did, late-in-the-game, a number of other journals when they finally woke up to this.
Sadly, such nonsense happens all the time when politicians cave in to strong arm tactics by special interests. Only one of many working on behalf of the public interest to whom this has happened on the political scene in Alaska.
Ooooh…. Mud wrestling weekly with Shannyn and Jeanne… it’s getting hot in here….
Mudwrestling from Alaska might be catchy and peak curiousity. You could throw in “Girls!” to entice more listeners. Afterall, it’s for the good of the country (o:
ooohhhh!!! Mudwrestling !! me like, me like !!! if only John Candy were still around to help out……
How about “Scrubbing the Mud”. It’s time to shine some light on the shenanigans in AK and DC. First step is the strong rinse, followed by a good scrub then final rinse. Then it’s time to dry and polish.
I like Thursday on the Flats
I would embellish it a bit: Thursday Wrap on the Flats or
Mudflats Wrap.
After reading all of this cruise industry impact on AK, I am sorry and regretful for ever taking an AK cruise. I had no idea they dumped all that “stuff” in your pristine waters. That just makes me sick.
RE the tea bagger founder horrifyed by the supreme court ruling–seems to me we need to join together. Neither we nor they want corporations running things. Fox keeps us at each other’s throats with the appearance that we are at their throats when most of us are live-and-let-live types who love their family, friends and community as much as they do. We are all victims of the age-old, and sadly very useful, DIVIDE AND CONQUER strategy. The powers that be have used this always and it works. I would like to declare that we not let it happen this time.
Thickmud thursday. Or Madam Thicmud Thursday. Or …Dont come in this house you leave those clothes at the door and go to the shower RIGHT now Thursday. I cant wait in a few daze i can be working indoors again and hear the show online.
A line from that old nursery rhyme keeps swirling around in the back of my head (‘Thursday’s child has far to go’).
Goodness knows we have far to go….
“Corporations are buying science.” Nothing new out here in Western Alaska. We’re use to knuckleheads going around interfering with real science with their hogwash theories about what is happening to the salmon that the mostly ignorant, mostly illiterate population of Native Alaskans have depended on for hundreds of years. Welfare is working prime time out here and has been since for at least 50 years, as long as Alaska has been a state. Nothing new to us who’ve been suppressed and now it’s easier for the Corporations to keep us down, down, down.
I see a blogger citing a nursery rhyme. Here is a good one I found in a fictional novel about a greedy man trying to control millions through stealing and killing. “Greedy eyes, greedy gut. Eat the whole world up.” Stealing from the poor is equivalent to killing the poor in my book, that’s history for thousands of years. I found that in a book and it’s revelant for now.
Hey over at Palingates they seem to have uncovered some evidence that TMZ and other gossip sites are getting pleadings in the Bristol v. Levi matter straight from Van Flien’s office or Sarah herself. First post on the docs: http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/01/bristol-palin-and-custody-trial.html
Followup post: http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/01/bristol-palin-and-custody-trial_25.html
How can the floating public be educated to what their tour companies are doing? Walk around towns, ‘ports of call’, with T-shirts with eloquent, friendly and ‘educational’ messages? The same forces could one day come to anyone’s town. While it is difficult to completely boycott gasoline (those one-day boycotts were pointless) other than by using less ga$$, taking floating vacations is an option. People often do make the right choices when they have the information they need.
Do those boats still toss incredible amounts of waste into the oceans as in years past?
Hey, AKM, you’re showing one of the SMALLER ships in the photo.
And yes, getting on the favored “shore excursion” list, with all the on-board promotion that goes with it, is almost impossible to manage without access to the high stakes corporate connections that are required. Most visitors don’t know that.
Most visitors also don’t know that if they buy a major name cruise package, they will be ‘escorted’ through their entire tour in a manner that ensures that their disposable income will circulate directly into the major name company’s subsidiaries. I believe it’s called vertical integration….
so much for eating that “healthy” AK salmon we’ve always heard so much about…tainted
@31 Lainey
1- the battle is NOT over on maintaining strict oversight of waste discharge
2- the whole idea is to reel in the cruise ship companies’ behavior BEFORE salmon and other fish stocks are compromised
3- obscurantic legislators, commissioners, dept directors, etc, in love with 60 year old pro-development philosophies still have too much voice in this state and play right into the hands of corporations who pressure for favors which favor their business model… as per Dr Cohen’s removal from this board .
4-as someone who lives in a town which is visited by a bazillion cruise ships, I can tell you the battle has many fronts- keeping our inland passage waters as clean as we can is one of the most important . We needed the state law to help and we wanted the cruise companies to pay for the program. The pressure was there in the beginning and is resurfacing to take away the safeguards we wanted.
As long as we have the oodles of suck ups to big money/corporations as we do in positions of decision and action we will have to revisit these battles over and over.
The salmon are at risk, yes, but more so from other fronts at present. Don’t give up on our fisheries now because of this.
We have huge work to do to make sustainable fisheries a real and abiding activity. We need all the help we can muster- here and all across the country. ALL fisheries , all across America need help.
What do the on-land businesses in Juneau think about the excursions to the “favored” places? Or of the waste dumping?
@33 sauerkraut-
They think a variety of things.
Some are just as happy to go along with the cruise comapanies’ take on everything as the doofus’ in state govt who want to be a ‘business friendly’ place.
Some are disgusted with the system surrounding steering passengers to certain on -land businesses , an increasing number of which belong to cruise companies.
All say they care about the waste discharge issues- but focus and attention span waver in certain groups when the companies say (threaten ) it affests their ability to do business here – economically.
Many are not local nor year round businesses anymore and yet have too much to say about what those of us who live here have to put up with.
It would take a couple months to visit all the issues.
oops- while “affests” may be a way to describe an activity which both affects and infests and perhaps gain wider use , it was “affects” I was I was getting at in “affests their ability…”
I kind of like “Thursdays in the Mud”.