My Twitter Feed

March 28, 2024

Headlines:

No Time for Tuckerman -

Thursday, August 3, 2023

The Quitter Returns! -

Monday, March 21, 2022

Putting the goober in gubernatorial -

Friday, January 28, 2022

Anchorage Assembly Meeting 2011 Budget – What are People Saying? (Live blogging)

I’m here at the Assembly Chambers as public testimony is being taken on the Anchorage municipal budget. (See previous post)  I’ll try to hit the highlights for those of you who couldn’t make it.  There is a long line of people waiting to testify and the room is packed to standing room only. Guy in weird hat and American flag scarf thinks the mayor is doing a great job. Thinks the Assembly should buy their own lunch. Quoting from a book “citizens are a milk cow ready to give buckets of money… absurd taxes, bla bla bla.” 18th Century, Declaration…

Read More

Attention Congress: Honoring veterans goes beyond Veterans Day

My thoughts today turn to the special veterans in my life. This year, those thoughts are sadder with the passing in July of a special man, Vietnam Veteran, and dear friend Maurice Bailey. Mo served as leader of the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), Wasilla Chapter and was founder of the Veteran’s Aviation Outreach, whose primary focus was to help the forgotten vets across the state especially in Rural Alaska. Bailey was also awarded the Alaska Governor’s Veterans Advocacy Award in 2007. From Senator Mark Begich’s comments on Mo’s death: “Mo’s tireless efforts on behalf of rural veterans were instrumental…

Read More

Voices from the Flats – Kill Moloch.

The Urgency of Campaign Finance Reform: A Meditation on Election Day, 2010 by Elstun Lauesen Let me begin with a little Ginsberg: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix; Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night. Yeah. Word up. Here’s what I see. I see the best candidates of my generation destroyed by other people’s madness; people who are well fed and well-dressed, driving through the paved exurbs and hillsides…

Read More

Election 2010: There’s Only One Road to Transparency in Alaska…

  In June of 2009 I embarked on an idealistic journey. Thanks to many Alaskans and folks across the country, I was able to raise enough money so that the State of Alaska would release the Records Request they had been sitting on for months. When the emails arrived and the only “good stuff” was redacted  or witheld due to bogus-sounding claims of “privilege,” I was not worried. I was sure that as soon as the email lawsuits brought by Andree McLeod and Don Mitchell against Palin were resolved (in McLeod/Mitchell’s favor…no one thought otherwise), I would then be able…

Read More

Palin Desecrates Flag. Again.

Desecrate the flag once, shame on you! Desecrate the flag twice? Shame on you also, too. Yes, Sarah Palin has taken her big honkin’ Sharpie marker and yes…. autographed a FLAG. The Stars and Stripes is now the Stars, Stripes, and Sarah Scrawls. For supposed uber-patriots, I don’t know whether to be more surprised that someone actually asked her to sign a flag, or that she actually DID. You can see the spectacle at about 1:31 in the clip. This whole flag desecration thing is getting to be quite the persistent metaphor for the entire Palin impression on the nation’s…

Read More

Help us, Rachel-Wan-Maddow, Scott McAdams Is Our Only Hope!

This election cycle, Alaskans have found it particularly difficult to breathe due to the lack of available air. The reason: it’s being sucked directly out of the atmosphere by the family feud between want-to-be-Senator-again Lisa Murkowski and professional grifter/East German Cold War admirer, Joe Miller. Of course, the person having the most difficult time finding air is Democratic Primary winner, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams. It’s not for lack of good campaigning…he’s doing everything right. I even attended one of the Townhall Meetings he scheduled and was blown out of the water by his responses to every question asked of him….

Read More

Joe Miller’s Alaska Militia

Joe Miller is fond of private security. In the Spring of 2008, Joe Miller showed up wearing Eric Estrada circa 1984 mirrored sunglasses, with security guards in a staged coup d’état of the leadership of the Alaska Republican Party. He lost. Randy Ruedrich still stands supreme as the party Chair, and now supports the man who once tried to oust him. Fast forward to July 4, 2010 – US Senate candidate Joe Miller’s supporters marched with assault rifles and campaign signs. The Alaska Dispatch has been doggedly pursuing a story on why Joe Miller lost his job several months after…

Read More

Guest Blog Post from Wickersham’s Conscience (Updated)

This is for those of you who have yet to discover WC’s blog and his superb combination of legal wisdom, political humor, birdwatching knowledge and gorgeous Alaska pictures. I thought this was a great summary for the weekend of some Joe Miller articles this past week. I found his last comment the most interesting. (By the way, in the picture above, it’s not previously been mention but the other man besides Joe in that picture is right-wing Conservative Patriot member and the Tea Party’s personal radio talk-show host, Glen Biegel.) —————————————————————————- WC isn’t the only blogger who is . ….

Read More

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. …

Read More

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…

Read More