Alaska is a land of character and characters – colorful folks who’ve become deliciously quirky icons and who, like the late Uncle Ted Stevens, and the current Don Young, are mixed bags. Sure, the Congressman for All Alaska is admirably unafraid of his party’s leadership in DC. It’s always great to see him thumb his nose at John Boehner. And he completely deserves a gold star for dubbing Governor Sean Parnell “Captain Zero.” But must he wear a propeller beanie on his head in a committee hearing, or wave the penis bone of a walrus at the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

There’s a certain quirky lad who fits this tradition nicely (the mixed bag one, not the walrus penis bone one). He was characterized by Sarah Palin in her book Going Rogue as an “effete young chap,” and came in third in a three-way race for governor against Palin, and former Democratic governor Tony Knowles.

There’s much to like about Republican Andrew Halcro, especially when considering how far his party has drifted into wingnuttery of late. He’s not a bigot, he doesn’t make demands to see the “real birth certificate,” and has spoken out eloquently against right-wing chestnuts like private school vouchers.  The voucher system, he says, does not make economic sense. He rightfully lambastes the Education Committee for passing HB145 on to the Finance Committee with ”no question how we fund a new program when we’re currently struggling to fund our existing education obligations.”

At a time when many Republicans hyperventilate about the secret Muslim Kenyan in the White House, or try to take steps to ban Sharia law here in Alaska, Halcro is a refreshingly cerebral, civilized sort of fellow. Like David Brooks and David Frum, he’s the sort of Republican of whom progressives will sometimes say nice things.

He has even brilliantly poked fun at his own foppishness in an unforgettable fireside reading of that offending passage from Going Rogue.

So, that’s the nice part.

The less appealing side appears when Halcro channels his inner Mitt Romney, resplendent in all his out-of-touch One-Percentish hyperbolic finery.

The Oil Tax Debate

Like Romney, Halcro has assumed the unenviable task of insisting to people who ought to know better, that not enough income has been upwardly redistributed to The One Percent. At a time Alaska faces domestic violence and sexual assault epidemics, chronic poverty in its rural villages, and school districts that are being forced to cut critically important positions, Halcro insists that it is some of the most profitable corporations on the planet and their absurdly compensated executives who require our sympathy, and our money, from our oil. If the Big Three were only richer, we’d have nothing to worry about. This is, to put it politely, a tough sell.

When Alaskan schoolchildren go to Juneau, and beg for desperately needed resources, only to be told “no” by Governor Zero, it’s a bit obscene to suggest that those who deserve our advocacy and our money are a few bazillionaires in Texas and Great Britain.

Halcro may fan himself and gasp “class warfare!” at this, but the component parts of fiscal policy do not occur in a vacuum. That is to say, there are two sides to the ledger, and each dollar taken from the state of Alaska and given to Texan and British oil companies is a dollar that is not going into our Permanent Fund, not building out our young, underdeveloped infrastructure, and not maintaining our commitment to educate the next generation of Alaskans.

The governor can brag all he likes in his State of the State Address about the sweet economic metrics that trickle like fiscal honey across our state budget—relatively low unemployment and foreclosure rates, coupled with budget surpluses at a time the Lower 48 states are running in the red. But if the net outcome of this is at the expense of our most vulnerable – selling out our future in order to subsidize Conoco CEO Jim Mulva’s next yacht – we may as well be Mississippi. And nobody wants that.

“Fiscal Conservatism”

Why is it most Republicans only discover “fiscal conservatism” when it comes to school kids and basic services, but in the case of tax giveaways to obscenely profitable corporations, they turn into drunk sailors on shore leave?  Even Halcro who comes down on the right side of “school choice” is perfectly willing to throw billions to the oil companies, with guarantee of return on investment. He says on his blog regarding vouchers:

It’s a bad idea. This year we’re paying private tuitions, next year were funding private school improvements. Anytime you give groups with political power direct access to state coffers, you’re in for a penny in for a pound.

Yes. Groups with political power always want more. More power, and more money. And it’s up to us to decide when enough is enough, and to restrain the rampant greed that would rob our state coffers and take money from the things we value, in order to enrich themselves beyond excess.

He goes on:

In this case, education committee members appeared to be all to willing to ignore the pesky little details like how do we financially sustain this new program and how will this impact the public school system which serves ninety percent of Alaskan students.

And he asks us to ignore that hypocrisy, and ignore the pesky little details like how do we financially sustain this $2 billion annual give away, and how will this impact the vital services and programs that serve all the residents of the state?

Perhaps the saddest part of Halcro’s sheltered, clueless elitism is that it colors the admirable parts of him. He’s someone whom thinking people want to like. He is witty, and charming, and good company over a martini. I’d like to think he takes his positions against homophobia and school vouchers on their merits, but have begun like many to wonder whether he simply cannot stomach the ghastly, downmarket Tea Party demographic much in the way old-monied Yankees like Bush Sr. of Kennebunkport could never quite stomach Southern rednecks.

Halcro in Carhartts would look as credible as Dukakis in a tank.

Why So Snippy?

Which brings us to a bizarre trajectory played out in the Alaskan media over the past several months—Halcro’s increasingly heated and snippy tone toward those with the nerve to not share his position on oil taxes.

It’s bizarre because, let’s face it, Halcro has much more in common with Bill Wielechowski and Hollis French than with most who share his oil tax position. I could actually conceive of the three of them matching wits in an impassioned but cerebral debate over a good microbrew.

I can not imagine Andrew enjoying himself while listening to monosyllabic blatherings from Cathy Giessel about how our biggest entitlement problem is public education.

Senators Wielechowski and French are not, as Halcro’s predictable, played-out meme has it, “anti-business” or “anti-oil and gas” or “anti mom and apple pie,” and it’s clear to anyone who is even halfheartedly paying attention. Just to set the record straight, they also don’t wish to kick down your door in the dead of night, eat your puppies, and inject you with liquid socialism.

No, contrary to Halcro’s breathless hyperbole about how Sen. French is a “one man assault on Alaska’s economy” etc. etc., the difference between the senator and Halcro is the difference between believing our relationship to the oil companies should be a partnership versus a servile one. Do we acknowledge that the relationship between Big Oil and Alaska has been one of mutual benefit, and move forward together, or do we become the beaten dog who hopes the master doesn’t get angry with us and smack us around with an empty pipeline? Do we simply want to acknowledge that it’s our oil, and it’s our responsibility to get the most we can for it , for the benefit of our future? Or do we want to hand over $10 billion from our bottom line to multinational corporations over the next five years and pretend that it won’t make a very real difference in the quality of our lives?

This flexibility-of-principle is a pattern with Halcro, who currently runs Avis Rent A Car in Anchorage. Happy to support an income tax, a sales tax, the raiding of the permanent fund, and even a head tax on Alaska workers (including children) during his legislative stint, apparently the only people who deserve tax breaks in Halcro’s view are oil …and rental car companies. Go figure.

It’s been correctly pointed out that oil pays 90% of the bills in our state. And the first thing any investment advisor will tell you is to diversify your portfolio instead of putting all your eggs into the same basket. In the case of Alaskan oil, it gives a handful of powerful corporations an undue amount of influence over those we elect to represent us. Alaska’s economy needs more diversity, not less.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Which brings us to the final Romney analogy. While a local right-wing blogger or two and their twelve readers may be urging Halcro to challenge Sen. French, simply because they hate the latter for being a thorn in their side, Halcro shouldn’t kid himself. Supporters of Hollis French will walk across broken glass to get to the polls because he’s likable, he’s effective, he’s smart, and he makes sense. Mental ninja gymnastics are not required to understand his positions across issues. Halcro just doesn’t inspire that kind of commitment from the GOP’s activist base, largely because they correctly view him as not one of their own, accurately remember him giving the Republican caucus the finger during his short legislative stint, and can be forgiven for wondering why, save for his position on oil taxes, he’d even run as a Republican anyway.

He’d probably get a nice check from Rebecca Logan and the rest of the oily “Make Alaska Submissive Coalition,” but good luck getting any of them to knock on doors in freezing weather.

2010 Hanshew Middle School Band

Not many people in political circles know that I credit music with saving my life.

I started playing the piano when I was six-years-old. I often kicked and screamed about practicing, but my mother was determined and I continued through my entire school career.

In sixth grade, I discovered the snare drum and concert band. I absolutely loved playing music with a group. That was around the time that I discovered that music was an escape from the insanity of my life at home.

Unfortunately in high school, I discovered that drugs and alcohol provided a different kind of escape. I dropped out of any band activity, though I continued with piano. My grades plummeted and it became clear that with only a 2.5 GPA junior year, I wouldn’t be getting into a decent college…

…until I started auditioning as a piano major. Suddenly, I was accepted at schools we couldn’t afford, like Temple University and Berkley School of Music. I received some modest scholarships to a couple of smaller schools but ended up going back home to Ohio and The University of Dayton. It was there that I truly fell in love with their much-touted marching band and was a member all four years. My membership in that band was my lifeline at a time when I was sinking deeper into alcoholism and depression.

When I made it to Alaska and sobriety, music reclaimed me. I even made a very tiny living for several years in the Anchorage music scene. Those were some of the best years of my life.

Music has now come full circle in my family. Morrigan took piano lessons for awhile. However, when a music teacher in grade school taught the kids to play penny whistle, we discovered that my daughter had a knack for the woodwinds. She started on the clarinet in sixth grade band and after only a couple of months, auditioned and was accepted into the Honor Band.

While the idea that music enhances math skills has been long claimed, recent studies show a more direct correlation between music and algebra:

Helmrich divided the students into three groups: Those who had received formal instruction on a musical instrument during the sixth, seventh and eighth grades; those who received choral instruction during those same years; and those who received no formal musical training.

She found the students who studied music significantly outperformed their peers. “Formal instrumental instruction impacted algebra scores the most,” she reports. “Choral instruction also affected scores, but to a lesser extent.”

From our experience, my husband and I noticed that as our daughter started to learn clarinet in sixth grade, she began to struggle less with her algebra assignments. Now, she’s two-years ahead in mathematics.

The video below is of the 2010 “Sonic Boom,” the end-of-the-year mass-performance of all sixth grade bands in the Anchorage School District.

If Governor Sean Parnell and Mayor Dan Sullivan have their way, this long-time Anchorage tradition may disappear, along with the entire sixth-grade music program.

Per the Anchorage Symphony website:

We learned that last week the ASD Music Supervisor received a request for information from a school board member about the potential cost savings if 6th grade band and orchestra were to be eliminated.

The school board will have its final reading of and will be voting on the ASD budget on Thursday, Feb. 9, starting at 5:00 p.m. in the ASD Education Center Board room.

We can express our opinions regarding the importance of 6th Grade Band and Orchestra in the following ways:

1. Call or email the school board. To email the school board, send one message to SchoolBoard@asdk12.org and all seven members will receive it.
2. Testify at the Feb. 9 meeting. People can sign up to testify via the same email address or can call 742-4312. Testimony is taken in the order received.
3. Attend the meeting [5530 E Northern Lights Blvd, Anchorage] to show support for music education. Please wear concert dress or all black.

The most important message is children must start an instrument early in life; middle school is too late. Personal stories have a big impact, especially from young people. This program has been cut over the years. Students used to start instrumental music in 4th grade, then the program was cut to starting in 5th grade and several years ago the program was cut to a 6th grade start. This year, 91% of ASD 6th graders are taking band and orchestra!

Remember: in order to testify at a School Board meeting, you must sign up with the Superintendent’s Office to testify at the meeting any time before 5:30 p.m., or one hour prior to the start of the meeting, whichever is earlier.

Cutting the sixth grade music program is just the latest of the bad possibilities from a school board that is desperate to find a solution that is least hurtful to the least number of students. If there is no increase in funding, the prospects are bleak. Those of you who read The Mudflats know that we’ve been spending quite a bit of time explaining what is happening to education in Alaska. We’ve told you about the several $$ million in outrageous fees Mayor Dan Sullivan has tacked on to the Anchorage School District and how he refuses to tax to the property tax cap. We’ve shared in several posts about Governor Parnell’s severe underfunding of the Department of Education in the budget currently before the Alaska Legislature. We’ve also described the horrible cuts the Anchorage School District is facing.

It is very, very important for folks to attend the Anchorage School Board Meeting and let their voices be heard. However, that MUST be followed up by contacting Governor Sean Parnell, Mayor Dan Sullivan, the Anchorage Assembly Members and the Alaska State Senators and Legislators. They must be told how important Alaska’s public schools are on a personal level.

I’ll see you on Thursday!

**UPDATE** (NOTE: There is no official action on the table at this time to cut 6th grade band/orchestra programs. The concern of music teachers/parents/musicians across the city comes from the fact that a member of the Anchorage School Board requested information as to the cost of the programs and currently, the Board is trying to figure out what cuts to make. When you testify Thursday, realize the Anchorage School Board is not the villain. Anger and frustration over the budget situation must be directed constructively (in a civilized way) at Governor Sean Parnell, Mayor Dan Sullivan, the Anchorage Assembly Members and the Alaska State Senators and Legislators. They are the ones who hold the purse strings.)

As the immediate past Vice Presidential nominee, it’s hardly surprising that most people outside Alaska view Sarah Palin as a card-carrying member of the GOP establishment. Despite her husband Todd’s seven year dalliance with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, and his quiet conversion to the GOP when his wife decided to run for office, Sarah has always been a party member—technically. Many are perplexed that Palin “suddenly” has turned against the very establishment that brought her national fame, and is now throwing her support (albeit not a formal endorsement) behind Newt Gingrich and against the party’s presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney.

What surprised onlookers don’t realize is that going from toeing the line as the party’s VP pick to her new role as bomb thrower is, to Palin, like slipping out of those shiny red high heels and into a nice comfy old pair of running shoes. She’s back in her element. The truth is that the only political tactic that ever won Sarah Palin an election—from Mayor of Wasilla to Governor of Alaska—was proclaiming herself the outsider, and railing against the powers-that-be. As the expression goes, she’s not the one inside the tent pissing out, she’s the one outside the tent pissing in. And she likes it that way.

In 2006, Palin was facing an incumbent Republican in the Alaska gubernatorial primary. Corruption was widespread in the Alaska legislature, and oil companies were purchasing their very own lawmakers, sometimes for as little as a few thousand dollars a pop. After an FBI raid, microphoned informants, hidden cameras in hotel rooms, and cash changing hands, 10 percent of the legislature (Republicans all) ended up indicted for bribery related offenses. The Governor at the time, Frank Murkowski, was trying to rush approval of a Petroleum Profits Tax—negotiated behind closed doors and highly favorable to oil companies who were eager to take as much as they could get at the expense of Alaska citizens.

It was easy to find fault with the Republican party in 2006, and Palin did just that. She rose up from near obscurity, red-suited, fresh-faced, like Joan of Arc ready to take on an army of evil-doers who were running the show. “The machine,” “the good ol’ boys’ network,” “the establishment,” “evil-doers”—these phrases flowed from her lips like a mantra. In fact, literal comparisons to Joan of Arc, King David, and the biblical Queen Esther peppered the emails of support she got from fans. Palin welcomed the allusions. She quite literally believed that God had called her to take on the fight. He had a plan for her. However, the political pragmatist in her knew not to wear her religious zealotry on her sleeve, and those who inhabited that world with her saw the wisdom in it. Mainstream they are not.

Palin’s is not a religion where a quick crossing of oneself in the end zone, a “God bless America,” or a sticky fish on the bumper of the SUV is sufficient. She lives in a world of divine interventions, laying on of hands, secret prayer teams, Providence, Destiny, casting out witches, prayer warriors, intercession, visions and dreams from seers sent through email, or on slips of paper passed at rallies… It is a Dungeons and Dragons world of magic, treachery, and Good with a capital G vs. Evil with a capital E. The world is pregnant with secret meaning. Signs are everywhere. One can imagine a long-ago Sarah as one of those children who plays dress-up, puts on the tiara and doesn’t just pretend she’s a princess—she becomes one.

This is why it is sometimes so difficult and frustrating for politicos to predict what Palin may do next. It all depends on what God wants, and how he delivers his message. The one constant is that if God opens a door, it’s not just an invitation to plow through—it’s a mandate. Palin has thereby become a living example of some sort of divine, political Peter Principle—she has risen to and exceeded her own level of incompetence.

She is not intellectually curious because she doesn’t need to be. She doesn’t know much because it’s not necessary that she does. And she really doesn’t have an overriding political philosophy, because she will be presented with people who will act as instruments of advancement and who’ll tell her what she needs to say. “God brought us together,” she told her inner circle as governor. Everything will work out as it was meant to be. She will arrive at whatever the destination is, whenever the time is right, with a small and tightly knit circle of confidants around her. She can only function through that inner circle.

As long as she is the devoted martyr, the populist Everyman, eyes gazing upward, standing strong against the forces of evil, suffering the injustices and untruths, little else matters.

And as much as Governor Palin hated the villains (the Alaska Republican Party), they hated her right back. She ousted Gov. Frank Murkowski with more than 50% of the vote in a three-way race for the Republican nomination. She clobbered popular former two-term Democratic governor Tony Knowles in the general election. And then once in office, she did the unforgivable. She worked with Democrats in the legislature to revamp Alaska’s oil tax policy, stuck a stake in the heart of Murkowski’s oil-friendly Petroleum Profits Tax, and replaced it with something called ACES (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share). She wrote every Alaskan man, woman and child an energy rebate check for $1200 to help ease the cost of high energy bills. She went toe to toe with members of her own party in leadership positions, who’d built careers kowtowing to big oil. She praised Obama’s energy plan.

Of course, her administration wasn’t all smooth sailing. Despite the political talents she possessed, her own narcissism, obsessive tendencies, cronyism, middle school drama, truth twisting, and need to settle personal scores emphasized her incompetence as a leader. But using the GOP as target practice was a delicious indulgence for Palin—and its time has come again on the national scene.

Even during the 2008 race, it was almost unbearable for Palin to play ball and do as she was told. At that time, the opportunity ahead didn’t call for working with Dems and throwing darts at Republicans, nor did it call for compromise or praise where it was due. The door was open, and this time it called for brass knuckles. Nobody was going to tell her that Michigan was out of play. Nobody was going to tell her not to talk about Obama palling around with terrorists. Nobody was going to tell her to sit down and shut up on election night. Nobody puts Sarah in the corner.

Her latest quip for the 2012 election cycle  is that the Republican party is “Stalinesque.” Other than perhaps knowing that Stalin came from that country you can see from Alaska, it’s doubtful that analogy sprang forth from her own grey matter. But Palin has surrounded herself with a fresh new “inner circle” that knows of such things, and has been delivered to her. They are the Cyrano to her Christian de Neuvillette. They whisper “Stalinesque” and other smart things from the rose bushes, and she stands in the moonlight, speaking the mavericky words of insurgency to the camera, eyes shining, and beams of righteous light emanating from her like a halo.

In a 2009 email, after being uninvited to speak at a Republican event, Palin had quite a bit to say about Newt Gingrich, the man she now defends.

…Yes, (Newt/GOP) are egotistical, narrow minded machine goons... but all the more reason God protected me from getting up on stage in front of 5000 political and media “elites” to praise him, then it be shown across the nation. At some point Newt would have shown his true colors anyway and we would have been devastated having known we’d earlier prostituted ourselves up in front of the country introducing him and acting like that good ol’ rich white guy is the savior of the party.

Plus, I had nothing to wear, and God knew that too. Party machinery sucks. I can’t tell you how much I hate it – nothing ever changes – we went through it before and after the VP campaign… I’ve gone through it all my career. We just don’t fit into it, and maybe we should thank God for that. [From Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin - A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years]

The blatant hypocrisy of it will not occur to her. That was then and this is now. Then, he was the establishment, the machine, the good ol’ boy, the goon—everything she despised. But now, Mitt Romney is the golden boy of the party and Newt has become the outcast—the misunderstood, the Rogue. It’s a new day of dress-up. A new fairy tale. Regardless of her costume du jour—newscaster, sex symbol, fisherman, hunter, hockey mom—she’ll be playing the same role.  And there’s a new good guy and a new bad guy. All she knows is that’s the way it worked out, and if this is where she was meant to be, then so be it.

It’s also interesting to note, that back in 2006, Palin’s other Republican rival was Fairbanks businessman John Binkley. Palin referred to him as “the machine candidate”, “Rich Man Binkley” with his “cheesy smile,” and even hesitated about using a particular local pollster because he was Binkley’s “mormon bro’” and it might affect his loyalty to her. Fair warning to Mitt Romney—Palin is no stranger to snarking at rich, smiling machine Mormons.

~John Binkley

Whether Palin will attempt to jump in the race this time, make her move at convention time, wait until 2016, or take a different path entirely will depend on factors as of yet unknown. A door will open, a cast of characters will present itself, and Palin will do whatever needs to be done. Whatever it is, rest assured it will not be with the blessing of the “machine.”

By Thomas Dewar

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed corporations. —Thomas Jefferson

ALEC is a dating service for state legislators and corporations. —Ed Muir, AFT

Who Is ALEC?

If you really want to know who and what is behind something in government, follow the money.

It’s not a coincidence that the recent assault on workers and their unions occurred simultaneously in different states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey and others. Or that, closer to home, there is now a war on Alaska’s public schools.

Funded by large corporate interests who view the wages and benefits that support your family only as an annoyance that cuts into their massive profits, ALEC (“American Legislative Exchange Council”)  is a clearinghouse that churns out anti-worker legislative templates for politicians who’d like to stick it to you without expending any actual effort on it. So when a union-busting legislator now wants to launch his perennial attack on working folks, ALEC provides him a handy, one-size-fits-all, ready-to-file template into which he only has to enter, say, “Alaska” and “Carl Gatto” before dropping it in the hopper.

They’re not honest about this, of course—one of ALEC’s hallmarks is the Orwellian use of language wherein things are called the opposite of what they really are, in order to make them sound more appealing. “Keeping your wages low and your benefits nonexistent” doesn’t have quite the same public appeal as “right to work,” it turns out. If all else fails, throw “freedom” in there, as the Alaska Health Freedom Act sounds way more catchy than “health care should about insurance companies making huge profits, not your sick kid’s ability to see a doctor.” If insurance companies want to drop women from coverage the moment they develop breast cancer and actually need their health coverage, why should the government interfere with the company’s “freedom” to thus abuse their customers?

But when we strip away the corporate spin, we unmask the sheer, unrestrained greed illustrated in this graph about ALEC sugardaddies the Koch Brothers, who, at the very time they amassed more and more billions simultaneously laid off more and more people. “Job creators?” Not so much:

For more background on the organization, Truthout has published fascinating pieces on its identity (ALEC—America’s Secret Political Power) as well as the lengths to which it will go to prevent the public from getting information about it (Inside ALEC—Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale).

What Is ALEC’s Strategy?

The ALEC shakedown of the middle class basically works like this. Let’s say you’re newly elected Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and your corporate BFFs the Koch Brothers have you on speed dial.

Step One: Drain your state budget into the coffers of your friends via more corporate loopholes and another round of tax giveaways.

Step Two: Tell the public how broke your state is. Which, due to Step One above, is now true.

Step Three: Point the finger at teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other public employees, thereby conning the public into blaming their own neighbors, family members and friends.

Divide and conquer, baby! Pit middle class folks against each other, while the Koch Brothers laugh all the way to the bank. With the right messaging, you can deflect public ire away from the greed of billionaires for whom no amount of wealth is ever enough, and instead gin up resentment of your kid’s teacher and her “greedy” desire to provide the basic necessities of life for her family. By ALEC’s math, making over $250,000 is considered not rich when it comes to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but one fifth of that—$50,000—is suddenly considered quite lavish when it comes to teachers and other public employees. Heck, that’s enough to provide their families with extravagances like “groceries,” a housing payment, and some of that fancy-pants “gasoline.”

A single mom working 3rd shift at the hospital or the guy driving the snow plow don’t, of course, have the ability to bankroll campaigns or hire lobbyists, and therefore lack the access to the corridors of power enjoyed by the corporate titans on Wall Street. As a result of the undemocratizing of our government and elections, corporate earnings and executive compensation have been setting record highs while the working families that comprise America’s middle class have been taking it in the teeth. Real wages have steadily declined for decades. Access to health care, a dignified retirement, the ability to send their kids to college, and now even the ability to hang onto one’s home are slipping further beyond the reach of working parents.

But this state of affairs is not enough for ALEC. Labor unions are the last thing standing in the way of their corporate clientele. Despite being outspent in elections, on average, by a 10-1 margin by corporations, unions do at least provide workers the ability to join forces and pool their resources in order to defend their families’ incomes & health benefits. Which is why it wasn’t enough for Gov. Walker to have public employees agree to concessions at the bargaining table—that is, to give up wages and benefits to help the governor fix a mess that was of his own making. No, this was never about balancing the budget for Walker, a man who clearly objects to “checks and balances” when it comes to any sort of check on corporate power. What instead he and ALEC demanded was the complete destruction of unions altogether. With us out of the way, with no organized opposition left to stand in its way, ALEC, its corporate clients, and the legislators who do their bidding would be free to pillage what little the American middle class has left without anyone left to resist them.

Who Represents ALEC’s Agenda in Alaska?

State Senate

Catherine A. Giessel; Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force
Lesil McGuire; Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force
Fred Dyson; ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force member, attended 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting
John B. Coghill, Jr.; International Relations Task Force

State House
Wes Keller; ALEC State Chairman, Education Task Force member and attended 2011 ALEC Annual Meeting
Anna I. Fairclough; Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force
Cathy E. Munoz; Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force
Bob Lynn; Public Safety and Elections Task Force
Mia Costello; Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force
Carl J. Gatto; ALEC Civil Justice Task Force member, cited ALEC’s “Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act,” when he introduced his “Alaska Health Freedom Act” in 2011

****************************************************************************************

To keep up with the latest, bookmark ALEC Exposed—an excellent source of information about an organization that doesn’t like to share information about itself. The site also features timely updates and news bulletins related to ALEC.

Last school year, I wrote a post about the proposed cuts in the Anchorage School District budget and how they would affect a family of a middle school student. It was then I became aware of the outrageous fees Mayor Dan Sullivan was charging the school district–for example: 100% of the salaries and benefits of those Anchorage Police–called Resource Officers–who only service the School District about 70% of the time. I tried to show how they were taking millions of dollars away from our kids. (Note: As of this week, these fees have not changed.)

Sadly, this week Jeanne wrote a post about this year’s cuts. They are much worse than last year and are precipitated by both Governor Parnell’s under-funding as well as Mayor Sullivan’s refusal to tax to the cap.

But it’s not just Anchorage that is suffering. Fairbanks, Juneau and many smaller and more rural schools are in deep trouble if things don’t change. The worst part: this is all orchestrated as part of a larger and more national attack on public education. Alaska is just next-in-line.

For over a year now, I’ve watched how the anti-public school drama has played out in Alaska on multiple fronts. From the Municipality of Anchorage to the Legislature to the Governor’s Office to outside organizations, the forces at work are performing a complex dance in multiple venues…a dance that is impossible to follow unless one is a complete research nerd (and then, only tenuously). I’ve wanted to write about it all in that context…I’ve started a number of posts. However, I haven’t been able to figure out how to present it. I started writing a list, like an outline…

…and realized that was the best way to start.

So here is a list of the characters in this drama and the means they are using to achieve their agenda — a summary of their activities so far. Jeanne and I will be writing multiple posts in the future on these education issues. This gives you a place to look up the various characters and refresh your memory about their place in the story.

Disclaimer: I want to emphasize that while the characters supporting these false “reforms” in Alaska seem to be Republican, the issue is not a partisan one. From what I can see, the majority of Alaska’s Republican Legislators are not yet “sold” on this bill of goods and are more than happy to receive input from their constituents.

The problem: Like every other Alaska issue, these strategies are generally pushed forward by those religious ideologues and/or those beholden to businesses/corporations who want privatization across-the-board. These businesses/corporations who are pushing this “education reform” agenda can do so with tons of money and the help of friendly politicians. We must contact our State Senators and Representatives to counter any misinformation. I hope this and future posts help you to do that.

Leading the attack:

– Governor Sean Parnell — I covered some of the issues with the Governor at the beginning and discuss his budget below. Since the election, Governor Parnell has truly shown his religious extremist leanings and tea party philosophy, which includes a strong “Christian” influence in the interpretation of law. An alarming number of his appointees also seem to reflect his beliefs.

– Representative Wes Keller — Originally appointed by Sarah Palin to fill a vacancy in the Legislature, Mr. Keller is a religious extremist and tea partier through-and-through. He is a state chairman for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) Mr. Keller is the sponsor/creator of House Bill 145 and House Joint Resolution 16 (see below) with some help from ALEC’s “model bills.”

– Senator Fred Dyson — He wasn’t appointed by Palin but “ditto” to everything else. Dyson is sponsor of the companion legislation in the Senate, SB 106 and he attended the ALEC Conference with Keller last year.

– ALEC — A slightly re-worded summary from Pro Publica — I encourage you to follow the link and read the entire post: “For decades, a discreet nonprofit called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC has brought together state legislators and corporate representatives to produce business-friendly “model” legislation. These “model” bills form the basis of hundreds of pieces of legislation each year, and they often end up as laws.”

– The Friedman Foundation — Per the Nation: “For most of the half-century since economist Milton Friedman first advanced the idea of school vouchers, it’s been the ultimate weapon in our educational debates, always ticking just under the surface, never quite going off. But after last November’s Republican statehouse victories, the right, sometimes abetted by Democrats and liberals, has brought back vouchers and school privatization with a vengeance.”

The Foundation has been heavily involved in most of those voucher battles across the country. As I will discuss below, they have turned their sites on Alaska by conducting a poll of residents regarding school vouchers.

– Mayor Dan Sullivan — I have recapped some of the Mayor’s anti-education moves at the beginning of this post and Mudflats as a whole has covered many more. His “Education Summit” is ongoing and I discuss it below.

– Jim Minnery–Minnery’s Alaska Family Council lists “School Choice” as one of their top issues. Minnery has been a proponent of changing the AK Constitution in order to use State money for religious education since back in 2008, as this email between Gov. Sarah Palin and then Atty General Talis Coleberg shows.

– The Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage It’s not hard to guess the motivation behind the Archdiocese’s push for school vouchers, as reflected in the “Catholic Anchor.” A story in the Chicago Tribune on what the results of Indiana’s voucher program revealed: “…Just as backers had hoped and opponents feared, a new statewide school voucher program in Indiana is draining money from public education and offering new life to struggling parochial schools.” My understanding is that the economy has taken a serious toll on the enrollment in parochial (as well as private) schools in the state. Last year, one of them had a Senior graduating class of three. These schools may be counting on our State money to keep them afloat.

– KIPP Charter Schools — I included KIPP on this list even though their only actual appearance in the state was in the form of Dr. Mike Feinberg, who taught 5th grade for three whole years with Teach For America and then founded the “Knowledge Is Power Program” (KIPP) Charter Schools. The reason I list them is because the presentation by Feinberg at the Education Summit (third video, first speaker after Superintendent Comeau) sounded like he was trying to sell a Veg-O-Matic or a set of Ginsu knives rather than inform a group about education alternatives. And it makes sense…Alaska is a rich oil state with a surplus when most other states have deficits. You could almost see the man drooling.

The Artillery:

– Governor Parnell’s Operating Budget (HB 284 — starting on page 8) — The Governor promised that his budget was a “full funding of K-12 Education”. In actuality, the budget doesn’t even cover inflation (which averaged 3.16% in 2011) and now has school districts across the state scrambling to cut much-needed programs. How much of a slap-in-the face was it to K-12 Education in Alaska? The “Teaching and Learning” line-item in the Department of Education budget makes up the bulk of the money shared by every school district in Alaska. If the budget stays as-is, Alaska schools will receive a little over $237 million this year…an increase of about $3 million from last year or about 1.3%. However, the Office of the Governor “Executive Office” line-item (which includes the Governor’s Staff) will be receiving over $13 million this year — an increase of almost $2 million or over 13%!

– House Joint Resolution (HJR) 16 — A resolution which, if passed, would place an amendment to the Constitution on the ballot, allowing for public (education) money to go for a “public purpose.” According to the text of the resolution, it still specifically does NOT allow state money to go towards private or religious institutions. However, it DOES seem geared to allow state funds for privatized education. Also, I have been told of one more possibility (which will require more research)…it could leave open the option of a for-profit business that owns a religious school receiving funds. From Wes Keller’s Sponsor Statement:

HJR 16 opens some of these doors for both public and private education by allowing the release of funds to more than just public schools. This Constitutional Amendment allows those students seeking to excel in secondary and post secondary education to attend a school that meets their needs.

Like I said…more research…

– House Bill (HB) 145 (Senate companion bill SB 106) — Titled the same as the ALEC template voucher bill, HB145 is intended to establish: “…the parental choice scholarship program to be administered by school districts for the purpose of paying the cost of attending grades kindergarten through 12 at public and private schools…” In other words, it will establish school vouchers with State of Alaska money.

At this time, it suffers from some major drawbacks:

1) It’s unconstitutional per Article 7 Section 1 a) State money cannot be used to fund private or religious education (see HJR 16) and b) We must “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State,” — since many village parents will be unable to utilize this “choice” (voucher), it could quite possibly get decimated in the courts.

2) Because there have been amendments on top of amendments in an attempt to get it to work, it is a huge pile of gobbledy gook that most of the members of the House Education Committee don’t even completely understand, based on their Friday meeting. Those pushing the bill (Rep Keller, Rep Dick) seem to think it’s been in the Education Committee “an embarassing” amount of time and just needs to get moved along…whether it functions or not.

**There is another meeting scheduled for Wednesday Feb 1st and I intend to send my testimony to the Committee beforehand. I encourage you to do the same.**

– “Alaska K-12 School Choice Survey” — Several months ago, I was listening to a conservative show when the host started discussing a poll that proves Alaska wants to have vouchers private charter schools. It turned out to be a poll that was funded by the Friedman Foundation. The host was quoting numbers over 60% in favor of various types of alternative education…pretty impressive. When I researched the poll, I discovered the most important question:

How familiar are you with [Charter Schools/Virtual Schools/School Vouchers] in K-12 education? Not that familiar/Never heard of it — 62%

So basically, the vast majority polled had no idea what these folks were talking about. So, when these Alaskans who were quite used to receiving free money in the form of a Permanent Fund Dividend Check each year were asked a question worded like this:

“An education savings account allows parents to withdraw their child from a public district or charter school and recieve a payment into a government authorized savings account with restricted but multiple uses. Parents can then used these funds to pay for private school tuition, virtual education programs, private tutoring or saving for future college expenses. In general, do you favor or opppose this kind of savings account system?”

61% were all for it!

Note that 61% is about the same percentage of folks who had no idea what “school choice” really is. In other words, the same percentage of folks who know what all of this means said “no” to the free money.

Another note: if you look at the survey demographics, only 13% were Alaska Native. That does not match the State of Alaska demographics according to the 2010 Census, but it does match the Municipality of Anchorage demographics. In other words, while these folks were claiming that their “sample size” was Alaska, it was probably just Anchorage.

Why is that significant?

Anchorage School District already has really nice charter schools within the system (and there is no reason we can’t have more). If you ask someone from Anchorage about charter schools, especially if they don’t know about the lower-48 kind, that will completely skew their responses.

– The Education Summit — Per Municipal Code, Mayor Dan Sullivan’s roll in enacting School District changes is generally signing or vetoing what’s been passed through the School Board and the Anchorage Assembly. However, being that it’s an election year, he adopted the role of Superintendent by collecting corporate and private business money for an Education Summit. It was set up in three parts:

1) He hired Viewpoint Learning, a company of professional “handlers,” then hand-picked a mostly-conservative 100 participants. They brought up seven panelists. All but two of them were clearly pushing a privatized charter school and/or voucher agenda, four of them worked for organizations whose funding was provided directly by privatization advocates and only one had proof of an education plan with long-term success…a non-privatization pro-union strategy in Finland.

2) Now in phase 2, The Mayor’s Office is currently asking for Anchorage residents to attend the “community conversations.” This is the only time that the general public will have any input n the “scenarios” reached during the Education Summit. I’ve already signed up for one and I encourage everyone to do the same.

3) There will be a “Capstone Summit” in June where some of the Summit participants and some of the Community Dialogue participants will get together and finalize “recommendations.”

To be continued…

There’s no doubt about it. Alaska is blessed. Just ask Governor Sean Parnell. These are golden oily days indeed. In his state of the state address last week, he told us that financially, we’re doing just fine, thankyouverymuch But what if…  What if some day we aren’t? We should really start cutting the budget just in case. Besides, swashbuckling with a red pen looks really good, even if you have a patch on both eyes. It can even make a chief executive/oil lobbyist look like a sound-minded fiscal conservative. Don’t look over there where the state is readying itself to shovel pallet loads of cash into the waiting pockets of the Big 3 oil companies…. Instead, check out Captain Zero and his mighty red Bic sabre, slashing and hacking with wild abandon. HYAAAAH!

And what makes the most sense to cut, just in case things get bad in the future? How about cutting the future itself – yes, that’s it!  Education!

Of course Parnell says he wants things to improve – test performance, graduation rates, drop out rates… And things are improving.

Just five years ago, Anchorage’s high school graduation rate was staggeringly low. Superintendent of Schools, Carol Comeau noted “Now, more than ever, our young people are leaving school with a high school diploma. Our graduation rate is near 72 percent, up from 62 percent just five years ago. We still have a long way to go but our efforts are working, and this is good reason to celebrate.”

Part of this success is due to the fact that in 2008, the Anchorage School District hired Graduation Support Coordinators, or “graduation coaches”, to help increase graduations and reduce the dropout rate.

We’ve seen good things happen when we’ve had the money to invest in making class sizes smaller, and creating jobs for those committed to helping kids be successful. We can all hope really hard that momentum continues now that they don’t have the money any more. I bet that will work. Ready everyone? 1 – 2 – 3…. HOPE!

For now, we can watch those who have devoted their careers and their souls to the calling of helping kids succeed, tell us how they are going to spend less per kid, put more of them in the classroom and eliminate the people in positions to help the most vulnerable succeed. That’ll fix their little red wagons.

Yesterday and today, Carol Comeau presented the 2012-2013 budget to the Anchorage School Board.”These are extremely difficult cuts to make,” she said.  ”If we had the funds, I think we would have made very few cuts to these programs that are helping our students, particularly our struggling students. But we have to make tough choices in order to produce a balanced budget.”

Program eliminations include:
Summer school – elementary, middle and high school (No problem making up credits as long as your family can afford a private program, though)
Middle school career guides
Middle school in-school suspension teachers
Student support program supervisors, and
High School Graduation Coaches

Right wing talk radio bloviators have recently taken to mocking High School Graduation Coaches. They roll their eyes and chuckle… What are “graduation coaches” anyway? I’ve never heard of them… What do they even DO? Just another librul money-sucking made up job… Bla bla bla.

Here’s a little something for the Google challenged on the right wing airwaves who apparently use their own narrow sliver of pre-existing knowledge as a benchmark for the worthiness of a program. Watch and learn.

Programs reductions include:

Elementary counselors
Elementary librarians and assistants
Special Education/Related Services
English Language Learner services
Gifted Education services
Curriculum & Instructional Support
Maintenance positions and project funds
Warehouse positions
Custodial positions

In total, the new budget will kill almost 90 jobs.

The administration is also recommending a class size increase for students in grades 3-12.

Grade 3 – 0.5 increase
Grades 4-8 – 1.0 increase
Grades 9-12 – 1.5 increase

“Class-size increases are the last thing we look at when trying to balance the budget,” said Comeau. “We know this is a very important issue for our teachers, principals, students and the community.”

“Over the years, we have added more programs to try to address individual learning needs,” said Comeau. “Many of these programs have proven effective but we’re in a place now where we have to make hard calls based on available funding. I don’t like this budget but I think it’s as responsible as we can make it… These cuts are necessitated by the lack of revenue increases at the state level and only a slight increase at the local level.”

Meanwhile back at the Governor’s office, Sean Parnell says he has problems with things like raising the base student allocation.

Parnell says in difficult economic times, domestically and abroad, Alaska must remain as liquid as it can financially.

So, what have we learned? Things are really great here in Alaska. We’re not having the problems everyone else is. BUT, down in the Lower 48 and abroad, things aren’t so rosy. And that’s really what should drive our policy. So, just in case bad things happens here, we need to underfund education while giving billions away to the oil companies, and everything will work out just fine. See how that works?

Fortunately, there are those in the legislature whose priorities differ from those of the governor, and haters of the biggest of all entitlement programs – edjacation.

I give you one Joe Thomas. Through the Senate Education Committee, Senator Thomas is the prime mover on SB 171, which would increase the Base Student Allocation by $125 this year, and more next year.  As co-chair of  Senate Education, he already has SB171 scheduled for this Friday morning. 

Here’s where you can help, by taking your daily dose of Vitamin Democracy.

That’s you all hopped up on Vitamin Democracy on the left, wielding your internet activist hammer against the snaggle-toothed forces of ignorance who think it’s too expensive to have educated children who contribute to a happy and healthy society.  >THWACK<  Here’s how you do it.

Help Senator Thomas, by giving him the evidence (via your emails) to demonstrate that people actually care about education and believe that children, even the ones who don’t have all the advantages, are the key to a successful and prosperous future. We can either invest now in happy, successful kids who graduate, get jobs and pay into the system, or we can abandon them, and pay later for prison, entitlement programs, and thereby create adults who take from the system. It’s our choice. Being compassionate and supportive actualy pays off monetarily too. It’s nice how that works.

Please send an email to Senator Thomas before Friday morning AND copy your own senator, to tell them that you support raising the base student allocation. It’s an investment in the future that’s easy to afford.

Senator_Joe_Thomas@legis.state.ak.us 

“Christ of the Breadline” by Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990) is a beautiful woodcut that instructs us to remember that Christ may appear in any form, calling upon our capacity for grace. Mr. Stoltze and his fellow Republicans would be wise to remember the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus, covered with sores, lies at the gate of a rich man who refused him. They died on the same day. Lazarus was welcomed into Heaven; the rich man was not.

Readers will not be surprised to learn that I was once an aspiring evangelist. At the age of 12, along with a few other recruits from the North Pole Baptist Church’s vacation bible school, I would hop in a van with Pastor Ragland and head into Fairbanks to redeem lost souls. If lost souls are the fruit of evangelism, then Fairbanks in the late ‘50s was an orchard. I loved it. I especially liked the ice cream sodas at the co-op afterwards. Like all 12 year olds, I was susceptible to flattery and I got my share. But — even at that age — I was more attracted to the doctrines of social justice than the Hellfire and Brimstone Old-Testament-influenced preaching that my companions preferred. I understood the doctrine of Redemption better than my pals because it was in keeping with the basic sunny outlook on life that I inherited from my dad. My friends came from families that today would be called dysfunctional and probably abusive. My family, by contrast, was relatively secure financially, open-minded and friendly. So while my friends seemed attracted to the angry God of Abraham, I was a fan of the Good News of the New Testament Redeemer.

All of this is a way of explanation and apology for what is to follow. I am dusting off my family Bible and I’m going to do a little bit of old-fashioned preaching. The object of my sermon is a piece of legislation entitled “Committee Substitute for Senate Bill No. 3, An Act providing for the funding for school lunches and breakfast; and providing for an effective date.” This bill, introduced by Anchorage Senator Bill Wielechowski, has been languishing in the House Finance Committee under the chairmanship of Rep. Bill Stoltze (R-HD 16).

The Republican majority-controlled house, you will remember, was ready and willing to pass Gov. Parnell’s HB 110 which would give nearly $2 billion a year of our revenue to the richest corporations on earth which, fortunately, got stopped in the senate. Apparently Mr. Stoltze and other Republican supporters of HB 110 were so mad about Senator Wielechowski’s central role in stopping the giveaway that they decided to hold food for hungry children hostage.

CSSB 3, unlike much of the sausage ground out in the sausage factory we call Juneau, is only 20 lines long and it is easily understood. The core of the bill proposes:

STATE FUNDING FOR SCHOOL LUNCH AND BREAKFAST. (a) To supplement the cost of lunch and breakfast provided to each student who is eligible for a free or reduced- price lunch under 42 U.S.C. 1771 – 1784, in addition to public school funding and subject to appropriation, the Department of Education and Early Development shall provide funding to a school district of 15 cents for lunch and 35 cents for breakfast to each eligible student.

(Emphasis added)

It is important to note that most, if not all, of the Republicans on the House Finance Committee are practicing Christians. They ran for and got elected to office on a platform of defending family values and no doubt made much ado about the sanctity of life.

Yet there are 51,000 children in Alaska who are going hungry every day; the majority of homeless Alaskans are children. School attendance is mandatory in Alaska and schools, therefore, are the most logical place to reach these kids who need to get fed.

How do we account for this disconnect between our duty to the poor and our service to the Rich Man?

Could it be that the poor, particularly poor children, do not have a lobby? They do not vote. They do not make large campaign donations. They do not command a SuperPAC. They cannot offer legislators the hope of a future job or a favor or an inducement that is certainly well within the capacity of the richest corporations on earth.

What kind of Christian serves the Rich Man but denies the poor? Jesus drove the moneychanger from the steps of the temple. He did not ask him for a campaign donation!

As for the poor child, did Jesus not admonish us in Mark 9:42 that “whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea”? By ‘belief in me,’ we who read Scripture understand that He meant ALL children for is not the faith of a child what is needed to enter the Kingdom in Mark 10:15?

Comes now a gentleman named Kokayi Nosakhere. He is a community organizer in East Anchorage, a community with a concentration of low income families. Mr. Nosakhere is rapidly becoming known as “the conscience of Alaska” as he is frequently seen at rallies holding up a simple hand-lettered cardboard sign with the plea: “End Childhood Hunger.” Mr. Nosakhere has spent the last 3 years trying to get the legislature’s attention on this issue. He has formed a hunger-action organization called By 2015: AMERICA with the ambitious goal of ending child hunger in America by 2015. But Nosakhere’s vision must start by addressing the tens of thousands of hungry kids in Alaska. Consequently, the hostage taking of SB 3 by Chairman Stoltze during the last session has finally pushed him over the edge. Mr. Kosakhere has issued a challenge to Mr. Stoltze and the House Finance Committee: Pass this legislation out of committee and out onto the floor by Feb. 9 or he is going to go on a hunger strike.

The members of the House Finance Committee are: Stoltze (Co-Chair), Thomas (Co-Chair), Fairclough (Vice-Chair), Edgemon, Joule, Neuman, Gara, Doogan, Alt. Hawker. It would be fair to target the Republican leadership who have been unmoved by the needs of hungry children in Alaska. They can be reached at the following email addresses. Bill_Thomas@legis.state.ak.us, rep_anna_fairclough@legis.state.ak.us, Rep.Bill.Stoltze@legis.state.ak.us

Learn more about 2015: AMERICA by going to kokayi137.wordpress.com/theby2015americaplatform/

Please feel free to write to me and let me know what you think at elauesen@oz.net!

After a not long enough silence following his October sentencing when he pleaded guilty to a bribery related felony, former state representative Vic Kohring has spoken out. Kohring recounts his tales of woe in a Wasilla Alaska bimonthly arts newspaper (page 21). I’m not sure if Vic’s middle name is Tim, but to listen to him tell it, it ought to be.

In Alaska, the name Vic Kohring has become synonymous with the infamous cash-for-votes Corrupt Bastards Club. Kohring and a host of other legislators were netted in a massive FBI investigation of the Alaska legislature and oil service company top brass. In October, the last of the crew, former Speaker of the House Pete Kott, and former Wasilla State Representative Vic Kohring were sentenced, putting the political nightmare to bed.

“With these two convictions and the sentences today, this brings to an end the largest and most successful corruption investigation ever in Alaska,” U.S. Attorney Karen Loeffler said after former Reps. Pete Kott and Vic Kohring were sentenced Friday morning. “Six legislators who were sitting at the time (of the investigation) were convicted of corruption charges, five of those were felonies, one was the misdemeanor. That’s 10 percent of the Alaska Legislature.”

Alaskans were left slack-jawed not only at the rampant corruption of their “public servants,” but at how cheaply they had been bought.  A few hundred to a few thousand dollars was enough to buy influence from many of the fine folks in Juneau.

Before we delve into the morass of self-pity and melodramatic cluelessness that is Vic Kohring’s column in Make-A-Scene The People’s Paper, here’s the classic FBI video of Vic taking cash from Bill Allen, and talking about vote influencing, filmed by hidden camera in room 604 of the Baranof Hotel in Juneau.

You may recall that back in 2008 before he was sent off to prison, and despite the above videotaped evidence of him taking cash from Bill Allen, Kohring said he’d been railroaded and framed and that his conscience was “absolutely clear.” Then he inexplicably stood by the side of the Glen Highway (before his ignominious departure to the pokey) handing out cookies to passing motorists underneath a giant sign with his name, and “THANKS ALASKA” in big orange letters. Birds were flipped.

After successfully winning the right to a new trial, he was now seemingly ready to take responsibility and admit guilt on one federal conspiracy charge.

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin] Feldis told the judge, it started at a meal at the Island Pub in Juneau on Feb. 23, 2006, when Allen gave him $1,000 in cash.

“Mr. Kohring accepted that money. Mr. Kohring knew that Mr. Allen was intending to influence his votes. Mr. Kohring took the money knowing why Mr. Allen was giving it to him — he knowingly became part of a conspiracy to bribe elected officials,” Feldis said.

Kohring went on to ask Allen to pay off the $17,000 debt on a credit card, and took other payments, Feldis said.

“Did you hear it all?” Beistline asked Kohring.

“Yes.”

“Is it true?” Beistline asked.

“Yes, it is,” Kohring said.

“Every bit of it?”

“Yes.”

Kohring proceeded to plead guilty.

“Kohring is now prepared to accept responsibility and move forward with his life,” the prosecution’s sentencing memo said.

Silly prosecutors.

Despite his clear admission of guilt, Kohring is actively professing his innocence, and seeking to mend his tattered reputation by telling his side of the story. And so he has done in the awkwardly titled, “Kohring’s Monthly Column, In His Own Words: THE RAID.”

In this story, our hero is driving down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway in August of 2006, when he “received a phone call on my cell from a man with a cold, soulless voice from the FBI.”

You can see where this is going… and it only gets worse.

Our friendly felon goes on to say that the soulless fed told him it would be in his “best interest” to return to his legislative office, located on the ironically named “Railroad Avenue.” Noting that while he was under no legal obligation to comply with the request, he was simply “curious and wondered what was going on.” Well, wouldn’t we all.

“I had nothing to hide so I returned only to receive a load of lies from men with protruding guns at their hips, a pattern that would continue for the next five years.”

Thus begins Kohring’s disparaging and obsessive commentary about federal agents carrying guns. One would think that any Republican representative from Wasilla (where you can carry an open or concealed gun as long as you can legally own it) would certainly be used to less responsible people than FBI agents openly carrying firearms. But apparently, it offended the delicate sensibilities of our fair legislator who clutches his pearls and disparages the fact that FBI agents have guns no less than seven times in his column. The FBI agents at the office led Kohring to muse, “One would think a major crime was taking place with all that presence.” One hesitates to ruin the mood and remind Mr. Kohring that 10% of the legislature and four others ended up convicted, in what is widely regarded as the biggest political corruption bust (aka “major crime”) in the state’s history.

The column goes on to gasp about “splenetic faced” agents (that’s bad-tempered for those of you without a thesaurus handy like Mr. Kohring) going through his files “without his permission” and using rubber gloves, dismantling his office, and locking doors. “It began to look like a raid,” he astutely observed.

“As the FBI men rummaged through my files, they took off their coats to reveal handguns on their hips which, they made sure I would see over and over as they moved around my little office…” And then more about an officer with a “big gun on hip.” (At this point, I’ll save you all from worrying yourselves to death. No, Vic Kohring does not get gunned down in cold blood in his office by federal agents who’ve grown too big for their breeches.)

A tally of the feds’ alleged lies ensues – 1) They said he was a witness, but he was really a suspect. 2) They said they wouldn’t go to the press, but they did. 3) They didn’t tell him he was being detained, but he was. 4) They denied alleged lies 1, 2 and 3 in court.

Those scheming federal agents. But the worst atrocities were yet to come. Kohring was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that the questions that the FBI was asking him… they already knew the answers to. (!!!)

“…I realized the FBI had been conning me from the beginning. a) They had knowledge of every question asked of me. Not until later did I discover their deceit. The government knew all along that [VECO Chairman Bill] Allen had been my friend, that he had given me some money for my step-daughter as a gift. b) They were trying to catch me in some contradiction. It turns out their sole purpose was to attempt to trick me into giving inconsistent answers so they could charge me with making false statements.”

Share the horror. Federal investigators, already knowing the answers, asked Kohring questions about his friendship with a confessed criminal who had bribed legislators, and about Kohring taking cash money from him, all in an attempt to see if he gave the right answers consistently. I don’t know where this country went wrong, but when we have to resort to standard law enforcement interrogation tactics, the system is broken my friends. Broken.

Kohring also addresses the existence of the videotape you watched above. Ready?

“The government later attempted to make a case out of a dark, grainy, black and white FBI video showing Allen giving me $100 for my step-daughter for an Easter egg hunt, which was blown way out of proportion by a delighted media.”

Yes, they literally tried to make a federal case out of it. Which they did. And he plead guilty. And served time in prison.  But perhaps with a nice bright, high-definition, color film we’d have realized that what we THOUGHT was cash changing hands and promises of influence peddling was just really a sweet innocent Easter gift for a step-daughter between good friends who never hang out together socially.

The final, terrible and heartbreaking conclusion regarding federal agents (other than their gun-totin’ ways) in this tale of persecution and victimhood is this, sayeth Corrupt Bastard Vic Kohring:

“They lie, cheat, they create their own values, anything to get a conviction.” They acted as if they were “honest, halo-wearing guys with honorable intentions.”

After his jail time, Kohring will continue to serve out the rest of his 18 months of supervised release filling us in on the egregious behavior of those who brought him to justice and assuring us that he did nothing wrong, which means he was either lying in court, or he’s lying now. One might even say that he was acting like an honest, halo-wearing guy with honorable intentions. He promises us more to come soon.

[Photo of Vic Kohring leaving the Federal Building after his sentencing]

Charges that Alaska’s one and only congressman took money for his legal defense fund illegally… (where have we heard THAT before in this state?) have been dropped, and Don Young has been cleared. The complaint stated that he’d taken too much money from an out-of-state bazillionaire donor with massive corporate interests in offshore drilling.

In addition to his startling whackjobbery, and inappropriate outbursts of rage, Don Young is getting awfully good at getting ethics complaints dismissed. It’s nice to have a broad skill set.

At issue was $60,000 in checks given to Young during a January 2011 fundraiser in Texas. Alaska’s lone congressman was handed an envelope by Gary Chouest, host of the fundraiser and president of Edison Chouest Offshore, a Louisiana company whose Alaska interests include an icebreaking ship it’s building for Shell’s planned drilling program in the Chukchi Sea. Edison Chouest is among the top campaign contributors to all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation. The Chouest donations to Young’s legal fund were divided into a dozen checks of $5,000 apiece. Five thousand dollars is the maximum amount an individual or organization can give in a year to a congressman’s legal fund.

So, what’s the catch?  Well, technically, each of the $5,000 checks was written by a different company, with a different legal identity, and a separate insurance policy. It’s pretty clear that $5,000 is the maximum amount an organization can give, probably because the point of the law is to keep any one entity from being able to outright own congressional representatives, and limit them to the sway that $5,000 can buy. (Granted, in Alaska state government, this could have bought you a couple senators and change a couple years ago, but that’s another story…)

The problem Mr. Young ran into is that each of those companies that donated $5000 happened to be owned by the Chouest family. An attempt to get around the spirit of the law, perhaps?  Do we think that $60,000 can buy a little more influence than say, $5,000? Do we think that perhaps Don Young is a little more likely to listen to the concerns of offshore drilling mogul, his self-described “good friend” Gary Chouest than, let’s say… YOU?  Yes, these are all rhetorical questions.

But our very own “Teflon Don” has managed to tiptoe on the edge of the grey area ethically, but within the bounds of the black and white area, legally. To its credit, the House Ethics Panel did say that this behavior “challenges the principles of the contribution limits.”

“The Committee votes to dismiss the allegations, but is amending its (rules) to prohibit similar contributions in the future,” said the report submitted on Tuesday by Rep. Joe Bonner, R-Alabama, the committee chairman. Young put out a written statement after the ruling saying, “I am pleased that the Ethics Committee confirmed what I have maintained all along — I did nothing to violate House rules. I am glad the inquiry has been completed.”

He’s maintained it all along. Just like the last time. Innocence! Exoneration!  He’s done absolutely nothing wrong. “Spirit of the law…”  Pfft.

That’s our boy. Swings through the ethical jungle without actually smashing into a tree, but threads the needle to such an extent that a rules amendment has to be created in his (dis)honor.

And even though Young was the biggest congressional recipient of Edison Chouest money in the 2008 election cycle, Lisa Murkowski has also gotten a cool $41k since 2007, and $30k went to Mark Begich since his election in 2008.  You can’t accuse them of being partisan – any Alaskan influence will do.  Red… blue… it’s all green to them.

Also raised is the interesting question of why Don Young even HAS a legal defense fund at this point. He’s spent upwards of $2 million on legal fees to fend off other ethics charges that somehow vaporized. But according to Young’s chief of staff, just a week before the Chouest fundraiser, he’d paid off the last $25,000 bill.  Young himself said he’d stopped raising money for his legal troubles. And yet, the money still flows. I suppose it can’t hurt to save for the next rainy day… because you just know it’s coming.

By Shannyn Moore

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” – Edmund Burke

In 2006, the FBI raided the offices of legislators. Lawmakers were prosecuted for selling their votes to help pass Gov. Frank Murkowski’s Big Oil Bailout, the Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT).

The PPT tied 85 percent of state revenue to the efficiencies of the oil producers while simultaneously incentivizing them to be inefficient; the higher their costs, the more they could write off, the lower their taxes, the less money for Alaska. Great deal for the producers at the expense of Alaskans.

And now, just five years later, Gov. Sean Parnell is trying to pass his own Big Oil Bailout, known as HB110. History, it seems, is repeating itself.

Bob Bartlett was prophetic. As Alaska’s congressional delegate, he addressed the Alaska Constitutional Convention on Nov. 8, 1955. He spoke of the importance of our natural resources and predicted an influx of resource development interests. “Unfortunately some of these interests will not be scrupulous in the choice of measures to achieve their ends . . . lobbying activity on a scale never before seen will take place in the capital when Alaska becomes a state.”

Bartlett also warned of “exploitation under the thin disguise of development. The taking of Alaska’s mineral resources without leaving some reasonable return for the support of Alaska governmental services and the use of all the people of Alaska will mean a betrayal in the administration of the people’s wealth.”

Bartlett’s words were never more relevant to the lobbyist-infected political landscape we find ourselves in today, one where the oil industry has literally bribed legislators and raised millions to elect oil-friendly politicians who have returned the favor by ignoring their constitutional obligation to secure the “maximum benefit” for Alaskans.

The oil companies have systematically taken over the Chamber of Commerce, Resource Development Council, and policy groups. One of those groups recently ginned up fake legislative report cards. A nonpartisan Legislative Research Report showed that lawmakers who received F and D grades voted virtually identically to those who got A’s and B’s. The difference? Those who supported the governor’s bill to give $2 billion a year to the oil companies with no strings attached got A’s, while those who didn’t got D’s or F’s.

This past week, Senate President Gary Stevens — one of the legislators with the audacity to question Parnell’s oil tax giveaway — walked into the lion’s den. He addressed Commonwealth North, a group pushing to roll back oil taxes while billing itself as “Alaska’s premier nonpartisan public policy forum.”

Stevens didn’t mince any words. He noted the bogus legislative grades were “sort of like a target. A giant Scarlet Letter. Though I prefer to think of it as a Red Badge of Courage.” Stevens, a retired history professor, then schooled the chamberesque crowd.

You could have heard a pin drop in the room as he reminded Alaskans about the Amerada Hess court case. The court found that from 1977 to 1992 the oil companies were guilty of “deliberate falsification in computing the price paid to Alaska for its royalty oil.” The judge said the state was guilty of “inexcusable trustfulness” in dealing with the oil companies.

Stevens recalled the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, which destroyed the fishing careers of thousands of Alaskans. He noted that the Alaska Oil Spill Commission said Alaskans were abused by Exxon’s approach toward risk management, saying the company showed “a corporate culture of irresponsibility” that put profit over safety and risk mitigation.

Stevens brought up Bill Allen and the Veco scandal that led to the former speaker of the House, chair of the House Oil & Gas Committee, Senate Rules chair and others being convicted of corruption for trying to sell out Alaska to the oil companies.

Stevens noted the oil companies have an obligation to make as much money for their shareholders as possible. But the Legislature has a constitutional obligation to maximize the benefit of our resources for Alaskans.

For the past five years, Alaska’s Senate has been led by a statesman-like bipartisan coalition. While most states are broke, Alaska has more than $15 billion in savings — the largest in the country, without counting the Permanent Fund — because of the oil tax reform called ACES.

Jobs, investment, exploration, the number of companies on the North Slope, and oil company profits are all at all-time highs. Though you’d never know it from the oil industry report card, evidenced by the F the bipartisan Senate group received.

Former oil company executive Randy Ruedrich recently orchestrated the redrawing of Alaska’s legislative lines. His goal? Destroy the Senate coalition and restore power to the oil industry.

Will we Alaskans stay the course? Or have we forgotten our history and thus become destined to repeat it?