Palin aide Frank Bailey, whose story was published in the tell-all book Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin [Frank Bailey, Ken Morris, Jeanne Devon - Simon & Schuster] has agreed to pay $11,900 in civil penalties to the state of Alaska for publishing revelatory emails he retained from his time working for the State of Alaska [...]

PLEASE SIGN UP HERE for the final Education Summit Community Dialogue, to be held Wednesday, February 22nd at the Anchorage Senior and Activity Center, 1300 E. 19th Ave. Check in is at 5:15 p.m., the start is at 5:45 p.m. and it will run for about three hours. When I started out in college, I [...]

~Photo by artist Jim Dault Wasilla, in its seemingly never-ending quest to earn the derision and eye-rolling of the nation, has a new offering in the headlines this week. It has to do with a piece of artwork that currently sits outside Wasilla High School, the alma mater of our former ex-half governor, Sarah Palin [...]

(Please note the information at the bottom of the article regarding the Anchorage Legislative Caucus Meeting on Saturday at the Loussac Library. Come and testify about Alaska education!) by Linda Kellen Biegel My family attended the “student-led parent/teacher conferences” at my daughter’s middle school Thursday evening. A big part of the conference this semester was [...]

Yesterday, a judge ruled against Exxon regarding the Exxon Valdez Reopener for Unkown Injury case. Judge H. Russell Holland refused the oil giant’s request that he deem the government’s efforts to seek additional funds for cleanup costs relating to the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 as a violation of a consent decree. Yet, the [...]

There’s that old question about elected officials. Would you want to sit down and have a beer with them? It’s a lousy litmus test when it comes to picking a President, but it turns out to be a fascinating sociological tool when applied to the two great American political movements of our time – The [...]

By Elstun Lauesen The Pebble Partnership has deployed a new ad which closes a circle many Alaskans have noticed: the close knit relationship between the pro-Pebble lobby and the Pro-Oil Tax Giveback lobby called ‘Make Alaska Competitive Coalition’. First, Alaskans have noticed the recycled personalities on the Pebble and Oil Company ads. We see former [...]

Well, look who came to CPAC. CPAC is the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference where conservatives of all stripes come together to wallow in varying degrees of narrow-mindedness, religious zeal, military might, fiscal conservatism, and social backwardness. There are usually some internal squabbles about things like LGBT rights, and how they do or don’t fit [...]

By Elstun Lauesen Note. This Column uses FY 2006 as the base year. The Tax Foundation, a nonprofit fiscal policy research group, estimated the average taxpayer’s total state and local tax burden for 2006 in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The burden is a measure of what a state and [...]

By Rep. Les Gara While I look for common ground with our Governor – like our efforts to keep pushing to find ways to build a natural gas pipeline (we agree a large diameter line that exports gas, produces low-cost gas, and brings in revenue is smarter than a small in-state line that brings us [...]

~Thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more! Here are five on the half shell. Links in the titles. Slurp! Doing Time for Fishy Crimes Arne Fuglvog, the corrupt fisheries aide of Lisa Murkowski will be serving jail time for fish crimes. He called his transgressions a “grand misjudgment.” Yes. [...]

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 [...]

by Linda Kellen Biegel 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 [...]

It’s always nice to report good news, and today’s news was really good. The Mudflats has had ongoing coverage of the protests against the Anchorage Hilton and the Anchorage Sheraton, and on Friday a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against Remington Hospitality (which demonstrates none.) ~The President of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka in Alaska [...]

We’ve had several occasions to bust our buttons here at The Mudflats over the last few years. Readers and those in the blogging and journalism communities have been kind to us with various honors and praise over the years. But today is an especially proud one for us. Our very own Shannyn Moore is taking [...]