Thanks to all who contacted their legislators regarding SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) yesterday. Google didn’t go dark, but included a link to take action against these two bills and got over 4 million people to make their feelings known. That’s some pretty impressive online activism.

Wikipedia, Reddit, and a host of other megasites went completely dark. The Mudflats followed suit. All of us here take the first amendment, and free uncensored speech pretty seriously. Online piracy is a serious problem, but starting down the slippery slope of regulated content and censorship through loosely worded legislation isn’t the way to fix it.

Believe it or not, both Alaska’s senators – Mark Begich (D) and Lisa Murkowski (R) have come out against PIPA (the Senate bill). Murkowski said that PIPA causes “serious concerns about our civil liberties.” Senator Begich also issues a statemt saying that “the theft of intellectual property and copyrighted material is a serious problem and solutions should strike an online balance between creativity, property protection and Internet freedom.”

Congressman Don Young? Well, he’s thinking about it.

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 Elstun Lauesen

Franklin C. Spinney was a staff analyst attached to the Department of Defense’s ASD/PA&E (Tactical Air Division). In 1991 he wrote an independent position paper on why the F-22 should not have been approved for engineering and development. His objections were two-fold: first, the production of the F-22 didn’t make strategic sense and, second, the rush to get the plane into production was a mistake.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/docs/980326-f22.htm

Mr. Spinney worried that the strategic decisions affecting our Air Force were being dictated by the industrial-military complex, namely Lockheed Martin and their lobbyists; and he complained that the engineering was being compromised by the congressional pace of funding.

Spinney’s internal memo earned him a reprimand.

In 1998, he followed up his criticism with another letter sharply questioning the pace of engineering and design for the F-22. “The Air Force now wants to place the F-22 into production after only 4% of the testing is complete” Spinney continues, “It is important to understand that the F-22′s problems, like those of the F/A-18 E/F, were foreseeable and could have been avoided…” The analyst could barely contain his anger: “…The Air Force and Lockheed Martin now wants to increase the political lock on Congress by putting this airplane into production before 4% of its testing is completed”

The recent story (ADN:12/16/11) of the death of Capt. Jeff Haney in a fatal F-22 crash may be added to a history of crashes and malfunctions in the flawed and strategically unnecessary system. It is important to note that Spinney was not a whistle-blower; he continued to do his job as an analyst until his retirement in 2003. Spinney was a conscientious staffer for the DoD who was, regrettably for the family of Captain Haney, ignored.

Of course the “official” report could not blame the aircraft–despite the fact that the chain of events that led to the fatal crash began with malfunctioning air intakes that triggered a series of automatic shut downs. Blaming the pilot is the only recourse for the Industrial-Military Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about in his famous “Cross of Iron” speech.

The flawed F-22 and the corrupt practices that forced it into production described by Mr. Spinney deserve the attention of congress. Unfortunately, taking on the defense industry is not palatable for either Republicans or Democrats. Beholden to the irrational demands of an industry founded in the cold war, key politicians staunchly defend–even in this time of alleged deficit crisis–wasted billions on an engineering and strategic failure.

Alaska is a serfdom for the defense establishment just like Washington, California, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and other states dependent on DoD funding. At the peak of his power, Senator Stevens directed billions to the F-22 system, while his campaign received large defense contractor donations. Uncle Ted stood astride the very system that Mr. Spinney worried about, and President Eisenhower warned us about. In exchange we got an F-22 command based in Alaska. Do not expect to hear Begich, Murkowski or Young raise a single peep about this money-wasting and deadly weapons system; they are mere vassals in the serfdom of Defense.

I salute the many Air Force pilots who, like Captain Haney, were victims, not of enemy fire, but of a rotten system which crucified them on a “Cross of Iron.”

Let’s play a little game. Imagine this scenario, and then tell me in what country this story takes place. You wake up and go to work. Maria, in the next cubicle over, isn’t there. And she isn’t there the next day. You and your coworkers come to find out that military officers knocked on her door in the middle of the night and took her away somewhere. She was suspected of being an enemy of the government – suspected of being a terrorist. No benchmark of proof was necessary. No presumption of innocence. The executive branch of the government gave the order, and the military responded. You realize that not only do you not know where she is, but she can’t call you or anyone. She has no legal representation. She has not been charged with anything. She can be held indefinitely on suspicion… of something. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

If someone had told you in the year 2000, that eleven years later, a Democratic led Senate in the United States of America would vote to pass a bill including a provision that allowed the United States military (not law enforcement), on U.S. soil, to detain and hold American citizens on a suspicion of terrorism, and to hold them indefinitely without legal representation, and without even a charge, would you have believed them?  Perhaps if you were a Japanese American of a certain age, you might. Almost 70 years ago, Executive Order 9066 authorized the U.S. military to remove any person from designated “military zones” without charge, trial or due process.  What happened next was the forced evacuation and internment of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans, two thirds of whom were U.S. citizens. Many spent years in camps. Their only crime? They looked like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor.

Last week the Senate voted on an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill of 2011. The Feinstein amendment said that it was not okay to use the military on US soil against the citizens of its country. The majority of your elected representatives in the senate didn’t much like that idea, and voted it down 55-45. It remains to be seen if the bill will see a presidential veto.

Every school child learns about Habeas corpus. It is one of those procedural remedies which made us, as Americans, feel grateful for our system of justice. It was one of those reasons that we felt proud to live in a country where individual liberties were valued, where the rights of the citizens meant something. We embraced that ideal of the founders that the people ran the government. We were not a citizenrywho lived in fear of tyrants, of governments who wielded their power by unjustly imprisoning those they wished to silence, those who were considered a “threat” by the subjective standard of the executive branch. This was America, and Americans were free.

But Habeas corpus is only a guarantee and a procedural remedy against illegal detention. Illegal used to mean held without charge for an indefinite period of time. Illegal used to mean that the government could not use the military against its own people. Now, it doesn’t. So, the former best safeguard of our individual liberties has been put through the wringer. Illegal detention doesn’t look like it used to, and neither does Habeas corpus.

And then there’s the Constitution – the rule book, our political Bible, the blueprint of our nation, our birthright as citizens. It had a few things to say about criminal prosecution and detention. Who can forget these old favorites?

‘In the trial of all crimes there shall be a jury, and the trial shall be held in the State where said crimes have been committed.”

No person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, except upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.

As an American citizen, this is what you get.  This is the prize for winning the political lottery. This is why politicians love to say how “exceptional” we are as a country. These are the actual freedoms that our troops supposedly go fight for – the very troops who may now be called upon to seize and arrest you with no charge, no presumption of innocence, no jury trial, no lawyer, no court,  in violation of the Constitution they have sworn to protect and defend.

That’s a nice kettle of fish.

Now, don’t delude yourself. It isn’t like the Bush and the Obama administrations haven’t been doing this already. It’s one of the things for which progressives and Democrats used to love to criticize the Bush administration. But most seem strangely silent about the fact that the Obama administration is doing the very same thing.  And the “Constitutional conservatives”  and small government Republicans who turned a blind eye to Bush, but were happy to criticize Obama, are now strangely silent when the vast majority of Republicans voted against the Feinstein amendment.

So, what’s the difference if all this has already been going on for years?  Why should we care?  The difference is this:

First, this will actually codify unconstitutional acts into our body of law. It condones it. It puts it on the books. It is another hatchet mark in the Tree of Liberty, to use a favorite Tea Party metaphor. And every stroke of the axe brings the tree closer to collapse.

Second, we now have the privilege of knowing exactly who is on the side of the Constitution and the intent of the founders of the country. We also know who is willing to sell your most basic unalienable rights down the river. They do it because of political calculation, ineptitude, or desire to keep the nation in a perpetual state of war with an amorphous enemy that exists under every rock, and behind every tree until the end of time. The battlefield is everywhere, and the enemy is “terrorism” – the dark art practiced by those who “hate our freedom.” Ironically, we just gave them less to hate.

I was pleased to see that there were Republicans who actually walked their small government, individual liberties, Constitutional talk. Kudos to Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mike Lee of Utah for breaking with their party and standing up for the people of the country.

It would have been nice to see Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have the courage to do the same. She has been criticized by the far right for being centrist, and moderate, and sometimes even liberal. The reason Democrats were given by the Murkowski campaign to vote for her in her historic and victorious write-in campaign (against far right Republican candidate Joe Miller, and progressive Scott McAdams) was that if she were re-elected in this way, it would free her to be more “herself.” She’d now be unshackled and not beholden to the pressures of the Republican party. She could vote her heart.  Well, take a good look, Democrats who voted for Lisa Murkowski. Peek in to that heart and tell me what you see – it either belongs to someone too weak to buck the party that threw her under the bus in the 2010 election, or an attorney who thinks nothing of voting against the Constitution she swore to uphold.

Ironically, both of her opponents in the 2010 senate race would have voted for the amendment, despite their very different political philosophies.

When asked if he would have voted for the Feinstein amendment, Joe Miller said in a statement to The Mudflats, “I absolutely would have voted for it.  Please note that my position on the Constitution and the liberties it guarantees has been consistent, no matter the position of party leadership.  I am very concerned about the increasing reach of the federal government to the detriment of individual liberties.  Alaskans can rest assured that whatever I do in the future, I will continue to fight aggressively to protect their fundamental rights.”

Democratic candidate Scott McAdams agreed, and told The Mudflats, “Empowering the executive branch with the power to arrest, detain and deprive a sovereign citizen the due process rights promised in our constitution is undemocratic and anti-American. No amount of security is worth demolishing the civil liberties that make America great. I am appalled Senators from a state that values individual and civil liberty above all would support this horrible affront to the core of who we are as Alaskans.

“As a locally elected leader, I have seen inconsistencies between a governing body’s intended purpose of a policy or ordinance and the manner in which such is carried out by staff. As community members, we would rally against an official who misused their authority, suspend a child from school without a stated purpose, or fire a public employee without just cause. It is outrageous to imagine that we as citizens would ever allow our local police departments to arrest and indefinitely hold a suspect with no promise of a trial. Our senators can’t possibly be naive enough to believe that the potential for abuse inherent in this short-sighted security measure is not real, and I hope Alaskans let their delegation know it.”

When Lisa Murkowski’s father Frank Murkowski lost the gubernatorial primary to Sarah Palin, the bumper sticker “Anyone but Frank” was seen on the rear ends of cars and trucks across the state. So, who would have voted for the retention of your civil liberties in the senate? Who would have voted to preserve the intent of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and the Constitution?  In 2010, the answer would have been “Anyone but Lisa.”

Now, let’s look at the Democrats who voted against this amendment – those who bucked their party in order to do the wrong thing. Here are the Democrats who think that violating your Constitutional rights is OK, as long as it serves their own political purposes – Richard Blumenthal (CT), Daniel Inouye (HI), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Mary Landrieu (LA), Carl Levin (MI), Joe Manchin (WV), Ben Nelson (NE), Mark Pryor (AR), Jack Reed (RI), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), and yes, Mark Begich of Alaska.

Shame on every Democrat who decided to buck their party, only to officially codify the theft of your Constitutional rights.

Any Alaskan who doesn’t have their head in the sand isn’t surprised by Murkowski’s vote. But, in a moment when Mark Begich could have distinguished himself from Murkowski, appealed to civil libertarians in Alaska (of which there are many from the Tea Party to the Occupy movement), defended the oath taken by servicemen and women in the military, and didn’t even have to vote against his party, he blew it.

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air –however slight -lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
– Justice William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court (1939-75)

Fifty five senators who feared to look “soft on terror” have taken away our basic civil liberties in a way the terrorists never could.  Who should we really fear?

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

“Only in Alaska.”

We hear that said up here in the Last Frontier all the time. In the case of the rise of Sarah Palin, the fall of Bill Allen and the larger-than-life legacy of Ted Stevens, it is literally true. It only could have happened here.

Crude Awakening explains the growing pains and tribulations of a new state coming of age in the modern era – a state of wilderness, and Sourdoughs, thousands of years of Native culture, fishermen, prospectors and pioneers, brilliant minds and brave souls writing their own Constitution. In some ways comparable to the spirit of newness, hope and optimism of Philadelphia in the 1830s, Alaska’s coming out party had a darker and more raucous side. Heralded by the discovery of North Slope crude in 1968, Alaska’s coming of age meant that almost overnight in came the Outsiders – oil mavericks, religious zealots, guys in suits, Texans, and opportunists eager to make a buck. It has not been an easy or graceful adolescence for the 49th state which just celebrated its 50th Anniversary during the brief but eventful Palin administration.

Emerging from Alaska’s new-found wealth and opportunity came a handful of players who shaped the state for good and not-so-good. With opportunity comes greed. With power comes corruption. Crude Awakening focuses on three of these history makers – former half-term governor Sarah Palin, the late Senator Ted Stevens, and unlikely political kingmaker and entrepreneur Bill Allen.

After the 2008 election Alaskans were often asked by those Outside, with more than a little derision, “How could you have elected her?” Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger skillfully put into historical context the unique set of circumstances that rolled out Alaska’s political red carpet for an unknown Wasilla mayor who would change politics nationwide and put Alaska on the map in its proper place for many who thought of it only as the state in that box somewhere near Hawaii. And isn’t it dark all the time, and don’t they live in igloos? To fully understand Palin’s political career, you have to watch the prequel. Coyne and Hopfinger show us the reel. Sarah Palin’s political career was no accident and her sparkling ivory tower was built on a foundation of charred political bones with their own stories to tell.

For Alaskans, this book is sure to be a mix of comfortable known history and “hey, I never knew that” moments. For Outsiders (yes, we capitalize it), it will be a jaw-dropping, eye-popping look into a world of political intrigue that doesn’t seem possible – a small-town writ geographically large, where even the unlikeliest and shadiest of characters is one degree of separation from power-brokers and political hot-shots.

How did hard-scrabble, uneducated self-made oil services maverick Bill Allen befriend Harvard grad Senator Ted Stevens, at one time fourth in line for the presidency of the United States? And how did Stevens (whom most Outside know only as the “series of tubes guy” for his infamous description of the internet) earn the love and admiration of so many in his state? Nothing is ever black and white in the land of the midnight sun.

At times the book reads like an oil tax policy primer, oftentimes like a soap opera, and occasionally like a travel brochure. From price per barrel, and pipeline negotiations the reader suddenly pops into the seedy world of back room deals, love triangles, underage sex for drugs, nepotism, political favors, vengeance, and personalities as large as the wilderness they inhabit.

Coyne and Hopfinger explain how our nascent state got here. Where we go now is anyone’s guess. Alaska politically, geologically, and culturally is a dynamic and unpredictable work in progress. Many of the colorful characters portrayed in Crude Awakening have moved on – some dead, some in prison, some fled the state for greener and more lucrative pastures. But some of the players are still here and the characters they all played, from the broad-minded dreamers to the Corrupt Bastards, all remain (albeit with different faces and names). The tug o’ war over Alaska’s resources and how best to develop and tax them rages on. We, as a state, are ready in some ways to leave our wild youth behind, but geographic isolation, an economy which is still very much reliant on oil, and that same cast of untamable characters means that anything is possible. Alaska’s next fifty years promises a book that is just as entertaining and intriguing as Crude Awakening.

There’s another thing you often hear around these parts. “You just can’t make this stuff up.” In Alaska, you don’t have to.

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

To read the discussion, go to Firedoglake HERE.

Join me and author Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch today at firedoglake.com for a book salon featuring the new release Crude Awakening – Money, Mavericks and Mayhem in Alaska by Coyne and co-author Tony Hopfinger. Details below. Hope to see you there!

[Cross-posted from Alaska Dispatch]

Jeanne Devon, AKA AK Muckraker, who runs the popular Alaska-based website The Mudflats, is hosting an online discussion Sunday, Nov. 13, of “Crude Awakening: Money, Mavericks and Mayhem in Alaska.” The discussion will be held at Firedoglake Book Salon. “Crude Awakening” was penned by Alaska Dispatch founders Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger. Coyne will answer questions from 1-3 p.m. Alaska Time (5-7 p.m. Eastern Time, 2-4 p.m Pacific).

Here’s the book jacket description (though Devon’s description, which will appear tomorrow on Firedoglake, is better than what the authors came up with):

Crude Awakening is the rollicking story of politics in America’s last frontier and oil province—Alaska, the nation’s most wild and mysterious state, where politics and oil blurred on the day wildcatters struck it big in 1968. Living in a northern Never Land, where oil companies and the federal government kept the state living high and wild, a handful of players ran the show. Among them were the late Sen. Ted Stevens and oilman Bill Allen, the Tony Soprano of Alaska who controlled the political machine until the FBI arrived to root out corruption, only to be accused of playing as dirty as those they were investigating. These characters and events paved the way for Sarah Palin’s rise to fame and fall from glory in Alaska. Authors Amanda Coyne and Tony Hopfinger chart the epic tale of these three characters, set in a state of soaring hopes, fading dreams, drying oil fields and an uncertain future.

The authors will also be on Alaska Public Radio’s Alaska New Nightly at 6 p.m. on Monday, APRN’s talk of Alaska at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and Moore Up North on Thursday, Nov. 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the Taproot Cafe in Anchorage. The authors will be reading and signing books on Nov. 19 at 11:30 a.m. at Fireside Books in Palmer.

Reviews of the book can be found here, here and here.

Once again, Alaska has topped the charts. Even though we have but one lone congressman, he holds a dubious dishonor. Yes, folks, Don Young is the least present member of the United States Congress.

Representative Don Young of Alaska likes to get around his home state, and he does not let his voting schedule get in the way. One Tuesday in July when his fellow House Republicans voted for their signature budget measure, known as Cut, Cap and Balance, Mr. Young was the only one among them to miss the vote, for a charity fishing trip in Whittier.

OK, a fishing trip in Whittier in July… for children with cancer… named after his deceased wife… I totally forgive him for that one, as I’m suspecting do most of my fellow Alaskans. However, that said, Mr. Young has missed 16% of all the votes this year.  SIXTEEN percent! What say you to that, Spin Doctor of Don Young, and therefore the most underpaid PR flak in DC:

“There are many things that factor into being an effective member of Congress in addition to voting, such as meeting with constituents,” said Luke Miller, the spokesman, in an e-mail. (Mr. Young did not respond to a request made on the House floor last Thursday to discuss the matter, because, in fact, he was not there.)

Doh!

OK, Mr. Miller. Don’t say any more. Just, …no… don’t!

“It should be noted,” Mr. Miller said, “that Alaska is over 10,000 miles away round trip.”

(I smack the heel of my hand on my forehead while inhaling sharply through clenched teeth)

It should be noted that (including a stop over in Seattle) it’s actually about 7500 miles round trip, AND the two United States Senators from Alaska don’t seem to be having the same problem with distance impeding their ability to do their jobs. Lisa Murkowski has missed 6% of the votes in the Senate, and Mark Begich hasn’t missed a single one.

(insert long saggy deflating note on an accordian for Don Young’s spokesman)

Begich proposed legislation earlier this month that would make it illegal to sell, posses, and/or purchase genetically-altered salmon in the U.S. It has gained support from his Republican counterpart in the Senate, Lisa Murkowsi (R-Alaska)…

Both Alaskan senators have questioned the economic and environmental impact of introducing genetically-altered salmon into the national food supply.

Friday afternoon, the offices of the AFL-CIO in Anchorage were hopping. Look at the sinister faces of all those “union thugs.” That’s one thing I’ve never understood. How can any Alaskan, in a state with the second-highest union density in the country, think of unions as “thuggery.” Union men and women are your neighbors, your friends, your kids’ soccer coaches, your fellow church members – people who work hard, and enjoy good jobs with benefits that let them enjoy life and give back to their community by volunteering, putting money into the local economy, sending their kids to college… all that scary stuff.  And the great thing is that they’d like everyone to experience the same benefits. What a concept!

Peggy Wilcox from APEA-AFT held a “bake sale.” I grabbed a corn muffin and a chocolate chip treat and filled out a card saying what I would have paid for it, if they’d been charging. My imaginary $7 went into the fake collection pile. When I left, she’d raised about $140 in funny money. What was the point?  To prove that you can’t pay for schools and infrastructure by having bake sales. No matter how yummy the treats are, it will require more.

The crowd wrote letters of thanks to Mark Begich for his support of the American Jobs Act, and letters of recrimination to Senator Murkowski for falling right back in line with Republican leaders in D.C. who ordered the ranks to vote against the bill. To Democrats who voted for Murkowski expecting an independent voice, and who did not listen to those of us who warned them, I shall clamp my hand over my mouth quickly before the words, “Told ya so” slip out.

To soothe their weary psyches, those who came to write letters enjoyed bratwurst and sauerkraut, and those big fluffy pretzels with gooey cheesy stuff.

And it isn’t like the American Jobs Act is some intangible, philosophical idea that has no real world benefit to Alaskans. When Murkowski voted against the bill, she voted down $62 million for school infrastructure funding that would have supported 800 Alaskan jobs.

(taps on calculator furiously)

That means that every man, woman and child in the state would have to purchase about 350 brownies from Peggy in order to cover that piece of funding alone. But that’s not all Murkowski voted down.

She voted against putting 8,000 unemployed Alaskans back to work, $2.5 million for community colleges, $219 million to support jobs that would put 2,900 Alaskans to work, $70.5 million in jobs for teachers and first responders, cutting payroll taxes in half for Alaska’s small businesses, and the list goes on and on.

Let’s just say that’s a lot of baked goods, and a lot of irritated constituents.

After my fluffy pretzel, I sat down and wrote my senator a letter.  You may not have a giant twisted carb snack, nor neon orange dipping sauce, but I bet you do have a pen and paper, or a computer, or a phone. Trust me, it will feel good telling your senator exactly what you think of her priorities, and her loyalties.

The Constitution. We’ve seen it wrapped around buses, misspelled on Tea Party signs, hailed and praised by the “back to basics” Republicans who tell us that if we just went back to the wisdom of the founding fathers, life would be good again. It’s been waved like the flag, held up like holy writ, and revered as the greatest document ever written.

Yes, the right loves them some Constitution – unless of course it means that they don’t get their way. It’s kind of like the Bible. Just don’t pay attention to all that healing the sick, and taking care of the poor stuff.  Stick with the smiting.

Those of us who paid attention in American History, and have actually read the Constitution may recall that nowhere in the document does it require a supermajority of the Senate to pass a bill. And yet, somehow the Republicans have decided simply to filibuster ANYthing that the president wants to do. If the 51 votes that have been historically necessary to pass legislation were required, guess what? We’d have the American Jobs Act today. Instead, simply the threat of a filibuster is enough to make the 57 votes the Act got, still four votes shy of passing.  So much for that antiquated democratic concept “majority rules.”

So, what was it that the Republicans found so objectionable in the American Jobs Act? Was it the $6 billion deficit reduction over the next ten years?  That’s what the Congressional Budget Office said. Was it the increase in the GDP?  The 5.6% surtax on millionaires and billionaires that Republican voters support? Was it the tax cut for businesses? The tax credit for veterans coming home from war? Revitalizing our crumbling infrastructure? Maybe it was reducing unemployment by a full percentage point, or the two million new jobs it would have created. These are longstanding bipartisan priorities, right?

Perhaps Alaskans should ask Lisa Murkowski, our supposed unshackled, independent Republican senator. The party was perfectly pleased to throw Lisa under the bus when Joe Miller got the Republican nomination in 2010. They chucked her like yesterday’s trash. But, we were told by her supporters, it would be just fine – better even! Now, Lisa could be Lisa. She’d be freed from party obligation, and allowed to vote her conscience on important matters affecting the country. You just wait Mitch McConnell… as the bumper sticker says, “Alaska Girls Kick Ass.” So, on the most important matter of the day for average Americans, maybe we should ask our senior senator why she voted lock-step with the rest of her party against Americans, and American jobs.

According to her statement, the senator feels that the bill doesn’t do enough. It doesn’t really help enough people. The veterans, the businesses, the two million who will now not have jobs?  They’ll just have to understand that according to Murkowski, they’re just not “significant” enough.  Don’t just do something Lisa, stand there.

Alaska’s junior senator Mark Begich (D) had this to say:

“The American people have made it clear they want us to get something done. We can’t continue to stall progress simply to make a political statement. Alaska’s small businesses, working families and unemployed are counting on us to make this work.”

Unfortunately, so far the Republicans can and do “continue to stall progress simply to make a political statement.” And Americans who want to get something done, mysteriously keep voting for them.

At a White House event yesterday, President Obama said the fight was not over and vowed to keep pushing for jobs.

“Now a lot of folks in Washington and the media will look at last night’s vote and say, `Well, that’s it. Let’s move on to the next fight.’ But I’ve got news for them: Not this time. Not with so many Americans out of work,” he said.

“We will keep organizing and we will keep pressuring and we will keep voting until this Congress finally meets its responsibilities and actually does something to put people back to work and improve the economy.”

Silly President, if things get better then the country will be more likely to vote for you, and less likely to vote for Herman Cain, or Mitt Romney, or Rick Perry, or any of the other “best and brightest” that the GOP has to offer. And that, after all, is what it’s all about. It’s kind of adorable that anyone still believes the Republicans really have the best interest of Americans at heart. I guess now that corporations are “people,” they’ve decided which “people” are the most important to them. It’s not teachers or kids, notes Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers:

“While the majority of the Senate voted for cloture,” Weingarten says, “those who voted no will have to explain why they voted against a bill asking millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share in order to create 1.9 million jobs at a time when there is a 9.1 percent unemployment rate.”

The American Jobs Act would save 280,000 educator jobs, modernize and repair 35,000 schools, create jobs for hundreds of thousands of construction workers, provide additional help to the long-term unemployed, and invest in programs to provide disadvantaged youth and young adults with employment opportunities. These are not radical ideas; they are real solutions to get Americans back to work doing the work that needs to be done.

If you, on the other hand, are still committed to people (the actual human kind) who have lives, and families, and are feeling pain in a way that Republican members of the United States Senate will never know, then there is something you can do. And the good news is that if you’re in Anchorage, it involves bratwurst and pretzels.

I know. You weren’t expecting that part, were you?

Tomorrow from 12-3pm, join the crowd at the AFL-CIO building at 3333 Denali Street.

There will be brats, sauerkraut, pretzels and drinks – plus an opportunity to send a quick message to our congressional delegation by writing a letter, or speaking a few words on the video postcard that will be sent to them.  Speak up loudly for good jobs, and the American worker. And don’t be stingy with the mustard!

“We demand action!” says President of the Alaska AFL-CIO Vince Beltrami. This political posturing while people suffer has gone on long enough… Continuing to do nothing is unacceptable.”

If you are outside Alaska and unsure how your senators voted, or if you’d like to send them each a message about their votes, click HERE.