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.

~The President of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka in Alaska protesting Remington’s illegal treatment of Anchorage workers  in August of 2010.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Burgess’s 34-page injunction was issued late Friday. Among other items, it includes provisions requiring Remington Lodging and Hospitality to restore paid lunch breaks and employer-paid health care and reduce housekeepers’ daily quota of cleaned rooms.

Remington is the Texas-based operator of the Sheraton hotel in Anchorage. This injunction came over five months after a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Administrative Law Judge found in favor of the obvious – that the hotel had violated numerous federal labor laws, trying to squash its workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 878.

What this means now, said AFL-CIO Alaska President Vince Beltrami at a press conference today,  is that the management of the Sheraton will now have to “admit they were wrong, and go back to when this all started, before they started breaking the law.”  The injunction will require the hotel to restore the terms and conditions of employment as they existed prior to the hotel’s unlawful declaration of impasse in union negotiations. This victory comes after almost three years of struggle by Sheraton workers to protect their benefits, their working conditions and their union from the illegal and unfair practices of Remington.

The victory also comes because of appointments to the NLRB last month, which increased the number of board members to the point where the previously crippled board could now make some actual decisions. Alaskan labor organizations who supported Lisa Murkowski (write-in R) over Scott McAdams (D) in the 2010 senate race must be used to that bitter taste in their mouths by now, so the latest pill to swallow shouldn’t really come as any surprise. The “free and unshackled” Lisa Murkowski, who now supposedly isn’t tied to Republican dictates and is no longer a toady of Mitch McConnell, is one of the 39 Republican senators who signed a letter opposing those appointments and vowing to join a lawsuit opposing them.

How’s that free and unshackled Lisa working out for you guys?

Yeah.

To date, there have been over 40 unfair labor practice charges against Sheraton management, 2o of which are still outstanding.  Remington has even filed two meritless lawsuits – one against the union and  one against the NLRB itself. The ongoing boycott of both the Sheraton and the Hilton will continue, as will the frequent picket lines and marches, and an overwhelming amount of support from the Anchorage community. We don’t like to see our residents, who do some of the hardest and most thankless work in the hospitality industry treated unjustly and illegally by some outside goons from Texas. No, we don’t.

Local 878 represents over 1,400 hospitality workers from all across the state of Alaska.

~One of the Sheraton’s illegally fired workers, who will be happy to begin negotiations again. Marvin Jones, President of Local 878 stands behind her.

~Pastor Glenn Peterson

Pastor Glenn Peterson from Central Lutheran Church spoke passionately today in favor of the workers and their rights. “Jesus,” he said, “is on the side of the workers. This is about greed, and the Lord of the church is against greed. It is one of the seven deadly sins, and we should all speak out against it.” He went on to say that if Remington was listening, he hoped that they would learn a lesson – “respect your workers.”

~Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami addresses the media

By Shannyn Moore

When I was 33, Mom and Pop Moore were staying with me. Mom was undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer. For those of you who have been around a loved one with cancer, I don’t have to explain. For those of you who haven’t, nothing can prepare you for it.

The only thing more humiliating than a public figure’s gargantuan screwup-by-retweet (see above) is an alert citizen grabbing a screen shot of it before the perp’s hapless attempt to scrub it.

When not embarrassing herself on Twitter, Karen Handel, the now famous, Palin-endorsed former gubernatorial candidate and reactionary from Georgia, has been busy making liars out of her new employers at the Komen Foundation.  The latter, inexplicably, thought it a great idea to put a right-wing pro-life zealot in charge of developing policy for women’s health care

The lavishly compensated Komen CEO may spin all she likes about how she doesn’t consider cancer screenings for lower income women “high impact,” and how cowardice constitutes “high standards,” but Handel herself would seem to not merit association with Komen by those alleged standards. Nor, one assumes, will the foundation help itself to any more cash from Bank of America—a corporation facing investigations from the feds as well as all 50 state AGs. As in real investigations of wrongdoing, not ideologically motivated fishing expeditions and harassment.

The most effective way to fight back is not via useless “petitions” that accomplish nothing and serve only to swell the spam lists of political non-profit groups. If you are able, and really want to make a difference, join me here.

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.

The winning gladiator, in whatever desperate shape he happens to be – steak on his eye, split lip, dragging one leg, bleeding on the carpet – has earned the right to move on to the big fight. He’ll be wildly flailing his half-functional limb at the current champion who’s had his feet up, eating grapes and watching the carnage.

During Ronald Reagan’s 1966 campaign for governor of California, he established the so-called Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”

“I am, in fact, the legitimate heir to the Reagan movement, not some liberal from Massachusetts,” Gingrich proclaimed on Sunday while simultaneously giving the Gipper’s eleventh, the finger. Don’t speak ill of a fellow Republican? Screw that. Newt has tasted win. And he likes it like crack. He’ll do anything for more, man… Anything. And with his numbers falling, and now behind by double digits to Mitt Romney, that means amping up the vitriol.

Having called Romney “pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase” on Sunday, Gingrich added the title “pro-gay rights” on Monday, in an acidic interview with Fox News. He rewound his last few days of attacks, combining all of his insults and all his vitriol into a string of remarkable assaults on Romney.

And so, the Romney Gingrich mad elephant fight rages on, with Republicans frantically choosing sides in an epic struggle for the right to lose in November. And the Democrats just laugh.

In Palinesque style, Gingrich has also perfected the art of the shameless pander. What’s a trip to Florida without promising the space coast a new lunar colony (by the end of his second term), or without casually mentioning that his opponent, during his time as Massachusetts governor, vetoed funds to expand the provision of kosher food for retirees. Gingrich, the Lutheran-turned-Baptist-turned-Catholic, ablaze with smugness and unashamed by his own transparency, announced that “Romney cut off kosher food to elderly Jews on Medicare.”

NASA – check
Jews – check
Retirees – check
Homophopes, evangelicals, and gun nuts? Check, check, and check.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has countered by throwing four times as much money into his own advertising, and gazing down his nose, calling Gingrich’s desperate attacks “sad.” He has played the superiority card as only the perfectly coiffed moneyed elite can play it. (insert golf clap here)

And what would a bout of clown-on-clown violence be without a caustic screeching ring girl?

Yes, Sarah Palin has chimed in denouncing the Florida battle as “Stalinesque” and “cannibalism.” “I’m not whining about the viciousness,” she notes, but the “rewritten history.” “Enough is enough with the lies about Newt Gingrich.”

Nope, the viciousness is A-OK with Palin. Big thumbs up for that. As a matter of fact, Palin’s pseudo-endorsement of Gingrich was only, she claimed, to keep the competition going. Don’t call off the bloodbath yet! They’re both still technically standing! Palin’s rationale from the marble seat in the Coliseum where she sits is that “we need a big dog who has been sharpened and shaped through the school of hard knocks the most.”

And so they bludgeon on, with Gingrich vowing to take it all the way to the convention, and President Obama going up against the “sharpened and shaped big dog” who can stay upright and conscious the longest.

Our thoughts wander to November, and we picture the reigning champion, in gleaming Brooks Brothers gladiator-wear, fist pumping, nostrils flared, approaching the wheezing, swaying “big dog.” The champ touches his confused, sweaty opponent with an index finger to the solar plexus, and down he goes like a big oozing tree. A loser-shaped ring of dust rises around him as he lands.

But in the meantime, there is butter to melt, and salt to sprinkle, and corn to pop. We have many rounds to go before the end of this dog fight. Here’s to Florida. We don’t really care who wins, so the best we can do is hope for an entertaining night.

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…

Airline spokesperson Bobbie Egan told msnbc.com that over the years the airline has received letters and e-mails from customers for and against the card. Last fall the company decided to stop distributing the cards because, Egan said, “We believe it’s the right thing to do in order to respect the diverse religious beliefs and cultural attitudes of all our customers and employees.”

The decision was welcomed by many, but distressed Alaska’s ex-half-governor who seemed baffled by the company’s decision posted a lamentation on Facebook. “It feels so odd that some may be offended by a little card with an encouraging non-denominational verse from the Psalms…” mused the befuddled Palin on her Facebook page. Not respecting diversity?  The card was non-denominational! It covers all Christian denominations. I mean… who could possibly take that the wrong way?

In a letter she wrote to the airline, she mused

“The Alaska Airlines traditions should be looked upon as an all-American, encouraging, hopeful gesture.”

What, after all, is more all-American than the Bible?

Palin likely doesn’t realize that Alaska Airlines meals have been served only in the first class cabin for the past six years. The rest of us in coach class have had to make due with a wing, minus the prayer, since that time. It’s the godless $7 snack pack for the masses.

And speaking of Christianity, the enemies of good are not only busy encouraging “censorship” of airline propaganda,  they also seem to have it in for Newt Gingrich.

Palin, yesterday characterized the recent wave of conservative criticism levied against presidential contender New Gingrich as the lamestream establishment attempting to “crucify” the former Speaker. It is hard to avoid the Christ-like metaphor when discussing Newt.

“Look at Newt Gingrich, what’s going on with him via the establishment’s attacks. They’re trying to crucify this man and rewrite history and rewrite what it is that he has stood for all these years.”

Rewriting history, we can all agree, is unconscionable, and the tool of bloviators who cannot stand on actual history to make their points.

One of the Roman soldiers who nailed Newt to the metaphorical cross, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan, called Gingrich an “angry attack muffin.” Ouch. That one’s going to leave a mark. The blistering attack brought forth this avalanche of word salad from Palin:

“They maybe subscribe such characterizations of Newt via words like that, but they don’t subscribe those to say Mitt Romney when he or his surrogates do the same thing. That’s that typical hypocrisy stuff in the media, you know, I’ve lived with over a couple of decades in the political arena. It is hypocritical of the media to subscribe to one candidate and not another, that kind of ‘angry attack muffin’ verbiage to one and not the other.”

Oh that “typical hypocrisy stuff” that has been dogging Palin since she first ran for the Wasilla City Council, twenty years ago. I can’t wait to see how she defends President Obama against the name calling, politics of personal destruction, and the rewriting of history from the GOP.