~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

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.

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

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

Last week, I listened-in on an Alaska Public Offices Commission hearing regarding an old friend of ours here at Mudflats, Mr. Bob Griffin.

You remember Bob:

– In April 2011, he ran on his status as a veteran and a pilot in order to win a seat the Anchorage School Board (he lost), in a campaign best-known for the accusations of illegal yard signs. He was also one of Mayor Sullivan’s chosen-ones in that campaign, receiving donations from the both the Mayor and his wife.

– In May 2011, Mr. Griffin showed some questionable judgement through the methods he used to conduct an unscientific study for a local conservative organization.

– In July 2011, he was appointed by Mayor Sullivan to the Budget Advisory Committee advising the Municipality and the School District on how they should budget their money.

On Griffin’s campaign website from last year, he went out of his way to make us feel good about donating to his School Board effort. He stated: “I haven’t accepted any special-interest donations for my campaign, only small individual contributions…”

However, it’s what Mr. Griffin did (or didn’t do) with the donations he received that got him in trouble.

On October 14, 2011, the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) Staff filed a complaint against Bob Griffin. In the complaint, they alleged that he “filed inaccurate and incomplete campaign disclosure reports for the 2011 Anchorage Election” and “failed to disburse surplus campaign funds within 90 days of the election.”

During the investigation, it got even more interesting.

The APOC Staff discovered that Mr. Griffin also:

–accepted a cash contribution “in excess of the statutory limits”;

–accepted anonymous contributions;

–converted campaign funds to personal income, and…

–did not forfeit the anonymous funds to the State of Alaska.

After hearing and reading the Staff report, we can see that the money amounts involved are small. However, that’s a point that cuts both ways. It should have been easy for Mr. Airline Pilot to rectify the problem. APOC Staff gave Mr. Griffin from July 26, 2011 to October 14, 2011 to fix the errors in the reports and rectify the financial issues…three 1/2 months. Griffin was warned in September that if he didn’t fix the problems, APOC Staff would be forced to file a complaint. However, the thing that makes me shake my head in utter disbelief is the blatantly disrespectful, disgraceful and uncaring behavior exhibited by Bob Griffin during the entire process. The fact that this is a Mayoral appointee is beyond-the-pale.

Directly from the Staff Report:

Staff acquired the full scope of Respondent‟s violations through the investigation process. After the Complaint was filed, APOC Staff repeatedly requested Mr. Griffin‟s bank records, both orally and in writing. The bank records were not provided voluntarily and Staff subpoenaed the records from Mr. Griffin. The records were not provided until the original due date of the staff report, November 14, 2011.

Respondent’s records showed a number of irregularities. While the records did show the majority of the campaign money was disbursed in a timely fashion, deposits did not match the reported contributions. Moreover, cash withdrawals were made from ATMs in various states. Mr. Griffin told Staff he transferred money from his personal checking account into the campaign account to access cash on work layovers in Hawaii and California because his personal bank cards were not working. However, due to bank fees for the withdrawals, Mr. Griffin withdrew $11.75 more than he transferred.

Staff asked for detailed bank records for the campaign account. On November 21, 2011, Mr. Griffin provided specific records to help explain the discrepancies. At that time, Respondent self-reported an undisclosed contribution of $250 during the 24 Hour reporting period and $64 dollars in undisclosed, anonymous cash contributions (one from March 3 and one from March 25). As of the date of this Staff Report, no 105 Day Report has ever been received and the public still does not have information regarding that reporting period.

That brings me to the day of the hearing, January 12, 2012. I called-in to the teleconference number at APOC, expecting a hearing like the ones I’ve attended before. However, all we heard was the Staff report because Mr. Griffin was too craven to show up and testify.

As a result, the Commission was left with only the Staff Report on which to base their ruling:

After consideration of the Staff report and evidence, the Commission adopts the Staff report in full including the recommendations that Respondent forfeit $79.61 to the State of Alaska; return $100 to Rob Timmons within 60 days; pay a civil penalty of $4000 and pay $1700 for Staff costs; and, that Respondent attend an APOC candidate training program prior to running for office again.

$4,000 is one of the highest civil penalties I’ve ever seen lodged against a candidate.

Meanwhile, we have this deplorable, corrupt individual serving as an appointee to Mayor Sullivan. (Sound like Bill Sheffield, anyone?) Currently, Griffin is shadowing School Board and Assembly Meetings and giving budget advice. Bob Griffin did not turn in one accurate finance report from his own campaign! What business does he have giving anyone advice?

After all, in Griffin’s own words…from the blog on his campaign site titled “Privilege to Serve”:

During my 20 years as an Air Force fighter pilot and Army attack helicopter pilot, I made a pretty universal observation about my coworkers: the best public servants are not very motivated by money; many of the worst ones are.

Yes, Bob, we couldn’t agree more.

Mr. Mayor, get rid of this guy.

—————————————————————–

If you want to contact Mayor Sullivan about Bob Griffin:

Use this EMAIL FORM.

Call the Mayor’s Office at (907) 343-7100

If you wish to contact the Anchorage Assembly about Bob Griffin:

Here is the email for all Assemblymembers: wwmas@muni.org

If you would rather call your individual Assembly member, here is the PHONE LIST.

By Shannyn Moore

The war on science is winning. And I’m not talking about those who confuse weather and climate.

Nope. I’m frustrated with the continual election of candidates with a faith-based bias when it comes to policy that should rely on science. In a letter this week, Ed Fogels, deputy commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, informed his colleagues that the mission of the department had changed.

The new mission: “To responsibly develop Alaska’s resources by making them available for maximum use and benefit consistent with the public interest.”

There are a few issues with DNR’s newfound mission. First, the mission they had wasn’t broken.

It read, “The Mission Statement of the Department of Natural Resources is to develop, conserve, and enhance natural resources for present and future Alaskans.”

That one was based in a little directive we call the Alaska Constitution.

“Sec. 44.37.020. Duties of department with respect to natural resources. (a) The Department of Natural Resources shall administer the state program for the conservation and development of natural resources, including forests, parks, and recreational areas, land, water, agriculture, soil conservation, and minerals including petroleum and natural gas, but excluding commercial fisheries, sport fish, game, and fur-bearing animals in their natural state.”

It’s ironic to have self-identified conservatives continually ignore conservation. Their drive to use up Alaska’s resources like we’re in some sort of race is reckless with Alaska’s economy and future development.

I realize cherry picking is common in the Parnell administration but the Alaska Constitution is not a Sunday buffet from which departments get to pick and choose what they’ll put on their mission plate. This behavior isn’t limited to one department; it’s pervasive throughout the Parnell administration.

Cronyism abounds and seems to be passed down from Republican governor to Republican governor. Sarah Palin created a position for Corey Rossi in 2009 because he was so blatantly unqualified to be commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game that even she didn’t dare do it.

In 2010, Parnell appointed Rossi as director of wildlife conservation. In addition to lacking the scientific credentials for even that job, Rossi also lacked the ethical credentials, which explains why he’s facing 12 criminal charges for illegal hunting.

This week on “Moore Up North,” Craig Medred reported that Rossi and a former head and a current head of the game board got in trouble on a little “subsistence” hunt in Nome. Apparently, unable to go on a legal trophy hunt for musk ox, the trio of Alaska game managers decided they would turn a subsistence hunt into a trophy hunt. Rossi, Bob Bell and Cliff Judkins were caught by a Fish and Game biologist in Nome with trophy horns that were supposed to have been destroyed as a condition of the subsistence permit.

Their “Don’t you know who we are?” attitude was met by a courageous state employee who did his job and enforced the law regardless of the consequences. The trio thought their positions would enable them to ignore the rules set up for everyone else. Cliff Judkins is the current chair of the Board of Game. On the game board’s 2012 agenda is a rule change that will allow Judkins, Bell and Rossi to legally bring home the horns from their next musk ox hunt. All that’s needed is a rubber stamp from the Board of Cronies.

The commissioner of Fish and Game, Cora Campbell, found out that Rossi was being questioned in a criminal investigation in early December. Her response was to do exactly nothing. She didn’t ask him a single question about what was up. Instead, she acted like nothing had happened and kept him on the job until formal charges were made. And when she accepted Rossi’s resignation, she thanked him for his years of service and explained to staff he was leaving for personal reasons.

Pathetic.

Anti-predator control public testimony at BOG meetings has dwindled. Why? Because crony appointments have turned the BOG into the Board of Predators. Alaskans can see that the game is fixed.

The abuses and blatant disregard of science and ethics are top down in Alaska. The “what can I get for my service” mentality didn’t end with Palin’s reality show and book tour. Parnell’s repeated calls for an oil tax giveaway have set the tone; ignore the constitution and get what you can for yourself and your friends.

Vic Fischer, one of the authors of the Alaska Constitution, has called for the impeachment of Parnell for repeatedly violating his oath of office.

Alaska’s executive branch has become a grown-up version of “Lord of the Flies.” I didn’t catch the name of the biologist in Nome but I’d like to thank him. I’ll take integrity and science over what’s-in-it-for-me, faith-based cronyism any and every day of the week.

by Linda Kellen Biegel

When “One Anchorage” was preparing to file their now-successful petition with the city to place their initiative on the April 3rd ballot, most supporters and those experienced with similar campaigns agreed that it would be very difficult to provide a rational argument against the initiative itself. As it states on the website:

“The One Anchorage Initiative simply provides to gay and transgender Alaskans the same legal protections that we already provide to other persons in Anchorage in employment, financial practices, housing, and restaurants, department stores and other businesses.”

In other words, to fight against the language of the initiative, you would have to somehow advocate that firing someone from a job or denying someone housing based purely on their sexual orientation or gender identity is somehow acceptable. As I have discovered in my discussions, even some of the most conservative or religiously fanatical folks are unwilling to openly advocate for that.

So, what happens when extremists discover that the truth about their stance is a losing argument? They turn to lies, half-truths and misdirection…especially those organizations desperate to hold onto their very best fundraising issue.

True to form, Jim Minnery has done just that in a recent begging email to the followers of Alaska Family Council. Featured in Shannyn Moore’s most recent opinion piece, Minnery begins his plea by describing a “recent” case in the UK where a “Christian couple” was denied a foster parent license because, according to the email, “they are unwilling to tell the children in their care that homosexuality is a morally equivalent lifestyle to heterosexuality.” The email then goes on to claim: “According to the British high court, “traditional Christian views about sexuality are harmful to children.”

Obviously, the most important thing about this email is that a ruling in the United Kingdom has absolutely nothing to do with a ballot initiative in Anchorage, Alaska. We had an entire war a few hundred years ago to make that decision.

However, I decided to do a little research to discover how far these folks were willing to stretch the truth and sow misinformation in order to generate the necessary faux-outrage on this side of the pond.

As it turns out, Minnery and his friends went pretty far:

–The email claims this ruling is “recent.” According to the press in Great Britain, the ruling was made in February of 2011, almost a year ago. I guess “recent” is in the eye of the beholder.

–The email insinuates that the Mr. and Mrs. Johns were denied foster parent status to prevent them from simply “discussing their objections” to homosexuality with those “small children” (5 to 10 yrs old) who would be in their care. In actuality, The Derby City Council (whose rejection of the Johns’s application was the basis for the case) gave a more accurate statement of the issue: “It would be inappropriate for the council to approve foster carers who cannot meet minimum standards. It would be difficult and impractical to match children with Mr and Mrs Johns if they feel that strongly.” In other words, since a child’s sexual orientation is not generally known at that young of an age, it would be impossible for the City to determine which children would eventually discover that they were LGBT and could suffer harm from such discrimination under their roof.

–Finally, as far as I can determine, the alleged quote attributed to the British High Court ruling (“traditional Christian views about sexuality are harmful to children“) is a complete fabrication. I was unable to trace it to any UK publications. No published accounts of the ruling which contain the actual language have anything which even resembles that quote. On the contrary, I found Lord Justice Munby’s written decision to be worded quite differently:

“However, it is important to realise that reliance upon religious belief, however conscientious the belief and however ancient and respectable the religion, can never of itself immunise the believer from the reach of the secular law. And invocation of religious belief does not necessarily provide a defence to what is otherwise a valid claim.

Some cultural beliefs and practices are simply treated by the law as being beyond the pale. Some manifestations of religious practice will be regulated if contrary to a child’s welfare. One example is the belief that the infliction of corporal punishment is an integral part of the teaching and education of children and is efficacious … And some aspects of mainstream religious belief may even fall foul of public policy…”

I was also unable to trace that quote to anything published in any part of the world at the time of the actual ruling. However, I did discover the same story, almost word-for-word, in a post from December 29, 2011…less than 1 month ago and a few days before the AFC email. This appeared on the blog for the Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW). FPIW is affiliated with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council, as is Alaska Family Council. FPIW also has a recent history of attempting to circumvent campaign disclosure law.

I took you through the analysis of that email because it’s important to see what strategy the religious extremists have at play and what a difficult job they actually have. You see, those of us who support One Anchorage have a much easier task. We don’t have to try and remember which lie we told on what day. We don’t have to memorize language to “pretty anything up” and make it sound better or different than it is. The best, most effective language to describe the ballot initiative is the initiative itself. The best, most effective arguments in favor of the initiative are the true stories of LGBT discrimination in Anchorage…all of us know at least one…and the fact that this initiative will make any future incidents illegal.

The best news of all is that the most effective person to spread this information and make these arguments is YOU!

One Anchorage needs you to be a phone bank volunteer and spread the word. Because, while our opponents’ message is full of half-truths and misinformation, they are using it to raise money and get voters out on April 3rd. If One Anchorage can get enough volunteers, we can arm folks with the truth about the initiative when they go to the polls.

Please SIGN UP NOW!

I was also told by the phone bank folks that there will be nightly contests and prizes as well as some great camaraderie!

So please, SIGN UP and help One Anchorage! You never know WHO you might meet…

Mudflatters may remember past coverage of Corey Rossi, referred to by others as “the gopher choker.” Rossi began his ignominious political career by being friends with Chuck and Sally Heath, parents of then-Governor Sarah Palin. And really, what else do you need?  In those days, being BFFs with the Palins was like being dealt a royal flush. Palin high school pal and former real estate agent Franci Havermeister was given the position of Alaska Agriculture Director for $95,000/year, after listing as one of her qualifications for the position her childhood “love of cows.”

Well, Rossi loved to kill stuff, so his career path seemed clear.

After Palin took office in 2007, Sally [Heath] lobbied her daughter to have Rossi named commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The commissioner oversees all wildlife and fisheries management in the state. Sally Heath, in an email to Palin, noted that almost everyone would object to Rossi as unqualified, but added those “are the very same people who said the same thing about you.”

‘Nuf said.

His previous wildlife management did not include things like a college degree, or much actual experience – unless you count his job killing geese and rats at the Anchorage International Airport. Or his job killing foxes and more rats on the Pribilof Islands. So really, he could just as easily have been the goose snuffer, the fox blocker, or the rat whacker.

Whatever you call him, he’s an exterminator at heart.

After urging from her parents, the governor pushed Rossi to the front of the line. But even Palin’s advocacy couldn’t make up for Rossi’s inexperience, and unsuitability for the job. So, it went to a gent named Denby Lloyd (who later resigned after being pulled over and arrested for a DUI by Juneau police, who determined his breath alcohol level was 0.143 percent. A person is presumed intoxicated at a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent. But let’s not get sidetracked.)

Rossi’s non-appointment would not squelch the nepotistic urges of our fair governor. Oh, no. She was made of more determined stuff than that. Instead, in January of 2009, an entirely new position was created just for Rossi, with the Orwellian title “Assistant Commissioner for Abundance Management.” No more airport geese, or runway rats for Rossi – it was time to take over predator control for the state of Alaska. And by control, he meant eradication.

Rossi’s shiny new six-figure job was quick to inspire outrage from the conservation community, and anyone who knew anything about biology, or game management.

Thirty-nine Alaskan biologists and former supervisors with a cumulative 800 years of experience with Alaska wildlife issues sent a letter expressing their dismay, and lack of confidence in Rossi’s appointment.

They stated that Rossi lacks the academic and professional experience for even an entry-level biologist position with the agency, because he has no college degree. Alas, all this genuine scientific concern and universal outrage had no effect.

The only ones who could stand him were the Palin family, current Governor Sean Parnell, and the “kill ‘em and grill ‘em” crowd who thought that Rossi was right on to promote the extermination of huge numbers of predators like wolves and bears. Using snares to trap and hold bears of all kinds (with cubs or not), shooting wolves (and potentially bears soon as well) from the air, and gassing litters of wolf pups in their dens, have all become part of Alaska’s formerly science-based wildlife management. All this eradication of predators is great they say, because in turn, it creates “abundance” in the numbers of moose that end up on tables and in freezers of hunters. Killing more means you get to kill more. See how that works? Kill for Abundance! It’s a win-win situation for a narrow group that does not include the tourism industry, nature photographers,wildlife viewers, or people who just happen to prefer their majestic Alaskan carnivores alive.

But Rossi’s reign of terror has come to an abrupt end, much to the delight of many who worked with him, and his legions of detractors in the environnmental community, the public at large, and perhaps others…

With the latest revelation, he seems to have made easy work of proving his critics’ point regarding his own unfitness to serve in the role he was given.

In this charging document, Rossi, 51, is charged with one count of permit hunt report violations, three counts of making false statements on black bear sealing certificates, two counts of unsworn falsification, one count of illegal possession of an illegally taken bear, and five counts of unlawful acts by an assistant big game guide.

In Alaska, this is serious stuff for any guide, nevermind the state Wildlife Conservation Director.  And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Turns out Alaska Fish and Game Commissioner Cora Campbell knew a month ago about Rossi’s skulduggery, but kept him on in his job, where he earned another $9250 until the documents were filed last week.

When asked about Rossi’s hunting violations, she was kind enough to explain for those who might be confused:

“These are charges and a process is going forward.”

She pointed out that these violations had happened before he took the job  (no big deal) and sweetly thanked him for his service.

“He was a staunch defender of state management rights. That was something we very much appreciated,” said Campbell. “He was a believer in abundance-based management, and he did a lot to incorporate that into the management of the department.”

Aww. He was a defender. A staunch defender. And a believer. He did a lot. And he was appreciated. Doesn’t that make you all sniffly and misty-eyed, and gripped by nausea?

Despite a month’s heads up, Campbell says she hasn’t had time yet to come up with a process to fill Rossi’s position. She said she doubts that someone from outside the state would really understand Alaska’s issues.

Folks say there’s a pretty talented termite wrangler in Ketchikan who just may be looking for work.

By Shannyn Moore

Ever wonder what the world will look like when you’re 95? It’s hard, but I got a little help with it last week when Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that the producers on the North Slope have enough proven reserves to keep the Trans-Alaska Pipeline pumping until 2065.

I know, it’s confusing. You probably heard Sen. Lisa Murkowski trying to stampede the Alaska Legislature into passing the governor’s $2 billion Oil Bailout because if we don’t Alyeska will have to shut down the pipeline for good. Gov. Sean Parnell has likewise been warning of impending doom.

How could a judge figure out that the oil companies, a coalition of resource development councils, the governor and certain lawmakers have been blowing hot air at the rest of us? Black robes aren’t magic, and she’s not in the oil business. Surely, the oil men can see the future better than some judge.

Truth is, Judge Gleason was agreeing with the oil companies’ own research; it’s just that the oil producers hadn’t elected to make some of the important parts public until they got to court.

In a 2005 study for BP, the lower limit of oil that can flow through the pipe was set at 135,000 barrels a day. In 2010, BP’s expert concluded, “TAPS could effectively operate down to throughputs between 100,000 bpd and approximately 70,000 bpd.”

BP testified that the company would have to shut down the pipeline if the throughput dropped to 300,000 barrels a day. Well, that sounded ominous but smelled a bit like low tide when compared with what the company reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

BP told the SEC it could operate the pipeline with a flow of 135,000 barrels a day. But wait, you ask, why would they say that? I thought we were going to have to deploy Matanuska Maids to Valdez next week to coax the last drops out of the sacred pipe.

It’s simple. Follow the money. Company stock considerations drove their SEC testimony. By saying it could operate the pipeline at the lower flow rate, BP’s “bookable” reserves increased, and its stock value rose.

The shell game that played out in court took the judge more than 200 pages to describe. That same shell game, on steroids, will be played out in Juneau over the next few months. Unfortunately, judicial wisdom and the ability to sift and separate fact from fiction won’t exactly rule the day in the Capitol.

The Make Alaska Competitive Coalition is ramping up. This week, a caller to my radio program took it upon himself to call a few of the businesses the coalition says support the governor on his Big Oil Bailout. Many of those business owners were stumped as to why they were listed. I called one of my favorite fish outfitting shops, which was on the coalition list, and asked the owner why he supported the $2 billion giveaway. “HB110? Never heard of it. What are you talking about, lady?”

Under our constitution, only the Legislature or the governor can call a special session. On Wednesday, the oil company CEOs hopped on their corporate jets and summoned a special closed-door session of all 60 lawmakers. Wow. Business attire was required, and no delegates were allowed. The people’s business was discussed, sans Gavel to Gavel, cameras and press.

It’s hard enough to herd the cats in the Legislature with all the facts on the table. Imagine how much harder it is when some of the facts are being withheld, and some of the ones that aren’t ought not be believed.

Unfortunately, Judge Gleason won’t be in Juneau to call balls and strikes.

This summer will mark the sixth anniversary of the FBI raid of legislative offices. Lawmakers went to jail for selling their votes on oil tax legislation.

2012 also marks the 20th anniversary of Alaska v. Amerada Hess, the court case that found the oil companies guilty of “deliberate falsification in computing the price paid to Alaska for its royalty oil.”

Is our collective memory failing? Remember when we weren’t getting our fair share and oil prices were low? Important construction projects were shelved, the Permanent Fund was being primed for plucking and there was talk of a state income tax.

The debate over the Big Oil Bailout matters. It affects you and every other man, woman and child living here. Alaska’s oil is not a renewable resource. It belongs to future Alaskans as much as to us. We owe it to generations to come to be good stewards of this treasure and get a fair price for it.

So, God willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be the old woman shaking my cane at the sky while the oil keeps flowing through the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Shannyn Moore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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