APOC Staff tries to (mostly) give Rep. Bill Thomas Campaign a pass–My testimony for today's hearing
UPDATE – For those who are interested in listening to the hearing, the information can be found HERE. Teleconference number 1-800-315-6338, Code 4176#1 ********* Everyone may remember a few weeks back when I filed an APOC complaint against Rep. William Thomas, Jr. (R–Haines). I posted about the APOC Complaint I had filed against the re-election campaign of Representative Bill Thomas, Jr. Here is the complaint as listed on the APOC website. The complaint is in response to a newspaper advertising campaign consisting of 17 ads which ran in the Chilkat Valley News during the weeks leading up to the election: …Upon…
Mr. Wrong is Right, and Other Strange Tales from the Alaska Senate Rabbit Hole
We should all be used to it by now. Alaska politics will turn into something far more complicated than we believed was possible. The Corrupt Bastards Club, the Ted Stevens trial, the Don Young Coconut Road fiasco, some half-term governor run amok in the Lower 48, and now this – the Alaska Senate race of 2010. It’s always interesting when you find yourself with a strange bedfellow. That happened quite a bit when Palin had the VP nomination. People who were following the race from Alaska will remember that there were local Republicans a-plenty who wrote some really great scathing…
Bad Guy v. Bad Guy in Battle for Good. Alaska’s Election Under the Magnifying Glass.
Well, goodness me. The Alaska Senate race has certainly summoned an interesting cast of, um… ‘characters’ to the far north. First, we learned that Lisa Murkowski has employed the services of a certain Ben Ginsberg for her legal team dealing with the vote count. If you haven’t heard of Benjamin Ginsberg, let me illuminate you. He was one of Bush’s attorneys working on the Florida recount in 2000. He was also one of the attorneys behind Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the 527 group whose purpose was to assassinate the character of John Kerry. This is who’s in Lisa Murkowski’s corner….
M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I v. The Letter of the Law – Joe Miller Sues!
One of the two Republican attorneys vying for the U.S. Senate seat in Alaska is suing. (Hint: It’s the one with the half-beard, not the one who failed the Bar exam four times) Yes, Joe Miller filed a lawsuit today, just hours before the write-in ballots are due to be counted in Juneau. What he wants, he says, is for the state to follow “the letter of the law” when determining which write-in ballots should count, and which ones should be chucked. Miller’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said the campaign is seeking a hearing on the matter as early as…
The Alaska Senate Race – Round Two. Ding!
Here’s a quick update on the Alaska Senate Race for those of you still playing along at home. As it stands right now “Write-In Candidate” is 13,439 votes ahead of Joe Miller. We don’t know how many are actually for Lisa Murkowski, but we can presume it’s a large percent somewhere in the neighborhood of all of them. How many will be thrown out because of error? History tells us about 7%. What kind of spelling deviations will still be allowed? Where is the thin bright line between voter intent, and close but no cigar? What happens for people who write…
Voices from the Flats – Kill Moloch.
The Urgency of Campaign Finance Reform: A Meditation on Election Day, 2010 by Elstun Lauesen Let me begin with a little Ginsberg: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix; Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night. Yeah. Word up. Here’s what I see. I see the best candidates of my generation destroyed by other people’s madness; people who are well fed and well-dressed, driving through the paved exurbs and hillsides…
Lisa Murkowski: She’s changed, we haven’t.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) released their latest commercial for the benefit of Scott McAdams, describing Lisa Murkowski’s mischaracterization of her political stances: The video is great and the message is spot-on. This gives me the opportunity to talk about a piece of Senator Frank Murkowski’s history where we can see Lisa following in her dad’s footsteps. During the Rachel Maddow Show’s visit to Alaska, Lisa Murkowski discussed the time (back in the 80’s) that the Moral Majority took over the Republican Party (5:20 on the video): What she does NOT discuss is how her father, then Senator Frank…
Lisa Murkowski Wants You to Vote With Your Ovaries, Not Your Brain.
When John McCain nominated Sarah Palin to be his running mate, the country was shocked. But we also knew part of the reason he did it. She was a woman, and she had exactly the same double-X chromosomal makeup and body parts as Hillary Clinton. There were a lot of people who were pretty miffed that Hillary wasn’t the nominee, and (the strategy went) all those women would flock to Sarah Palin and fill in the bubble next to the name of this utterly unqualified woman because … well, because she’s a woman! It would be cool to have a woman Vice…
More Early Voting Hanky-Panky. Poll Observers needed! (UPDATED w/ link)
You may remember this story from AKM on Tuesday: In Homer, apparently, reports were received that each booth had a written list of the write-in candidates posted. This is electioneering, and absolutely illegal. If you see anything irregular when you are early voting, please take a picture of it. The above picture is courtesy of KTVA’s Matt Felling from a message he put out on Twitter. The Alaska Democratic Party was sent this picture by an early voter in Homer who saw the list when he walked into the booth. Sure enough, the list was in all of the booths. …
Election 2010: There’s Only One Road to Transparency in Alaska…
In June of 2009 I embarked on an idealistic journey. Thanks to many Alaskans and folks across the country, I was able to raise enough money so that the State of Alaska would release the Records Request they had been sitting on for months. When the emails arrived and the only “good stuff” was redacted or witheld due to bogus-sounding claims of “privilege,” I was not worried. I was sure that as soon as the email lawsuits brought by Andree McLeod and Don Mitchell against Palin were resolved (in McLeod/Mitchell’s favor…no one thought otherwise), I would then be able…