Gov. Mike Dunleavy says once more it would be great to have a 42-inch gas pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral, but he offers no details on how to make it happen.
In a memo to legislators under the subject line, “Alaska’s Energy Crisis,” Dunleavy said he hopes that private industry will lead the way.
Read MoreAs predicted last spring before the tax cap election, the Fairbanks school district faces the prospect of major cuts in the next fiscal year of anywhere from $8 million to $32 million, the school board heard Tuesday night.
The financial environment for public education in Alaska is not stable, largely because of inaction at the state level and the lack of leadership from Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Read MoreThe Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation is the most important financial institution in Alaska. The flaws in the leadership structure are on full display, with all the power granted to a disconnected governor, still hoping Trump will give him a way out.
The process of selecting trustees for the fund needs to change. Only the Legislature can do that.
Read MoreElon Musk, temporarily on good terms with Donald Trump after spending more than $100 million to help him win, warns that “everyone’s taking a haircut here” and there will be “temporary hardship” if he has his way.
Sen. Dan Sullivan will not say what haircuts and temporary hardships can be expected in Alaska if more than $2 trillion is cut from the federal budget.
But asking Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the way is exactly what the nation needs, according to Sullivan, referring to it as “reinventing government.”
“I mean to me that’s probably one of the most brilliant things I’ve seen that’s come out of the announcements from the incoming administration,” Sullivan told Neil Cavuto of Fox News last week.
Read MoreIt’s clear that Fox & Friends TV talker Pete Hegseth does not have the bio, the skills, the temperament or the experience to lead the largest department in the U.S. government, contrary to Sen. Dan Sullivan’s assumptions.
Read MoreRobert Kennedy Jr., who claims that no vaccines are safe, seems like the change that Americans voted for, according to Sen. Dan Sullivan.
Read MoreThe belated state decision to post an 80-ton limit on the Richardson Highway bridge over the floodway is tantamount to an admission that the state was wrong and that an official action was needed before the Kinross trucks began to roll.
Read MoreIf Dunleavy was counting on Trump allowing him to announce his hiring for a job in Washington, D.C., Dunleavy got a little ahead of himself Tuesday.
About an hour-and-a-half after promoting an announcement and joint appearance with Dahlstrom, Dunleavy canceled it without explanation.
Read MoreDunleavy and AIDEA are wrong about the Alaska Constitution.
The guidance contained in Article VIII of the Alaska Constitution is not “Say yes to everything and anything.” It’s to make resources “available for maximum use consistent with the public interest.”
Read MoreGov. Mike Dunleavy has been fawning over Donald Trump for as long as he’s been governor.
Now he says, he looks forward to working with Trump “to make Alaska great again.”
We’ll soon see whether Dunleavy has said “Trump is the best” enough times and at sufficient volume to qualify for a top job in the second Trump administration.
Read MoreOne month before Robert Sarten, 5, was murdered, the Alaska Court of Appeals upheld a 2022 court conviction that Cedar Mae Sarten had recklessly endangered the life of her child when they were in an exam room at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in July 2020. Robert was 16 months old at the time.
Read MoreCoupled with an bipartisan coalition in the Alaska Senate with Sen. Gary Stevens as president, this move makes it likely that the 2025 Legislature will be a good deal more effective and productive than the 2023-24 version.
Read MoreIt was fitting that the Times took note of Fineberg’s passing in its obituary section, a recognition given to accomplished individuals deemed significant or quirky enough to warrant the attention of a national audience. He was both accomplished and quirky.
Read MoreNEW PROPOSALS FOR Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposed $9 million public relations campaign aimed at the leaders of resource development companies and investors are due today.
This is not the job of a PR worker. It requires a miracle worker. Without cheap electricity, Alaska is not a prime location for data centers. It doesn’t have cheap electricity. It has talk about cheap electricity.
Read MoreThe Dunleavy administration is trying for a second time to spend up to $9 million on a public relations campaign aimed at executives and investors in mining, forestry, transportation and other industries, having cancelled the first effort because the state was unhappy with the results.
The request for proposals was first issued August 15, with a requirement that firms be at least 10 years old, have “five years or more experience in providing public relations support for Alaskan issues or entities” and three years of “worldwide” experience.
Read MoreDonald Trump has added new lies to his package of falsehoods about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, claiming that the refuge could have been supplying oil by now to all of Asia, including China and Japan, had he remained in the White House.
He also is now claiming that oil from ANWR would have prevented the war in Ukraine and helped the U.S. provide all the energy that Western Europe requires. He has lied in the past that money from ANWR oil is the key to saving Social Security.
There is no end to the money miracles that would come from ANWR oil, according to Trump, who has been repeating and inflating bubble-brained lies about ANWR since 2017.
Read MoreThe office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy contacted me today to report a “glaring error” in this blog post and suggest that I take down the post and rewrite it. According to the governor’s spokesman, Russell and Mary Vought ended their long-time marriage in 2023.
Now we know more about the Vought relationship than we do about what Mary is doing for $5,000 a month under a no-bid contract that has been extended time after time since 2020.
Mary Vought is in charge of PR for the Heritage Foundation, which led Project 2025. Russell Vought is a key contributor of Project 2025. They have two children.
“Families comprised of a married mother, father and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society,” says Project 2025.
Read MoreI’m sure it is uncomfortable for former Sen. Mark Begich and former Sen. Tom Begich to have their nephew, Nick Begich the Third, espousing ideas that contradict the positions taken by Mark and Tom during their days in office.
But with their deliberate silence about Nick III, they are effectively endorsing him.
Tom Begich submitted a column to the Anchorage Daily News saying he’s fed up with Donald Trump and his “enemy within” threats.
Read MoreSuzanne Downing, the voice of Trumpism in Alaska, whined Sunday about those comparing Trump’s rally to a pro-Nazi event held at the Garden in 1939.
Downing, who advertises herself as “A Force for Good,” falsely claimed that Hitler headlined the event in 1939 at what she falsely called “Madison Square Gardens.”
There is no evidence that Hitler ever traveled to the United States.
According to Downing’s logic, which she falsely claimed is the Democrats’ logic, all of those who have ever appeared at the Garden are now to be branded as Nazis.
Read More“Sadly,” Senate candidate Rep. Mike Cronk of Tok complained on Facebook a few days back, “politics of negativity has become the norm. Voters are tired of it. Again, thank you for your support and voting positive!”
“Where there is fear, there is often desperation. Where there is desperation, integrity and character are too often compromised,” Cronk claims.
Sadly, that paean to the power of positive thinking comes from a guy who is lying about his Senate opponent, Borough Assembly member Savannah Fletcher.
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