Wall Street Journal reporter Molly Ball wrote: “Sen. Dan Sullivan stood beside the newly elected Taiwanese vice president in an orchid-draped room of the island’s presidential palace, making a promise that wasn’t wholly within his power to keep.”

“This is the message our bipartisan delegation wants to send to the people of Taiwan: ‘You can count on the United States of America,’ said the silver-haired Alaska Republican, a recently retired Marine.”

There is nothing “wholly” about this.

Sullivan never questions the brilliance of the convicted felon. And Sullivan cannot keep any promises to Taiwan if Trump wins because a Trump promise is as good as a degree from Trump University.

Read More

Gov. Mike Dunleavy is spending state money on another data mining expedition on Facebook, claiming he has petitions on parental rights and education reform.

Are the petitions real? What do they say? Who will get the petitions? Who knows?

“By clicking submit, you agree to send your info to Governor Mike Dunleavy, who agrees to use it according to their privacy policy,” the Dunleavy ad says. “Facebook will also use it subject to our data policy, including to auto-fill forms for ads.”

One of Dunleavy’s new ads features a fake photo of four lecherous old characters with oversize noses polluting the room with cigar smoke and a headline, “They don’t want you to have parental rights.”

Other ads with alleged petitions claim that teachers are quitting their jobs because the Legislature failed to approve Dunleavy’s teacher bonus plan and families are fleeing the state because of a lack of education “reform,” a word means whatever you want it to mean. Everybody loves reform. And everyone loves parental rights.

Read More

Four of the six Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation trustees refused to follow a legislative directive to close their new five-employee Anchorage office, claiming the Legislature doesn’t have the power to stop them.

This is not a smart move by Jason Brune, Adam Crum, Ryan Anderson and Gabrielle Rubenstein, who may think they are free to ignore the Legislature because they operate with the political blessing and protection of Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Read More

Whoever wrote the column in the Wall Street Journal published under the name of Alaska Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum has him puffing himself up for a national audience, claiming that he manages more than $138 billion for Alaskans and state retirees.

“I manage more than $138 billion in fiduciary assets as Alaska’s commissioner of revenue and as a trustee of the state’s retirement management system and the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.,” says Crum, who earned a master’s degree in environental health sciences in 2015 at Johns Hopkins.

As a legislative candidate in 2016, Crum described himself as a “business owner, truck driver and carpenter.” He also said gold could be a significant revenue source for the state.

Read More

Suzanne Downing has yet to retract the story on her website that falsely claims Larry Persily, one of the most accomplished political reporters in Alaska, can’t be trusted when he talks about taxes because he doesn’t have a current Alaska business license.

“Take your tax advice from this guy???’ Downing said on Facebook.

Better to take advice from someone with Persily’s strong credentials than a person who can’t look up a business license on the state website.

Read More

Three Fairbanks school board members are taking issue with assembly candidate Tammie Wilson’s claim that Hunter Elementary School provides such a poor education, based on standardized test scores, that no students should be attending school there.

I asked all the school board members to comment and receieved responses from Brandy Harty, Meredith Maple and Bobby Burgess.

Read More

Fairbanks financial planner Josh Church complains in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that I quoted him out of context, but fails to give any specifics to back up his claim.

I did not quote him out of context.

Here is what I wrote on May 18, an opinion column in which I said that Church has extreme views on education and politics that he concealed from the public.

Church was the spokesman for the group Tammie Wilson created to oppose the education ballot proposition and to participate in the October municipal elections.

Read More

The most important piece in the Financial Times story is that Rubenstein is now directly contradicting—through her father’s spokesman—claims made in emails by two of the leading executives of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.

She claims she did not set up an APFC meeting with her dad and that she did not attempt to get investment associate Catherine Hatch, a corporation employee, fired. Her spokesman claims these are “falsehoods.”

Read More

It’s not the leak that matters, it’s the substance of the leak, the conflicts of interest.

But the trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation want to focus on preventing future leaks, ignoring the behavior of trustee Gabrielle Rubenstein as documented by Marcus Frampton, the chief investment officer of the corporation, and Allen Waldrop, the director of private equity for the fund.

Read More

Borough Assembly candidate Tammie Wilson claims the standardized test scores at Hunter Elementary School are so low that no students should be going to school there.

"Would you attend a school in which 15.69 were proficient in English, 9.8 percent was proficient in math and 28.26 in science?” Wilson lectured the Fairbanks school board Tuesday.

“I don't think many of you would send your kids there and I don't think we should be sending any kids to there or find out why they're so low."

Read More