I understand why Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum would want to keep the public from knowing that he took unauthorized leave in the first week of April. But the revenue department should never have made the ridiculous claim that this information is a state secret.
Alaskans deserve to know whether it was Crum who made the decision to redact a public document to conceal what happened.
Read MoreAssembly member Barbara Haney should have declared that she is in no position to be impartial about Savannah Fletcher and declared a conflict of interest.
Instead, she said, “I think I can be fair.”
All the evidence says otherwise.
Read MoreA new unofficial campaign ad claiming Sen. Dan Sullivan is “fighting to protect and strengthen Medicaid” is paid for by a dark money group from Virginia that was led until recently by a former aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell.
The ad by One Nation, which supports Senate Republicans, calls Sullivan “Our Trusted Champion.”
Read MoreUnder the Sullivan/Begich plan, Alaskans without proof of citizenship would be unable to vote. Sullivan’s office claims that all a voter would have to do is sign a document that says you are a citizen. That’s not what the bill Sullivan is cosponsoring says. It requires that you must prove to an election official that you are a citizen.
Read MoreAs the state House debated the proposed operating budget, it rejected an amendment to subtract $12.5 million from the enormous cash reserves of the Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority.
I was struck during the House debate at the stunning level of misinformation about AIDEA. Many legislators, by their comments, showed that they know nothing about the corporation’s $600 million to $700 million surplus, yet they pretend to be informed.
Read MoreHaving written about his denunciation of the campaign watchdog group, I was surprised Friday when Rep. Kevin McCabe was born again as a champion of the Alaska Public Offices Commission.
He claimed that one of his 10 amendments to a campaign finance bill would “Strengthen APOC—the watchdog tasked with enforcing our campaign finance laws.”
Read MoreThe lamest excuse in favor of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s education veto came from North Pole Rep. Mike Prax.
“I need to point out that we're talking about forcing people to pay things whenever we say you've got to pay for something. There are in fact other options for people that think there needs to be more funding towards education or any other state services,” Prax said.
“Specifically to education, those that say they want to support education can, still can, you can change your PFD application, participate in the education raffle, that all of that money goes into the education fund.
Read MoreThe promoters of the Alaska LNG project hope that the Trump administration will boost the economics of the project by branding it as essential for national security, which could create new ways to subsidize and speed up the project.
A declaration of this sort could go along with long-term contracts in which the federal government would promise to buy gas from the project for decades to supply Alaska military bases.
The Dunleavy administration has not spelled out any of this in detail, but Frank Richards, CEO of the Alaska Gasline Development Corp., presented an outline of how the Trump administration could boost the project.
Read MoreThe United States is summoning officials of Japan and South Korea to Alaska June 2 to continue the pressure campaign to get those nations to pledge tens of billions for what Sen. Dan Sullivan calls “America’s Gasline.”
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