Crum helped launch a private investment fund while serving as commissioner

Dunleavy said that Crum “pursued investment opportunities with several other potential investment firms,” but the negotiations were halted. When were the negotiations halted and why?

I suspect that one of the so-called opportunities was related to Crum’s decision to use his office last spring to promote a new private investment fund called the “Frontier Economic Fund.”

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Dunleavy's office pleads ignorance on DigitalBridge review

Tyson Gallagher, Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s chief of staff, had the Dunleavy spokesman, Jeff Turner, tell me that he doesn’t know how much the state has agreed to pay a Washington, D.C. law firm to review the DigitalBridge contract.

Ask Department of Law spokeswoman Patty Sullivan, he said. The Department of Law spokeswoman said in 10 business days she would have some kind of reply.

The Anchorage Daily News had no better luck from the Dunleavy transparency team.

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FEMA core functions ‘ground to a halt'

The Wall Street Journal has this update on how the Federal Emergency Management Agency is failing to respond to emergencies.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Dan Sullivan, Rep. Nick Begich the Third and Gov. Mike Dunleavy gushed with effusive praise for Donald Trump’s social media post saying he had approved a disaster declaration for Western Alaska. But maybe they should withhold their praise until they see if FEMA delivers.

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Like Trump, Dan Sullivan claims to be a victim of Jack Smith

Sen. Dan Sullivan, eager to curry favor with Donald Trump, is calling for the head of career prosecutor Jack Smith, claiming to be a fellow victim.

Smith is the special counsel who investigated Trump’s attempt to overthrow the government after losing the 2020 election. Senate Republicans, including Sullivan, have joined Trump’s campaign to get revenge on Smith, who secured two indictments.

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Alaska politicians plead poverty, claiming we need 100 percent federal disaster assistance

Alaska politicians are asking that the federal government cover the entire cost of emergency assistance, suggesting that the state with an $83 billion Permanent Fund can’t afford to put up a dime to respond to the Western Alaska disaster. Everything the state is doing now should be reimbursed by the feds, they claim.

“In light of the extraordinary circumstances, and consistent with the action taken following Typhoon Merbok, we also request that the administration authorize a 100 percent federal cost share for emergency work during this recovery,” Sullivan, Murkowski and Begich III wrote to Trump.

Dunleavy also told Trump the state has no money to spend on the disaster and wants the federal government to pay for everything for 90 days regardless of what it costs.

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Typhoon trauma will disrupt lives for years

“In sum: an immense disaster, one that’s wrought deep trauma on Western Alaska’s Indigenous residents and that’s raising existential questions about the future of their low-lying communities amid a changing climate and a tightening state budget.”

“The region sits on a broad, dead-flat plain next to the Bering Sea, and weather experts say they expect warming ocean temperatures to fuel more storms like the typhoon — which came just three years after another fall storm caused widespread damage.”——-Nat Herz, Northern Journal.

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Dunleavy promises cheap electricity is just around the corner in the Golden Age

Gov. Mike Dunleavy told the Resource Development Council Thursday that he expects a big announcement to move forward on the Alaska LNG pipeline in two months, with construction starting next year. He would be shocked if the project stalls, he said.

This rosy view appears to be founded on the idea that Donald Trump will succeed in forcing Japan, South Korea and other Asian nations to pay for the pipeline, whether they like it or not. Dunleavy says that the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and Glenfarne are telling him that there are no glitches that will derail the proposal.

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