ADN lets attorney for Recall Dunleavy Committee bash governor in op-ed, without acknowledging writer’s role in recall

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An opinion piece authored by one of the most rabid opponents of Gov. Mike Dunleavy appeared in the Anchorage Daily News, with no mention at all by the newspaper that the author is one of the founders and has served as a lead attorney for the Recall Dunleavy Committee.

Scott Kendall, who was chief of staff for the failed administration of former Gov. Bill Walker, wrote in his opinion piece this week that the governor’s proposal to allow voters to vote on a constitutional amendment to lock in a formula for the Permanent Fund dividend was a bad idea. “Half-baked,” the headline read, with a “deficit of honesty.”

The ADN was snagged by its own deficit of honesty: Kendall, spanked by the voters who couldn’t wait to get rid of Walker & Co. in 2018, helped form up the Recall Dunleavy Committee in early 2019, has defended in court the recall charges that he himself wrote, and is still the man behind the curtain of the now-failing movement to off the governor prematurely.

But the newspaper described him thus: “Scott Kendall served as chief of staff under Gov. Bill Walker. He is now an attorney in private practice.

No mention that he is Mr. Recall, who also served as Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s campaign manager, or that he was the author of Ballot Measure 2.

The real message in his op-ed was hidden in plain sight at the end: Kendall wrote that it’s time to get a new governor in 2022. That is all-but an admission that his recall efforts have failed. And the ADN is allowing Kendall to distance himself from the failure.

28 COMMENTS

  1. Upon seeing the Kendall piece, I had the same reaction: Why wouldn’t the ADN, to demonstrate a drop of even-handedness and decency, identify Mr. Kendall’s role in the recall effort? Talk about fake journalism.

  2. Murkowski struck at Trump … and missed.

    Kendall struck at Dunleavy … and missed!

    Their days in power are numbered.

  3. Has he really failed? He has a pot of money, maybe, to help finance a contender to run against Dunleavy. Maybe he will run.

    • If he has a pot of money, where and from whom did he get it? Anyone we might know of, like George Soros? Just saying…..

  4. Scott Kendall is a little worm lawyer who couldn’t win a pissing contest with a Chihuahua. Fact is, Kendall is still employed by his former boss, the disgraced ex-governor Bill Walker, who incidentally, sent errend boy Kendall to repair the damage that Walker’s side-kick inflicted. Try as he might, Kendall couldn’t overcome the pedophilia investigation of Walker’s former Lt. Governor, thus turning Walker out to pasture and Kendall out of work. The Recall Dunleavy campaign was dreamed-up by Walker and his law partner Brena. They hired unemployed Kendall to gather signatures. Since Kendall is an unskilled lawyer and not employable at a law firm, Walker and Brena also got him to gather signatures for Prop 1 and 2, as well as harvest ballots for Al Gross and for his brother in law Grier Hopkins, the most Left-wing fool in the Alaska Legislature. Kendall is the son in law of Luke Hopkins, former mayor up in Fairbanks, and a bigger fool than his son. All of these Lefties and scrumdrones have been milking and feeding off the system for years and even decades. Dunleavy has outed them, thus the Recall. Scott Kendall = total loser. Perfect for storytelling time at the ADN.

    • Thank you for this information. As a student of Alaska politics, I am just beginning to see the recall for what it is, an attempt to smear the winner from a sour grapes loser. As they say, follow the money.

      • Thanks, Chrissy, for compressing the facts into a very understandable read. Now we know! What is amazing, is how all of these idiots and sleazeballs end up marrying each other and producing more of the same. Wasn’t selective breeding meant to produce smarter homo sapiens?

  5. Hard to believe that ADN chief editor, D.H. and its owners don’t understand how bad this looks and how unproductive it is to the paper’s need for advertising revenue. Many who have supported a daily paper in Anchorage are cancelling their subscriptions because of these examples of this unreasonable bias.
    I piggyback on my spouse’s subscription but know several people that have cancelled theirs.
    I would put my money where my mouth is to support an effort by MRAK to start a paper. I thinks many others would as well.

    • Gradually but surely ADN is causing the most neutral, pro journalism paying customers to stand against a brand many took community pride in supporting political cycle after different political cycle from inception to date.

  6. ADN is dying, they don’t care about right or wrong, ethics or morals. They hire trash reporters with no ethics.

    • I thought the ADN owners up in Fairbanks, the Binkley Family, were Republicans. What the heck? Sounds like they are now in bed with Lisa Murkowski.

  7. This is Gov. Talker’s hand puppet, and nobody expects integrity or accountability from ADN any more. Some of us had hope the Binkleys would raise the bar but it’s hard to find good help anymore…
    Donnliston.com

  8. Kendall is behind proposition 2 – it will let Murkowski ‘win’ in 2022 and defeat Dunleavy….both are his agenda items.

    • Sorry Me. That’s not what is likely to end up happening. Dunleavy will get re-elected because the Alaska public is generally disgusted with the Legislature, not with Dunleavy. Lisa Murkowski will fail, because sentiment against her is rising each and every day. 42 years of Murkowskis are far enough. In 2020, we saw some BIG changes in our elections (State Senate leadership) because of MRAK reporting. And, some dangerous candidates were exposed (Al Gross). MRAK will play another big role in 2022. You watch!

  9. We need public grants for newspapers to insure fairness and balance. And to subsidize a 300 year old business model.

    • I don’t believe we need that, Jay. We have NPR, PBS, and Alaska Public Media. All three are unbalanced and clearly lean left. Propping up businesses with funds pride from the hands of hard working people leads to unresponsiveness within those businesses.

      • There is no prying. They don’t even have to threaten to shoot your grandmother if you don’t pay your taxes. They just magically create money and it magically devalues what’s in your wallet. Did you feel any pressure or funny feeling? Buy solid assets so they have to at least make an effort to seize them when they need to give it to someone else.
        You might be an extremist if…. you can show through foia documents that your government lied to you.

  10. Thank you for the information. I quit reading the ADN (Another Day in Negativity) i.e The Washington Post Alaska Edition . In my opinion Ryan Binkley had destroyed a decent paper. Not many Journalists left , they are all Narrative Promoters. Thank you Suzanne for being a great Journalist.

  11. So ADN, was this an “oopsie!” moment and you neglected to mention it? Or was this outright deceit?

    I think I’ll go with deceit. It’s how the left operates. Scumbags. Liars. Hypocrites.

    And that’s me feeling generous (and limited by online decency laws).

  12. Public news media that is unbiased from ADN and Channel 2 Grey Media are left wing opinion outlets that provide little useful information. I have been a subscriber for many years and remember when we had three papers to choose from The ADN, Anchorage Times and the ER Star. The much smaller Anchorage Times and the Star were the best without biases was the best of the three. First the Times was bought out by ADN and then the Star succumbed to retirement of its driving force.

    Now only MRAK local and State News coverage has reliable news and thank you Susan for that. Channel 2 used to be the best news station in ALaska covering local, Statewide, and National News. No more, now biased opinions and fluff pieces supported by the best weather commentaries are all that’s left. I believe the leftist billionaires have decided to buy up all the news sources in our Country so they can so they control everything the public reads, sees and hears. The left wing MSM and Cable Channels like MSN, CNN and others can barely keep even leftist listening to them. They are discredited liars. All are owned by liberals and even Fox News the number 1 rated news show has been purchased by leftist and is unreliable at times. OAN, NewsMax, Newsy and Cheddar are better.

    I have canceled ADN several times before and currently piggyback on my wife’s online subscription because she won’t read a paper. I think I will cancel them again because of their outrageous bias coverage opposing anything truthful or conservative. Of course only after consulting my wife and gaining her agreement.

  13. What’s most revealing is the lack of comment areas at the ADN. It used to be you could chime in and give kudos if they ever (rarely) put out something good. Or you could hold their feet to the fire for underhanded dealings. No more.

    Thank you Suzanne for giving us a place to make our voices heard, and prod each other toward action.

  14. Anchorage’s conservative upwelling should be tamped down according to the ADN leftist california approved comment section. No news on assembly issues at all. Check it out President Trump.

  15. Why would anyone seek information from established liars? I wouldn’t disgrace a piece of fish by wrapping it with an ADN page.

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