Have a question for NASA?
Join Sen. Roger Holland hosting Dr. Chris Mattman, as they talk about space and Alaska’s future in the space race.
The event will be on Facebook Live on March 12 at 11 am.
Mattman is chief technology and innovation officer at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, one of the space scientists responsible for the Mars Rover Perseverance and Mars helicopter ingenuity.
More information for this live event and how to take part in it at this link.
By JENNIFER BENDERY / HUFFINGTON POST
Interior secretary nominee Deb Haaland is on track to be confirmed on Monday. Every Democratic senator is expected to vote for her confirmation. Two Republicans have said they’ll back her historic nomination, too. The only question now is how many other GOP senators will vote to confirm the first Native American Cabinet secretary in U.S. history.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) may be in the most uncomfortable position of them all.
There’s only two other people in Alaska’s entire congressional delegation besides Sullivan. They’re both Republicans. And they’re both publicly supporting Haaland.
“You’ll find she will listen to you,” Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) said as he introduced Haaland in her Senate confirmation hearing last month. He doesn’t get to vote on her confirmation, but it spoke volumes that the conservative GOP lawmaker appeared alongside Haaland and praised her in her hearing.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who does get to vote on Haaland’s nomination, announced last week that she will be a yes. She, too, referred to overwhelming support among Alaska’s tribes.
But Haaland’s support for Biden’s decisions to pause new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and halt construction on the Keystone XL pipeline has drawn opposition from fossil fuel interests in the oil-rich state.
Murkowski and Young both weighed those perspectives, and both concluded that they support Haaland leading the federal agency with oversight of public lands and tribal obligations. Sullivan, meanwhile, has been silent.
“Senator Sullivan is continuing to evaluate Deb Haaland’s qualifications and review her nomination,” Sullivan spokesperson Nate Adams said in a statement.
“While the Senator understands this is a historic nomination for our nation, he has concerns that Congresswoman Haaland will reverse the progress that the Alaska delegation has made on critical energy projects, further jeopardizing jobs and working families at a time when the state’s economy is struggling to recover from the pandemic,” said Adams.
The Alaska Senate, on a vote of 18-1, passed a motion to begin better enforcing its own rules regarding Covid-19 health protocols.
Only Sen. Mike Shower voted against it. Sen. Lora Reinbold, who is the main concern in the building and who was mentioned extensively, although not by name, during the motion on Wednesday, had been asked to put on a face mask or leave the floor, and she left before the item appeared on the calendar.
Sen. Gary Stevens, the Rules chair, made the motion that didn’t seem to need to be made: It was that rules established by the Legislature be enforced by leadership.
But because Sen. Reinbold has been flouting the building rules, while Senate President Peter Micciche has tried to counsel her to no avail, nearly all legislators but Shower felt it was time for action.
There are 26 people from the building now infected with Covid, and one of them is in the hospital, sources in the Capitol said. This, in spite of the widespread use of the appropriate masks. The work in the Legislature is in danger of coming to a halt because of the rapidly spreading virus.
After the floor session, Reinbold tried to hold a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, still wearing her unauthorized face shield, when Senate President Peter Micciche canceled the meeting from under her.
The Senate has instructed him, through the motion, to keep her out of the Capitol except that she can attend floor sessions when a vote is happening so that her district is not disenfranchised.
Senate leadership has not yet stripped her of her committee chairmanship of Judiciary. Sources in the building told MRAK that Micciche is dealing with Reinbold issues for up to six hours a day. Reinbold not only has refused to wear a mask or even a shield that has a foam seal around it, she has pushed past the Beacon testing station where everyone gets their forehead temperature monitored upon entering the building, and she has refused the twice-weekly testing that is in the legislative rules.
The complaints from staff in the building about Reinbold were brought up in the floor speech given by Sen. Gary Stevens.
Stevens explained the problem in eloquent and sensitive terms, and set forth the solution that senators agreed on:
The motion in front of you, Mr. President gives Senate leadership the authority to exclude any senator from the Capitol building, until such a time as they follow legislative council policies.
The reason for these policies: to protect legislators and staff. All 59 legislators and all staff have complied, only one is not wearing an approved mask, going through testing through Beacon, are submitting temperature and questions when entering the building. This has concerned all of us. Staff has expressed fear, others have talked of early retirement. We are all employers; we come under federal law, Mr. President. We are responsible for protecting our employees, for keeping them safe. Right now, not wearing an approved mask does not protect them, but rather puts them in jeopardy. This misbehavior has not only taken up the Senate’s time but now also the other body. We have reached the point where it must be dealt with; we can no longer, in good conscience, ignore it.
Frankly, Mr. President, it is embarrassing that the other body, the speaker of the rules chair and building security were forced last night to enforce the rules to one of our members who was blatantly ignoring safety procedures.
Out of respect for our fellow senator, we have all spent inordinate amounts of time, many of us trying to reason, making accommodations, trying to provide appropriate CDC masks and it’s always been rejected in favor for masks that is simply not approved, allowed people not to test through Beacon but provide proof of negative testing — we have never seen it, Mr. President — bypass others waiting in line for entrance in the building, including saying that they have a meeting to attend to, which, we all had meetings to attend to. Mr. President we have patiently done everything that we could, to bring us, bring folks, bring our senators into compliance up to no avail. The choice, Mr. President, is a simple yes or no.
“Yes” indicates you support the safety rules concerned of the staff, concerned for our legislators, concerned for everyone in the building.
A “no” vote may be saying that you are against all safety rules. Opening the building to anyone. Not taking testing, not wearing a mask. That seems unconscionable to me, Mr. President.
Hopefully, soon we will get beyond this. Beyond the problem we’re facing with COVID-19. We have people in quarantine, in hospital. In the hospital, Mr. President. Today, we have six people testing positive. Two have quarantined, one of whom is in the hospital – is hospitalized. Things could be worse, Mr. President. They certainly could. But they aren’t, because we have enforced the very rules we are talking about right now.
Fortunately, Alaska is doing much better. Offering vaccines to anyone who wants it and I am looking forward to the day we can remove all of the rules. But we are not there yet.
Even if we get everyone vaccinated in this building who wants a vaccine, we are still a long way off from complete freedom. We still must observe precautions. I suspect we will still need to take great care right up to the last day of this session. There is still danger out there. Half a million Americans have died of COVID. Three-hundred Alaskans have died. We cannot just ignore these threats.
Mr. President, this is a difficult motion for me to make, it falls to the rules chair to make it. In my 21 years in the legislature, I have never seen any rules chair, or any senator, have to make such a motion. I have great respect for all senators, even the member who is making my life rather difficult at this moment. I consider her a friend, but we can no longer abide the behavior.
We have tried to dissuade her, offer her easier ways out than we have offered others, all to no avail. The time has come, Mr. President, for decisive action. None of us want to take it but we must for the safety of all of us.
Through this motion, we are allowing Senate leadership to exclude a senator from this building. An extraordinary action, Mr. President, unprecedented, but necessary.
So, how can this be remedied? How can a senator return to the building? It’s amazingly simple: do what everyone else is doing. One: wear an approved mask, as all the rest of us are doing. Two: test twice a week, as all of us in this building are now doing. And three: have your temperature taken to enter the building as all of us are now doing.
These are simple enough requirements, Mr. President, they protect each of us, both the people you are around as well as yourself. I ask for your support in this difficult time.
By DAN FAGAN
On Monday of this week, a man identifying himself as Ken called my radio talk show claiming Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski was denied communion by a Catholic priest because of her support for abortion.
The caller said the Anchorage Archdiocese was so upset with the priest over it, they transferred him from Anchorage to the small town of Soldotna, on the Kenai Peninsula.
After the show on Monday, I contacted the Anchorage Archdiocese, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Soldotna, and Lisa Murkowski’s office in Washington D.C. to ask them if what Ken said was true.
Monday came and went, and no one called me back. That raised a red flag.
Why wouldn’t Murkowski easily quash the story by saying it wasn’t true? The only reason I could come up with is – it may be true.
The next day, Tuesday, I reached out to the archdiocese and Murkowski’s office once again. And for a second day Murkowski’s high paid staffers didn’t return my call or email.
Late Tuesday, I finally reached Dominique Johnson, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Alaska by phone. Johnson raised my suspicion even more refusing to answer any of my questions saying only no comment.
Did a Catholic priest refuse to serve Murkowski communion?
No Comment.
Was an Anchorage priest transferred to Soldotna after refusing to serve communion to Murkowski?
No Comment.
I spent enough years as a journalist to know something was up. The church and Murkowski could have made this whole story go away instantly if they simply denied the senator was ever refused communion.
The next day, Wednesday, I posted on my Facebook page a clip of the caller Ken and his claim Murkowski was refused communion during mass in Alaska.
That’s when the flood gates opened. It turns out the incident in question not only happened, but it was common knowledge among many Anchorage Catholics.
Here’s what I know based on information from reliable sources who asked to remain anonymous.
Sometime in December of 2019, Murkowski was attending mass at Our Lady of the Snows in Girdwood.
Fr. Robert Whitney, based out of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Anchorage, was saying mass as a visiting priest.
Murkowski approached Fr. Whitney during mass with her hands out ready to receive communion but was denied the wafer. Fr. Whitney instead said a blessing over the senator. Murkowski did not make a scene and went back to her seat.
Anchorage-Juneau Archbishop Andrew Bellisario, well-known for his Leftist beliefs, was so upset with Whitney, he transferred him out of the much larger St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Anchorage to the much smaller Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Soldotna.
Fr. Whitney, who grew up in Anchorage, must have known his withholding of communion from Murkowski because of her enthusiastic support of abortion would land him in hot water with the left leaning Bellisario.
There’s a culture war brewing in the Catholic Church much like the one threatening America. Fr. Whitney is not shy about his conservative views even though it puts him at odds with Bellisario and the left-leaning Pope Francis.
Conservative Catholics have been feeling like exiles in their own church under Pope Francis. It’s rare priests like Whitney have the courage to stand up to church hierarchy.
Whitney has not returned my calls, nor has he spoken with me about any of this. My hope is Archbishop Bellisario doesn’t take further punitive action against Fr. Whitney because of the Murkowski story finally coming out. It was inevitable.
Hopefully, Whitney’s unusual courage will motive other priests who believe strongly in the sanctity of life to stand up to Leftist church leadership and withhold communion from other politicians advancing the genocide that is American abortion.
Whitney denying Murkowski communion makes sense considering the Catholic Church claims to be a defender of the unborn.
It’s not just that Murkowski simply favors abortion. She is one of the most powerful and impactful players in advancing the cause of abortion.
Murkowski justified her swing vote to defeat the repeal of Obamacare by saying she feared the effort would limit funding for Planned parenthood and mean fewer dollars for abortions.
Murkowski’s refusal to approve Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh even further validated the senator’s allegiance to the abortion movement.
It’s understandable why Murkowski doesn’t want the story out of how a courageous priest refused to serve her communion. For Catholics, communion is the focal point and centerpiece of their faith.
For Fr. Whitney, Murkowski’s pivotal role in advancing America’s death culture was apparently too much to overlook and ignore. He took a stand for his belief that life is sacred, precious, and worthy of protection. Fr. Whitney must have known his stand for life would come with a heavy price.
Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive talk show in Alaska on Newsradio 650 KENI. He splits his time between Anchorage and New Orleans.
“I will meet on March 18 with People’s Republic of China Director Yang Jiechi and State Councilor Wang Yi in Alaska to engage on a range of issues, including those where we have deep disagreements,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Twitter.
Joining Blinken in Alaska will be national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The meeting will take place on Thursday and Friday of next week.
The Wall Street Journal says the Chinese have sought to restart a relationship with the U.S. in the post-Donald Trump era.
“Beijing has lobbied the Biden administration for early face-to-face discussions to try to smooth out relations that have grown sharply more confrontational in recent years,” the newspaper wrote.
Alaska was chosen because Blinken is set to return to Washington, D.C. from a trip to Asia, specifically Japan and South Korea, and Anchorage is a refueling stopover.
Wang Huiyao, president of the Center for China and Globalisation think-tank in Beijing, told the Financial Times that the meeting “would be ‘the first step on a thousand mile journey’ as China tries to convince the US to shelve disputes over human rights in favour of areas of potential co-operation, such as climate change.”
Admiral Philip Davidson, who heads the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the US is losing its military edge, while China continues to erode decades of American-led deterrence in Asia with a rapid military expansion.
“We are accumulating risk that may embolden China to unilaterally change the status quo before our forces may be able to deliver an effective response,” he said, as reported by Financial Times.
Eagle River Sen. Lora Reinbold was seated as a spectator in the House Health and Social Services Committee, when she was called out by Rep. Zack Fields for not wearing an approved mask.
Shortly after, Speaker Louise Stutes, Rules Chair Bryce Edgmon and a security guard entered the room. Stutes told Reinbold she would have to put on a mask; she had one handy to give her. The alternative, she said, was that Reinbold would have to leave the House hearing. Reinbold left, escorted by the security guard, Edgmon, and Stutes.
Much of the incident was recorded on Gavel Alaska close-circuit television in the Capitol, but Reinbold video recorded the incident on her phone and posted it to her Facebook page.
Reinbold has been wearing a plastic face shield, which is not accepted by the Legislature’s rules for a tight-fitting mask.
This is the second time this week she has been told to either wear an approved mask or leave the room. On Monday, Sen. President Peter Micciche advised her that her face shield was not adequate. She decided to skip the Senate floor session rather than put on a mask.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy today announced the Covid-19 vaccine is immediately available for all individuals who live or work in Alaska and are age 16 and older, making Alaska the first state in the nation to remove eligibility requirements.
“This historic step is yet another nationwide first for Alaska, but it should come as no surprise. Since day one, your response to the pandemic has been hands-down the best in the nation,” Dunleavy said. “I couldn’t be prouder of Alaska’s response. From being the first state to offer widespread testing, to maintaining one of the lowest mortality rates in the country, to rolling out vaccinations to every willing Alaskan, we got here by working together.”
The Pfizer vaccine is available to individuals who are 16 and older, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the Moderna vaccine are available to individuals who are 18 and older. All three authorized vaccines have shown to be very effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death caused by COVID-19.
In addition, he announced, regions including Kodiak Island, the Petersburg Borough, and the Kusilvak Census Area are nearing or exceeding 90% vaccination rates among seniors. In the Nome Census Area, over 60% of residents age 16 and over have received at least one shot, and roughly 291,000 doses have been administered statewide.
“A healthy community means a healthy economy. With widespread vaccinations available to all Alaskans who live or work here, we will no doubt see our economy grow and our businesses thrive,” he said.
The top two candidates for mayor, in terms of fundraising, appear to be Democrat attorney and Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar and Republican business leader Mike Robbins.
According to the 30-day reports filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, Dunbar raised $59,996 in the period stretching back to the year-start report deadline, when he reported he had $252,000. That puts him at over $312,000 for his campaign to date.
But Dunbar will need to keep raising money, because he has just $49,636 in cash available for the final month. On the other hand, Dunbar has placed and paid for all of his ad spots.
Robbins reported $210,057 in his year-start report, and has raised $35,413 for the 30-day report, for a total of approximately $245,470. He has $81,392 cash on hand. He, too, has already paid for and placed his ad spots.
Candidate Dave Bronson, a pilot, raised $162,481.80 for his year-start report, and has raised $61,719 — the most of all the candidates for the 30-day report. Although his campaign war chest is somewhat smaller than Dunbar’s or Robbins, with $224,200 raised in total, he has the most cash on hand: $144,676.
Bill Falsey, running on his record as manager of the Municipality under former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, reported he raised $106,285 in his year-start report, and has raised another $23,898 for his 30-day report, for a total of $130,183. He has $29,590 cash on hand.
Attorney Bill Evans, who filed his year-start report showing $96,380 raised, pulled in another $20,795 for $117,165 in total. He has $52,193 cash on hand.
Dunbar knows he is the one to beat, and a union-financed poll that was released to liberal media shows that Dunbar is slightly ahead of Bronson, although the pollster did not reveal their methodology; they put the numbers out as a “suppression poll.”
Dunbar has blamed Must Read Alaska and its readers for vandalizing his signs over the winter, and made it clear he’ll be running against Must Read Alaska as much as he’ll be running against candidates:
“My campaign is, right now, the most successful on the progressive side. For months, Must Read Alaska and other Republican mouthpieces have been attacking me. They know I’m the one most likely to draw together a moderate and progressive coalition that can beat them. It’s sort of a trickle-down vendetta,” he told the Anchorage Press earlier this year.
Last week, a fundraising letter from Dunbar once again identified Must Read Alaska as his campaign foe, saying “Our far-right opponents have embraced conspiratorial, anti-science rhetoric that would have us ignore COVID rather than face it head on. They support the toxic partisanship of Save Anchorage and Must Read Alaska,” he wrote. He said his “far-right opponents” hold events where people do not wear masks, which “threaten our hard-won progress toward re-starting our economy.”
Must Read Alaska has asked Dunbar to appear on the Must Read Alaska Show, but he declined, saying he would not be treated fairly.
Ballots for the municipal election go in the mail on March 15, and the final day for voting is April 6. In addition to the mayor’s race, which has 14 candidates, there are school board seats, a recall question for Assemblyman Felix Rivera, and bond questions.
By TUCKERMAN BABCOCK
The socialist urge is always strong. Perhaps without even realizing it, Chris Nyman did a fine job in his recent column arguing for Socialism and state power over free enterprise, private ownership and individual freedom.
His objective was to take what little direct dividend individual Alaskans receive from the production of their shared ownership of oil and gas. He wants every penny owned to you to instead go directly to the State of Alaska. He says it is to advance conservative policy, but his approach is like Emperor Montezuma sending wagons of gold to the Spanish hoping to appease their lust for more. It only made things worse.
We can and should dismiss his rhetorical statements of PFD “misconceptions” – none of which is true and none of which is discussed in his own column.
Let us review facts.
Back in the 1950s, the federal government forced Alaska to adopt a Socialist approach to subsurface mineral rights. In most States, such as the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, Texas, Louisiana, etc., individuals own land, subsurface rights, and the wealth that comes from developing their land. The various State governments then tax the people to pay for programs and services. That is the free enterprise and capitalist model.
With every subsurface well or mine the owners receive a royalty payment. Royalty payments are income to the owners, not the State.
Alaska was forced down a Socialist path. The State “owns” most subsurface oil and gas. The people still own the subsurface minerals (oil and gas among them), but we own it collectively. As former Governor Hickel sagaciously discerned, we are an Owner State. What do we do with this anomaly?
Now, if you want to go full Socialist, then every penny of value, not just taxes, but the royalty payment due the owners, should be gobbled up and retained by the State. Nothing for individuals. Only handouts from government. Full socialism.
The State would be supreme overlord, supreme judge, and supreme master of every such dollar. Not one penny should go directly to the great unwashed, the little people who actually own the resource: those pesky individual Alaskans.
Rather than blunder down the full Socialist road, those that came before us exercised some good judgment. Gov. Jay Hammond, the people through a constitutional amendment, and legislators in the late 1970s and early 1980s, decided that severance taxes, production taxes, and misc. other taxes should flow directly to state spending. But then they did something the Socialists, the politically connected and those that make a living off state spending did not expect. They recognized the rights of individuals to the subsurface ownership and provided for some benefit from that ownership. At least a little.
They did not intercept 100% of the royalty payments due to the owners. Instead, they set aside 25% of the royalty payment in a Permanent Fund. That was the best they could do. They still intercepted and taxed the other 75% of the royalty payments actually due to the owners – that is, all individual Alaskans.
Then they decided to allow the owners (individual Alaskans) to receive a dividend from the realized earnings of the Permanent Fund. The governor and Legislature set a formula in place that provided for approximately 50% of the realized earnings from the Permanent Fund to go directly to the actual owners of the subsurface minerals: individual Alaskans.
For more than 30 years the Permanent Fund grew and grew. The dividends were paid, never from taxes, never from any budget, but directly from the actual realized earnings of the Permanent Fund. The other 50% of earnings from the Fund were available to spend any way the government wished.
The statutory formula remains in full force. But for now, it is another law ignored.
Enough is never enough for government. Spending grew and grew. The programs, salaries, benefits, buildings, and greed knew few bounds.
Severance taxes, production taxes, corporate taxes, gas taxes, fish taxes and half the earnings of the Permanent Fund…the government spent every penny.
There were times when government had so much money from those sources that billions upon billions of dollars were saved in the Constitutional Budget Reserve. For the lean years.
What did most politicians and especially the Socialist utopians do with all those riches?
Spent every penny.
Borrowed every penny.
Ran up billions in debt in fantastical promises for pensions no one could possibly afford. Underfunded by many billions of dollars.
And then government’s greedy eyes turned to the dividends faithfully paid to the owners of so much of the oil and gas in Alaska: individual Alaskans.
It started with the scoundrel, former Gov. Bill Walker, who ignored state law and vetoed the transfer of the dividends to the people.
Then legislators – long shy about imposing such a money grab and tax on the tiny dividend (a tiny share of the vast wealth generated by developing the oil and gas owned by all Alaskans) – became emboldened by Gov. Walker’s taking of the dividend. They stopped transferring the dividend – ignoring state law and capriciously setting whatever they felt like for a “dividend.”
These statists and Socialists hate the idea of individual ownership, individuals receiving a dividend from the royalty from their own oil and gas; they want every penny for government.
Despite the view of folks like Chris Nyman, no wagons of gold paid as tribute will ever satisfy the bottomless greed of government.
Those who fear the taxman will go after them simply hope that by sacrificing all the little people and their dividends, the day of reckoning will be postponed. The fact is that there is no limit to the appetite for spending, no limit to the growth, power and debt of government…except the determination of the people to limit the size and scope of government.
It is your money Alaskans. It is your oil and gas. It is your children who are now paying the price of the profligate and boundless growth and waste of government.
If they take the dividend today, they will come with sales and income taxes tomorrow. Divide and conquer, a tactic used for centuries. Chris Nyman should know better.
Tuckerman Babcock has been an Alaskan since January 1966. He worked for five legislators, two governors, served 10 years with Matanuska Electric Association, 3 and 1⁄2 years as a commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. He has been a homemaker and former volunteer chair, Alaska Republican Party. Most recently, he chaired Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s transition team and was the first chief of staff (retired August 2019). He lives in Soldotna with his wife and family.
