The president’s senior adviser Kellyanne Conway has announced that she is leaving the White House to attend to family matters.
It came shortly after her daughter, Claudia Conway, said she would seek emancipation from her parents and that she was “devastated” that her mother was speaking at the Republican National Convention.
It appears the split in the family’s politics have come to a head. George Conway is a liberal and harsh critic of the president.
“The past four years have allowed me blessings beyond compare as a part of history on Election Night 2016 and as Senior Counselor to the President. It’s been heady. It’s been humbling,” Kellyanne Conway wrote. “I am deeply grateful to the President for this honor, and to the First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Pence, my colleagues in the White House and the Administration, and the countless people who supported me and my work. As many convention speakers will demonstrate this week, President Trump’s leadership has had a measurable, positive impact on the peace and prosperity of the nation, and on millions of Americans who feel forgotten no more. The incredible men, women and children we’ve met along the way have reaffirmed my later-in-life experience that public service can be meaningful and consequential. For all of its political differences and cultural cleavages, this is a beautiful country filled with amazing people. The promise of America belongs to us all.”
She explained that she will transition from the White House next week.
“George is also making changes. We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids. Our four children are teens and ‘tweens starting a new academic year, in middle school and high school, remotely from home for at least a few months,” she said.
At the same time, George Conway wrote on Twitter that he is backing out of the Lincoln Project, which has the mission of destroying the president’s reelection. He said he fully supports the project but intends to spend more time with his family.
It is getting so that we are afraid to leave town for a few days because of what we might find has happened while we were gone.
This time around, the U.S. Treasury gave Anchorage two ways it could purchase buildings the public has said emphatically it does not want for use as homeless shelters using federal CARES Act funds intended as aid for individuals, businesses and nonprofits devastated by COVID-19.
The public, mind you, spoke out over five days of testimony mostly against Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s use of the money to purchase the aging buildings.
CARES Act money, $12.5 million of it, anyway, would buy the former Alaska Club building on Tudor Road, the Bean’s Cafe campus and Americas Best Value Inn & Suites in Spenard. A fourth building, the Golden Lion hotel, would be bought with $10 million from the city’s $1 billion sale of the Municipal Light & Power utility to Chugach Electric.
Treasury’s inspector general, after complaints about the proposed purchases, nixed the idea of using the federal money to buy the three buildings, but said Treasury would make the ultimate decision.
Treasury met with city officials and thoughtfully offered two options: One would have the city spend its CARES Act funds on its first responder payroll, and then use general funds the city would have spent on payroll for projects such as the purchase of buildings.
The second option would be for the city to buy the properties with CARES Act funds and use them long-term — but with the proviso that services must be available in the building by Dec. 30, the deadline to spend CARES Act money.
There was not much talk about $300K in property taxes being wiped off the tax rolls or the $7 million a year in operational costs for the buildings. Taxpayers will get to eat that expense.
It is always nice to see different levels of government working diligently together to jam something down our throats we do not want, but we find ourselves wondering about a third possible option:
The city and the mayor actually listening to residents and not buying the buildings and trying to devise a homelessness plan the public can support – while at the same time getting CARES Act funding out to individuals, businesses and nonprofits devastated by COVID-19.
The Anchorage Municipal Clerk now says she has 30 days — not 10 — to tell the sponsors of a recall application against an Assembly member whether their application is sufficient to proceed to the signature-gathering stage.
That puts the recall of Assembly member Meg Zalatel into Sept. 2 for a decision about whether it can move to the next stage.
The application was filed with the Clerk’s office on Aug. 3 and the citizen petitioners at that time believed the Muni’s website, when it said the Clerk had 10 days to issue a decision.
That web link that says “10 days” has since been broken and replaced with another link that says she has 30 days.
The Muni website also shows no such petition in review or circulation.
Barbara Jones, the Municipal City Clerk, has since turned the recall application over to Municipal Attorney Kate Vogel for her legal opinion.
Vogel is the same attorney for the city on record saying she believed a protest outside of the Loussac Library earlier this month was in violation of the mayor’s Emergency Order 15, which prohibits groups of 25 or more gathering together outside in Anchorage.
A second recall petition by citizens is waiting in the wings for Assembly Chair Felix Rivera. That one cannot proceed until six months after the April election, according to law. But with an additional 30 days now added onto the process by the Muni, it’s more like seven months before the recall can truly begin.
Another petition for voter action has also been filed with the Muni, and that is to repeal the authorization of the use of CARES Act funds for Mayor Berkowitz’ Homeless Hotel plan.
According to the new standards posted, that Aug. 13 petition to take the question to voters on the April 6 ballot may not be answered by the Clerk until mid-September.
The group advancing that repeal initiative is preparing to legally appeal what it expects will be a refusal from Municipal Attorney Vogel.
Once an application for a petition is authorized, the groups seeking the recalls and repeal will each have to get 7,930 valid signatures from Anchorage voters, and then the matter goes to the voters.
The group seeing to recall Zalatel says she violated the law by allowing one member of the public to testify at a meeting that was closed to the rest of the public.
Schools won’t open for in-person learning on the Central Kenai Peninsula as scheduled on Monday, Aug. 24, but the North Peninsula Recreation Service Area has an answer.
It has opened Nikiski Recreation Center facilities up for study hall and remote learning, free of charge, Monday through Friday from 10 am to 6 pm. People need to call ahead and make a reservation at 907-776-8800. The center is located at Mile 23.4 of the Kenai Spur Highway.
In other words, students won’t be able to sit together in classrooms, but they can at least see each other at the recreation center, while their teachers are safe at home, teaching remotely.
“Kids are essential,” said Mayor Charlie Pierce. “The rec center is open to students of all ages. The Internet is provided. Kids who are in the 6th grade and younger must have an adult or family member 16 years or older with them. They’re doing the social distancing and cleaning. The pool at the rec center is also open,” he said.
Superintendent of KPB schools John O’Brien closed down schools from Kasilof to Sterling, saying that the schools are in high-risk zones for the coronavirus pandemic. Only vulnerable students will be able to attend classes in person. That includes special education and young children who have performed poorly on tests and are considered “Title 1” students.
“In the SmartStart plan, Special Education PreK; Title I PreK; Kindergarten; and certain groups of students in special education will be able to attend school in person. Bus transportation will continue for students in special education who already receive special education bussing services. In all other instances, transportation will need to be provided by parents or guardians during high-risk levels,” the district wrote.
Offering predictability for our families, staff, and communities is tricky during a global pandemic,” O’Brien said in his announcement last week. “I’ve made the difficult decision to suspend opening schools in central peninsula to onsite at school learning on August 24, 2020. I know how hard this is for our students who are excited to return to school, for families, and for our staff. I’ve looked at the science-based guidance to assist in our decision-making process, consulted with our KPBSD COVID19 Risk Level Medical Advisory Group, and am following our SmartStart plan.
“I am disappointed the positive case count appears to be trending with increases in high risk levels. Every day we will evaluate risk level trends and actual counts. To aid planning for families and eliminate a ping-pong effect back and forth between risk levels, I hope that if case levels in the central peninsula drop to a medium risk level, we can open schools to onsite learning after Labor Day, on Tuesday, September 8, 2020. We will continue providing district level updates every week, plus each school will communicate directly with their families.”
Cases of COVID-19 on the Kenai have trended up, with fishing season underway and an influx of people from outside the region. But the number of cases of the coronavirus are still quite low, averaging about six cases per day across the entire borough over the past seven days. The borough is 24,700 square miles and is home to about 59,000 Alaskans.
The schools affected by the campus closures include:
Aurora Borealis Charter School
Kaleidoscope Charter School
K-Beach Elementary School
Kenai Alternative School
Kenai Central High School
Kenai Middle School
Mountain View Elementary School
Nikiski Middle-High School
Nikiski North Star Elementary School
Redoubt Elementary School
River City Academy
Skyview Middle School
Soldotna Elementary School
Soldotna High School
Soldotna Montessori Charter School
Sterling Elementary School
Other North: Tustumena Elementary School
All sports competitions in the central peninsula are cancelled, including Kenai Central High School; Nikiski Middle-High School; Soldotna High School; Aurora Borealis Charter School; Kenai Middle School; and Skyview Middle School. KPBSD follows ASAA Return-to-Practice Protocols.
Kenai Central High School, Skyview High School, and Soldotna High School pools are closed to public use.
Alaskans tuning into the Republican National Convention on Monday will see a lineup of speakers that includes several familiar names.
One of those names is Sean Parnell. But it’s not the former Alaska governor who will be headlining during the “Land of the Promise” theme that day. It’s the candidate for Congress from Pennsylvania.
The list of speakers on Monday is a conservative’s dream lineup:
Tim Scott, US Senator for South Carolina
Steve Scalise, US House of Representatives Minority Whip and representative for Louisiana’s 1st congressional district
Matt Gaetz, US Representative for Florida’s 1st congressional district
Jim Jordan, US Representative for Ohio’s 4th congressional district
Nikki Haley, diplomat, businesswoman, and author who was the 116th governor of South Carolina and the 29th United States ambassador to the United Nations
Ronna McDaniel, Chair of the Republican National Committee.
Vernon Jones, a Democrat from Georgia, where he was chief executive officer of Dekalb County and served in the Georgia House of Representatives
Amy Johnson Ford, a family nurse practitioner in rural Virginia
Kimberly Guilfoyle, attorney and television news personality who co-hosted The Five on Fox News. Former prosecuting attorney in San Francisco and Los Angeles, former Assistant DA of San Francisco.
Natalie Harp, Advisory board member for Donald J. Trump for President
Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, a conservative college organization
Kim Klacik, Republican House of Representatives candidate for Maryland District #7
Mark & Patricia McCloskey, the couple who brandished firearms and defended their homes from a mob that had stormed the gates of their private community.
Sean Parnell, retired Army infantry captain with the Elite 10th Mountain Division and veteran of 485 days of fierce combat on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and a Pennsylvania 17th Congressional District candidate
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre
Donald Trump, Jr., son of the president
Tanya Weinreis, coffee shop owner from Montana, her shop was the first small business in Montana to qualify for a PPP loan
During the day, 336 delegates will convene in Charlotte, conduct the roll call vote and formally renominate President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for the party’s presidential ticket.
Trump will accept the nomination from the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday. He is planning to take part in all four nights of the convention.
For weeks, the business of the people of Anchorage has been conducted in what can be fairly described as a political cloister.
In late July, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz forbade the public from entering the Loussac Library’s Assembly Chambers, which is the seat of government in Anchorage.
The public may not observe the Assembly, nor the Planning Commission, nor any other quasi-judicial body performing the public’s business, except via a camera operated at the direction of the Assembly. There is no independent observation, just the government-controlled camera.
The State of Alaska’s Open Meetings Act (AS 44.62. 310-. 312) requires that all meetings of a public entity’s governing body be open to the public. The act also says the meetings may be attended by the public via teleconferencing.
But it’s highly doubtful that the authors of the Open Meetings Act ever intended that meetings conducted in a highly accessible city like Anchorage would be held behind locked and guarded doors, where the taxpayers and civically minded are kept out, even though they have made the effort to get out of their easy chairs and get their weary bodies down to the Assembly Chambers to monitor the political process.
Chapter AS 44.62.312 states that governmental units exist “to aid in the conduct of the people’s business; it is the intent of the intent of the law that actions of those units be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly;the people of this state do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies that serve them; the people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know; the people’s right to remain informed shall be protected so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created; the use of teleconferencing under this chapter is for the convenience of the parties, the public, and the governmental units conducting the meetings.”
The section also says that exceptions must be constructed narrowly so as to “avoid exemptions from open meeting requirements and unnecessary executive sessions.”
What is going on at the Anchorage Assembly is the big work-around, designed by Mayor Berkowitz with his emergency powers, and aided and abetted by the presiding officers of the Assembly — Chair Felix Rivera and at other times Vice Chair Meg Zalatel.
The mayor has been granted extended executive powers by the Assembly, and he has used those powers to burden the public. Now he uses them to also exclude the public, so that they may not look their lawmakers in the eyes while laws are broken, spending is appropriated, and ordinances are passed.
The defense will be, of course, that it is televised, but that is a defense that cannot stand. Nowhere in the history of the State have people been under orders to not attend public meetings, and the use of cameras is an inadequate substitute. Viewers cannot see the entire body of lawmakers, but are limited to watching one or two at a time; indeed some of the lawmakers are not even attending the meetings themselves. Viewers are only seeing what the cameraman allows them to see. Anchorage voters cannot see if the mayor is in the back of the room conferring with his advisers, or on the phone. The public cannot witness if their lawmakers are chatting off camera during testimony.
Those who signed up to testify by phone are occasionally hung up on mid-sentence, or they cannot put their views on the record at all because the call-back to them from the clerk does not go through for one reason or another.
The Anchorage Assembly is deep into troubled waters with its flouting of the Alaska Open Meetings Act, and it’s provoking a lawsuit. Already, one member is now subject to recall (Meg Zalatel) for being arbitrary and capricious with the “no public” rule, by inviting one member of the public into the meeting for the purpose of testimony, while excluding all others.
The Municipal Attorney Kate Vogel went further, as she tried to explain why a protest of that emergency order was illegal:
To be clear, the Assembly in Juneau is also in violation of the Open Meetings Act, as it conducts its meetings remotely via Zoom, without the public being present. Assembly members do not need to feel the heat of public condemnation when they’re comfortable in their own castles.
Anchorage is now on Day 164 of the Mayor’s Emergency Powers. On Tuesday, the Assembly will hold yet another secretive meeting, at which it will tackle the controversial ban on “gender confusion conversion therapy” for those under 18 years. That proposed law would mean therapists can encourage young people to follow their gay impulses, but cannot advise them to not do so. The ordinance is being advanced by the three openly gay members of the Assembly and the public is not allowed in the building once again.
They’ll also take up a new tax proposal on vaping products. They’ll decide issues concerning who will have emergency powers if the mayor becomes incapacitated. They’ll vote on establishing an Office of Equity and Justice under the mayor. And the mayor will be asked to give a report on what he has done lately; it is unlikely he will discuss his violations of the Open Meetings Act.
How long will the cloistered meetings go on? How long will the public be prevented from looking their lawmakers in the eye? When will the voters say they’ve had enough?
The problem with lying to voters is that eventually they’ll find out. They always do. In this case, Alaska Senate candidate Al Gross found that out early. According to the Washington Free Beacon, Gross told Democratic donors last week that his “independent” claim is a front. It’s all fake, he admitted.
“I will caucus with the Democrats. I’ve been an independent since I was 18, but if you look at my platform, you’ll see that most of my values are to the left,” Gross reportedly said to a group of high-dollar Democrats last Wednesday. “I’ve met with leadership in the Senate and they are very understanding that my best pathway to win is to remain as an independent.”
Gross made his admission during a meeting with California and New York donors at the Democratic National Convention’s “virtual happy hour.” Of course, that is not what he is telling Alaskans. To them, he’s a rugged independent who once killed a bear.
Even that was not quite the truth. He told Alaska Public Media last year that he had been registered as nonpartisan for much of the past 25 years, but had registered as a Democrat in 2017, and then switch back to nonpartisan a year later.
“Gross’s admission may harm his ability to distance himself from national Democrats in historically red Alaska, which President Donald Trump won by nearly 15 points in 2016,” the Washington Free Beacon wrote.
Some 58 percent of the state’s voters are registered as either nonpartisan or undeclared, which is why more and more Democrat candidates are ditching the D after their names and trying to appear independent.
For Gross, it’s a charade he is willing to endure. He won the Democrats’ primary in Alaska last week, with the party’s endorsement, funds, and best wishes. Now it’s on to the big show — and to persuade nervous donors elsewhere that Alaskans will believe the “independent” label, but that he’ll actually put Sen. Chuck Schumer in place as Senate Majority Leader.
A story in a leading political blog says that the Trump Administration is about to put a dagger through the heart of the Pebble Project.
“The Trump administration is planning to block the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska early next week, six people familiar with the plans told POLITICO, marking a surprise reversal that could be the death knell for the massive copper and gold project,” POLITICO wrote.
Calling the story wrong in that it was based on a “false report [that] surfaced Saturday morning,” the Pebble Partnership says the project is moving forward as expected.
“We firmly believe that the implication pushed by Politico that the White House is going to kill the project is clearly in error, likely made by a rush to publish rather than doing the necessary diligence to track down the full story,” said CEO Tom Collier. “We categorically deny any reports that the Trump Administration is going to return to an Obama-like approach that allowed politics to interfere with the normal, traditional permitting process. This president clearly believes in keeping politics out of permitting – something conservatives and the business community fully support.”
Collier added that the company was told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is going to publish a letter Monday about the status of the “mitigation” of the project. Mitigation generally involves the sideboards put on a project and the protections for the environment that must be in place.
POLITICO wrote that the Army Corps of Engineers office in Alaska plans to hold a conference call Monday with groups associated with the proposed mine to “discuss the decision,” and cited three people “with knowledge of the call. An administration official confirmed the call with POLITICO.”
No such meeting has been announced. Generally, reporters are notified of media availabilities.
“Based upon our ongoing interaction with the USACE, we believe the letter will discuss the need for a significant amount of mitigation for the project’s wetlands impacts. This has been our working premise for quite some time and has been the focus of our recent efforts near the site to complete additional wetlands survey work to better inform our plan. The process and time needed to develop a comprehensive wetlands mitigation plan might result in a slight delay beyond earlier USACE milestones. However, at this time we do not believe this is the case and we will be working with the corps to get them what they need as soon as possible,” Collier said.
The Pebble Project is vastly different than the one originally proposed, but it is still a rallying cry for environmentalists who seek to stop the proposed gold mine, which they say will harm the Bristol Bay fishery.
“We know there are some who do not support the USACE’s findings but just because people don’t like the USACE conclusions does not mean their work has not been thorough,” Collier said.
Recently, Donald Trump Jr. on Twitter said he was opposed to the Pebble Project, raising the hopes of environmental industry advocates that he would be persuasive with his father, the president.
Politico changed its story on Saturday evening after receiving written comments from Collier.
BUSINESSES SAY THEY ARE THE SACRIFICIAL LAMB FOR BAD SCIENCE
Is it working? It has been three weeks since Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s latest Emergency Order 15 went into effect. On Aug 3, he shuttered bars, restaurants, bingo halls, theaters, and churches.
Gatherings indoors are limited to 15 in Anchorage, but people must remain at a distance from each other. Restaurants may serve outdoors and for takeout, and several have created tents outside their establishments, complete with walls, the equivalent of rustic dining rooms with drafty corners.
Gallo’s Mexican Restaurant has a robust but costly solution to the mayor’s indoor dining ban.
Other restrictions and mask mandates are still in effect, hobbling the business community, whilst government work continues unabated and code enforcers comb the city for lawbreakers.
Three weeks later, the change in the number of COVID-19 cases diagnosed per day in Anchorage is somewhat unremarkable.
The trailing average is about 40 new cases a day in Anchorage in each of three-week increments since Aug. 1.
That’s six per day less than the three weeks prior to Aug. 1 (if one removes the one day spike when 152 cases were diagnosed in Anchorage on July 25, which reflects an outbreak at Copper River Seafoods.)
But the decline had already begun in late July, before the emergency order went into effect.
It’s even more striking if you look at the 7-day central moving average for positive tests, shown in the chart below. That average is taken three days before and three days after a point in time, to show more of a rolling average for positive tests:
These charts show that there’s a roller coaster effect with this virus, but do not indicate that the complete shutdown of the Anchorage economy in March slowed the spread.
The mayor briefly opened up the economy in June and July, only to once again close some venues for the entire month of August, primarily hitting restaurants and bars. By the time he decreed EO 15, the cases were dropping.
The mayor has been concerned that the hospitals would become overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, but the data shows that the number of actual beds occupied by these patients is relatively stable and low, currently at 41.
Since March 3, only 198 Alaskans have been hospitalized with the illness — some of them had other conditions that complicated their health, such as heart disease, age, diabetes, or asthma.
The COVID-19 patients are the red lines in these charts:
Mayor Berkowitz has hammered home time and again that he is following the science. The mask mandate is one of those science-driven laws that some say has no science behind it at all and others say may help a little bit at least.
Yet on Friday, he predicted that his mandates would continue in some fashion, although he would not say what he plans to do next week when EO 15 expires.
“I’m going to impose upon you for many more months,” Berkowitz said.
“When we get to the end of the month, we’re going to do something different than what we’re doing today,” the mayor also said.
As Anchorage heads into the chilly fall season, it’s going to be harder for restaurants to provide outdoor dining. On Sept. 15, the daily maximum average temperature is between 53-57 degrees. The minimum temperature in Anchorage is between 39 and 45 degrees.
Some business owners who were shut down on Aug. 3 say they have been sacrificial lambs for no good reason.
“If we were the culprits in the rise of COVID,’ there would have been a sharp drop in the numbers about 10 to 14 days after the shutdown,” said Sandy Powers of Tudor Bingo. “This did not happen. The bars, restaurants, theaters, bingo halls, and churches are paying a massive price. Our employees are struggling, businesses are struggling, and somehow we are supposed to feel like we are a shield protecting the city. It is devastating to all of us.”
At Tudor Bingo, the gaming site has 12,000 square feet and between 100-120 people are in the building at a time, generally seated to play the game. None of the bingo halls have been a site of an outbreak.
“The burden is becoming too great to bear,” said Powers.
Other business owners said it’s the big stores that remain open that are more likely to be places spreading the virus, but are not paying the price that small operators are paying.
WHAT TO MAKE OF THE DATA?
Alaska has been under a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic since March 11. Since that time, there have been 31 deaths attributed to COVID-19 among Alaskans, or about one death every five and a half days. The deaths have been primarily among old or infirm individuals. Some of those deaths are disputed by people who were close to the situation.
The data could very well show that by completely shutting down the economy, the government can, in fact, drive down the number of infections. But it’s a temporary fix, because every time the economy opens back up, infections eventually follow. And no government has yet said what “flat” is or when masks can come off, frustrating business owners and causing many of them to fold.
