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Nancy Pelosi and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

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SPEAKER PELOSI RIPS STATE OF UNION SPEECH — DURING SPEECH

It’s been a rough few months for Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She was dragged unwillingly into impeaching the president, and it has damaged her brand badly.

In October, she accused the president of bribery. Then it was Ukraine and the quid pro quo talking points. Then it was a cover up.

She could have kept the impeachment articles in her pocket in December, but didn’t.

And then, she invited the president to give his State of the Union address, timing the impeachment proceedings to lead up to it for maximum damage.

When he arrived in the House of Representatives on Tuesday night, he was greeted by cheers from Republicans, who shouted “Four more years!” and by the sullen faces of Democrat women lawmakers, dressed in white and sitting silent during nearly every part of his speech.

He approached his podium and handed both Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Pelosi copies of his speech. Pelosi reached our her right hand to shake Trump’s hand, but he kept moving. He wasn’t going to honor a phony gesture.

In the end of the nearly hourlong speech, Pelosi organized her copy of the speech into three distinct piles, and waited.

As Trump nearly finished his eloquent remarks with uplifting and hopeful words that inspired his base, Pelosi prepared to pounce. She stood. He was not quite done saying “God bless America,” when she ripped up the speech, section by section.

She told reporters,  “Because it was a courteous thing to do considering the alternative. It was such a dirty speech.”

The White House responded on Twitter:

Speaker Pelosi just ripped up: One of our last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. The survival of a child born at 21 weeks. The mourning families of Rocky Jones and Kayla Mueller. A service member’s reunion with his family. That’s her legacy. – The White House

Pelosi had sat dour during much of the remarks, which were perhaps the most poetic and well-delivered of Trump’s career. Her guest in the gallery, Fred Guttenberg, was ejected by security for an outburst. His daughter was killed in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. in 2018. “What about my daughter?” Guttenberg yelled during the speech, before being removed from the room.

Trump hit all the right points, from the right to life, school choice, Second Amendment, legal immigration, building infrastructure, planting trees, family leave, military strength, jobs for all, cheaper medicine, and the strongest economy in history. His words were soaring and statesmanlike, and he did not shoot across the bow of the impeachment leaders in the room, but ignored his impeachment entirely. Across the country, the response from conservatives was largely positive, with many lauding him for giving conservative talk show personality Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Democrats groaned audibly during that ceremony, as Melania Trump placed the medal around Limbaugh’s neck.

Meanwhile, things were already going badly for the Democrats in other parts of the country, something surely on Pelosi’s mind. The Iowa Caucus on Monday was a pageant of incompetence, and results were still coming in late on Tuesday, but under a cloud of suspicion by most candidates.

Joe Biden, who Pelosi backs, was doing poorly, attracting just 15 percent of the vote, with 71 percent of precincts reporting.

It also became evident this week that the Senate would not convict the president of the charges put forth by the Democrats in the House. On Monday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski issued a stinging rebuke of the work done in the House, and on Tuesday, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine also said the House had failed in its duties, and she would vote to acquit.

For icing on the cake of this very bad week, on Wednesday, Pelosi will face yet another crushing defeat as the Senate holds its final vote and acquits the president.

Lucinda Mahoney named Commissioner of Revenue

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FORMER CFO FOR MUNICIPALITY OF ANCHORAGE

Gov. Mike Dunleavy today appointed Lucinda Mahoney as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue.

Mahoney has 30 years of broad experience in the areas of consulting, treasury, debt management, investment management, accounting, budgeting, and business development. She was named Commissioner effective today, Feb. 4, 2020.

“Lucinda’s experienced background and outstanding work ethic will make her an excellent Commissioner. Her previous experience with the Municipality of Anchorage, and understanding of debt services, will be valuable to not only the Department of Revenue, but our entire state as we look to create a more prosperous future,” the governor said. “I thank Lucinda for her readiness to serve our great state.”

Mahoney is the owner of Value Solutions, LLC, from which she operates as a business consultant and investment manager. She formerly served as the chief financial officer for the Municipality of Anchorage, and as the executive director of the Arctic Slope Regional Development shared services center. Prior to that, Mahoney was a director with KPMG LLP, managing its business consulting practice in Alaska.

She received her Bachelors of Business Administration from the University of Texas, and her Masters of Business Administration from the University of Alaska, and received certification from the National Association of Certified Valuation Analysts.

“I share the governor’s vision of obtaining long term fiscal sustainability to create opportunities for all Alaskans and move Alaska forward. I look forward to working with Governor Dunleavy and his administration to identify practical and efficient solutions to the issues our state is currently facing,” said Mahoney, in the governor’s news release.

Mike Barnhill, who was appointed Acting Commissioner of the Department of Revenue in December when Bruce Tangeman resigned will serve as the department’s deputy commissioner.

Obsessed: House Democrats fester over AIDEA contract

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‘POLITICAL THEATER’ BREAKS OUT OVER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

For nearly a year, left-leaning bloggers and mainstream media have had an obsession with an upbeat Alaskan business entrepreneur named Clark Penney.

Today, House Democrats Sara Hannan, Zack Fields, and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins gave into their obsession by spending nearly 90 minutes of a House committee meeting badgering the Dunleavy Administration about Penney, who makes $8,000 a month as a confidential economic development consultant asked by the Administration to bring more commercial enterprises and diversified investment dollars to the state.

It’s the kind of work that requires a certain set of skills, and trusted contacts with the business community at large. Penney, who also owns a wealth management firm and who has several special licenses with the Securities and Exchange Commission, brings that unique skill set.

The economic development adviser is also a role that can’t be put out to the lowest bidder, although that was the inference from the questions brought by the Democrats on the House Commerce Committee, chaired by Democrat Rep. Adam Wool.

Penney, whose grandfather is a leading business leader in Alaska and who was a financial backer of a group that supported Gov. Dunleavy’s campaign for governor, was awarded a sole-source contract to drive economic growth.

He is paid through the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority. And in Year One, he’s been instrumental in the expansion of the Ted Stevens International Airport as a cargo hub.

Democrats in the Legislature are fascinated that Penney, with all his success and family wealth, should be awarded a contract, although they showed little interest in the $120,000 per month contract that Gov. Bill Walker awarded to his old friend Rigdon Boykin. Democrats also had no curiosity about the $100,000 per month contract to Walker’s other Alaska Gasline Development Authority colleague Radoslav Shipkoff.

Why so little Democrat curiosity about Walker contracts with Boykin and Shipkoff?

Those were deals put together by nominal Independent Gov. Walker on behalf of his gasline project, a venture that never materialized, although hundreds of millions of dollars were spilled along the way to the shelf where the project currently sits.

Eight months into Boykin’s contract, Walker finally had paid off what many believe to be his personal handshake-debt to the South Carolina lawyer, and Boykin disappeared back to the South Carolina piedmont, along with $850,000 of State of Alaska money. Still, no inquiry from the Democrats.

While Penney grosses just $8,000 a month, a fraction of the Boykin contract, Democrats Rep. Hannan, Kreiss-Tomkins, and Fields were prepared to dominate the presentation of the Department of Commerce and AIDEA by constantly emphasizing that Penney would gross $440,000 if he was retained for the full 40 months of the possible contract, which is an at-will agreement.

His contract is actually $8,000 a month with reimbursable expenses not to exceed $36,000 for travel and other related costs of doing business.

The Democrats see this as a soft spot to stick a knife in the Dunleavy Administration.

“My question is, do you supervise Clark Penney and do you have an idea what he does on a day to day basis,” asked Rep. Zack Fields, an Anchorage Democrat, in a pointed question to John Springsteen, deputy commissioner of Commerce. Springsteen said he did not. It was the beginning of a series of questions that drilled into the same theme: Who hired Penney?

“Is Mr. Penney, in your view, a member of the Economic Development Team, as Commissioner Anderson said last week?” Fields continued. The interruptions continued throughout Springsteen’s presentation.

Fields pointed out that Penney had only started his business a year ago. But a search of business records shows that Penny started his consulting company, Penney Capital, in 2014, but then converted his company to an S Corporation in 2018, at the same time dissolving the LLC structure.

The questions continued to focus on Penney. Fully half of those asked during the presentation were aimed at discrediting the businessman.

Kreiss-Tomkins, suspicious that Penney isn’t all he’s cracked up to be, wanted to know what Penney knew about mariculture.

And finally, he showed the Democrats’ cards, by stating that the reason they were all so focused on Penney is that his grandfather supported Dunleavy.

Fields continued with several questions about Penney and who had made the decision to hire him.

Hannan asked why Penney wasn’t working on transportation issues for Southeast Alaska.

Finally, Rep. Colleen Sullivan-Leonard, who had not gotten the memo about this being a coordinated attack, had heard enough of the cross-examination of AIDEA President Tom Boutin, and called for a point of order:

“This is getting into political theater and that is something I don’t appreciate,” she said. “We’ve got work to do here at the table. I’m here to work. It’s not a Clark Penney committee. This is DCCED, it’s AIDEA, it’s ADT (Alaska Development Team). Can we move forward, please?”

Mayor Berkowitz endorses Bloomberg for president

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Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has endorsed billionaire New Yorker Michael Bloomberg for president.

According to Politico, Berkowitz joins former Flint, Michigan Mayor Karen Weaver; former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. Two dozen current and former mayors have signed on with Bloomberg, the news site reports.

Bloomberg, the media mogul who entered the Democrat field toward the end of 2019, recently made a massive donation to the Municipality Anchorage under the Berkowitz administration.

In 2018, the billionaire former mayor of New York City arrived in Alaska’s largest city on a private jet to award up to $1 million for a public art project focused on climate change, which is one of Berkowitz’ top priorities.

The money was funneled through the Anchorage Museum, which is a partnership between the museum nonprofit that derives significant support from the Rasmuson Foundation and the municipality.

Bloomberg’s grant, the first in the nation under his climate change philanthropic initiative, went into setting up the Solutions for Energy and Equity Through Design Lab, or SEED Lab. In a vacant building in downtown Anchorage near the museum. The SEED Lab is a think tank and public art space to design projects that relate to climate change solutions.

What’s the matter with Iowa? Caucus meltdown

What started out with election excitement ended in suspicion and few answers.

The Iowa Caucus of the Democrats went late into the night with confusion over the actual results, and candidates having to give their “victory” speeches without knowing even when the results would come.

In multiple precincts, callers said that caucus chairs did not know how to calculate the final math. The rules allowed people to leave the building they were caucusing in after the first round of “alignment.” Some caucus chairs counted only the total of those who remained in the room for the second round of alignment, rather than the total of all who had initially come through the door.

It’s a “ranked choice” voting method that ended in disaster, as it was calculated in different ways in different precincts.

Others said their technology was to blame. The precincts were using an application (an app) created for caucus officials. The app wasn’t giving accurate results.

Confusion reigned late into the night on Monday, with no clear results and fading confidence by the grassroots supporters of candidates. Was this yet another attempt to cut Bernie Sanders out?

Party officials finally held a call with the campaigns late Monday night, and said that the party had “found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.”

There is a paper trail, the party says, to allay concerns that the system was hacked.

“The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results,” a Democrat spokeswoman said.

Joe Biden’s campaign is now questioning the integrity and eventual results. The campaign sent a letter to the Iowa Democratic Party demanding a full explanation about the “acute failures” that were occurring statewide.

Bernie Sanders’ supporters across the country are already deeply suspicious of the Democratic National Committee rigging the process, like it did in 2016 when it awarded the majority of delegates to Hillary Clinton.

For Republicans on social media, the jokes were writing themselves:

“What’s the hold up? The Democrats are socialists. Just evenly distribute the delegates and call it a night,” wrote Keri Kellerman.

“Siri, show me what Democrats will do if they run America’s economy and healthcare system,” quipped media personality Ben Shapiro.

“Going just like the Obama Care rollout. What a disaster, but at least Democrats are consistent,” another trolled.

“On my second bowl of popcorn. This is fun!” wrote Laura Ingraham.

Even Alaska’s expert on caucuses and presidential preference polls got in on the fun:

“I thought about calling Tom Begich to see if he wants me to come run their primary,” quipped Randy Ruedrich, former chairman of the Alaska Republican Party.

WHAT ABOUT ALASKA DEMOCRATS?

Alaska Democrats have to be watching with concern. In just a few weeks, they will roll out their own ballot-caucus, in which they will attempt to use mail-in ballots, ranked voting, and in-person elections, all run by volunteers.

They, too, will be using technology to help them calculate the results, and calculating ranked-choice voting will require a bit of trust in the software and trust in the users of the system.

The Alaska Democrats’ plan was approved of by the Democratic National Committee late last year, but then in January, the party’s data director left in haste, and the FBI was called in to interview the staff and officers.

No explanation has been given by the Alaska Democrats about the reason the FBI was brought in.

Fake emergency? Recall group asking Supreme Court to hurry up the hearings

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The “legal dream team” at the heart of the effort to recall Gov. Mike Dunleavy believe they have an emergency on their hands, and they’re asking the Alaska Supreme Court to grant them an emergency hearing.

The emergency? A lower court judge ruled against the Recall Dunleavy Committee — but only in part.

Superior Court Judge Eric Aarseth said the group can continue with its recall effort, but will not be allowed to collect signatures on a petition until the recall challenges make their way through the Supreme Court.

Former Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth and former Chief of Staff Scott Kendall are the lead lawyers for the Recall Dunleavy Committee. They were also lead dogs in the Walker Administration, essentially running the state until they became unelected along with Walker in 2018.

Theirs is a campaign of political revenge, and they have the backing of deep pockets who objected to the governor’s budget cuts last year. They also have their own legal reputations on the line; this, after all, is the former attorney general throwing her weight around to avenge the 2018 election. Losing would not be a good look.

The recallers, including Lindemuth and Kendall, started their effort to unseat Dunleavy almost immediately after he was sworn in, and they began compiling their list of “offenses” that they could take to the public for a do-over vote. Their efforts are eerily similar to the calls for impeachment of President Trump, which began as soon as he took office.

Lindemuth and Kendall knew their cases would end up in court, and they might have expected that Dunleavy would challenge them all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Stand Tall With Mike group is doing just that. But Lindemuth and Kendall are fighting the clock now — they do not want this governor’s recall to be a question on the General Election ballot, when Republicans come out in force to vote. Therefore, they are asserting they have an emergency.

[Read: Plans to fast-track recall hit molasses in January]

Judge Aarseth last month called it inappropriate for the Division of Elections to issue petition booklets before the Alaska Supreme Court determines if any of the actual “charges” are legal grounds for a recall. Aarseth himself already threw out one of the charges.

The grounds for recall that the group has remaining include:

  • The governor made partisan statements. This relates to a media campaign in which he asked people to contact their lawmakers and ask them to vote for a full Permanent Fund dividend. Using this logic, no politician may make partisan political statements.
  • The governor was late appointing a judge. In fact, Dunleavy met the constitutional deadline for appointing the judge and there was never a vacancy.
  • The governor vetoed administrative funds for the court system. The lawyers are asserting that the governor doesn’t have a constitutional right to veto funds unless they agree with his reason.
  • The governor made a mistake on a veto in 2019. The mistake, a scrivener’s error, was corrected when discovered and no harm was done.

Recall Dunleavy wants its hearing this month in the Supreme Court; it wants the court to overturn the lower court ruling so it can get its hands on those petition booklets. Recall Dunleavy is asking for oral arguments on the merits of the case to be held Feb. 19-21. If it can’t get the hearing it wants, then it’s asking the court to allow the signature-gathering phase to begin anyway.

“The citizens seeking recall are irreparably harmed by every additional day of delay,” the lawyers argued in their request for an emergency hearing.

In a scrivener’s error of her own, lawyer Lindemuth has asked the court for a hearing schedule to be set by no later than Tuesday, Feb. 5.

It’s unclear if Lindemuth, in her haste, meant Tuesday, Feb. 4, or Wednesday, Feb. 5. But this is the kind of error for which Lindemuth and Kendall believe a governor can be recalled.

The Stand Tall With Mike group will need to file its response to the court no later than Feb. 7.

The group didn’t file its application for petition booklets until Sept. 5, 2019. It could have filed months earlier because it had the requisite signatures weeks prior to Sept. 5, but now it wants the court to declare an emergency to ramrod the matter through the courts.

Breaking: Murkowski is a ‘no’ vote; flawed process

“I cannot vote to convict,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski on the Senate floor late Monday afternoon. She said the process has been flawed and was built on a rotten foundation from the outset.

Murkowski went on to argue how the House had rushed through the process on a self-imposed deadline and had failed in its responsibilities. She also took on her fellow senators, saying they should be ashamed by the rank partisanship that has been on display.

“We cannot be the greatest deliberative body when we kick things off by issuing letters to the media instead of coming together to set the parameters of the trial and negotiate in good faith on how we should proceed. For all the talk of impartiality, it is clear to me that few in this chamber approach this with a genuinely open mind.

Some have been calling for the president to be impeached for years, she said.

“Indeed, we saw just today the clips that indicate headlines, 19 minutes after the president was sworn into office, calling for his impeachment. Others in this chamber saw little need to even consider the arguments from the House before stating their intentions to acquit,” she continued.

“It’s my hope that we’ve finally found bottom here,” she said, as the last speaker of the day. “That both sides can look inward and reflect on the apparent willingness that each has to destroy not just each other, but all of the institutions of our government. And for what? Because it may help win an election? At some point, Mr. President, at some point for our country, winning has to be about more than winning, or we will all lose.”

Check back for updates.

Watch Murkowski’s 10-minute speech here.

Rep. Schiff: Trump could give Alaska to the Russians

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Rep. Adam Schiff, in his closing arguments to the U.S. Senate today, said that if President Trump is not convicted on the charges brought by the House Democrats, the president could give Alaska to the Russians in exchange for helping him win the next election.

The passage is in this 41-second clip from CSPAN:

It’s essentially an idea lifted from New York Times partisan columnist Nicholas Kristof, offered in a January 22 column, in which Kristof asked, rhetorically perhaps:

“Note to Alaska senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan: Your thoughts, comrades?”

“Do we really think that there should be no checks on a rogue president as he handed Alaska over to Putin — or Florida to Spain, while we’re at it — or even as he pardoned streams of Republican bank robbers? Must we tolerate an out-of control ruler who engages, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, in ‘a long train of abuses and usurpations‘?”

Coronavirus impacts oil, jet fuel demand in China, Asia

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VIRUS HAS INFECTED 17,388, DEATHS NOW AT 362

The coronavirus outbreak may cut the demand for oil in China by as much as 250,000 barrels a day during the first quarter of 2020, as the country tries to contain a major coronavirus outbreak, according to Wood Mackenzie, a research firm.

“Chinese overseas travel increased from 20 million in 2003 to around 150 million in 2018 in terms of person-times,” Wood Mackenize said in its report. “As a survey shows that more than half of Chinese overseas travellers prefer group tours, the ban on tour packages will severely restrain the number of Chinese visitors to popular destinations in East/Southeast Asia, such as Japan and Thailand.”

China’s need for jet fuel will be greatly reduced as travel bans take effect and travelers begin to change their plans across Asia.

That, in our, will have an impact on world markets, and may soften the price of Alaska North Slope crude this week, if only temporarily.

On Jan. 30, ANS oil was trading at $60.43 per barrel. Brent was trading at $58.29, down from $68.60 on Jan. 3.

Global demand for crude oil in 2018 was 99.3 million barrels per day. It was projected to increase to 101.6 million barrels per day in 2020, according to Statista. China reducing its oil use by 250,000 barrels a day is statistically small, but is a significant event in commodities markets.

The Wood Mackenzie report assesses the impact of the ongoing coronavirus on oil demand, and compares it to what happened to oil demand during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

The WoodMac report is at this link. However, it will set you back $1,350.

STEEL AND MINING

The virus will also have an impact on steel and iron markets, WoodMac said in a separate report.

 There will be a “direct impact on steel and raw material demand due to the delayed restart of some construction projects, and other downstream industries,” the report noted.

“However, we now expect that steel destocking will be put off by attempts to limit the spread of Coronavirus during the second quarter. With rebar inventories already higher than the last two years, steel prices and margins will be squeezed. Declining steel prices in China will likely also have a knock-on effect on steel markets outside China,” WoodMac reported.

“During the SARS outbreak construction activities slowed due to shortage of workers and a slump in consumer demand. SARs led to China’s economic growth slowing in the second quarter of 2003, by around 2.2% quarter on quarter,” WoodMac reported.

NATURAL GAS

The China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) has said it will offer force majeure certificates to companies that are impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Such certificates excuse a company from not performing its contractual obligations that becomes impossible or impracticable, due to an event or effect that the parties could not have anticipated or controlled.

Although the government has extended the Chinese New Year’s holiday through Feb. 2, some sectors, such as oil refineries in Shandong province and automakers will not reopen before Feb. 10, and the country’s economic growth is in for a slowdown in 2020.

Sinopec Corp, Asia’s largest refiner, will reduce throughput in February by around 600,000 barrels per day, according to Reuters.

The People’s Bank of China announced on Sunday that it will inject 1.2 trillion yuan, or $173 billion into the Chinese economy to cushion the effects of the virus on the markets.

Both Sinopec and the Bank of China were signatories on the gasline with Gov. Bill Walker; however those plans have been shelved since Walker left office.

The Shanghai Composite Index fell 8.7% Monday when trading opened, rebounding slightly as the Chinese government stepped in to stabilize it.