A signed affidavit from a media professional in Juneau says that Sen. Cathy Giessel, during a live interview in 2016, said that our military men overseas are raping women.
The document says that Giessel was a guest on a Coastal Alaska Television show when out of the blue, she made disparaging statements about the military.
It would not have been the first time. She also disparaged Rep. Laddie Shaw during the interviews she conducted for Senate Seat M, after the untimely death of Sen. Chris Birch.
The affidavit document was discussed on the Mike Porcaro Show on KENI radio during drive time this afternoon.
In the affidavit, Dorene Lorenz says that her show was meant to focus on positive topics, projects, and ideas. She says Giessel suddenly brought up “an astonishing declarative statement that it was her belief that all UN Peacekeeping forces — including Alaskan troops did was rape third-world women.”
Giessel’s challenger in the Republican Primary election is Roger Holland, a Coast Guard reservist and veteran. He was deployed to the Persian Gulf as a tactical coxswain operating 25-ft machine gun boats in 2002 and 2003-2004. In 2007, he served as Chief of the Boats in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. For his distinguished service, he was awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Global War on Terror Service Medal, the Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal, and the Special Operations Service Ribbon.
Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner, in her personal capacity, has chosen to not endorse one of her predecessors.
She made campaign endorsements while taking personal leave today.
In the House Republican Primary, Amanda Price has denied Chuck Kopp an endorsement and given her nod to Tom McKay for District 24.
Kopp was briefly the commissioner of Public Safety in 2008, but was terminated after 14 days on the job due to events that he had been involved with in Kenai, where he was a police chief for seven years. The incident had to do with a sexual harassment complaint in 2005.
Commissioner Price said she has no animosity toward Kopp, but supports McKay because she respects his support for law enforcement, and in these times, that is more important than ever.
Rep. Kopp was a strong defender of SB 91, known as the catch-and-release crime legislation that unleashed criminals all over Alaska until it was repealed. He fought the repeal, but lost.
Price also threw her endorsement to Roger Holland, running in the Republican primary against Sen. Cathy Giessel for the south Anchorage Seat N.
Giessel voted against Price’s confirmation as commissioner, but that wasn’t the problem for Price. She said she could “never forget how Senator Giessel treated Representative Laddie Shaw. She made an unsubstantiated … vacant reference to his character,” Price wrote.
Rep. Shaw is a decorated retired U.S. Navy SEAL and law enforcement professional.
“That behavior spoke volumes about her character, not his. And it was not the first time she exhibited such behavior,” Price wrote.
Price also said she could not support Rep. Jennifer Johnston for District 28 because she had not held true to the values that voters put her in office to stand for. Johnston is running for reelection and is challenged by conservative James Kauffman.
All candidates in contested races have worries going into Tuesday’s primary. Will the voters find them acceptable to represent them? Will their supporters turn out?
But only one candidate faces felony charges and has a court date two days after the primary: Gabrielle LeDoux, who represents House District 15. Her court date is one week from today for a pre-indictment hearing for a felony charge. The hearing is at 2 pm at the Nesbett Courthouse on Aug. 20.
An email from former Republican Party Chairman Tuckerman Babcock to District 15 voters outlined the problem for LeDoux, with links to newspaper clippings and the charging documents:
That might explain why the president of the Hmong Community in Alaska, Pastert Lee, has endorsed David Nelson, who is challenging LeDoux in the Tuesday primary, Babcock wrote.
Although she has not been convicted, LeDoux was notified of the charges by the Alaska Department of Law in March. She could have been removed at that point by the House, but was protected by House Rules Chairman Chuck Kopp, who is in charge of all the offices and the staff.
“All of us need a new State Representative that we can trust. That’s why I’m endorsing David Nelson for the Republican nomination in House District 15. Please join your neighbors in the Hmong Community in voting for David Nelson in the Primary Election on August 18,” said Pasert Lee, quoted in the letter from District 30.
PUBLIC WAS NOT ABLE TO WITNESS MEETING, WHICH HAS HAD A TORTURED JOURNEY ON YOUTUBE
The recording of the public meeting on Tuesday night, when the Anchorage Assembly voted to spend tens of millions of federal dollars on controversial projects, has been removed from YouTube.
On the night of the meeting, hundreds watched the proceedings on the new audio-visual system the Municipality is using, which interfaces with YouTube.
When the clock struck midnight and the meeting ended, the video disappeared, with only the message that it had been removed “by the uploader.” That would have been the Municipality.
Then, on Wednesday morning, the video was available again, but the public has no way of knowing if it has been edited from the original version.
Then, the video has been removed again, for being too long.
Thursday morning, the video was reposted on YouTube. There’s no way to know if it has been edited in the meantime.
The public was not allowed in the meeting, but a gathering of angry Anchorage residents were outside the Loussac Library, demanding entry and declaring their rights to observe public proceedings. Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has forbidden the public from witnessing the spending of the CARES Act $156 million that was transferred to the city.
The use of that money — to roll out a massive program for street people — is being questioned by the federal government after complaints were made to the Inspector General of the U.S. Treasury.
Alaskans have requested absentee ballots in such great numbers that they are crushing the record books.
Between early voting, absentee ballots requested, and online voting, more than 63,400 Alaskans have already gotten engaged with the 2020 Alaska primary.
Compare that to 2018, when that number was about 22,000 at this point in the election cycle.
That’s a 200 percent increase.
So far, Democrats have outdone themselves on the absentee ballot requests. They’ve asked for 16,560 absentee ballots, compared with Republicans, who have requested 15,105.
That is offset by a nearly 75 percent drop in the early vote, which Democrats typically dominate.
This appears to be a change in Democrat voting behavior, switching to absentee ballots rather than showing up at the polls for early voting.
Nationally, Democrats have been pushing for vote by mail, and have a greater aversion to being in public places where they might catch the COVID-19 coronavirus. Republicans have been less fearful about going to the polls, according to a new Axios-Ipsos poll.
How many will vote by Tuesday in the primary? Nobody knows, and it varies wildly. In 2018, 115,737 Alaskans voted in the primary, while in 2016, nearly 89,000 voted. In 2014, the total was 193,097.
A referendum application was filed with the Municipal Clerk today to prevent the Berkowitz Administration from using the CARES Act funds to buy four buildings around Anchorage and turn them into services and rooms for Anchorage street people.
The application would put on the April 6 ballot a question to voters to decide whether the action of the Assembly on Aug. 11 will stand.
The Wednesday decision took $12.5 million from the CARES Act funds the city received form the federal government through the State of Alaska and would purchase four buildings around town and then roll out services and shelters to be paid for somehow, in ways certainly not disclosed to the public yet. The rest of the $22.5 million for the buildings would come from the sale of ML&P to Chugach Electric.
Former Mayor Dan Sullivan was one of the 10 signatories on the referendum application, which now must be accepted or rejected by the Clerk’s Office within 10 days.
If accepted, then the proponents of the repeal of AO66 would have to collect about 7,500 signatures, or 25 percent of the votes cast in the last election.
The group backing the referendum passed the hat last month to raise money from homeowners in various neighborhoods in Rogers Park, College Village, Heather Meadows, Geneva Woods, and Spenard. The effort was coordinated with grassroots participants, many of whom are new to the political process.
The signature collection effort will be conducted by the same group, said a source close to the network of neighbors.
Earlier in the day, the U.S. Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Treasury told the Berkowitz Administration in no uncertain terms that the use of CARES Act money to buy the buildings is not following the intent of the Federal CARES Act, which is intended to help bridge economic hardships felt by homeowners, renters, businesses, and municipalities, but is not intended to solve preexisting problems or pay for projects that have nothing to do with the economic and health crisis resulting from the pandemic.
Inspector General of the United States Department of the Treasury is not happy with Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and his homeless hotel plan, not if it’s using CARES Act funds.
A call today with the city ended badly for Mayor Berkowitz and the nine Assembly members who just last night voted to spend $12.5 million of the CARES Act money — which is intended for COVID relief — to complete a $22.5 million deal for four buildings around Anchorage. Those buildings would be used to house street people and treat their drug addiction.
The vote came even though the Assembly knew the Inspector General was wise to the scheme to divert money that is intended to help with rents, mortgages and businesses.
In fact, there is almost no part of AO66 that the federal government agreed with on the phone call.
The municipality cannot use the money to backfill pay for fire and police, for expenditures the municipality already had voted for before COVID hit.
The municipality also cannot spend $1 million on a union project offered by Rep. Zack Fields that would funnel money to union bosses, who would hire people to build trails for the next few weeks. That is not a COVID need.
But the biggest blow was the omnibus plan of Mayor Berkowitz to create a network of services and hotels for vagrants. The feds said the city cannot buy buildings with the COVID money.
This puts the entire AO66 in peril.
It appears the mayor and the liberal Assembly members wanted to move forward quickly and then ask for forgiveness, but Delmar gave them no hope, telling the municipality’s attorney Kate Vogel that he, too, is an attorney and can very well read the law.
One of the most important races in Alaska this primary season is Senate Seat N — South Anchorage.
Roger Holland, a Coast Guard veteran, is on a mission to retire Sen. Cathy Giessel, who has formed dysfunctional alliances with Democrats, while abandoning the conservative principles that she ran on.
Her tack to the left has many of us shaking our heads. What happened to the Cathy Giessel that was once a reliable fiscal conservative?
Roger Holland rose to the challenge after he had seen enough of the antics in Juneau. Under the leadership of Giessel as Senate president, the pettiness and mean-spiritedness in politics had reached new lows in the Legislature. The only thing she could be counted on doing was lining up with the likes of Democrat Tom Begich. She punished any Republican who wanted to cut the budget, and put a Democrat in as majority leader. It was her way or the highway.
Giessel immediately drove a wedge between herself and the governor, and she built her strongest alliance with Democratic House Speaker Bryce Edgmon. Together, they were a disaster during the last two years. Now, Giessel is so tied in with Democrats that they actually want her to win. She’s endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which leads the charge for more government spending. AFL-CIO Boss Vince Beltrami ran against her four years ago, but now she’s doing his bidding, and he’s supporting her.
That’s not what is right for Alaska, and certainly not in sync with District N. Voters in Senate District N deserve better. Roger Holland doesn’t have the entrenched perspective of a professional politician. He’s bringing fresh eyes to the problems this state faces, and will not cave on his conservative principles.
Unlike Giessel, Roger Holland is running for the right reasons, to represent District N with honor.
“I will put constituents first,” Holland said. “I will be true to my word, whether here in the District or when I go to Juneau. That’s what all of us expect, and what District N deserves.”
Paid for by Holland for Alaska, P.O.Box 111852, Anchorage, AK, 99511.
As protesters lined the library grounds, chants of “Open up,” and “Let us in” rang through the crowd on Tuesday night.
Assembly member Jamie Allard, who entered through the library building’s side doors, was met with thunderous applause, but most notable was the absence of every other Assembly member, including Mayor Ethan Berkowitz.
Word quickly spread that many of the Assembly members had entered through the back doors, including the mayor, who was swiftly ushered in under guard, while wearing a black mask.
The protest immediately moved to the library’s back entrance as the doorway closed shut. When questioned, library staff refused to allow access into the building, citing capacity limits.
Undeterred, the crowd let out a chorus of “Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!” which reverberated throughout the shallow back entry. Vehicles parked around the library began honking their horns as if orchestrated by legendary composer Howard Shore. Meanwhile, things were heating up in the Assembly Chambers.
Assembly Members Christopher Constant and Suzanne LaFrance introduced floor amendments to AR 2020-296, a resolution introduced by Assembly Member Jamie Allard and Crystal Kennedy to open the Assembly Chambers to public testimony and participation.
The changes made by Constant and LaFrance essentially hijacked the resolution and relegated all public participation to email or telephone, a death blow to the public’s right to testify in front of the Assembly.
The protest settled on the lawn in front of 36th Street, where the crowd waved signs, flags, and hands at oncoming vehicles. Many were showing their support by honking while they drove past the large group, which numbers in the several hundreds.
Speeches by a few, including Dave Bronson, electrified the crowd as calls for liberty and freedom rang true among the protesters. But inside the Assembly Chambers, deliberations around AO 2020-66 intensified.
Many Assembly Members thanked those who publicly testified, but in the end, those testimonies fell on deaf ears.
In what can only be considered a landslide, the Assembly voted 9-2 to approve AO 2020-66. Assembly Members Jamie Allard and Crystal Kennedy of Eagle River were the two “no” votes.
With tonight’s approval, the municipality can move forward in acquiring four properties with CARES Act funds for homeless services. The only roadblock left for the Berkowitz Administration is a call with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which the Treasury’s Inspector General has requested due to the number of complaints received about the use of the CARES Act funds.
By 11:15 pm, there were still dozens of protesters outside, some of them in their vehicles driving in circles in front of the building and honking their horns. Police came by and told them to tone it down. The meeting was set to end at midnight, and protestors appeared determined to stay until the Assembly members gaveled out and were heading to their cars.
