The editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News couldn’t help himself. Tom Hewitt just had to respond to the critiques of his former newspaper colleagues Dermot Cole and Pat Dougherty, in this lively exchange, during which he tried to explain his position without explaining it and without actually endorsing his newspaper’s position.
In doing so, Hewitt distanced himself from the owners of the largest newspaper in Alaska, and he also distanced himself from the “wait and see” editorial he had penned on their behalf, basically saying he wrote it, but he doesn’t own it.
All of these nocturnal discharges came over what amounts to a 13 percent cut to state government, (and still a deficit of over $750 million.) The Left is beside itself and they’re staying up all night.
Here’s the Twitter exchange, in part, to give you a sense of what the Newspaper Boys do with their spare time:
Did Hewitt really just say that? Yes, he did.
Then he goes on to bicker with the most left-leaning writer in Alaska, by saying it’s not a decision he “gets to make,” which is a bit of virtue signaling to indicate he disagrees with what he wrote for the newspaper:
It went like this, back and forth, through the night as progressive journalists argued about whether this is Armageddon and whether the Binkley family ownership of the newspaper is essentially complicit in the scheme to destroy the state.
But the Twitter war didn’t end there with the journalists. Andrew Halcro, who is the executive director of the Anchorage Community Development Authority and an appointee of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, had this to say about the governor’s budget:
THIS ASSIGNMENT IS FOR CREDIT AT UAA — WRITE LEGISLATORS AND OBJECT
A University of Alaska Anchorage writing professor, name unknown, has assigned to her writing students an unusual and questionable task: Write to their legislators to protest cuts to the university system. It’s an assignment for credit and the instructions are clear. Here’s the assignment:
The professor tells students that “no matter your position on the University Budget” they’ll get points. But she also makes it clear there is only one right answer to this assignment: They need to write about how bad the cuts are.
Gov. Michael Dunleavy last week, in an effort to balance the State budget, vetoed $130 million from the University of Alaska budget, which is 40 percent of the funds the system is used to getting from the state. Most of the university funds comes from federal money, tuition and grants.
Because it’s a summer class, it’s likely there won’t be a flood of letters. In fact, those letters will be lost in the tsunami of letters coming from national groups from the Lower 48, which are responding to a coordinated letter writing campaign by the university administration, led by UA President Jim Johnsen.
The Legislature currently doesn’t have the votes to override a veto, but in this high-stakes environment, anything could happen — even blackmail or bribery — and Johnsen has been engaged in a full court press to try to turn legislators. He needs 45 votes to override the veto and he is far from having that number.
But Johnsen has help from the Democrats, at least. In Anchorage on Tuesday, legislators will be holding “listening sessions” to hear from constituents about the budget, in an effort to build a case for overriding the governor’s budget and deliver a defeat to him during his first year. The Anchorage meeting is sponsored by Reps. Ivy Spohnholz, Zack Fields, Harriet Drummond, Matt Claman, Geran Barr, and Sen. Tom Begich.
INVOCATION IS BY ‘FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER PASTAFARIAN’
Another lively meeting is in store for Tuesday in Kenai.
Kenai Borough Assembly members Hal Smalley and Kelly Cooper are introducing an ordinance to get rid of the mayor’s authority at the regular Assembly meeting, which convenes at 6 pm at 144 North Binkley Street.
The ordinance in question would remove the mayor’s position as the chief executive and install a manager-style form of government for the borough.
Currently, voters decide every three years on who the administrator is for the borough. That person is currently Mayor Charlie Pierce, who succeeded Mike Navarre after Navarre was term-limited out of office.
Pierce has been a fiscal hawk and recently has vetoed items that raised the ire of some. In the spring, he vetoed $2.4 million in supplemental spending for schools in the borough, and the effort to override his veto failed, 3-6, with Cooper, Smalley and Willy Dunne the three voting to override the veto.
Pierce wrote a memo to residents of the borough in May explaining his thoughts about the extra spending for schools, and he mentioned the likely cuts of state funding as a major reason he wanted to be cautious about overspending in the current fiscal year.
If the Cooper-Smalley ordinance proceeds through the Assembly process, it would likely be referred to a committee and public hearings would be held before it’s put on the October ballot, when Kenai voters would make the final decision.
And if a manager form of government is established, then five people — a majority of nine on the Assembly — would be making that decision. This item has been brought before voters before and soundly defeated.
In other Assembly business, the elected officials will take up an ordinance that would end the pre-meeting invocation. The invocation at Tuesday’s meeting will be given by Greg Anderson, representing the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarians, as they call themselves. During the last meeting, Iris Fontana a member of the Satanic Temple gave the invocation, causing several people to walk out.
According to the Pastafarianism website, “We believe religion – say Christianity, Islam, Pastafarianism – does not require literal belief in order to provide spiritual enlightenment. Much of the transcendent experience of religion can be attributed to the community. And while some members of religion are indoctrinated True Believers, many are not. There are many levels of Belief and each is no more or less legitimate than the other.”
The Facebook auditor has just finished her second audit of Facebook’s policies to ban hate speech, specifically terms that refer to white nationalism or white supremacy.
Laura Murphy, former director at the ACLU, is not satisfied with the progress. She also wants Facebook to ban concepts that refer to ideas about white nationalism. In other words, code language, or code concepts that would be determined “bad” by a panel of experts at Facebook.
That could include things like “Make America Great Again,” or “MAGA,” if the social media platform wants to conform to the Leftist narrative that Donald Trump is racist.
In March, Facebook banned the words “white supremacy,” “white separatism,” and “white nationalism.”
That’s why you don’t see the word in the headline of this article. The article would be banned from Facebook.
“Over the past three months our conversations with members of civil society and academics who are experts in race relations around the world have confirmed that white nationalism and separatism cannot be meaningfully separated from white supremacy and organized hate groups. Our own review of hate figures and organizations – as defined by our Dangerous Individuals & Organizations policy – further revealed the overlap between white nationalism and separatism and white supremacy. Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and separatism,” Facebook wrote in March.
Murphy says Facebook’s policy is “too narrow,” as it only prohibits representation of the specific terms, but doesn’t technically ban ideas or other signaling.
“The narrow scope of the policy leaves up content that expressly espouses white nationalist ideology without using the term ‘white nationalist,’” Murphy’s report states. “As a result, content that would cause the same harm is permitted to remain on the platform.”
Murphy is also raising a flag about language relating to the 2020 Census, and she’s warning that there may be Facebook posts intended to spread misinformation about the census or efforts to minimize participation by ethnic groups, religious groups, or LGBTQ individuals.
Facebook users who are conservatives are rightfully concerned that even using words like “patriot,” or “illegal immigrants” (rather than the politically correct term “undocumented individuals”) could cause them to be throttled (hidden) by the company’s mysterious algorithm.
Facebook can be credited for attempting some outward-facing transparency in its struggle to keep its social media platform wholesome. But it will be a test for the Godzilla of social media to go deeper into word and idea policing, and keeping one step ahead of the code language and civil libertarian pranksters who will no doubt find new ways to thwart Facebook’s censorship of conservatives.
(Editor’s note: In addition to Facebook, Must Read Alaska has a social media presence on mewe.com and invites readers to join us there as a parallel social media news feed. Must Read Alaska does not support hate speech or racist supremacy and monitors comments on social media as best we can for what we view as respectful and civil discourse. So yes, full disclosure — Must Read Alaska also limits hateful speech.)
As wildfires rage over several parts of the state, Gov. Michael Dunleavy flew over the Swan Lake Fire this morning on the Kenai Peninsula to survey the situation, and spoke to firefighters and incident managers on the ground. He is aboard the King Air aircraft owned by the Alaska Department of Public Safety.
Over 509,960 acres have burned in Alaska so far this fire season, with most of the fires — 475,000 acres of burn — caused by lightning. About 1,500 firefighters are working on the various fires right now.
The Swan Lake fire is 15 percent contained and has burned more than 70,000 acres, according to the incident web site.The fire has been burning in a mosaic pattern through stands of black spruce.
Residents in Sterling are advised to remove needles from the roofs of their structures and get flammable vegetation away from buildings. Tips on creating a defensible space can be found here.
According to the Division of Forestry, the Swan Lake Fire was started by lightning on June 5 in the federal Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The highest values at risk are homes and private properties in and around the community of Sterling, the Sterling Highway and its associated utility right of ways and infrastructure, as well as a natural gas pipeline and structures, shelter cabins and a moose research center.
Fire managers have focused all suppression efforts to 5.5 miles east of the community of Sterling.
SHOVEL CREEK FIRE UPDATE
The Shovel Creek Fire northwest of Fairbanks is not contained. However, rain fell over the fire area Sunday and into Monday morning, significantly decreasing fire activity and giving firefighters a much-needed break, according to the incident information web page.
Although the Chatanika River remote weather station, located five miles northwest of the fire, measured 0.3 inches of rain, the cool, wet weather will not last long as a ridge of high pressure is expected to build this week bringing hot, dry weather back to Interior Alaska, the report says.
The Shovel Creek Fire has now burned more than 10,000 acres and is perceived to be a long-duration wildfire that will persist for days to come in the absence of a measureable amount of precipitation. Many structures are threatened and under a Level 1, 2, or 3 Evacuation Alert.
Statewide, Alaska has nearly exhausted all local resources, and many fire managers have been committed to supporting large fires. These variables have increased the complexity of managing the Shovel Creek Fire, and consequently a Type 1 Incident Management Team has been ordered to assume command of the wildfire.
The Shovel Creek Fire is 10,639 acres, with 0 percent contained and 560 personnel assigned to it. It was also started by lightning.
7/1: Grand opening of Gelatte, Italian ice cream store in downtown Anchorage. 500 West 6th Street, noon – 10 pm. Come celebrate a small business opening in downtown.
7/2:Haines Assembly’s Government Affairs and Services committee will take up the ordinance aimed at blocking the Constantine mining project. It’s the “Aqueous Storage of Hazardous Materials Ordinance 19-04-529” that would prevent storage of liquids of a certain type and quantity, such as tailings ponds. The meeting begins at 6:30 pm.
7/2:Skagway Assembly’s Public Safety Committee will meet and on the agenda is the discussion of whether or not there should be crosswalks in downtown. Currently, locals and tourists alike just cross the street wherever they please, sometimes causing a safety concern. Meeting is at 7 pm in Assembly Chambers.
7/2:Kenai Borough Assembly meeting. On the agenda is a discussion of whether to eliminate the invocation ordinance, now that satanists and atheists and “Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster” have begun to participate regularly. Also on the agenda is a move to try to change from a mayoral form of government to a manager form of government. This ordinance would go before voters in October and is being brought by Assembly members who are not supporters of the current mayor. Meeting starts at 6 pm. Details here.
7/3:Official firework shows in many parts of Alaska are held on the eve of the Fourth of July.
Personal fireworks are banned in most places in Alaska right now. The Alaska State Troopers advises, “We may have slightly exaggerated our graphic… but we wanted to get the point across that fire danger in Alaska is pretty significant all across the state. With hot, dry conditions and only so many wildfire fighting resources available, the Alaska State Fire Marshal, at the request of the Division of Forestry, is banning the sale and use of fireworks in the following areas:
• Fairbanks North Star Borough
• Kenai Peninsula Borough
• Matanuska-Susitna Borough
• Kodiak Borough
• Copper River Valley, including Glennallen south to Valdez
• Western Alaska, including McGrath and points west
• Tanana Valley north of the Alaska Range
• Northern Panhandle, including Haines in the north, Skagway, and Juneau to the south
HISTORICAL NOTES
Today in 1958, news came that Alaska had been admitted as the 49th State. Above, Juneauite Romer Derr rings the replica Liberty Bell in front of Alaska’s Capitol 49 times in celebration of the news. Holding the Alaska flag is Judy Findlay, and holding the American flag is Marilee Nowacki. There were also celebrations in Anchorage and Fairbanks. (Image below from Juneau-Douglas City Museum collection).
I became something of a disciple of Carl von Clausewitz in my early days with State Labor Relations in the 1980s. Clausewitz’s book “On War” has guided much of military strategy since the mid-19th Century and is still taught in U.S. military academies today. His analytical method was called “Critical Analysis.”
For me, it was a planning methodology. Courage is a precious commodity in political management in government, so if you’re going to do something that might cause tumult and controversy, then plan it out in great detail. When your political principal freaks out, you point him/her to the place where you told them that was going to happen and show how you are prepared for it.
In the late 1980s, the walls of the Labor Relations conference room on the 10thfloor of the Juneau State Office Building were covered with butcher paper that was covered with “if – then” statements.
We looked at the forthcoming year or two and worked out “if they do this, then this is what we do.” What that really did was enable us to deal with our linguine-spined political principals by saying, “See, here is where we told you that was going to happen, and this is what we do next.”
Thus, we got through the mid-1980’s oil price crash without significant labor strife, although with a lot of litigation, most of which we won. We had our moments; we got a temporary restraining order against implementing terms on the General Government Unit at about 4:15 pm on a Friday and it sent our political principals into a fit of apoplexy. But we were able to point to one of the sheets of paper on the wall and say, “see, we expected that and this is what we’ll do.”
We lived that way for the better part of a decade. Then the unions bought a governor and nobody in the Executive Branch gave much thought to labor relations policy beyond, “ask the unions what they want.” We all went on to other things.
I came back to the Executive Branch to try to fix the mess in 1999, but I didn’t have anybody working with or for me that you could even discuss strategic planning with. I kept it all in my head until I became director under Gov. Frank Murkowski, and even then, planning was a commissioner’s office and Governor’s Office duty, not a staff exercise.
In the six years between my return to the Executive Branch and my retirement in 2006, I built a staff that knew how to do things, but I didn’t have the time to build one that knew what things to do. After I retired, the State just threw money at problems, so until the price of oil collapsed in 2014, you didn’t need to do a lot of that “thinking stuff.”
Now we’re back into a “thinking” situation.
Gov. Bill Walker gave the unions several million dollars worth of sweetheart deals on his way out of office. The Legislature took no action to disapprove the budget increments required to pay for those sweetheart deals, but it really didn’t put any extra money in for them.
Gov. Michael Dunleavy has made pretty dramatic line item vetoes in the Operating Budget. The smart money says the Democrats don’t have the votes to override most, maybe all, of the vetoes. That would mean there would be program cuts and layoffs of State employees. We’ll see; I remain to be convinced that anyone in the Legislature can give up 20 years of bad habits. If I had to put my money down, I’d bet that they spend the money to avoid the upset and hope it becomes somebody else’s problem.
Art Chance
The University of Alaska deserves the cuts. They have more overhead than a coal mine and their 17 campuses are to make sure teachers don’t have to spend a single night away from home to take their continuing education classes that get them paid more. The university provides jobs to highly paid sinecures of failed, former Democrat elected and appointed officials and leftist professors.
My biological daughter is a University of Alaska graduate but I would have sent her to school Outside if I could have afforded it. I was a single parent at the time and even with a State range that starts with a “2,” you don’t have any money to spare when you’re living in Juneau. She’s done well but in reality her success has been more as a result of the computer lab work she did for student financial aid than from the “education” she got there.
I don’t know what the mission of the University of Alaska should be. It hands out participation certificates in “communications” and “studies” to people who showed up sometimes, but in reality those only get you a government job or an affirmative action hire. It would be nice for Alaska to have a liberal arts school that was aimed at inculcating something about Alaska’s lifestyle and ethics, but the reality is that anybody who could afford to go to such a school would go Outside.
Alaska Pacific once fulfilled that role, but I don’t know what it does now other than ski programs. Really, sending your kid, especially your male child, to college these days is a form of child abuse unless they’re in the STEM areas and they should actually be there on merit.
The University of Alaska should have only one four-year and post-graduate campus and it should specialize in doing things relevant to Alaska, not in producing studies degrees for people who aren’t qualified to be on the grounds crew.
I don’t care about cuts to the K-12 Education racket; giving them money is just rewarding failure. Maybe dealing with some cuts will induce people to give up the pleasant fiction of local control in areas that make no contribution to education. Fifty something school districts with boards, superintendents, and administrative staff, is just spreading money around. Draw a line at, say, 25 percent local contribution. If the area doesn’t pony up at least that much, the board is advisory and volunteer and the schools are run by the State. I don’t have any illusions about the efficacy of State control, but it certainly won’t be any worse and will be cheaper.
I know State government well enough to know that a general decrement in DHSS will just result in eliminating delivery of service employees. That causes maximum upset for the constituency they serve and makes sure the palace eunuchs that run the department don’t miss a payday.
Alaska needs to have a conversation with itself about why being on welfare pays better than almost all the jobs an Alaskan can qualify for just out of high school. If you’re an entry/low-skill employee, only your pride and personal discipline makes you take the jobs you can get at that skill level; you’ll live a lot better on welfare and won’t have to pass a background check or pee in a bottle. We’re subsidizing a seemingly permanent underclass of perhaps 30 percent of the potential workforce that lives on welfare, under the table wages, drug-dealing, and other crime. And we wonder why we have a crime problem.
It was suggested that I game out the next few weeks; the kind of if-then scenarios I started this piece talking about. I don’t think there is a lot of the “if – then” exercise going on.
The ultimate weapon, a government shutdown on July 1was off the table with the passage of an Operating Budget.
We have a major ego issue over where the special session will take place. I don’t think there is any doubt that the governor can send the Troopers for them and herd them to Wasilla. If he does that, all they have to do is find that one more vote and they can just move the Session to Anchorage or Juneau.
And his doing it will just about guarantee that they’ll find the votes to move the special session.
I can’t dismiss the notion that they’re sandbagging the Capital Budget to try to restore some of the governor’s line item vetoes by amending the Capital Budget.
While the smart money says otherwise, I think the Legislature will override many of the governor’s vetoes; they just don’t have the stomach for taking on the powerful interests involved.
There really isn’t much downside to sacrificing the Permanent Fund dividend for them. It is a derivative of the “paradox of the commons.” The PFD belongs to everyone, so it belongs to no one. There are no powerful, well-organized and well-funded interest groups supporting fully funding the PFD; some of the most powerful interests in Alaska want their money for Medicaid, education funding, and avoiding layoffs of State employees.
The university is odd-man out because they don’t have a lot of friends these days, so my old co-worker Jim Johnsen may be the big loser here.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon. He only writes for Must Read Alaska when he’s banned from posting on Facebook. Chance coined the phrase “hermaphrodite Administration” to describe a governor who is simultaneously a Republican and a Democrat. This was a grave insult to hermaphrodites, but he has not apologized.
Seven schools that are members of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association announced Friday they are forming a new NCAA Division I college mens hockey conference, which will launch in the 2021-22 season.
The new division has left out the University of Alaska Anchorage and University of Alaska hockey teams, as well as one from Alabama, leaving those three teams without a conference to play in.
The move could signal the end of the mens hockey program for both Anchorage and Fairbanks campuses, as players will likely transfer to schools that are part of a conference.
The spokesman for the new conference indicated that travel costs to play in Alaska were a consideration.
Athletics consultant Morris Kurtz, speaking for the group, said, “the group is comprised of institutions rich in history and tradition with a strong commitment to academic and athletic excellence. They are like-minded in their goals and aspirations for the potential new league with a focus on improving regional alignment and the overall student-athlete experience while building natural rivalries within a more compact geographic footprint.”
The seven schools include Bemidji State, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State Mankato and Northern Michigan. Each has independently submitted formal notices to the WCHA that they are initiating the withdrawal process in from the WCHA, but they will will play in the WCHA during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.
Western Collegiate Hockey Association President and Men’s League Commissioner Bill Robertson issued a response on Friday:
“Late this afternoon, the WCHA office received communication from several of our Men’s League institutions that they intend to explore the creation of a new Division I men’s hockey conference that would begin play in 2021-22 … While this news is disappointing, the WCHA will work to assure that any members that do withdraw do so in accordance with WCHA Bylaws.”
Those bylaws require a 25-month waiting period to withdraw.
Read the White House transcript of the dialogue between President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jon Un, as Trump became the first sitting president to step over the DMZ into North Korea on Sunday. “Ok, let’s do it,” he can be heard saying in the video posted by the White House on Twitter:
3:57 P.M. KST
CHAIRMAN KIM: (In progress.) (As interpreted.) It’s always special and I want to thank you (inaudible) for having me.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want to thank you. Because (inaudible.) It was great. Look, I mean, the world is watching, and it’s very important for the world.
CHAIRMAN KIM: (As interpreted.) And also, the place of our meeting is special. That is why it rose the occasion of so many people.
Some people think as if this meeting was prearranged through the letters you have sent me. But myself was surprised yesterday morning when you expressed a willingness to meet with me here, and also when we got the official confirmation late yesterday afternoon.
And also, (inaudible) to meet with you again. And this place of our meeting is a symbol of the separation between the North and South, and also a reminder of unfortunate past. And as the two countries, we share a long unfortunate past, meeting at such place shows that we are willing to put an end to the unfortunate past and also open a new future and provide positive opportunities in the future.
If it was not for our excellent relation between the two of us, it would not have been possible to have this kind of opportunity. So I would like to use this strong relation to create more good news, which nobody expects (inaudible), and also to propel the good relations between our countries (inaudible).
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I want to thank you, Chairman. You hear the power of that voice. Nobody has heard that voice before. He doesn’t do news conferences, in case you haven’t heard. And this was a special moment. This is, I think, really — as President Moon said, this is a historic moment, the fact that we’re meeting.
And I want to thank Chairman Kim for something else. When I put out the social media notification, if he didn’t show up, the press was going to make me look very bad. So you made us both look good, and I appreciate it.
But we’ve developed a great relationship. I really think that, if you go back two and half years, and you look at what was going on prior to my becoming President, it was a very, very bad situation — a very dangerous situation for South Korea, for North Korea, for the world.
And I think the relationship that we’ve developed has meant so much to so many people. And it’s just an honor to be with you, and it was an honor that you asked me to step over that line. And I was proud to step over the line. I thought you might do that; I wasn’t sure. But I was ready to do it. And I want to thank you. It’s been great. It’s been great.
A very historic meeting. We were just saying — one of the folks from the media was saying this could to be a very historic moment, and I guess that’s what it is. But I enjoyed being with you, and thank you very much.
