Page 1557 – Must Read Alaska

Wilted: Newspaper companies bargaining for their lives

The 907

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July 13, 2017

By CRAIG MEDRED
CRAIGMEDRED.NEWS

Every thinking American wants quality journalism, but who defines what qualifies?

The country’s media elite now think they should be the arbiter. The elite have banded together to form the News Media Alliance. It’s chief goal is to get the U.S. government to lift anti-trust restrictions that prevent newspapers from operating collectively as a cartel.

Think OPEC, and you’ve got the idea. The Alliance wants to control news the way the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries once controlled oil.

“Legislation that enables news organizations to negotiate collectively will address pervasive problems that today are diminishing the overall health and quality of the news media industry,”says David Chavern, President & CEO of the Alliance. “Quality journalism is critical to sustaining democracy and is central to civic society. To ensure that such journalism has a future, the news organizations that fund it must be able to collectively negotiate with the digital platforms that effectively control distribution and audience access in the digital age.”

Heavy with representatives of the old media – the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Hearst Newspapers, Gannett Co. – the Alliance is trying to claim the high moral ground, but what this is really all about is money.

All across the country, once powerful newspapers are struggling to survive. They’ve lost classified advertising to craigslist and others. They’re bleeding subscribers. The value of their print advertising is falling along with the exodus of print readers because advertisers don’t want to pay as much for ever-shrinking exposure.

Meanwhile, some of these operations remain too big, too fat and too burdened with overhead to survive on the cash flow from online advertising, and attempts to monetize the internet with paywalls generally aren’t working well.

Anchorage’s lone, 6-day-per-week newspaper is in so much trouble it has stopped paying its bills.

[READ more at CraigMedred.news]

House majority has new idea on oil tax reform: Kill oil industry

Suzanne Downing

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July 12, 2017

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House majority has new idea on oil tax reform: Kill oil industry

VERSION X – WILL IT CHILL INVESTMENT?

The conference committee on House Bill 111 was scheduled to meet in Juneau today at 3 pm, but the chairs are in Anchorage, while the rest of the committee is in Juneau.

Reps. Geran Tarr and Andy Josephson, who head up the conference committee and are the co-chairs of the House Natural Resources Committee, will be introducing their compromise offer: Version X.

“We are working daily to find compromise with our colleagues in the Senate on this important piece of legislation that is a key component to any successful fiscal plan,” said Rep. Tarr. “We offered up a workable compromise to end the cashable tax credits with the stipulation that lawmakers work over the interim to fix the other flaws in our oil tax system. I remain hopeful our compromise will be accepted. We will see where everyone stands during tomorrow’s meeting.”

No one has seen the “compromise.” They’ve not posted it yet, but rumor in Juneau is that Democrats are asking that the state end what is called the “net operating loss carry forward,” which is the basis for a net tax system.

Their compromise may kill oil investment in Alaska, should it pass the full House and Senate.

“The state would go into a depression,” said one analyst in Juneau, where legislators were eagerly awaiting the still-mysterious Version X. “Investment will dry up. If a company has net operating losses taken away from them, they’ll always have to guess that oil prices will be above their operating costs and capital expenditures. They’ll only invest where there is a guarantee they will make money. That won’t be here.”

With all members of the committee except Tarr and Josephson in Juneau, the 3 pm meeting is not expected to last long. The Legislature’s special session ends on July 15.

Industry leaders described the possible move as “frighteningly chilling for companies large and small — they’ll just put a full desist order on all their Alaska operations and only pull out of the ground what is required of them by law.”

An opinion written by Hal Ingalls, president of Denali Drilling, articulated the concern oil companies have about the gang in charge of the Alaska House of Representatives:

” A compromise to end cash payments to oil companies is on thin ice because of the propaganda perpetuated by Anchorage Representative Les Gara and the politics of the House Democrats. The oil and gas industry has always been Gara’s favorite target, and he’s launched a fresh campaign to hold hostage a compromise on cashable credits that will save Alaska a million dollars per day.

“Rep. Gara and his cohorts are telling Alaskans that the Senate proposal, backed by Gov. Walker, is a sham that simply replaces a credit today with deductions tomorrow, costing the state the same in the long run.

“This is where Gara’s fish tale becomes dangerous misinformation. Cash credits and tax deductions are not the same. Oil companies can only use the tax deductions if they produce oil. We all know that many exploration projects never produce a drop of oil so deductions from those projects will never be applied to an oil company’s state tax bill. In exchange for eliminating these cash credits, the Senate Majority suggests that these explorers be able to deduct their exploration expenses against future profits. Gara calls this a sham.

“Tax structures all over the world allow business to deduct their legitimate operating expenses and they allow companies to apply losses from their bad years against earnings from their profitable years. Gara again calls this a subsidy to the oil companies.

“So why would Rep. Gara push his cohorts in the Democratic House Majority to refuse a compromise that will end these credits? Could it be that he smells the opportunity to slip a significant tax increase into the same bill and skin some more hide off the industry?

“What Rep. Gara does not say is that there is little, if any, company profit left to tax. With oil around $45 per barrel, the state takes 77 percent of the sale value of a barrel of oil; the federal government takes 12 percent, leaving the taxpayer, the oil companies, with 11 percent. In fact, at all oil prices from very low to very high, Alaska takes more from a barrel of oil, than the companies who invest the capital and take the risk. Now Gara wants to raise these taxes again so Alaska gets its “fair share.” That’s ridiculous.

“More oil in the pipeline is critical for Alaska, and we must fix our sights securely on that prize. With higher production come jobs for Alaskans, new money circulating through the economy and tax revenue to the state. New revenues from higher oil production go into the Alaska Permanent Fund, including the annual PFD.

“The current oil tax system works. Alaska is collecting more tax revenue at today’s low prices than we would have under the previous system. Companies are now investing in the North Slope fields, resulting in increased production of three percent in fiscal years 2016 and 2017.

“Gara’s House majority held Alaska hostage all session, demanding an income tax and excessive new taxes on the oil industry in return for passing things they actually agree on, namely: reducing cash credits, passing an operating budget, passing a capital budget and developing a long term fiscal plan.

“Rep. Gara’s rhetoric isn’t new. He’s been at this for years now; he mangles the facts and conjures up sound bites that prey on people’s genuine concerns for children, schools, families and our seniors.

“It’s time to do what’s right for Alaska, to quit playing games with the facts, fix the cash credits problem and pass a capital budget.

Bathroom safety petition in final days for signatures

Suzanne Downing

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July 12, 2017

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Bathroom safety petition in final days for signatures

The bathroom wars continue in Anchorage, as elsewhere. Today, it’s all about gathering signatures to allow voters to decide next April whether the city ordinance allowing all genders to use any bathroom or locker room is appropriate.

The Protect Our Privacy petition that is circulating says that public bathrooms, locker rooms, and dressing rooms that are marked for male or female usage should be reserved for people according to their sex at birth, anatomy, and genetics.

In other words, if a man wants to use the bathrooms that have been reserved for women, he needs to “become” a woman, and vice versa. There are exceptions listed on the petition for medical emergencies, people entering facilities as janitors, as well as caretakers of people and minors under the age of 8.

That’s not what Anchorage law says. The law says people can use any bathroom they choose. Petition organizers would like to roll that back to traditional norms.

One of the petition sponsors, Kim Minnery, says her group is particularly concerned about the safety of women and children. With more men entering women’s bathrooms, it’s becoming more difficult for women who want bathroom privacy and who have had an assumption of safety in women’s bathrooms and locker rooms.

The petition is in response to a 2015 Anchorage ordinance that bars discrimination over sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, employment and among businesses serving the public.

The ordinance allows people to use bathrooms according to which gender they feel applies to them and relies on a person having a “sincerely held” belief about which gender they prefer to be associated with, “and not being asserted for improper purpose.”

These terms are not legally enforceable since anyone can assert any belief, and” improper purpose” has no definition. The ordinance relies on humans exercising judgment, but with no guidelines.

In Los Angeles, a progressive blogger changed her stance on men in women’s bathrooms after a trip to Disneyland, where a burly man entered the women’s restroom and made women feel uncomfortable as he walked by the toilet stalls, which had gaps between the doors that provided only some privacy. She described the experience of watching the faces of others in the restroom. No one confronted the man because they were unsure of their rights.

Kim Minnery, one of the sponsors of the Anchorage measure, is gathering signatures and must have 5,700 qualified signatures to get the question on the April, 2018 municipal ballot. She hopes her group will have several hundred more signatures than that, but they only have a few days left to gather the signatures.

While the support has been strong, she’s also been dismayed at some churches that have backed away from the issue because they perceive it as “political.”

Bathrooms aren’t political, Minnery says. This is taking a stand for safety of women and children. Most attacks on women and children are perpetrated by men, and mothers still need safe places to help their children use toilets comfortably, she said.

To sign the petition, Anchorage voters may contact [email protected]

Alaska Democratic Party has sent emails urging people to “Decline to Sign” the petition. Alaska Republicans have not sent any notices encouraging people to sign the petition. Opponents of the measure say that there is little chance that predators will abuse the open-bathroom system.

In Washington State, a group of women called Just Want Privacy is sponsoring a similar effort to roll back the open bathroom policy set by the state’s Human Rights Commission.

“Any man can enter any public girl’s locker room in the entire state and declare his right to be there. If girls complain, they will be asked to leave and subject to penalty. The rule dangerously forces girls to ignore their red flags and boundaries for fear of a lawsuit,” the Just Want Privacy group says on its website.

Groundhog Day in Alaska politics with ‘me too’ press conference

Suzanne Downing

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July 12, 2017

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*Gov. Bill Walker speaks to the press on Monday on a wide range of topics as Commerce Commissioner Chris Hladick, left, and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott stand behind him.*

By ELWOOD BREHMER
ALASKA JOURNAL OF COMMERCE

It might be the peak of summer, but it feels a lot more like Groundhog Day in Alaska politics.

Gov. Bill Walker held a press briefing at noon Monday at which he again urged legislators to pass the bills needed to cure the state of its massive annual deficits. The budget deficit was about $2.5 billion for the 2017 fiscal year that ended June 30.

“I know I’ve been critical of the Legislature as a whole; it’s about getting the job done,” Walker said Monday at the state Atwood Building in Anchorage.

One day short of a year earlier, the Legislature convened for a special session called by Walker to make cuts to the state’s North Slope oil and gas tax credit program, approve spending investment earnings from the Permanent Fund on government services and other revenue measures in the governor’s fiscal plan.

“I am absolutely convinced that if we don’t fix this now, then our challenges next year will be even more magnified,” the governor said during a June 19, 2016, news conference shortly after the House Finance Committee shot down his Permanent Fund restructuring bill.

As he spoke Monday — somewhat through reporters to legislators — lawmakers were again hung up on North Slope oil and gas tax credit legislation in a summer special session.

This year, the debate is not as much over ending the credits as both the Democrat House Majority and the Republican Senate Majority agree the shelf life on the refundable tax credit experiment has expired. The sticking point now is whether to raise oil taxes as well.

Rogoff vs. reporters: Outtakes from oral arguments

The 907

Suzanne Downing

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July 12, 2017

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*Margy Johnson, vice president of Alaska Dispatch News (third from left), eyes court proceedings, while former Dispatch writer Craig Medred, now an independent journalist, takes notes.*

Ironically, the first thing Alaska Dispatch News publisher Alice Rogoff’s lawyers did this afternoon was to try to have reporters thrown out of the courtroom.

Rogoff’s lawyer, David Gross, said that some sensitive financial information about the owner of the Dispatch might come to light as he and the opposing side debated whether or not a napkin contract was, indeed, a contract. He asked that reporters be barred from the courtroom.

That didn’t work. Judge Andrew Guidi was having none of it and the small herd of media stayed, notepads in hand.

Reporters on station were Austin Baird from KTUU, Casey Grove from Alaska Public Media, Craig Medred from CraigMedred.news, and Must Read Alaska.

But the largest media organization in the state, the Alaska Dispatch News, was not represented by a reporter or photographer for the biggest legal beat news story of the month.

Instead, Rogoff’s vice president Margy Johnson was there, sitting straight, perfectly coiffed as always, in a black dress, white sweater, and large faux pearls around her neck. She was escorted by William Bittner, of Birch Horton Bittner and Cherot.

*Straight out of the movies, a contract on a bar napkin, signed by Alice Rogoff.*

The ADN lawyers, David Gross and Mara E. Michaletz, of the BHBC law firm, were next trying to persuade Judge Guidi with another argument that seemed doomed to fail.

Lawyer Gross, having lost the attempt at suppressing press coverage, was saying that the bar napkin promissary note that Alice Rogoff signed on April 18, 2014 was unenforceable as a contract because her former business partner, Tony Hopfinger, had not also signed it. That was proof the two had not come to a meeting of the minds. The case, he said, should be tossed.

Hopfinger is suing Rogoff for something close to $1 million and some other damages for his share of the company. The napkin is his Exhibit A. Other than that, it’s “he said, she said” business divorce with layers of complexity and a trail of email communiques that provide plenty of fodder for lawyers.

WHAT’S NOT IN DISPUTE

Hopfinger and Amanda Coyne (his former spouse) had co-founded a news website called the Alaska Dispatch in 2008. Rogoff bought a majority ownership of 90 percent of Alaska Dispatch Publishing LLC in 2009. Rogoff later bought out Coyne’s 5 percent and that left Hopfinger with 5 percent. Hardly a strong position.

Hopfinger, the former president and editor of Alaska Dispatch News, cut a deal with Rogoff. Later, when talks broke down, he filed a lawsuit against Alaska Dispatch Publishing LLC and Rogoff, saying she owes him money she promised to him in her own handwriting on a bar napkin while the two were parting ways. She paid $100,000 of the $1 million that she wrote she’d pay him.

WHAT’S IN DISPUTE

A year ago lawyer David Gross said in a statement that the whole thing was “the unfortunate conclusion to a former business relationship in which Rogoff, through substantial financial assistance, supported and nurtured Hopfinger’s journalistic aspirations and catapulted him into control as editor at the Alaska Dispatch News, Alaska’s most widely read and recognized news source.”

Hopfinger didn’t “live up to his promises” of running the organization, Gross said in his statement.

Today in court, Gross said that Rogoff’s bar napkin scribbles were not a contract at all but were a sort of pledge to pay Hopfinger $100,000 a year plus 3 percent interest if he would stay on and pledge his loyalty to her for 10 years and work to build up the newspaper empire.

That’s not how Hopfinger recalls it. He said she was buying out his interest because he didn’t want to buy out the newspaper. His lawyer, Thomas Wang, told the court today that the napkin contract was part of a series of negotiations that were on the record and off the record, and that most items of the negotiated business divorce had already been settled.

Rogoff’s lawyer also said that Hopfinger was trying to sell something he didn’t own, because he valued his share as 10 percent of the company, when he clearly owned only 5 percent.

Rogoff’s lawyer today was asking that the case be essentially tossed by the judge. He was asking Guidi to rule that no reasonable person would see a bar napkin promise as an enforceable contract. In addition, Hopfinger had made a mistake, Gross argued, and that also invalidated the agreement.

Hopfinger’s lawyer countered, saying the matter deserves a full hearing with a jury because there are many complex matters, including the fact that Rogoff had already made the first payment of $100,000. Plus, there is that napkin.

Back when Rogoff scribbled her promise on the napkin, Hopfinger says she told him, “show this to the judge if I don’t ever pay you.”

The judge asked today if the napkin was available; Wang said indeed it is, but evidently it was not in his trial briefcase. Judge Guidi chuckled.

THE ALASKA DYSFUNCTION

The fissure between Rogoff and Hopfinger started around the time Rogoff announced she was buying the Anchorage Daily News and would merge operations with the Dispatch. Hopfinger didn’t want to be part of that purchase, had advised her against it, saying he didn’t think the revenue model was solid.

He also was concerned about Rogoff’s talk about bringing in new investors, such as Alaska real estate developer John Rubini, one of Alaska’s richest people. That rubbed Hopfinger the wrong way, introducing a new conflict of interest. Rogoff never did bring in other investors and remains the sole owner of the Dispatch empire today.

Today Guidi probed Gross about why he thought the contract was worthless, and Gross cited ancient case law that says a contract must represent a meeting of the minds.

In fact, Gross said on no less than eight different occasions today that there was no “meeting of the minds” between Rogoff and Hopfinger. It ended up being his one leg to stand the case on.

Neither Rogoff nor Hopfinger were in the courtoom during the oral arguments, although Hopfinger listened by telephone. Judge Guidi said he would decide whether to toss aspects of the case out via summary judgment (decide the case without allowing it to go to jury trial) within 10 days.

But that seems unlikely, given that he also set a court date for next March 5, for a trial expected to last eight days. Right during Iditarod week.

In the meantime, it’s all eyes on the judge.

[Read: Dispatch owner sues Alice Rogoff]

[Read: Media covers the Alice Rogoff story]

[Read: The summer of Alice Rogoff’s discontent]

Heads and Tails: Health care bailout for Alaska

Suzanne Downing

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July 12, 2017

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Heads and Tails: Health care bailout for Alaska

FEDERAL TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR ALASKA’S HEALTH INSURANCE

U.S. Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski commended the Trump Administration for granting the State of Alaska an “Innovation Waiver” under the Affordable Care Act.

The “innovation” part of the waiver is actually a transfer of the high cost of health insurance in Alaska to federal taxpayers.

Insurance should go down by 20 percent for consumers, said Seema Verma, administrator for the Affordable Care Act program at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

It’s unclear if the only insurer in the state, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, will actually lower the cost of insurance and there is no way to force it to. Premera of Alaska made $20 million in profits from “Obamacare” insurance plans in 2016.

The total grant is about $332 million of taxpayer money, according to Gov. Bill Walker. That equates to $15,000 for each of the 23,000 Alaskans who have had to enroll in the mandatory health insurance program.

The State applied for the grant following legislation signed by Walker last year, which gave $55 million to the Alaska Reinsurance Program to help reduce spiraling health insurance costs.

The federal government will reimburse the state $48 million next year. For the following four years, that number may increase with enrollment.

Premera has not yet announced what it will charge Alaskans for the coming year. Enrollment begins Nov. 1.

NEW HEAD OF OIL AND GAS COMMISSION IS FRENCH: Gov. Bill Walker has named former Sen. Hollis French as the new chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

French was Walker’s former opponent as the Democrat candidate for lieutenant governor. The Alaska Democrat Party forced him to withdraw in September of 2014 so the party could back a ticket with Bill Walker and Byron Mallott. They called it a “Unity ticket.”

Earlier this year, French tried to get the commission to acquire jurisdiction over a gas leak in Cook Inlet. Eagle River Republican Sen. Anna MacKinnon voted against his appointment, which was the subject of controversy, since its widely seen as a political patronage appointment to a highly technical commission that should remain out of politics.

[Read: French gets confirmed, but with drama]

GRENN GETS OFFICE UPGRADES : Rep. Jason Grenn’s three-room suite on the fourth floor of the Capitol in Juneau is getting a renovation. The two outside offices have been stripped of furnishings, bookcases, desks and tables, and the carpet will be replaced. Presumably the same or better furniture will be reinstalled.

For a freshman to have not only a seat on the House Finance Committee, but also a three-room completely renovated office suite is evidence of the price he obtained for his membership in the Democrat-ruled majority caucus in the House.

Grenn won’t be inconvenienced, as he is in Washington, D.C. this week with Gov. Bill Walker, extolling the benefits of running as a nonpartisan candidate. We wonder if Grenn will mention plum committee assignments and plush digs as being among those benefits. They will appear at the National Press Club.

[Read: Look for the union label: It’s off to the races for Walker, Grenn]

[Read the National Press Club’s description of Grenn and Walker’s flip]

Dog days of campaigning: Gov. Walker’s fake salary reduction

Suzanne Downing

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July 11, 2017

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*Governor Bill Walker, right, presents a donation to the Wasilla Police Department to help in the purchase of a dog for a K-9 officer.*

SLUSH FUND: Gov. Bill Walker last year said he would cut his own salary by one third, starting July 1, 2017. This would save the State $48,000, he said.

“While my pay cut will certainly not balance the state’s budget, I believe it is important to lead by example. These are tough times for many Alaskans and fixing the state’s deficit requires that we all make sacrifices and pull together,” Walker said at the time.

What happened was different. Walker can’t take a pay cut because his pay is set by State statute. ~~And he never offered legislation this year to change the statute.~~

HB 71, offered by the governor to reduce his salary, died in House State Affairs committee, chaired by Democrat Representative Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka. Its companion bill in the Senate made it to the Rules committee and awaits action from Democrats on the House side before moving to the floor.

Instead, Walker is taking his full pay of $145,000, and he is donating one-third of it to nonprofits around the state. It’s a nice gesture, and he can deduct it directly off of his tax filings, but it’s not the same as giving it back to the treasury.

Strategically, Walker’s first donation was to the Wasilla Police Department. He gave the WPD a check for $11,000 to help with the purchase of a new K-9 officer to replace the dog that died recently. His donation is fully tax deductible.

And, because he has made the donation to the Wasilla community, he will bask in the credit he has earned from his generosity in an area of the state that he’ll need votes in next year. The police, the dog lovers, and those who long for more public safety are important constituencies.

He told KTUU he’d be making other donations this year with his pay cut.

While he can be applauded for making mini-grants, Walker can also be slow-clapped for taking the money from the State and giving it in the form of mini-grants in places where he needs to shore up support, such as in the Valley. A political slush fund, if you will.

At least one Valley Republican activist was not impressed.

“The Valley cannot be bought,” said Carol Carman, chairwoman of District 9 Republicans.

STATE DELAYS GIVING VOTER INFO TO COMMISSION: Information that can be easily obtained by anyone who has an extra $21 will not be sent by the State of Alaska to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which has asked for it.

The Governor’s Office released a statement on the delay today:

“The State had been preparing a response limited only to the public information available under the Alaska Public Records Act. The Alaska Public Records Act and AS 15.07.195 specifically prohibit the release of a voter’s: voter ID number, social security number or any part of that number, Alaska driver’s license or state ID number, date of birth, place of birth, telephone number, primary ballot choice, signature, and residence address if requested by the voter to be maintained as confidential per AS 15.07.195. This State planned to withhold the foregoing information from the Commission, consistent with Alaska law.

“Just this morning, however, the Commission notified the State of a pending lawsuit challenging its request, and asked the State not to respond at this time. If the request is renewed, we will evaluate the State’s response then.”

Any citizen who wishes to assist the Election Integrity Commission may obtain the information on a disk from the Division of Elections and forward it to the Vice President, who is heading up the commission. The address is:

Office of the Vice President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

“We can’t take for granted the integrity of the vote. This bipartisan commission will review ways to strengthen the integrity of elections in order to protect and preserve the principle of one person, one vote because the integrity of the vote is the foundation of our democracy,” Vice President Pence said in May.

The commission will study vulnerabilities in voting systems used for federal elections that could lead to improper voter registrations, improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations, and fraudulent voting, according to Pence. The Commission will also study concerns about voter suppression, as well as other voting irregularities.

Full court press on Alaska delegation over Obamacare

Suzanne Downing

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July 10, 2017

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*Screenshot of the Save My Care ad aimed at Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and paid for by healthcare workers’ union SEIU. It’s saturating television in Alaska this week.*

HERE COME THE UNION-BACKED ADS: Save My Care, the union-backed group fighting changes to Obamacare, is launching a “seven-figure TV ad buy” targeting Alaska, Nevada, Maine and West Virginia to target Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Dean Heller, Susan Collins and Shelley Moore Capito.

Save My Care hasn’t seen how devastating Obamacare has been in Alaska. The Alaska ad makes no mention of Alaska’s insurance rates going up over 200 percent under Obamacare for people who have to buy it on the market.

Save My Care is funded largely by SEIU, the union that organizes healthcare workers, including hospital, home care and nursing home workers, as well as local and state government employees. None of these people have to buy their care on the Obamacare exchange.

In addition to Save My Care, the airwaves are being inundated by advertising from at least four other groups, according to Alaska political consultant Art Hackney, who monitors such things. They are:
– Planned Parenthood Action Fund
– Coalition to Protect America’s Healthcare
– AARP, formerly known as American Association of Retired Persons
– CommunityCatalyst.org

The Planned Parenthood Action Fund spent $1.4 million during the 2016 election cycle, most of it on independent expenditures allowed by the United United lawsuit. The fund’s affiliates spent well over $15 million during the election cycle.

Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s PAC, which is registered with the Federal Election Commission, contributed nearly $700,000 directly to congressional candidates in the 2016 cycle, 98 percent of which went to Democratic candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Coalition to Protect America’s Healthcare is another Obamacare protectionist group, and it turned to BlueDigital.com to run its campaign to protect the federal funding for hospitals. BlueDigital works exclusively for Democrats and their associated causes.

CommunityCatalyst.org is funded by George Soros and other like-minded philanthropists.

Hackney said the ads are squarely aimed at Republicans, as many of them are showing up on Fox.

“There is no counterpoint,” Hackney said. No group has stood up any message to contradict the claims being made by these groupss pouring millions of dollars into ads they hope will pressure on Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who appears most likely to cave and leave Obamacare in place.

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE REPORT OUT

Adding fuel to the Resistance fire, the Congressional Budget Office published a report saying that 22 million people will lack coverage under the replacement bill for Obamacare, knows as the Better Care Reconciliation Act.

The CBO estimates that the BCRA would reduce federal deficits by $321 billion over 10 years but increase the number of people who are uninsured by 22 million in 2026.

No one knows for sure how either Obamacare or BCRA will play out in 2026, but the Congressional Budget Office record is spotty. Before Obamacare was enacted, the CBO greatly overestimated the number who would get government-subsidized coverage through the new insurance exchanges.

At the same time, the office vastly underestimated the cost of Medicaid expansion by under-predicting the number who would get coverage through expanding Medicaid.

CBO said 10 million more would be added by 2016, but the real number was 14.4, over 40 percent greater than it predicted.

Schadenfreude, an Alaskan political reverie

Suzanne Downing

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July 9, 2017

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BY MURRAY WALSH
COMMENTARY

It has been an interesting 15 months in Alaska and America from a political standpoint. I think that period of time deserves a bit of musing.

But first, let’s examine the emotional response called schadenfreude. Originating in Germany, the word means to take pleasure in the misfortune of others.

I think it is fair to say that the feeling would be intensified in the case of the misfortune of an adversary. In general, this emotion is seen in a negative way, grouped with its sister emotions of envy, greed, and jealousy.

I would posit, however, that there is a form of good schadenfreude and that is when your adversary suffers misfortune because of his own doing.

So it is that I am enjoying a feeling of good schadenfreude when contemplating the misery of Hillary Clinton and her adherents here in Alaska.

Fifteen months ago, Alaska Republicans gathered to conduct our Presidential Preference Poll, which is the beginning of the process used to select delegates that are sent to the national convention. (Cruz won, remember? Trump came in a strong second.)

I helped staff the Juneau polling station. My role was crowd management but there were others performing very careful election functions, the most crucial of which was registering non-Republicans who wanted to vote.

The only people allowed to vote in this poll were registered Republicans. Anyone could register Republican on the spot and then participate in the poll. Nearly 1,000 Juneau residents voted that night and many of them were not registered Republicans when they walked into the building. But they all were when they walked out.

I knew a lot of these people, and I knew that some of them were flag-burning Democrats who were there to vote for Trump, and that they would re-register as Democrats the next day.

I discussed this with others working that day, and in the days that followed it was our collective conclusion from the whispering, our knowledge of our neighbors, and some outright sarcastic comments we overheard from people waiting in line — these were Democrats trying to throw the election.

I wondered if this was a uniquely Alaska-based Democrat behavior or if there was more to it. If you are looking for character differences between the two major political parties, the willingness to mess around in the other party’s business is decidedly un-Republican and very much in the Democrat Party’s toolbox.

The most lamentable example was in 1982 when there was no restriction on who could vote in the Republican Primary. The Democrats had picked their man, Bill Sheffield and his victory at the primary phase was well-enough assured that hundreds of Democrats voted on the Republican ticket rather than their own and caused nomination of Tom Fink rather than the more moderate sitting Lt. Governor, Terry Miller.

It is widely believed that this was a deliberate tactic that was conceived and directed by the Democrat Party leadership. Fink was seen by most political observers as too far right to win and sure enough, we know the outcome. That event is why the Alaska Republican Primary is closed to just registered Republicans, nonpartisan, and undeclared voters.

I watched the 2016 campaign unfold and I started some research to see if there was evidence of a national Democratic Party tactic to encourage the Republicans to pick Trump. The Democratic leadership would never admit it now, but it sure does look like they wanted Hillary to face Trump and they were giddy when he got the nomination.

That is basically the conclusion in a Politico article by Gabriel Debenedetti published on November 07, 2016, a day before the general election.

Titled They Always Wanted Trump, it is a pretty interesting review of the Clinton campaign effort over the preceding year. The subtitle is “Inside Team Clinton’s year-long struggle to find a strategy against the opponent they were most eager to face.”

What is not so clear is whether there were plans made, money spent, aides dispatched to interfere in the individual state Republican convention delegate selection procedures, but the fact that the Clinton campaign wanted Trump is enough, I believe, to enjoy a warm feeling of schadenfreude without any guilt at all.

All are welcome to join me. It’s more fun to bask as a group.

Murray Walsh owns a government permitting consulting company and has been involved in land use management and planning for more than 40 years. He lives in Juneau.

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