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Sign of economic struggle: Iron Dog ceremonial start cancelled

Suzanne Downing
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It’s a sign of tough economic times in Alaska: The Iron Dog race has cancelled its ceremonial start on Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage.

Jim Wilke, president of the board, said the race itself will go on, starting at Big Lake on Feb. 18, but tough economic times has caused the race to pull back on the pre-race festivities. The ceremonial start was added in 2015 under former executive director Kevin Kastner.

“The downtown start was a fantastic addition to our race, but it was simply too expensive and complex to continue. We look forward to another great race as we celebrate 35 successful years of Iron Dog,” Wilke said in a statement. “We are finalizing plans for all our related support events and will release an updated schedule very soon.”

The ceremonial start featured the “Flying Iron” freestyle show, vintage snow machines, activities for kids, and a chance for people to meet the racers.

The Iron Dog race crosses the state of Alaska each February as teams take snow machiens from Anchorat to Nome and on to Fairbanks, over 2,000 miles of remote and rugged terrain. It is billed as the world’s toughest snowmobile race. 29 teams are signed up for the 35th annual event.

Anchorage Person of the Year: The Gun Owner

Suzanne Downing
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12
Anchorage Person of the Year: The Gun Owner

The Anchorage Press this week named Mayor Ethan Berkowitz as Anchorage’s Person of the Year. Yes, that Ethan Berkowitz — the one who has presided over the highest murder rate the city has ever seen for two years in a row. The city where crime rates topple old records under his watch, where some neighborhoods are beginning to feel like war zones. Where, as he put it, so long as you are not out late at night, you’re safe.

“If you’re not engaged in drug trafficking and not out after midnight, it’s a very safe city,” he told the Anchorage Daily News. (And later apologized, after public outcry.)

The Ethan Berkowitz who said taxpayers could have either snow plows or cops, but not both. The one who has raised property taxes nearly 6 percent, pushed the budget over $526 million and, with the help of a liberally dominated Assembly, gave out $7 million in city raises last year.

The same Ethan Berkowitz gave raises of 10 percent to more than 30 municipal executives who were already making more than $100,000 a year.

Despite passing the biggest budget in Anchorage’s history, Mayor Berkowitz and his Assembly majority is borrowing millions of dollars to fund the public employee pension system, passing along that debt to future generations. And he’s using city-owned property as collateral.

Mayor Berkowitz also proposed and won a new 10-cent-per-gallon gas tax that will cost Anchorage families $11.7 million in the first year alone.

We’ll give him credit where it’s due: He’s brought the number of sworn officers up to 400 on the Anchorage Police force, an important goal during a crime wave unlike any Alaska has ever seen.

The Press says that Berkowitz can take credit that “Anchorage remains a beacon of growth and modernity.” It goes on with the unpaid campaign ad for his re-election:

“But more than all that, Berkowitz has an intangible quality that gives him an edge over any other nominee for this illustrious honor — he loves this [gratuitous F-bomb deleted] city more than you do.”

Conservatives might quibble with the characterization.

But who else has had such an impact on the well-being of Anchorage residents?

Andrew Halcro, who received a political plum job from Berkowitz and runs the Anchorage Community Development Authority, recently fathered the 5th Avenue parking garage rooftop ice skating rink that is, for the most part, a lonely little patch of novelty ice in a city full of wild ice skating opportunities.

(Andrew Halcro has objected to Must Read Alaska using this photo from the official publication, so we’ve replaced it with the entire official invitation.)

Or perhaps the Anchorage Person of the Year is Alice Rogoff, the somewhat rogue former publisher of the Anchorage Daily News, who stiffed dozens of Anchorage businesses and even her former employees, but now attends fundraisers for Gov. Bill Walker.

There’s a case to be made that by selling the newspaper, she had one of the more positive influences on Anchorage in 2017.

MUST READ ALASKA’S PERSON OF THE YEAR

We asked around to see what others thought would be appropriate for “Anchorage Person of the Year,” and here’s what the consensus is from conservative Anchorage residents who participated in this informal poll:

Anchorage Person of the Year is the gun-toting, law-abiding citizen who is now taking action to protect his [her] home, car, boat or snow machine, family dog, and children.

In a city that feels unsafe at any hour, citizens are arming themselves and joining social media and neighborhood watch groups in droves. They are engaged liked never before in being crime spotters and crime reporters.

It’s folks who run the Eagle River Crime Watch (7,800 members) and Stop Valley Thieves (16,000 members) and Wanted: Mat-Su and Anchorage (4,800 members) pages on Facebook. There are a dozen or more of these groups with active memberships. And they post pictures of stolen cars and thieves in action, like this one, where someone is caught on security camera trying the door of a truck in a Hillside neighborhood.

The Anchorage Person of the Year is also the certified firearms instructor and the legal gun dealer.

Amy Demboski, who serves on the Anchorage Assembly from Eagle River, said she is getting calls from women who need help finding the right firearm for personal protection. She’s known as someone who carries and who participates in her neighborhood watch.

She meets women at a local gun range in Palmer and lets them try one of her 9 mm guns — and she has several to choose from — so they can get the feel of these weapons and shoot one before purchasing.

These are women who have never thought they’d ever own a gun. They’re our Anchorage Person of the Year.

And although the Anchorage Press may call Ethan Berkowitz when mayhem breaks out on the street in front of their shop, the Anchorage Person of the Year is, first and foremost, the law enforcement professional.

It’s the man and woman in uniform who puts their life on the line every day by just walking out the front door to report for duty in a city where crime never sleeps.

Governor names his former AG to Permanent Fund Board

Suzanne Downing
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9

Gov.  Bill Walker has appointed former Attorney General Craig Richards to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation Board of Trustees.

Richards, who left his job as Attorney General abruptly and without explanation in June of 2016, is vice president and general counsel for Bering Straits Native Corporation.

He served as attorney general from 2014 to 2016, during which time he was the lead advocate for the governor’s Permanent Fund Protection Act, a restructuring of the Permanent Fund into an endowment plan. The legislation has been debated by the Legislature for two years, and his tenure was marked by a testy relationship between him and the Republican majority in the Senate and House.

Richards was a Permanent Fund trustee from 2015 to 2016, while he was attorney general. He takes the place of Larry Cash, founder and CEO of RIM Architects

Richards earned an undergraduate finance degree from the University of Virginia, a master in business administration from Duke University, and a juris doctor from Washington & Lee University. He is from Fairbanks and was Walker’s law partner for several years, and was the lawyer for Valdez during the days of the Alaska Gasline Port Authority.

Who killed John Hartman? Read the confessions

Suzanne Downing
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Who killed John Hartman? Read the confessions

FAIRBANKS MEN WERE FREED, BUT INNOCENCE NOT YET ESTABLISHED

Alaskans still don’t have a clear idea of who killed 15-year-old John Hartman in October of 1997. But it’s apparent that the four men who served time for the 1997 beating death, and who are now suing the City of Fairbanks, were released due to political pressure on the governor, not necessarily because of their innocence.

The four — George Frese, 20; Kevin Pease, 18; Marvin Roberts, 19; and Eugene Vent, 17, were marketed by their attorneys and supporters as the “Fairbanks Four.” The name stuck.

The idea of applying a catchy name worked well for the Chicago Seven in the 1960s, and it is a winning strategy for those who want to demonstrate that an injustice has occurred.

Their case became a cause celebre for Native Americans, journalists, and journalism and law students. A web site was launched to exonerate them. But even though their attorneys make claims to the contrary, they have never actually been truly exonerated.

Through the legal process, they had been found guilty. But in the court of Alaska politics, they became victims, rather than perpetrators.

In the end, the Walker Administration just could not take the pressure — it washed its hands of the matter and let them go, under the condition they would not sue.

John Hartman’s death occurred Oct. 12, 1997, about 24 hours after he had been found beaten on the street.

In a jury trial, Roberts was found guilty of Murder 1, Murder 2, 1st degree robbery, and assault in the second degree in connection to the death of John Hartman. He had been the driver of the car, as implicated by Vent. Vent and Frese admitted to the crime.

Today, Roberts is suing. His attorneys say he was framed. The other three men followed suit.

The case had political and racial elements from the beginning and the Tanana Chiefs Conference, which is close to the courthouse, kept the cause alive.

Then, soon after Gov. Bill Walker was elected, a deal was struck. The Department of Law, with Attorney General Craig Richards, worked a way out of the political problem: They worded a release deal carefully, so that the state did not admit to any wrongful judgment against the four, but stipulated that the “original jury verdicts and judgments of conviction were properly and validly entered based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Roberts signed it.

What AG Richards said was more guarded: “In this settlement, the four defendants agreed they were properly and validly investigated, prosecuted and convicted. This compromise reflects the attorney general’s recognition that if the defendants were retried today it is not clear under the current state of the evidence that they would be convicted.

On page 3 on “Robert’s Settlement Agreement and Mutual Release of all Claims,” Roberts agreed that the City of Fairbanks and its departments, divisions, agencies, agents, representatives, directors, past and current employees, attorneys, contractors, retained or non-retained experts, witnesses, predecessors or successors in interest were released and forever discharged.

That means he would not sue the City of Fairbanks either. But that was then.

Roberts is now saying he was coerced into signing the Attorney General’s release. He was already out on parole at the time of the settlement, but the other three would not be released from prison until he signed the agreement, and he now says that the pressure to do so was too much for him. He did it against his will.

IT BECAME PART OF THE 2014 ELECTION CYCLE

Did Gov. Walker cave under the tremendous racial/political pressure from a core constituency that helped elect him?

At Alaska Federation of Natives convention in 2015, Walker faced a convention full of people who were raising four fingers in the air, to demand the release of the four men.

Sen. Mark Begich asked for federal intervention in 2014, formally requesting a review from the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and saying that there had been “prosecutorial misconduct and coercion, along with evidence uncovered in recent years that includes a confession to the crime by a different individual.”

“It is time for a thorough review of the circumstances of this case by an impartial authority,” said Begich. “The State has requested delay after delay of its review and has attempted to keep information from being publicly disclosed. I agree with the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Tanana Chiefs Conference that this case requires federal review, and that is why I’ve made the formal request of the DOJ. We must be certain that those who are guilty of the brutal murder of John Hartman in 1997 have been brought to justice.”

In September of 2013, a Fairbanks man serving a double-life sentence in California claimed that he and some friends from Lathrop High School killed Hartman. It’s a complicating factor, to be sure. William Holmes, Jason Wallace, Shelmar Johnson, Rashad Brown, and Marquez Pennington are the real culprits, according to the attorney for the Fairbanks Four, Michael Kramer.

THE CONFESSIONS OF TWO OF THE FAIRBANKS FOUR

The problem with the lawsuit filed by the four men against the City of Fairbanks is that there is still are the confessions, such as this one from George Frese to law enforcement on Oct. 11, 1997, parts of which are highlighted here. Frese was 20 at the time he made these statements.

It’s unlikely that Alaskans, who have followed the case through newspaper accounts, have ever seen these documents, but the people of Fairbanks would be interested in them, since it’s the people of Fairbanks who are now being sued by the four men, who say their civil rights were violated. These documents are excerpts of an extended interview:

 

CONFESSION OF GEORGE FRESE:

CONFESSION OF EUGENE VENT:
Eugene Vent was 17 years old at the time of his confession. Readers should note that these are only excerpts of his interview, places where he clearly states he was involved in the beating of John Hartman. The interview in its entirety is several pages long:
JUSTICE FOR JOHN:
While the four Fairbanks men are now free, the pursuit of justice for John Hartman fell by the wayside. John’s father has died, his siblings have tried to move on with their lives. The State can’t really pursue it, because as far the State is concerned, it had the right people all along.
Those Native advocates who called out for justice for John Hartman have gone silent now that their men are free.
There is reasonable doubt now that others have been fingered. But none of that has been juried, and no one in Alaska who hopes for a political future would want to resist the Fairbanks men who are suing.
How will the City of Fairbanks defend itself against the Fairbanks Four?
Odds are, it will settle. After that happens, the four men will turn and sue the State of Alaska. And that will become a sticky political wicket in an election year.

Time to move the Ninth Circuit to Anchorage

Suzanne Downing
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1

RESIGNATION OF JUDGE KOZINSKI PROVIDES NEW OPPORTUNITY

BY BRUCE FROHNEN
GUEST COMMENTARY

The resignation of Appellate Judge Alex Kozinski amid charges of sexual misconduct spanning three decades provides more proof that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is unmanageable. Whatever one makes of the allegations (ranging from groping to showing pornography to clerks and others), their sheer extent and duration indicate a level of administrative chaos in keeping with the court’s general anarchy, and its undermining of judicial process.

Bruce Frohnen

Congress must finally accept the decision reached 40 years ago by its Commission on Revision of the Federal Court Appellate System: The 9th Circuit must be split up. The current situation harms litigants, including accused criminals and victims awaiting final disposition of their cases, along with the businesses, civil associations, and local governments that depend on clear, consistent, and known rules.

62 million people — more than a fifth of all Americans — in nine states, plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, reside in the 9th, which is just one of 12 appellate court districts;

The 9th has the most appellate court judges of any Circuit (29) yet, because of its crushing caseload, consistently has among the most overworked judges on the federal bench;

Litigants in the 9th must on average wait more than 15 months for their appeals to make their way to a final resolution — longer than in any other circuit. There are also too many judges in the 9th for them to hear cases as a group. Such “en banc” hearings in the 9th include only 11 random judges, causing inconsistency and confusion.

This last fact is too often overlooked. The U.S. Supreme Court, along with most every other appellate and state Supreme Court, hears important cases as a single group. This allows for the exchange of ideas, experience, and simple interpersonal contact essential to develop collegiality, reduce tensions, and promote rationality and compromise. Moreover, only an en banc decision can overturn decisions of the Circuit’s typical 3 judge panels. When “en banc” means merely “11 random judges,” the resulting precedent is weak and may be “re-overturned” by a different panel of 11 judges. This creates inefficiency and doubt in applying rules of law to specific cases.

But how, precisely, should Congress reshape the 9th? Attempts to split California between Circuits to dilute its overpowering population and influence run afoul of political realities and rightful claims of state integrity, as does any “California Circuit.” Instead, Congress should pair California with Nevada in a new, two-state 13th Circuit, combining common concerns like gaming, land, and water use, with demographic and ideological diversity. A new, more cohesive 12th Circuit should include Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. And Arizona should be freed from the 9th, where its inland Western interests are overshadowed, and placed within the current 10th Circuit.

Most important, we should move the current 9th Circuit “offshore” to Anchorage, Alaska. Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories including Guam, the Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, face legal issues too often ignored today. Most of the people in these “non-contiguous jurisdictions” belong to racial and ethnic minority groups, and their cases often concern issues of maritime law crucial to our economy. Yet, they too often are lost within the crowded dockets of three separate Circuits.

True, the new 9th Circuit would cover a vast swath of territory. But average travel times would not increase. The flight time between Puerto Rico and Anchorage is two hours less than that between Guam and San Francisco, where the current 9th is based. Moreover, geographic proximity is not the central problem, here, but rather workload and judges’ attention.

New judicial appointments would be necessary, as would be a rule limiting the number of judges serving on any Circuit to 18 — itself a long stretch for an en banc hearing. Whenever it becomes necessary for more judges within a circuit, the answer should not be to increase the number of judges, but to split the circuit.

Finally, given recent problems in the 9th, it seems best to allow all circuit precedent to be treated as persisting in the new 9th, 12th, and 13th Circuits.

Congress can, and should, increase access to justice through timely appeals and meaningful en banc review, as well as greater attention to underdeveloped areas of law, by reducing the 9th Circuit to a more human, and humane, scale.

Bruce Frohnen is Ella and Ernest Fisher Professor of Law at the Ohio Northern University College of Law.

Alaska Oil and Gas hires Brandon Brefczynski

Suzanne Downing
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2

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association has hired Brandon Brefczynski as its new external affairs manager, replacing Sarah Erkmann Ward, who recently launched a consultancy, Blueprint Alaska, with Jennifer Thompson of Thompson & Co. Public Relations.

Raised in Fairbanks, Brefczynski has had a career navigating the Alaska Legislature, most recently as Finance Committee aide for Rep. Steve Thompson of Fairbanks. Brandon also worked for Rep. Tammie Wilson of North Pole, former Rep. Doug Issacson of North Pole, and former Sen. Bill Stoltze of Chugiak.

He served at the Department of Environmental Conservation as the commissioner’s legislative liaison during the Parnell Administration.

As AOGA’s external affairs manager, Brefczynski will be responsible for legislative affairs, policy development, and strategic communication, the organization wrote in a press release today.

“Brandon brings a wealth of experience to our team,” said AOGA Executive Director Kara Moriarty. “We are confident he will be a leader for AOGA as we continue to advocate for the long-term viability of the oil and gas industry.”

Brefczynski graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks with a degree in political science.

AOGA is a professional trade association whose mission is to foster the long-term viability of the oil and gas industry in Alaska for the benefit of all Alaskans. More information about the organization can be found at www.aoga.org.

Alaska-based National Park Service insurgents take to Twitter to resist Trump

Suzanne Downing
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12
Alaska-based National Park Service insurgents take to Twitter to resist Trump

Someone (or some persons) in the National Park Service Alaska Region formed an insurgent group in January of 2017, and opened up a Twitter account to openly defy the Trump Administration. They seem to be doing so during business hours.

They call themselves the @AltNPSAlaskaRegion on Twitter and occasionally refer to themselves as park rangers.

Last week they ramped up their resistance. They posted on Twitter this message, which warns the private sector to stay out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or face economic recrimination:

“BREAKING: We need EVERYONE to watch to see who will be bidding on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge over the next few years. We must ALL work to spread the word to economically break them. That is one major step in defending this last great wilderness #Resistance“

The Alaska Twitter group describes itself as the “The Unofficial #Resistance team of the U.S. NPS Alaska Region. As civil servants we don’t serve this Admin, we serve the American People.”

These public servants also post notes like the following one on Twitter during normal Alaska Time business hours — on a regular basis:

The group, which has a logo that mimics that used by the National Park Service, appears related to the national resistance team called @AltUSNatParkService on Twitter, which purports to be run by Park Service employees on their non-government hours.

That group was also founded last January around the same time as when the Park Service was discovered to be engaged in politically motivated communication.  The Park Service had its Twitter account suspended after it showed side-by-side photos of President Trump’s smaller inaugural crowd and former President Obama’s larger inaugural crowd, without explaining to readers that the  District of Columbia voted 90 percent for Hillary Clinton in November of 2016, which would account for the crowd difference.

The Alaska group has been busy resisting Trump since its January inception, posting 1,336 Twitter messages.

The official Park Service Twitter account, founded in 2009, has posted 8,900 messages in its entire 8-year history.

 

Bureaucracy 101: The structure is same as Territorial days

Suzanne Downing
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2

OUR MOST CYNICAL CONTRIBUTOR MAKES A CASE FOR WASTE MANAGEMENT

By ART CHANCE
SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

If some grizzled old character from the Territorial government of 1958 stumbled into the State Capitol in Juneau, he wouldn’t be lost; pictures of people he knew still line the third floor hall.

The old Territorial Office Building is nearly across the street, now housing the Department of Health and So-Called Services.

The Juneau State Office Building is new for his time, but he’d recognize everything on the directory in the 8th floor lobby.

Since 1959 the State has to little avail consolidated the Departments of Highways and Public Works into the second most dysfunctional department of State government: the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. I appreciate Gov. Jay Hammond’s motivation, but the congenital bureaucrats won that one.

The departments of Labor and Commerce are kinda-sorta’ combined. They’ve changed the name of the Department of Education, but not changed its function of making sure the education racket gets most of the budget.

We did succeed in pushing Pioneer Homes out to Health and Social Services, but I think it is even worse managed there than it was in the Department of Administration. The only thing that is truly new is Hammond’s Department of Environmental Conservation, and it’s no prize. When I left in 2006, it was the highest paid department of State government, and the competition for that is tough.

In sum, the organizational structure of the State government in 2017 is almost unchanged from the organizational structure of the Territorial government of 1958.

In 1958 most of Alaska didn’t have telephones.  Mail, still delivered by sled dogs in some places, was the only method of communication.  Five-part carbon copies were the rule and you hand wrote or dictated a memo that was typed by a clerk typist on an Underwood manual typewriter.

Everything in State government is done at least in triplicate. The State works just like it did in the days of rotary phones.   The DOT&PF consolidation was meant to eliminate the regional structure of the old Department of Highways, Alaska’s first and foremost source of graft and corruption, but even 40 years after Jay Hammond passed into history, the DOT&PF still has a regional structure with hereditary heads.

At some theoretical level, the governor dictates the “Governor’s Budget” through the Office of Management and Budget.  There is a fur ball between OMB and the departments’ budget weenies over just what the department gets.  I always hated the weenies in my Admin Services Division more than OMB. The Admin weenies wanted to make sure you knew they were really your boss; I never accepted that and I knew how to find a legislator on the Finance Committee at the Triangle or the Bubble Room to make sure I got my way.

If it isn’t apparent by now, I’ll make it clear; I hate Administrative Services directors, and the ones with MBAs are the most egregious.

The MBA is the worst thing that ever happened to Western Civilization.

Every department of State government has a budget and finance unit at the department level; there is a budget officer and a finance officer who have ministerial authority – which they never exercise.

Then each division of any size has its own budget and finance people, and smaller divisions pay the departmental budget and finance people to do the budget and finance work for them.

Then down to the section level, they all have budget and finance sections who do the same work, but their job is to make sure that the upper level never knows what they’re hiding. It goes down to sections and work units; everything is still  done in at least triplicate and often in quadruplicate or even more.

Nothing adds value; it just gives jobs and power to bureaucrats at ever lower levels.

All of these levels can be collapsed upward to the highest organizational level that gives commonality. In most departments there should be no organizational levels below the department.

Many departments should have much of their organic functions performed at an enterprise level. There is no reason for IT at the department level other than the department’s managers being able to glom on to some contract or deal that makes him some money.

I’d love to scratch into Mark Boyer’s dealings with Cisco that led to that former commissioner of Administration being named their national lobbyist and bringing his IT director along with him. Oh, well, Ethics Laws don’t apply to Democrats.

Like modern American corporations, Alaska’s government only needs one level of administration. Corporate America thinned the org chart 20 or 30 years ago. State government could easily reduce its workforce by 20 – 30 percent just by redrawing the org charts.

Don’t get me wrong; it would hurt; there would be foreclosed houses and repossessed cars – there would be an economic impact, but it could be done.

If you want to save some money, some highly compensated bureaucrats who live in houses with waterfront views, and who own boats, airplanes, and have a lot of other amenities, such as women on the side, have got to go.

One of my formative experiences in State government was when just after noon every Friday during the summer I watched a State Range 20 employee, (and I, too, was a Range 20 at the time), cruise his 40-foot boat down Gastineau Channel toward Taku Harbor.

Sorry folks, you can’t be a State Range 20, be an honest person, and also own a 40-foot boat. I was a division director, my wife was a deputy director, and an old 24-footer was at the limit of our means; I bought a 10-year-old, 30-footer for the proper optics and entertaining when I was angling to become a director, but hanging onto us almost broke us.

The real problem is that legislators don’t have a clue about how the Executive Branch works, and few of them even want to know — or be the ogre who puts workers out on the street.

But in reality, services might actually be improved if the State organizational chart was reduced by a third.

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.

Alaska Democrats on ANWR victory: Crickets

Suzanne Downing
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7
Alaska Democrats on ANWR victory: Crickets

The passage of the historic tax reform — with the keys to ANWR’s oil and gas sector — was met with silence from Alaska Democrats, inclusive of state senators, representatives and party leaders.

The published statement from Gov. Bill Walker was, at best, “meh.”

Walker wrote in a press release last week: “Moving forward, we will continue to dialogue with all Alaskans, and ensure that any potential development in the 1002 Area takes into consideration Alaskan concerns previously expressed.”

[Read Walker’s complete press release here.]

Not a ringing endorsement — but a nod to his Democratic base. What does Walker mean by “takes into consideration Alaskan concerns previously expressed?”

He’s referring to those Democrats not done with the #Resistance. He is speaking to the party of Senators Maria Cantwell and Elizabeth Warren.

The Left is gearing up and going after the brand reputation of any oil company that dares to bid on leases in the 1002 Area of ANWR, as seen in this warning:

KUAC Radio, out of Fairbanks, says the fight isn’t over. In this report, it quotes environmental groups as saying they will fight on to prevent oil exploration in the 1002 area of ANWR.

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