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Revenue commissioner: Food stamps could be cut

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Commissioner Hoffbeck in 2015, screenshot from 360north.org

BUT COULD THEY?

It was Wednesday, and Alaska Commissioner of Revenue Randy Hoffbeck was once again explaining to legislators how any further budget reductions — any at all — would hurt communities in Alaska.

That’s because cuts would require local communities to pick up the costs of services the State would be forced to abandon. And not all communities are created equal, he inferred. Some just cannot support themselves.

Cuts roll down hill, Hoffbeck said to the House Finance Committee, and the further they roll, the fewer the resources there are to pay for services.

The Walker Administration is all done cutting, he reiterated to the Democrat-dominated committee. “The price has been paid. We need to start talking about revenues.”

Gov. Bill Walker was also all done cutting last year — before he cut Permanent Fund dividends in half and axed cash owed to oil explorers — but we’ll leave that for another day.

Hoffbeck’s proof that “draconian” cuts were ahead was found in a handout that showed all the monies the state sends to communities, including the food stamp program (SNAP) and the WIC program, which is a food subsidy program specifically for pregnant women, new mothers, infants, and children.

These programs for needy Alaskans could be cut next, he said.

For example, according to Hoffbeck’s handout, Bethel residents receive $20.5 million worth of SNAP — also known as food stamps — assistance each year, and $4.3 million in WIC funds, for a total of $24.8 million in food assistance for a community of not quite 6,500 people. That’s a substantial flow of cash into the regional hub.

 

IMAGINARY MONSTER

The real problem with Hoffbeck’s presentation is not so much that it shows how food subsidies in Alaska prop up rural communities, but that he neglected to note the food subsidy is all federal tax dollars passing through the state on the way to individuals and families. The state is merely a middle man that processes applications.

Alaska does pay for half of the cost of administering the program, a cost that could be reduced by, for instance, streamlining what is now a 21-page application that must be submitted by mail.

FOOD STAMPS, DATA POINTS, CREDIBILITY

In Hoffbeck’s presentation, nearly half of the $45 million in funds shown in the slide on Bethel are food stamp or WIC benefits.

Since he used Bethel as an example, it’s worth taking a look at the numbers he provided.

If Hoffbeck is accurate, between food stamps and WIC payments, Bethel residents receive an average of $3,815 per person, per year, or $73 each week in federally funded food assistance. This doesn’t include the free breakfast and lunch program provided through the schools or other forms of food assistance through tribes and nonprofits.

It’s notable that in Fairbanks, with its population 10 times the size of Bethel, food stamp and WIC receipts are just $18.6 million. Bethel is making bank on SNAP.

Anchorage, to compare, brings in $56.4 million in food stamps and WIC, double the receipts to Bethel, which has 2 percent of the population of Anchorage.

According to the state’s own reporting, food stamp enrollment has increased by more than 60 percent in recent years, and it is a stated goal of the Department of Health and Social Services to increase those numbers. After all, it’s free money from federal taxpayers.

A page from Commissioner Randy Hoffbeck’s presentation to House Finance Committee showing how cuts could hurt local communities.

HOLDING FOOD STAMPS HOSTAGE FOR TAXES

When Gov. Bill Walker, through his commissioner, tries to game legislators and the public by pretending food stamps will be cut and families will starve, he risks his already-fragile credibility.

Hoffbeck started his presentation as a preacher would, by telling a story about time he spent with a professor from the University of Potsdam, Germany, discussing how decision makers face tough choices and the wrath of a public that may not understand the depth of an impending crisis. Countering misinformation is key, he said.

“One of the things he [the professor] has found that is critical in helping this decision-making process going forward is having the best information possible out there so as decision makers make the decision, the public is aware as much as possible as to the reason behind the particular decisions being made.”

In other words, give the public the best information.

“One thing we need to deal with is this idea is we need to cut first before we need to [make] any other decision. The assumption is that cuts haven’t been made,” Hoffbeck said. “That’s far from the reality of what we’re facing now.”

After going through the top-level cuts, Hoffbeck asked: “Where do you go next? The next category is these direct payments to recipients.”

Then he queued up the food stamps and WIC payments as at risk.

“Those are the kind of things that are on the table next and it really gets to the question of what do we want the state to look like going forward. Just because the state stops funding a program doesn’t mean the need goes away. The need for services remains, or may even be greater. One indisputable fact is that cuts roll downhill…every time you step down further there are less resources available,” he said, unaware that he was arguing mainly for greater income redistribution.

Hoffbeck acknowledged that Alaskans have said repeatedly they wanted more cuts before the administration comes to them for money.

“The price has been paid. Those cuts have been made and its time to start talking about other sources of revenue to close the fiscal gap entirely,” he said. “The governor has said in his State of the State address…it is time to move beyond the visionless exercise of budget cutting to achieve predetermined cost savings without consideration of the impact and cost that the cuts make on society as a whole. We need to start thinking about how to start building Alaska instead of pitting groups against each other, essentially tearing the state apart cut by cut. We need to do better than that.”

No one on the committee asked Hoffbeck to explain how federally funded food stamps could be cut, but Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage, said to the committee that he had been speaking to a Republican lawmaker and, without naming the colleague said, “The two of us are just done with — in our view — the sound bite that you can cut a lot more from the budget.”

Gara, who has also pushed for higher taxes on oil, went on to argue that cutting more of the budget would eliminate state jobs, and that would have a negative impact on the economy, possibly sinking the state into a recession that would last for years to come.

“Massively cutting State services, we have heard, every $100 million in cuts from now on is another 1,000 to 1,500 jobs we lose. That’s a ten-year recession,” he said.  Actually, it is not, Rep. Gara.  It is only 10-15% of the mostly private sector jobs that have already been lost in the past two years.

The state currently employs 245 full-time workers for every 10,000 Alaskans, according to Governing Magazine, which is among the highest in the nation.

That’s one State worker for every 40 Alaskans, for a total of 18,000 State workers, a number that varies somewhat depending on whether you count university employees.

Commissioner Hoffbeck’s testimony is an Alaskan version of what the feds call “The Washington Monument Game”.  This term harkens back to the days when the U.S. Park Service, in response to any budget cuts, would claim that it could no longer afford to keep the lights on in the Washington Monument in WA DC.  With the Monument shuttered for a time, pressure would build on Congress to reverse the budget cuts.

The Washington Monument game is actually rather tame compared to Commissioner Hoffbeck’s thoroughly false claims about the need to eliminate federally funded food assistance programs in the event of further state budget cuts.

 

Reining in ‘bull poop’ federal overreach as clock runs out

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DEMOCRATS DEFEND FEDERAL MANAGEMENT OF ALASKA RESOURCES

Alaska Congressman Don Young and Sen. Dan Sullivan are working against the clock and also against Democrats from Outside states. The two Alaska lawmakers are attempting to overturn a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that seized more than 77 million acres from Alaska’s fish and wildlife management last summer.

FWS took over management of 20 percent of Alaska’s lands with the final rule of Aug. 5, 2016. It was a power grab of historic proportions.

Young filed a resolution that will, if passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Donald Trump, nullify the  overreaching rule that swept aside guarantees made at Statehood that Alaska would manage fish and wildlife within its borders.

H.J. Res. 69 is expected to be voted on the House floor today, around 8 am Alaska time. A similar resolution is being worked through the Senate by Sen. Dan Sullivan.

Young and Sullivan are using the Congressional Review Act as a tool to overturn many of the politically motivated rules set forth by the Obama Administration during its final months.

The CRA, as the tool is called, allows Congress to review rules put in place 60 days prior to the end of the most recent administration.

Those days are counted by actual days Congress is in session. Because of the election season, it was out of session for much of the fall, so those 60 days have not yet expired.

Young spoke about the resolution in the House Rules Committee:

“We have to recognize this is not about the little polar bears, the little grizzly bears or wolves on television, this is about the state’s right to manage – not allowing the federal government to do so…We want to be able to take and manage our fish and game for the sustainable yield – so that our fish and game will be there forever… What they’re proposing, with their actions to take away our control, would preclude us from maintaining the species that are necessary in the state of Alaska –  for the state. I urge you to [move this legislation forward], review this program, bring it to a vote, and get the federal government off states’ backs. The states have a right, under the law, especially the state of Alaska, to manage. To have an agency come in and say, ‘no you don’t,’ is just dead wrong.”

PUPPY KILLING ACT? ‘BULL POOP’

Congressman Jared Polis, D-Colo.

Rep. Jared Polis, a Democrat of Colorado, argued colorfully against Alaska’s right to manage its own fish and wildlife, appearing to pull his remarks right out of a Humane Society talking points memo: “This bill should really be called ‘The Puppy Killing Act.’ What it does is it allows inhumane methods and cruel methods like killing pups and their mothers in and near their dens. It allows for killing brown bears over bait and scouting bears and shooting them and killing them from the air without landing…”

Young pushed back, with equal earthy color: “With the propaganda you are rehearsing here – putting forth to this committee – is full, full, full bull poop…”

The Humane Society of the United States has been running an aggressive anti-H.J. 69 campaign on YouTube that is almost parroted by the opponents of Alaska’s management of fish and game.

Democrat Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota argued against Young’s resolution: “Alaska’s aggressive predatory control practices and disregard for science-based management and the approach of the [FWS] service would negatively impact the ability of the ecosystems and wildlife throughout the region.”

Another Democrat — California Rep. Tony Cardenas, said the rule is meant to protect wolves, wolverines, bears, grizzly bears and lynx from “some of the most egregious hunting and killing methods.” He detailed several of those methods, which Young again called propaganda from the Humane Society and “a flat-out lie.”

“I understand where this pressure is coming from. We in Alaska face this pressure every day,” Young continued.

Young has received support from 27 organizations, including the National Rifle Association, Alaska Outdoor Council, Americans for Prosperity, and others who maintain that federal law grants the State of Alaska, with limited exception, the authority to manage fish and wildlife resources throughout Alaska. The Alaska Statehood Act granted Alaska authority and the Alaska Constitution requires management of wildlife and natural resources for “maximum use with the public interest.”

The House will take up H.J. Res. 69 on Thursday, when Rep. Young will speak on behalf of his resolution.

Young also offered other rollbacks of Obama-era rules, all of which are being fast-tracked for votes this week:

  • H.J. Res. 36, to overturn the BLM’s “Venting and Flaring” rule. 
  • H.J. Res. 38, to overturn the Office of Surface Mining’s (OSM) Stream Protection Rule (SPR).
  • H.J. Res. 40, to overturn a rule submitted by the Social Security Administration relating to the implementation of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Improvement Amendments Act of 2007.
  • H.J. Res. 44, to overturn the BLM’s Resource Management Planning rule, commonly known as the BLM’s “ Planning 2.0 Rule.”

If H.J. Res. 69 fails in the House or Senate, there is still recourse. In January, the State of Alaska filed a lawsuit over the Fish and Wildlife rule.

The lawsuit against former Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell contends that limiting predator control efforts on federal wildlife refuges encroaches on the state’s management authority. The 77 million acres covered by the rule comprises about 20 percent of the state.

Obamacare hitting the skids in Alaska?

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It’s not looking good for Obamacare in Alaska, or the rest of the nation, for that matter. According to one major health insurance executive, the Affordable Care Act is in a “death spiral.”

The 2017 enrollment period for the health insurance under the ACA ended on Jan 31 with just 9.2 million Americans in the 39 states using HealthCare.gov selecting a plan.

That’s off 4 percent from the 9.6 million who enrolled during 2016’s open enrollment.

Even as enrollments dropped, the US population as a whole grew at a rate of about 1 percent, pushing actual enrollment losses closer to 5 percent.

The final weeks of open enrollment told the story of a lapse in confidence in the program. While during the past three enrollment cycles, there has been a rush to enroll before the deadline, this year consumers said, “Meh.” The final two weeks had half as many people sign up as last year.

The 2017 health care plans cost more, too: They averaged 25 percent higher this year and there were 28 percent fewer companies to choose from in the government’s “marketplace.” This comes on the heels of steep cost increases in each of the previous several years.

Final Obamacare numbers will continue to roll in through the end of March. But early indicators show the program created by President Barack Obama when he signed the ACA into law in 2010 is ailing. The law passed with no Republicans voting in favor of it.

ALASKA’S NUMBERS: UP OR DOWN?

The federal government says 19,145 Alaskans purchased insurance during the 2017 open enrollment.

Last year 23,029 Alaskans had enrolled by the end of January. But by the end of March, 2016, only 18,000 had actually completed their enrollment by paying for it, while 5,000 had dropped out.

If that trend holds, the number of Alaskans who follow through and pay for their plans by the end of March will be significantly smaller than in 2016. The overall population of Alaska has held steady year over year.

Premera, the last insurer operating in the most expensive health insurance market in the world, this year sold policies to 12,334 Anchorage residents, 1,952 Fairbanks residents, and 866 Juneauites.

Alaska was nearly the smallest market in the nation this year, roughly tied with the State of Hawaii, which had 211 fewer enrollees than the 49th state.

Of the 19,145 Alaska enrollees, about half of them are enrolled in the Medicaid expansion program for those who are mainly lower-income workers. The 100 percent federal subsidy for Medicaid expansion ended in December, and Alaska has begun to pick up the costs for those enrollees.

For those who were not assigned to the Medicaid program, the average “silver plan” monthly charge went up by 26 percent to $741 in Anchorage, while Juneau’s rose 29 percent to $760 a month for a 27-year-old single person. 90 percent of enrollees received a government subsidy to help pay for their insurance.

AETNA, HUMANA EXITING

While Premera is the only company left in Alaska, other states are about to get a dose of the monopoly Alaskans already face.

Aetna, one of the major companies in the government’s health insurance exchange, indicated this will be its last year.

Aetna’s CEO called Obamacare a “death spiral” during a Wall Street Journal conference on the health care program. The company has left most of the markets where it once sold plans, and remains in just four states, among those Nebraska, where it is the last company standing in the public exchange. Aetna is still considering whether it will participate next year.

“My anticipation would be that in ’18, we’ll see a lot of markets without any coverage at all,” CEO Mark Bertolini remarked.

Humana has already decided to leave the Obamacare program next year. It is the first major company to pull out altogether.

“Based on our initial analysis of data associated with the company’s health-care exchange membership following the 2017 open enrollment period, we continue to see further signs of an unbalanced risk pool,” said CEO Bruce Broussard, during a Humana conference call with analysts on Tuesday. “Therefore, the company has decided that it cannot continue to offer this coverage for 2018.”

These astronomical annual increases in cost signify the slow, painful unraveling of the fundamentally flawed Obamacare system. It is now up to the Trump Administration and its allies in Congress to either overhaul Obamacare or replace it entirely with a new approach. We encourage the latter option.

Events

FEB 16: 5:30 p.m., Young Republicans’ February Social at the Anchorage Distillery, 6310 A St, Anchorage. Guest speaker is Albert Fogle, a Republican running for Anchorage Assembly.
FEB. 17: Mat-Su Republican Women’s Lincoln Day Dinner at Evangelos, with guest speaker Talis Colberg, who served as Alaska’s Attorney General under Gov. Sarah Palin, and who was elected to two three-year terms on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly. Tickets.

FEB. 18: Anchorage Republican Women’s Lincoln Day Dinner, Bridge Seafood Restaurant & Catering, 221 W. Ship Creek Ave, Anchorage. The speaker is conservative comedian Eric Golub, part of a tiny subspecies of comics who makes jokes at the expense of Democrats. Ticket information.

FEB. 20: Fairbanks Republican Women Lincoln Day Dinner with guest speaker Sen. Dan Sullivan. Tickets: 907-388-5851

FEB 20: Presidents Day in the USA. Federal workers get the day off, banks close too.
FEB. 24-25: Juneau – Alaska Republicans’ State Central Committee quarterly meeting.
FEB. 24: Capital City Republicans Lincoln Day Dinner with guest speaker Jeremy Carl of the Hoover Institute, also a writer at the National Review.  Tix Here.

Feb. 24: Alaska Republican Party Freedom Club ($100) special reception with Sen. Dan Sullivan. Details below.

FEB. 25: Hunting Expo and Sportsman’s Banquet, Dena’Ina Center. Tickets: http://www.aksafariclub.org/2013-banquet

APRIL 4: Anchorage Assembly and School Board election.

Pruitt for EPA may be voted on this week…or not

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Scott Pruitt

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) checkmated purposefully lethargic Democrats who have dragged out the approval process for President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees.

On Monday, McConnell filed “cloture” for six of the nominees, including Rep. Ryan Zinke for Interior secretary, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry for Energy secretary and Scott Pruitt to head up the Environmental Protection Agency. All of those positions are important to Alaskans.

Senators will likely leave Washington, DC on Friday to spend time in their districts over the long President’s Day weekend, so the vote on Pruitt may come by Thursday.

However, insiders say Democrats are likely to maneuver more roadblocks in the way of Pruitt’s and other nominations.

Democrats have been boycotting committee meetings to force a delay on the vote for Pruitt, who is being opposed by the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and other environmental groups.

“Make no mistake, nothing less than our children’s health is at stake right now,” opined the Sierra Club, which called Pruitt a “shill for polluters.”

“An EPA run by Scott Pruitt means more pollution, more asthma attacks, more premature deaths, and more mercury poisoning. And if Trump is able to confirm Pruitt for EPA and ExxonMobil (a Private Enterprise Council Member of ALEC) CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State, the result would not only put our local air and water at risk, but would also cripple U.S. climate leadership and put the stability of our planet in danger,” the organization stated.

In other words, according to the Sierra Club, Pruitt himself is an existential threat to the planet.

Some 450 former employees of the EPA agree. They include Steve Torok, once a senior representative of the Alaska Operations Office in Juneau, who joined with the others in  signing  a letter to Sen. McConnell opposing Pruitt’s nomination.

(Torok in 2000 proposed fines against Princess Cruises totalling $110,000 and against Norwegian Cruise Lines totalling $55,0000 for allegedly exceeding Alaska’s smokestack emission limits.)

Another nominee targeted by Democrats for removal is Rep. Mick Mulvaney to lead the Office of Management and Budget. The cloture means his confirmation vote will likely come on Wednesday, but that could drag into Thursday with Democrats pushing back due to Mulvaney’s own admission that he was delinquent in paying up to $15,000 in state and federal payroll taxes for a babysitter between 2000 and 2004. Democrats have marked him for disqualification.

If Mulvaney’s hearing is hung up, then Pruitt’s confirmation will get pushed into the end of February. Both Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan are expected to vote in favor of Pruitt, the fiesty 48-year-old Oklahoma attorney general, when the matter does hit the full Senate.

Although reviled by environmentalists, Pruitt is lauded by conservatives for establishing a “federalism unit” to fight unwarranted regulations and federal overreach in Oklahoma. He filed the first lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act, and he is a litigious thorn in the side of the Environmental Protection Agency, which he is being appointed to lead.

One thing is certain: Pruitt is no Gina McCarthy, who headed the EPA under President Obama and famously shut down the Pebble Project in western Alaska before the Pebble Limited Partnership could even go through a permit process. The EPA has been accused of misconduct and bias in the events that led up to its decision.

Another nominee whom Democrats oppose is Andy Puzder, tapped by Trump to lead the Department of Labor. Alaska Sen. Murkowski and three other Republicans have indicated they haven’t made up their minds about whether to support his nomination. Murkowski opposed the appointment of Betsy DeVos to head Education, who was confirmed.

Some believe that Murkowski owes much to the National Education Association for her write-in victory in 2010, which was a bill that came due when Betsy DeVos’ nomination for Education Secretary was voted on. Murkowski voted against her, along with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, but Vice President Mike Pence cast the deciding vote that confirmed DeVos.

Can’t get past ADN paywall? Subscribe to our newsletter

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1904 political cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt from the New York World. Roosevelt built the Panama Canal but was routinely skewered by the media. Not much has changed.

A lifetime of participating as a news writer and news consumer leaves Must Read Alaska with data points aplenty on the nature of bias.

It just creeps in, no matter what. Even good reporters can’t help but write the news through the lens of their personal history.

Here at Must Read we honor the notion that having a viewpoint is acceptable, so long as you acknowledge it to readers and do not lull them into thinking you’re in the bias-free zone.

Therein lies the problem: The media is, by and large, populated by liberal activists who play-act at neutrality but are merely “useful idiots” for the political Left.

The Anchorage Daily News made this an art form. Under McClatchy, ADN was the best-shod political heel in Alaska, especially so after the shuttering of the competing Anchorage Times. 

When the ADN became the Dispatch under Alice Rogoff, it graduated from a political kitten heel into a stiletto.

The Dispatch leans ever leftward. Rogoff, who was seen dining with the governor at the Governor’s Mansion just days before the Legislature convened in January, has found that subscribers are heading for the exits.

Her solution to the financial bleeding was to put up a paywall, a barrier that requires readers to subscribe before they can access stories online.

Others have tried this gambit and precious few have met with success. Almost all news sites have found that paywalls truncate the size of their readership, and drastically. Some report that they gain a few subscribers, but not nearly enough to make up for the losses.

The problem with the ADN paywall is it is more of a suggestion than an actual wall. If you want to read the Dispatch online you just use a Chrome browser, click the box at the upper right corner that allows you to browse “incognito,” which means the Dispatch won’t be able to collect “cookies” that show it what pages you’re clicking on so it can throw a payment box between you and the news. There are numerous other ways to defeat a paywall — for example, removing the ? and everything that follows it after “html” in the URL line also does the trick. Or you can delete all your “cookies.”

The ADN’s paywall is not much more than a porous donation system disguised as a demand, when it works at all. Recently, there are simply no paywalls on any of the stories, and no explanation as to whether you’re in your 10-free-per-month mode or if they’ve simply abandoned the paywall without comment.

But will Alaskans pay the Dispatch to get past the fake paywall to read what many consider to be fake news, way too often?

A recent survey of attitudes toward the Dispatch suggests not. Self-identified Democrats make up about 14 percent of Alaskans, and those folks do dearly love the Dispatch — 83 percent of them are admittedly favorable toward it. These card carrying Democrats might pay, if they can afford it.

But for those who self-identify as conservative and very conservative — that’s over 50 percent of Alaskans — the dissatisfaction with the ADN is about 75 percent.

With numbers like that, and knowing that many of those liberal Democrats are rural Alaskans who don’t have a huge amount of disposable cash income, the ADN firewall has a big hurdle to overcome.

After all, the people whom advertisers want are the ones with disposable income and the ability to access goods and services. Those people are showing an overwhelming degree of disapproval with the ADN, according to the survey.

THE NEWS IS DEAD; LONG LIVE THE NEWS

Roughly half of America figured out during the last election cycle that the news industry was rigged for Hillary Clinton, and although purveyors of news did their best to dismantle the phenomenon that is Donald Trump, he won massive support — enough to win decisively.

While Trump didn’t prevail with the popular vote, he spent $380.3 million less than his opponent Hillary Clinton, and cleverly figured out the path to victory through the Electoral College.

The entrenched media clearly doesn’t get it, as it continues its barrage on the new president, with no reflection on its worshipful coverage of President Barack Obama for nearly a decade. And, with no self awareness of the degree to which voters discounted media coverage and swung the other way this time.

The media also cannot see that the information business is changing. Non-mainstream news sites are coming on strong. Even in Alaska, independent news sites have popped up, and some have flourished.

In Ketchikan, SitNews.us is alive and well as a community news and information outlet, with an impressive advertising model.

The Anchorage Daily Planet continues to publish online every day.

Other citizen journalist sites, such as last year’s Alaska Grinder News,  have come and gone, but EnergyDudesandDivas continues to flourish under the leadership of Deb Brollini. CraigMedred.news keeps tabs on hunting, fishing, and other Alaska mayhem, with a focus on the out-of-doors and an occasional foray into politics.

The Alaska Support Industry Alliance publishes a business-friendly point-of-view at The Alaska Headlamp, and conservative think tank Alaska Policy Forum is crunching numbers and publishing data regularly.

A new conservative online news aggregator is about to launch in Alaska along the lines of the Drudge Report. The early drafts look promising.

Most of these news and information sites are one-person operations, and none has the backing of billionaire-by-marriage Rogoff, who is married to the head of the Carlyle Group, a private equity investment company that manages a portion of the Alaska Permanent Fund. Instability will be the name of the game in a business that demands much and profits little.

PANAMA CANAL IS IN OUR REAR VIEW MIRROR

Speaking of profits, while we loved the Panama Canal, built by American ingenuity under the leadership of President Teddy Roosevelt, we’re back from our seven-nation sojourn, we’re “on station,” and writing daily once more. No more vacations for Must Read Alaska. Write to us at [email protected] if you wish to buy an ad: We’re open for business.

SUBSCRIBE TO MUST READ ALASKA’S MONDAY NEWSLETTER

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Sign up at the top right of our home page by filling in your email address.

We only use that address to send out the weekly newsletter and for occasional breaking news. We do not sell your information, nor give it to anyone.

Today, nearly two years after we first launched the newsletter, 8,300 Alaskans and a few ex-patriots subscribe, and we’ll take more.

Step right up and get your new Anchorage Assembly and School Board here

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Assembly seats up for change are Patrick Flynn, Bill Evans, Bill Starr, Tim Steele, Pete Petersen and Elvi Gray-Jackson (seated).

(NOTE: UPDATED FEB. 15, 2017)

If you’re in Anchorage, there’s an election in your future — and it could be important to your future.

Voting is April 4 for the Assembly, School Board, and borrowing the city and schools want to do to fix things, install things, and buy other things.

Other fast facts:

  • March 5 is the last day to register to vote in this election.
  • Early and absentee voting begins March 20 at City Hall and Loussac Library. Early voting in Chugiak-Eagle River begins March 27 at Chugiak-ER Senior Center, for Chugiak-ER ballots only.
  • If you prefer to vote by mail, fill out this application. Send in by 5 pm, March 28.
  • To vote by fax, fill out this application.
  • To vote by email, fill out this one.
  • The number to call to determine your polling place is  907-269-8683. Those locations will be published by March 15.

In other words, no excuses. Since 1993, when muni elections were moved to April, only 28 percent of Anchorage voters cast ballots. In 2015, the turnout was a sorry 20 percent. Before 1993, when voting was in November, the turnout averaged 39 percent. (Former Assemblyman Chris Birch, now a state representative, tried to have the muni election returned to November but was blocked by “progressives” and union leaders who prefer low turnouts).

ANCHORAGE ASSEMBLY, FOUR OPEN SEATS:

DISTRICT 1, Downtown
Patrick Flynn is “term limited out.

Christopher Constant, former president of Fairview Community Council. Democrat.
Christopher Cox, Anchorage businessman and former bar owner. Republican.
David Dunsmore, former staff to Democrat Rep. Adam Wool, aide to Assemblyman Pete Petersen. Democrat.
Mark Alan Martinson, has run for assembly before. Nonpartisan, leans conservative.
Albert Langdon Swank Jr. Unaffiliated, leans Democrat.
Warren West. Republican

DISTRICT 2, Chugiak-Eagle River 
Incumbent Bill Starr is “term limited out.”

John Brassell, vice president of Parker, Smith and Feek. Republican.
Patrick Donnelly. Nonpartisan swing voter
Fred Dyson, former State Senator. Republican.
Gretchen Wehmhoff. Democrat

DISTRICT 3, West Anchorage 
Tim (Paul) Steele 
is running for a second term. Democrat.
David Nees, retired math teacher, previous school board candidate. Republican.

DISTRICT 4, Midtown
Elvi Gray-Jackson is “term limited out.”

Ron Alleva, ran for the seat previously. Unaffiliated swing voter.
Felix Rivera, counselor at Alaska Child and Family, political consultant. Democrat.
Marcus Sanders, a safety officer at Wendler Middle School. Democrat.
Don Smith, retired state legislator and Anchorage Assembly and School Board member. Republican.

DISTRICT 5, East Anchorage 
Incumbent Pete Petersen is running. Democrat.
Donald Jones. Republican

DISTRICT 6: South Anchorage 
Incumbent Bill Evans is not running.

Albert Fogle, employee benefits consultant for Northrim Benefits Group. Republican.
Suzanne LaFrance. Democrat

ANCHORAGE SCHOOL BOARD

Two Anchorage School Board seats are being filled in this areawide, nonpartisan race:

SEAT C
Incumbent Democrat Pat Higgins is “term limited out.”

Dave Donley, former Alaska state senator. Republican.
Alisha Hilde, lawyer. Republican
Tasha Hotch, program administrator with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. Libertarian.
Christopher Jamison, 2015 candidate for mayor. Democrat.
James Smallwood, owns a small insurance company. Democrat.

SEAT D
Incumbent Kameron Perez-Verdia is not running.
Albert Berke, advocate for the deaf. Democrat.
Andy Holleman, President of the Anchorage Education Association. Republican.
Patrick McCormack, varied work history. Democrat.
Kay Schuster, district teacher, ran last cycle. Republican.

HIGHER TAX PROPOSITION:

The Anchorage Assembly approved one proposition for the ballot, proposed by Assemblyman John Weddleton. It would increase taxes for some Hillside residents who do not presently pay for the Anchorage parks and recreation service area.

BONDS

MUNICIPAL BORROWING

Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is asking for $46 million in borrowing for police, fire, parks, and roads, including extending 100th Avenue from Minnesota Drive to C Street, and upgrading Turnagain Boulevard in Spenard. A new playground for the Fairview Recreation Area and a new master plan for Town Square Park downtown is included, as well as three fire trucks, outdoor lighting for fire stations, and upgrades to the Anchorage Police Department subject interview area.

SCHOOL BORROWING

The Anchorage School District is asking voters for $58.45 million in borrowing to pay for projects that include roof replacements at seven schools, heating and seismic retrofitting at West High School and Romig Middle School.

Anchorage voters turned down the school district’s last $49.3 million bond request in 2015.

Anchorage maintains a AAA bond rating from Standard and Poor, AA2 rating from Moodys, and AA+ from Fitch.

Venezuelans make a run for the border

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AND TERRORISTS MAY BE AMONG THEM

POP QUIZ: What socialist country in South America famously sent oil to Alaska villages back when some rural heating fuel was going for nearly $10 a gallon?

(The answer is easy for Must Read Alaska readers, who are a smart bunch, after all: Venezuela.)

And yes, a number of villages in Alaska readily accepted the offer from the nation that was sticking it to President George W. Bush.

Awash in oil and hubris, Citgo, the Venezuelan oil company owned and run by the Venezuelan government, provided 15,000 Alaska households with 100 gallons each of heating oil over two winters, to help low-income families in places like Noatak, where people where locking their oil tanks against thieves.

It was a media-savvy — if expensive — way to shame President Bush, who then-President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela called “the devil” during a now-infamous speech at the United Nations.

The oil-for-shame project was cheerfully reported in the Arctic Sounder at the time, “Scores of local residents squeezed into the local Nullagvik Hotel’s modest dining room on the morning of Nov. 30 to meet the visiting Venezuelans, who included Felix Rodriguez, president and CEO of Texas-based Citgo Petroleum Corp., and the wife and children of Bernardo Alvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States.

“I’d like to thank the Venezuelan people for helping the people in all of Alaska,” said Willie Goodwin, a Kotzebue elder and master of ceremonies during what promoters dubbed a “low-cost heating oil signing ceremony” recognizing Citgo, Venezuela, and its head of state.

Oil giant Citgo is owned by Petroleos de Venezuela, a state-owned company. The heating oil program, promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, this winter is doling out some $5 million worth of free fuel oil, or about 1.2 million gallons. That’s 100 gallons each to some 12,000 homes in more than 150 rural Alaska communities with a population of at least 80 percent Alaska Native, according to company officials.

Venezuela is an overwhelmingly Catholic, Spanish-speaking country located in the northern portion of South America. Venezuela gained independence from Spain in 1821. Venezuela’s national sport is an American game: baseball.

Venezuela’s indigenous tribes constitute only about 1.5 percent of the country’s 25 million people, or exactly the same proportion of Native Americans among the 300 million people in the United States, according to U.S. Census figures. Alaska Natives-Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts-constitute about 18 percent of approximately 660,000 Alaska residents. In recent years constitutional reforms under Chavez, who himself claims indigenous heritage, were designed to elevate indigenous peoples in Venezuela.

“The Natives need to go to other countries worldwide for solidarity,” said Citgo CEO Rodriguez, explaining that Venezuela’s constitution directs his nation to create bonds with other indigenous peoples worldwide.

“You (Alaska Natives) are very important in the world,” said Rodriguez.

At the time, four Alaska villages rejected the oil because of Chavez’ devilish remarks. Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George said no to Chavez, but John Schaeffer, vice president of a local elders’ council in Kotzebue, took his own shot at Bush while thanking the Venezuelan socialist government of Chavez who was about to be re-elected: “Our president will not be with us for very much longer, so we don’t expect him to give us any (oil),” said Schaeffer, who passed away in August at age 77.

SOCIALISM AND THE GREAT EXODUS

What a difference a decade makes in an oppressive economic model. Today, Venezuela is the leading country in numbers of people requesting asylum in the US.

As the oil-dependent economy crashed, more than 18,000 Venezuelans asked the U.S. for asylum in 2016, which is six times the level of 2014. Venezuelans want out, and they want to come to America.

China, with 17,745 asylum requests, came in second.

Venezuelans in the middle class who seek asylum face a more-than-two-year delay for their applications to be processed, just to get a work visa for short-term employment.

(Read more at Voice of America.)

VENEZUELA NOW EXPORTS FAKE PASSPORTS

Meanwhile, a Venezuelan embassy worker in Bagdad, who fled his post in 2015, claims his country is selling fake passports to terrorists.

Misael López Soto, who now lives in Spain, said Ambassador Jonathan Velsco gave him money, passports, and visas and said to “take care of this.” Soto has spoken to CNN of instances where workers at the Venezuelan embassy have tried to sell Venezuelan visas to Syrians for $10,000 apiece.

Now that oil is cheap and the Venezuelan government has run out of other people’s money, perhaps passports are the next great export. What can possibly go wrong?

That time when President Jimmy Carter banned Iranian immigrants

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President Jimmy Carter

President Donald Trump has raised the ire of those who object to his limits on immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

But he’s not the first president to make a blanket ban on immigrants from a given country.

A Congressional Research Service report written just after Trump was sworn into office, points out that admission to the U.S. has been banned several times since President Reagan. And it’s legal for a president to do so. Even Barack Obama did it.

The Immigration and Nationality Act says provides that individuals outside the United States are “inadmissible”on the grounds of health, criminal record, homeland security, and other concerns, if a president so chooses.

But it also says the president has broad authority to exclude both individual aliens and entire classes of aliens for reasons not mentioned by the INA.

Section 212(f) of the INA is what the president is relying on when he says he has the authority to ban classes of  immigrants.

That section says that if the president finds an alien or class of aliens to be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation ban their entry.

A president need not explain to the courts his rationale.

Among those banned from entry in recent years are aliens who appear to be a threat to the security of Libya. Also officials from North Korea are banned. And any who have committed egregious human rights violations.

The statute does not say  what the definition of “detrimental” is, nor does it define any legal parameters a president must use in making a blanket declaration.

President Carter cited Section 215(a)— rather than Section 212(f)—when authorizing the revocation of immigrant and nonimmigrant visas issued to Iranian citizens during the Iran Hostage Crisis. Tens of thousands of Iranians were deported under President Carter.

Carter in 1980 declared: “…the Secretary of Treasury [State] and the Attorney General will invalidate all visas issued to Iranian citizens for future entry into the United States, effective today. We will not reissue visas, nor will we issue new visas, except for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires. This directive will be interpreted very strictly.”

According to the Congressional Research report, every president since Reagan has limited immigration using Section 212(f), including:

Ronald Reagan – 5 times

George H. W Bush – 1 time

Bill Clinton – 12 times

George W. Bush – 6 time

Barack Obama – 19 times

For a more detailed explanation of the executive power that the president appears to have — contrary to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling — read the Congressional Research Report.