It takes money to elect people, and the Democrats know that. They’ve been jumping into Republican races with union and “independent expenditure” funds.
There may be no greater single donor to Alaska campaigns than Anchorage Attorney Robin Brena, who purchased Governor Walker’s law firm for an undisclosed amount in a transparency failure last year. Ever since, he has been part of the pay-to-play crony capitalist gang.
Brena has been the governor’s surrogate in recent election cycles, making sure that Democrats are competitive and, if he has his way, delivering the governor the legislature he wants and needs in order to tax Alaskans and rejigger the Permanent Fund in such a way that he can finance his gasline.
Last year, the Alaska Public Offices Commission launched an investigation into a group that Brena funded called Your Alaska Future, because it was “sanitizing” the source of the funds it was funneling into Gov. Bill Walker’s campaign. Deputy Chief of Staff for Walker, Marcia Davis, was the fall guy on that one, but her ultimate monetary punishment was bargained down to a slap on the wrist.
Read the recent history of The Brena Effect at the Alaska Energy Dudes and Divas website, where excellent research shows how Brena has donated $223,000 to Alaska Democrats in recent months. Here’s the list for his 2016 pre-primary donations, which total $48,000 to Big Labor-Vince Beltrami favorites, including the shadow government group Together for Alaska:
01/27/16 $ 500.00 Shirley Ann Cote’
10/22/15 $ 500.00 Eric Croft
10/13/15 $ 500.00 Matt Claman
06/29/1c $ 500.00 Jason Grenn
07/15/16 $ 500.00 Paul Seaton
07/12/16 $ 500.00 Jim Colver
06/27/16 $ 500.00 Harry T. Crawford Jr.
07/01/16 $500.00 Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins
06/27/16 $ 500.00 Daniel (Dan) H Ortiz
06/25/16 $ 5,000.00 House Democratic Campaign Committee
First the good news: The US Senate will remain Republican-led after the November general election, according to a respected computer scientist, with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the safe column. Murkowski is on the primary ballot for Aug. 16, facing lesser-known Republicans Paul Kendall, Thomas Lamb, and Bob Lochner. Democrats on the Aug. 16 ballot are Edgar Blatchford, Richard Grayson and Ray Metcalfe. Cean Stevens is the Libertarian.
ALASKA’S THREE ELECTORAL VOTES ARE RED-PUBLICAN
Recent polling also makes it clear that, barring a major incident, Alaska’s three electoral college votes will be awarded to Donald Trump this November 8. But those three electoral college votes will not be enough.
An analysis of major polling results (PPP, Rasmussen, ARG, university, Mason Dixon) puts Hillary Clinton ahead with a more than two-to-one lead in the electoral vote hunt.
The site electoral-vote.com is the product of Andrew Tanenbaum, Ph.D., the author of MINIX, a Unix-likeoperating system that is used primarily in education. He is a U.S. citizen who teaches computer science at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam.
And although Tanenbaum revealed a few years ago that he votes Democrat, his analysis examines with uncanny accuracy the recent data by drilling down to the state level, which simulates the process by which electoral college votes are awarded. Plus, there are great charts at his site that track polling results after major news stories. For anyone who doesn’t think that news media coverage steers public opinion, take a look at what happened after the Khan controversy during the Democratic National Convention.
Trump’s state director is Jerry Ward, a former state senator who lives in Willow.
The primary election on Aug. 16 is a snoozer for some voters, but not if you’re in District L Senate race, in which the unions have decided to get involved in a big money way.
Unconventional social-media candidate Jeff Landfield had a rough week, being hit by both Natasha Von Imhof and Craig Johnson, and then getting a really unhelpful endorsement or two.
Natasha finally joined the fray by putting out a pirate-themed literature drop that dissed her two opponents humorously:
And then came the endorsement that no one wants from a web site that no one visits, but which is possibly still owned by the Senate Democratic Minority Press Secretary, Jeanne Devon, who lists herself as the site founder (retired, but not really).
The Shannyn Moore and Christopher Constant endorsements were merely icing on the cake:
The fluffy puppies came out for Jeff in a video that also featured Andrew Halcro…can kittens be far behind?
Over in the Craig Johnson for Senate camp, this flyer threw down the gauntlet on Second Amendment:
MEANWHILE, IN THE DISTRICT 9 RACE, SOCIAL MEDIA FAIL
A reader sent in this combination that appeared on his phone news feed today. The story is from a Jim Colver scandal from 2006 when he was on the Assembly, while the ad is for this race cycle. The social media ad just happened to pop up at the wrong time. Oops.
‘LITTLE TRUMP’ AFTERGLOW
Reporter Nat Herz caught a clever Colver quote that…well, just read it:
SENATE DISTRICT J CANDIDATE ED WESLEY FEELS THE BERN
Over in West Anchorage, Tom Begich is the establishment Democrat while Ed Wesley is carrying the torch for Bernie voters. We don’t have the heart to tell them they’re probably not voting in the primary:
Tom Begich has The Boss Vince Beltrami in his corner, so we’re not sure Bernie’s going to be enough for Ed, what with all the union funds:
EAGLE RIVER’S LAST-MINUTE AMBUSH
Rep. Lora Reinbold was pushed into a corner by Crystal Kennedy on an 2014 per-diem violation, and issued this press release:
Crew of Ask This Old House stopped in Wasilla this month.
THIS LAST FRONTIER FIXER-UPPER
Season 15 of Ask This Old House on PBS will feature a homeowner in Wasilla, and is the first Alaska project for TOH, which has been on the air for 37 years.
The house belongs to the Kays family, and the project involves hardwiring a generator to the house electrical panel, in order to be able to power appliances, such as his well pump, in the event of a power outage. The crew was in Alaska last week to film the segment.
Ask This Old House involves smaller projects than the main TOH series. No word yet on when the series will air.
YIKES! FORMER REPORTER REMEMBERS COLVER — NOT FONDLY
Must Read Alaska obtained a letter from a former television news reporter. Here it is with some unflattering history of Jim Colver, who is in the battle of his political life for his legislative seat in District 9:
“I did an investigative story about Jim Colver and it aired on the old Channel 11 in 2006. It’s not on Channel 11’s page after the new ownership and the last 10 years, but the Frontiersman has the story in their archives. They wrote about it, too.
It’s my opinion, from doing my homework and listening to my sources, but I believe Colver wasn’t prosecuted because he and his lawyer just refused to answer the Palmer Police detective’s questions. My sources at the time told me how he bullied his way with borough staff to get access to the bids, something that would have disqualified a General Contractor. The assembly held an executive session over it. Then, Colver said he was going to withdraw from the project, costing the General Contractor, I believe, about $40K. You can go the Palmer Police to get a copy of the report. I’m not a reporter anymore. I thought you guys should know and pass it on before people vote on Tuesday.”
Consider it passed along.
GOVERNOR KEEPS HIRING, AND HIRING, AND HIRING
Jonathon Taylor
In addition to hiring several new special assistants, Governor Bill Walker has brought on a new deputy press secretary, who is a well-known member of the Alaska Republican Party.
Jonathon Taylor resigned from his District 23 chairmanship last month so he could take a job with the governor. He will eventually be based in Juneau.
Taylor was involved with College Republicans and was the commencement speaker for UAA this summer, where he graduated.
The governor has been on a spending spree lately, ignoring his own hiring freeze. He brought aboard former Apache oil company executive John Hendrix as an adviser to him on oil and gas. He also hired his own former law partner and attorney general Craig Richards, as an oil and gas consultant, a few weeks after Richards resigned.
Walker has also hired two new key advisers: The state’s former chief economist, John Tichotsky, who is one of the authors of Walker’s fiscal plan to restructure the Permanent Fund; and Ed King, a former analyst with the Department of Natural Resources.
The Governor already had seven other policy and budget specialists in his office, with Tichotsky and King bringing the count to nine.
Hendrix makes $180,000, while Tichotsky and King earn $128,000 and $104,000 respectively. The contract for Richards is elastic because it starts at $50,000 but can be amended indefinitely. Taylor, the newest hire, is likely in the $70,000 range.
MOST RIGHTEOUS T-SHIRT AWARD
T-shirt weather is still with us, and here’s one that dresses up nicely and has the most outstanding cause associated with it.
Governor Bill Walker visited King Cove this past week but almost did not get in due to low fog. He and First Lady Donna got a sample of what it’s like to try to get to King Cove when they were stuck in Cold Bay for two hours.
In spite of his special friendship with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Walker has not been able to convince the Obama Administration to build the life-saving road to Cold Bay.
The people of King Cove have worked for more than 30 years to build road between their community to the all-weather Cold Bay Airport, some 25 miles away. The 11-mile road required would allow safe evacuation of seriously ill or injured residents when the King Cove area weather is too harsh for boat or plane — a frequent occurrence. But it goes through a bird refuge and so the Interior Department is saying no.
Walker met with Jewell and Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in January, but his charm offense was all for naught: No road, even in 2016.
Since Secretary Jewell denied the road two in 2013, the town has had 46 medevacs. Of those, 17 involved the Coast Guard; 29 were non Coast Guard.
Candidate Walker was more brazen than Governor Walker. He claimed he’d get the road built if he had to ride a bulldozer and do it himself.
TOM BEGICH ADS HERE?
Readers in West Anchorage report numerous Tom Begich For Senate ads appearing on Must Read Alaska. They are social media buys placed by the candidate and targeted to voters in that district, where Democrats Begich and Ed Wesley are running to replace Sen. Johnny Ellis. Must Read apologizes for the inconvenience.
WHERE WE’LL BE ELECTION NIGHT
We’ll be hanging out at the Lakefront Hotel on Tuesday evening, starting at 5:30 pm where we’ll join you for bites and beverages and a fundraiser, and then we’ll stick around and watch the returns come in:
Just yesterday we were discussing a new group of terrorists called al-Qaeda that had taken hold where Palestinian terrorists had left off.
We were debating Osama bin Laden origins, the pronunciation and spelling of al-Qaeda, and how widespread it might become. We were incorporating the word “jihadist” into our vocabulary, even as we were unsure of its meaning, other than “suicide bomber.”
Then, in 2015, a small and savage group called ISIS – the Islamic State, in English – seemed to arise from the ashes of our war on terror.
How quickly ISIS, too, became an ordinary word in our vocabulary. President Obama called the group Daesh, almost defiantly, as though it was the right and respectful thing to do. Others in the media called it ISIL. But ISIS is the name that has stuck.
One minute Obama was calling ISIS a “junior varsity” group, and the next minute black flags were flying over Syria and Iraq.
ISIS has grown into a terror organization whose venom stretches across the world, with institutionalized rape, slavery, slaughter and bombings as its arsenal. Jets were blown apart in midair, and suicide bombings became commonplace. War on terror has seeped into our lives as a constant; children born in the year 2000 have never known a world without metal detectors, airport body patdowns, and terrorists.
Author Joby Warrick explores the rebuilding and rebranding of the Islamic state during the early 2000s. The author weaves the personal stories of the characters with the skill of a spy novelist, beginning with the hanging of a convicted female terrorist named Rashawi, who had failed to detonate her suicide bomb at a wedding in Jordan in 2005.
Warrick does a deep dive into the short and violent life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the mastermind behind an Islamist movement, who became an avenging dark angel in search of power and destruction of the elite Middle East ruling class, building a terror network that has since spread across the world. Warrick follows the rise of this barely literate Bedouin tribesman from Jordan, who had the goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate unlike any other in history, and whose organization lives on, even after an U.S. airstrike killed him in June of 2006.
Black Flags is a riveting read. Warrick’s Washington Post beat is the Middle East and that’s given him access to CIA and Pentagon sources for many years. If you don’t get to it this summer, a television miniseries is in the works for HBO that you’ll not want to miss.
Margaret Stock, speaking on immigration issues at Claremont McKenna College; immigration is one of her key concerns. (YouTube screen grab).
FOLLOWING THE MONEY ON THE ‘INDEPENDENT’ MARGARET STOCK
Margaret Stock, the Republican who transitioned into a non-affiliated candidate in order to run in the Democratic primary, finally has filed her needed petition signatures. If they’re legal signatures, she’ll finally get her shot at U.S. Senate, but it won’t be this coming week’s election, and it won’t be on the Democrats’ ballot.
According to the Division of Elections, Stock is now listed as a “pending candidate” for the November ballot in her quest to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
Earlier this year, Stock and the Democrats attempted to have Stock run as their nominee for the Aug. 16 primary election. But a judge turned that down, saying if she wanted to be a Democrat, she ought to register as one.
Stock is not the latest to try to use the resources of the Democrats without identifying as one. AFL-CIO Alaska Boss Vince Beltrami filed against State Sen. Cathy Giessel, but sanitized himself away from the Democratic Party first. He’s a non-aligned knee-breaker now.
Other hiding their party affiliation include Daniel Ortiz, a state representative out of Ketchikan who caucuses with Democrats in Juneau, but touts his conservative views in Ketchikan.
FUNNELING MONEY TO DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVES
Stock has raised $477,000 to date, although she stretched that number to Alaska Public Mediaby saying she had raised over half a million dollars, an amount she said makes her competitive. She has $110,000 on hand. Her target, Sen. Murkowski, has $2.4 million on hand.
More telling is that Stock raised less than $16,000 in July, and that her fundraising has slowed to a crawl. $3,600 of that amount raised was her own self-funding contribution.
Stock told public media that she collected the 5,700 signatures at events across the state, for instance at Golden Days festival in Fairbanks, as well as in Southeast Alaska, and in McCarthy. People came into her law office in Anchorage to sign the petition.
What she did not disclose is that she used paid signature gatherers, who were spotted in liberal hangouts around Anchorage routinely. One paid hand was photographed at Natural Pantry, where he worked outside the door for days to collect signatures, after the courts disallowed Stock from running in the Democratic primary.
Political flyer for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords features Sarah Palin as the motivator to get out the vote. Produced by The Pivot Group.
Stock’s spending tells the story of who she aligns with politically.
Another $16,000 was drained away to Katz Watson Group, yet another go-to team for Democrats; the KW client list includes Hillary Clinton’s exploratory committee, and Joseph Lieberman.
Other payments went to similar organizations, such as The Pivot Group, whose clients include AFL-CIO and Hillary Clinton. Pivot produced a get-out-the-vote door hanger for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Gifford, which featured none other than Sarah Palin. Giffords was shot and badly injured in 2011, and the anti-gun Left blamed their easiest target: Palin.
Her video team, Kully Hall Struble, is proud of the work they’ve done for Sen. Harry Reid, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, and a host of liberal lawmakers such as Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, a Democrat running against Republican Sen. John McCain.
A $5,000 check went to Jones Mandel, an opposition research firm in Seattle, whose clients include the Democratic leaning Emily’s List, Barack Obama’s Organizing for America, Florida Democratic Party, and the Democratic Governor’s Association.
Stock also paid about $40,000 to Clarify Agency, which is proud of its work for Cory Booker, Barack Obama, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Progressives United, and the California Democratic Party. The Clarify Agency web site states: “If you’re a Democratic campaign, advocacy group, or corporate partner looking to engage some people and do some good, let us know when and where to meet you, and we’ll be there.”
Emily’s List associate Peggy Egan also won a $10,000 check from Stock for campaign management services. Emily’s List is a group that has a definite litmus test: “We elect pro-choice Democratic women to office,” the website plainly states.
In fact, in the Must Read research of FEC reports, it appears Margaret Stock is, in fact, completed her transition from Republican to Democrat. And as she spends money on consultants, she’s not circulating it through Alaska companies — all her money is heading Outside.
We don’t expect Margaret Stock to come clean on her transition. But as the old Watergate-era phrase goes, one only needs to “follow the money.”
With the above associations, will the media continue the charade of calling Stock an independent candidate? We only ask because conservatives who would play make-believe with the press would never get away with it. It’s time for the media to decide if they’ll go along with the lie.
We were wondering when the Jeff Landfield pics would hit. We wonder no more.
It looks like the Craig Johnson for Senate L campaign decided to welcome Landfield to the NFL with this literature drop, which hit today, and which you may not be able to “unsee.”
MEANWHILE, IN CAMP LANDFIELD
A full-throated endorsement from Landfield bro and Berkowitz endorser Andrew Halcro, and a pic of the speedo candidate who cleans up well. He hits both his opponents on the reverse side.
And then, to top it off, he gets an “endorsement”from Shannyn Moore and Christopher Constant:
UNIONS’ LATEST ‘ANYBODY BUT’ JOHNSON
Not to be outdone, the union political action committee called “Together For Alaska” funded in part by the state workers’ union, Governor Bill Walker’s former law partner (and political body double) Robin Brena, and came up with this:
As for Natasha Von Imhof, she’s staying out of this food fight.
DISTRICT 9 MAILER HITS
Republicans across the state are going after Musk Ox leader Jim Colver with a postcard that hit today in District 9. This is the only race in American history where an Arctic herd mammal has taken center stage as a true political animal:
DISTRICT 28 FLAMINGOS AND MORE
We’ve have heard of the mailer going out that has a Right-to-Life endorsement for candidate Ross Bieling. In the other camp, Jennifer Johnston put out a Carl Haiassen style hit piece on Bieling that has alligators, palm trees and flamingos that refer to his recent move to Alaska from Florida.
Members of the Kenai Assembly stand while a member of the Satanic Temple offers an invocation.
NO APPARENT BOUNDARIES IN KENAI PRAYER POLICY
The Kenai Borough Assembly may have gone to hell in a handbasket this week, when it allowed a member of the Satanic Temple to offer the invocation before the regular meeting.
Iris Fontana, who is a registered Democrat and an alleged follower of an organization known as the Satanic Temple, appealed to the Assembly to “embrace the luciferian impulse to eat of the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting dillusion of old. Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things.” She ended her statement with “It is done. Hail Satan.”
A GoFundMe page profile photo for Iris Fontana.
The entire invocation, which is less than spellbinding, is found at http://bit.ly/2aJDmpd.
An Iris Fontana in 2014 was a psychology at Kenai Peninsula College. She started a GoFundMe page and raised money to travel to China on an apparent learning excursion, with major donations from local civic organizations, including orders of the Eagles and Elks.
Assembly President Blaine Gilman, a Republican, had allowed Fontana to offer the Satanic verses. Most members of the Assembly stood respectfully during the statement, while one member is reported to have left the room.
Other cities across the country have ended the practice of opening meetings with prayer as Satanists have started trolling the meetings to insist on prayer parity.
The City Council of Phoenix, Arizona, for example, ended the prayers earlier this year after members of the Satanic Temple insisted on inclusion. The council has moved to having a moment of silence.
In 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Town of Greece v. Gallowaythat prayer could continue to be a part of the opening of legislative proceedings, but legislative bodies could not discriminate against religions. That opened a loophole that Satanists across the country are exploiting.
Five days before the Alaska Primary (Aug. 16), and you’ll need a shovel every time you empty your mailbox in some districts across the state, where there are full trees-worth of flyers spilling out onto the street.
Campaign materials are coming in hot on an increasingly short election runway.
In the South Anchorage race for District L Senate, Big Labor is all over Rep. Craig Johnson as he runs for Senate to replace Lesil McGuire.
And when we say all over him, we mean they are firing more artillery than we’ve ever seen in any Senate race in Alaska. This is the most blatant effort by Labor ever to jump in and sway Republican primary voters, and is a harbinger of what we may see this fall.
Big Labor is spending what appears to be tens of thousands of dollars in District L, doing polling, voter identification, and mailers.
As mentioned here before, Robin Brena is the surrogate for Governor Bill Walker in this effort. Meanwhile, the governor has been up on Kotzebue, campaigning for Dean Westlake in his fight to unseat fellow Democrat Ben Nageak.
Here’s what ADN reporter Nat Herz posted on Twitter, showcasing the mob-boss tactics being employed by the Together for Alaska political action committee, dominated by $100,000 in seed money by the top three groups listed by Herz:
Prime mover behind this effort is Democrat Vinnie-the-Boss Beltrami, who is running against another senator, Cathy Giessel. Vinnie will appear on the November ballot as a newly minted independent. With Vinnie is Democrat Luke Hopkins, who is running against Sen. John Coghill of Fairbanks.
The cross-pollination between Big Labor and the Democrats is nothing to sneeze at, as they inject themselves into the Republican Primary.
Here’s the counterpunch from Craig Johnson:
DISTRICT 9 – THEY MIGHT BE HEROES
While Sutton resident George Rauscher tries to unseat Palmer pol Jim Colver for his House seat, Colver is running a postcard out there that brands him as a super hero. Readers have sent in their thoughts that “Colver misspelled the word ‘offender'”.
RAUSHER WINS MR. CONGENIALITY AWARD
But it looks like George Rauscher is sticking to the issues with this postcard that went out, with the endorsement of Alaska Outdoor Council guy Rod Arno and talking about access for hunters and ATVers.
GATTIS TAKES THE PRIZE
The winner this week is Rep. Lynn Gattis, who published this “keeper” postcard, which should be enshrined in a museum somewhere. It is at least suitable for framing:
Simple, effective, and cuts to the chase. Gattis may win her quest for Senate, but she is a mile ahead of the others in her gold-medal messaging.
T-shirt weather is still with us, and 
ISIS SPREAD WITH THE AID OF AMERICAN INTERVENTION 
