Sen. Lisa Murkowski complained about the email that federal workers received over the weekend from the Trump Administration, asking them to explain what they had accomplished during the week prior on behalf of taxpayers.
Murkowski thinks that Elon Musk just isn’t up to the task of cutting government.
“If Elon Musk truly wants to understand what federal workers accomplished over the past week, he should get to know each department and agency, and learn about the jobs he’s trying to cut. Our public servants work hard to ensure that our national security is protected; that planes land safely; that forest fires do not spread to our homes; that Social Security checks arrive on time; that research for the breakthroughs needed to cure diseases like cancer and ALS continues; and much more. Our public workforce deserves to be treated with dignity and respect for the unheralded jobs they perform. The absurd weekend email to justify their existence wasn’t it,” Murkowski wrote on X/Twitter.
It was the same angry tone Alaska’s senator took last week during her phone town hall meeting with Alaskans. She is very much at war with the Trump Administration over budget cuts, federal layoffs, and the manner in which Trump is attempting to end the war in Ukraine.
“If we feel that we have a bloat in our system, or redundancy in our system or inefficiency, we can address that. But you do it with respect and dignity towards people, and we are just not seeing that,” Murkowski said of budget cuts. “You do not treat people in this manner.”
Over the weekend, the Department of Government Efficiency, led by Musk, sent letters to federal employees, asking them to explain what work they had done the prior week. The goal is to determine if federal workers are even checking their emails, in an effort to determine how many “ghost” employees may be on the payroll. Failure to respond to the memo may be justification for presuming the employee is resigning, Musk said.
Murkowski thought that approach was “absurd” and didn’t see why federal workers have to “justify their existence.”
They tried every way they could to damage the reputation of parent and political activist Keiths Fons of North Pole. The police tried him in the court of Facebook and in the mainstream news.
But earlier this month, the State of Alaska prosecutors dropped the Assault 4 case against Fons altogether.
It was back in September when North Pole High School was locked down, but parents waiting outside were not told the nature of the lockdown, or why students were being held for nearly 20 minutes after the bell had rung at the end of the school day. Later it was disclosed that there was an incident on one of the athletic fields, where a student allegedly was threatening a teacher.
Fons wasn’t accepting that lack of communication. He went inside with his camera rolling to find out why students were herded into the entryway, but not released to their parents, who were in the parking area. As far as he was concerned, his daughter was being held hostage.
Things got testy, and later that day a worker, Alysia S. Johnson, filed assault charges, saying she felt unsafe by Fons, who was insisting on information. Fons posted the $500 bail and hired an attorney to fight the charge.
Fons and his attorney demanded that the official body camera footage be released. The police refused. Fons and his attorney would not accept a plea deal and were willing to go to trial. Meanwhile, the employee who brought the charges has left the school.
The charge that was dropped was a misdemeanor — Assault 4-Cause Fear Of Injury. But prior to his arrest, Fons had active on Facebook, where he was revealing some information about one of the members of the school board. Fons raised the concern that his arrest was retaliatory in nature.
Fons has been cited by the North Pole police in the past for the offense of having Christmas lights strung all over his vehicle. That’s about the extent of his rap sheet, however.
It is clear that what is taught and how it is taught must change in all school districts of Alaska. With the eroding of discipline, patriotism and trust in America it is time to reteach and restore knowledge of America. It is best to teach and train our youth of the good they have, the good that is available to them. I have thought about this a lot in the last couple of weeks and I believe we can work our way through what needs to be done with common sense and practicality.
One basic fact which most everyone is aware of is that “life is not fair.” It is therefore important that we prepare our children to be able to properly react to whatever unfairness life brings to them. A common expression is, “If you don’t at first succeed try, try, try again.” In sports we hear “no pain, no gain.” So it is clear from such sayings that people are expected to anticipate the fortune or misfortune to occur in their life and to respond in appropriate manner to take advantage of the opportunity to find ways to improve their condition.
I’ve been hearing that America is a land of white privilege, but to that I say NO! America is a land of privilege, a land in which every citizen is privileged to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Each just needs to have a dream, have an idea or have a passion and then work to bring that dream, idea or passion to life, to make it a reality; to make it their reality. Too often people are ill prepared to work through the difficulties or are discouraged from their pursuit by others, quite often people within their own family.
I heard an account on the radio while driving last week, of a woman who became a licensed airplane pilot through great difficulty and hardship. Bessie Coleman was born in Atlanta, Texas, in 1892 and earned her pilot’s license on June 15, 1921 in an effort to fulfill her mother’s hope for her children: “to amount to something.”
She was the first woman of color to become a licensed pilot. Her mother had a dream and her brother gave her a challenge. While she had great difficulty achieving her goal, she was prepared to meet the challenges. I urge readers to research Bessie Coleman. You may find you don’t have it so tough.
Young people are prepared for life through training at school and through training from their family. As long as both school and family are providing encouragement to “amount to something” and the knowledge and skills to meet the challenges, both anticipated and unforeseen, that this life will offer, people can achieve at least some of their goals.
Our children have recently been taught that America is only for white people, and that the old dead men who put together the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and formed a new nation provided nothing of value for them. Those old, dead men who are the fathers of our country did good for all of us, no matter what our circumstances, no matter what our culture, no matter what our color. Every American citizen has this good available to them: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is there for every citizen to partake.
Schools and parents must enforce and reinforce the good of America. Children should be raised with appreciation for the development of good character, virtue, consideration for others, charity to others, usefulness, integrity and a great love for America, the land of opportunity. A focus on truth and love would be a good way to lay out the education plan. Our children, and many adults, have been lied to far too long by our government entities and education institutions.
The problems we have in America is not with the US Constitution or America itself. The problems occur because of wrong minded people who chose to impede certain people from pursuing their vision, their dream. There are those, in America, who do not share the American dream for everyone, but choose to follow an evil intent. Many have acted strongly and evilly against Americans. It is up to those Americans who know the good of America and who love America, to correct and deflect the injustices that are perpetrated on citizens of this land.
Right now we have an education crisis that requires reform of school districts all across the land and all across Alaska. It is time to get rid of the stuff that is contrary to American values and that distract young people from productive and meaningful lives. We need to find ways to deflect and expose the evil some impose upon our youth and our country with their lies. This IS a good land.
When young people are given things that they may be missing to bring them to an equal level with others, is robbing them of their chance to overcome whatever unfairness might stand in their way. Hard work is a good and beneficial part of a young person’s life. They may not think so while working hard but they will reach a point of realization that the hard past was of great value. The teachers we all remember best are those who challenged us and worked us the hardest. DEI has no place in an Alaska culture.
Those upon whom is heaped injustice, violence and disdain, are often told by others that their problems are the result of institutional prejudice that is built into the American system. That is a lie. They can achieve. There is no institutional injustice. The injustice is served by individuals with bad intentions.
Remember, Bessie Coleman found a way to “amount to something.” Those of us who have worked through our obstacles will be around to help and guide those who need a boost.
So, no expanded funding for Alaska schools, without reformation of schools, school boards and teachers.
Robert Seitz is a very long time Alaskan and engineer.
According to historical records, the first states emerged in Mesopotamia, around the area of modern-day Iraq, approximately 6,000 years ago, developing complex societies and political structures that marked the beginning of statehood.
An emergence of a State, as a complex institution, refers to the government of a nation viewed as a multifaceted system made up of interconnected parts like the legal system, bureaucracy, military, and various administrative bodies; all working together to govern a population within a defined territory, requiring intricate coordination and interaction to function effectively. In short, it’s a web of institutions with overlapping functions and power dynamics.
With the emergence of a State, government corruption, embezzlement, frauds and other human violations also appeared. Unfortunately, mischievous evils, grid, corruption, deception and other human folie are an integral part of human nature and vice behavior.
Today in our country, the Trump administration already has uncovered a massive corruption buried in the Federal Government institutions. These revelations reverberate corruptions of the past masterfully described by a prominent Russian writer Nikolay Gogol (1809-52) in his novels Dead Souls and The Inspector General.
In this essay, I would treat the two literary works as part of the author’s overall critique of Russian society at that time, then show how corruption is endemic in human society by comparing Gogol’s descriptions to what the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has uncovered in an advanced modern society, the U.S.A.
Dead Souls is a classic novel by Nikolay Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature.
The novel chronicles the travels and adventures of medium-size landlord Pavel Chichikov (a main character of the novel) and the people whom he encounters. These people typify the Russian middle aristocracy of the time. Gogol intended the novel to be the first part of a three-volume work but burned the manuscript of the second part shortly before his death.
In the Russian Empire, before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, landowners had the right to own serfs to farm their land. Serfs were for most purposes considered the property of the landowner, who could buy, sell or mortgage them, as any other chattel. To count serfs, the classifier “soul” was used: e.g., “six souls of serfs.”
The plot of the novel relies on “dead souls” (i.e., “dead serfs”) which are still accounted for in property registers. On another level, the title refers to the “dead souls” of Gogol’s characters, all of which represent different aspects of vulgar morality and spirituality, with overtones of middle-class pretentiousness, fake significance and philistinism.
In short, Dead Souls is a novel about corrupt Russian Imperial society. Through the devices of absurdity and satire, Gogol aimed to critique the anxieties and inefficiencies of tsarist Russia—a courageous endeavor at that time in Russia. Also, through deliberately absurd and sometimes surreal scenarios, Gogol tackle morality, spirituality and social problem of corruption and rot.
In Gogol’s Dead Souls, Chichikov buys “dead souls” (i.e., the legal rights to deceased serfs) from the owners of the provincial villages, because he plans to use them as a collateral to secure large loans from the government, essentially creating wealth by exploiting a loophole in the system where the state still considers deceased serfs as part of a landowner’s taxable property, therefore, allowing him to appear significantly wealthier than he actually is.
In retrospect, there is a remarkable reverberation applicable to today’s discoveries by newly created the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) within American Federal Government; so far including Social Security Administration and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It remains to be seen what and how many “dead souls” will be uncovered in the coming weeks or months in the dark burrows of the Medicare, Medicaid (health care for low-income individuals), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, FBI, CIA, IRS and other Federal Institutions; and thousands of nonpartisan government institutions and nonprofit 501(c)(3) entities.
The Government Inspector, also known as The Inspector General (Russian Revisor, in English literally— “Inspector”), is a satirical play by Gogol. Originally published in 1836, and later the play was revised for an 1842 edition.
In his comedy The Government Inspector, Gogol brought Russian characters to the stage and exposed public vices and social ulcers: bribery, embezzlement, bureaucracy, corruption, and human folly of 19th century Russia.
The Government Inspector play begins with the mayor of a small Russian town urgently gathering local officials in his home. The mayor announces that an inspector from St. Petersburg is coming to investigate the officials—as today’s DOGE is designated to investigate government officials in our country.
The mayor tells the officials that the inspector is coming with secret instructions; he warns the officials to hide evidence of corruption. Subsequently, in panicking, the judge worries that the inspector’s visit means Russia is going to war. The postmaster hysterically exclaims that Russia must be going to war. The mayor instructs the “Warden of Charities” to make the charity hospital look presentable. The mayor orders the chief of police to station constables around town, and so on.
Gogol’s two novels are a remarkable resemblance and reverberation of today’s America. Certainly, the far-left federal government bureaucrats are in a panic mode now; and they should be.
Historically, there have never been entirely crime-free and corrupt-free societies in the world. Also, it is naïve to believe in the absolute perfection of human nature; a mischievous evil exists and hides in all of us; but it is suppressed by good intentions and Judeo-Christian moral values.
Indeed, a constructive and nonpartisan government mechanism must be established in our constitutional republic with a monumental task for uncovering and preventing government corruption and inefficiencies at all levels and in all institutions. Today, it is a newly created DOGE that fulfills its purpose.
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.
The Alaska Republican Party, meeting in Juneau for its quarterly business conference, elected Fairbanks political activist Cheryl Markwood as the party’s new vice chair.
Markwood replaces Zackary Gottshall, who resigned at the end of 2024 after serving only since April. Markwood, a real estate broker, is one of the coordinators of the Interior Republicans’ Friday luncheons held in Fairbanks. She has been a member of the Greater Fairbanks Board of REALTORS and the Alaska Real Estate Commission.
The Trump administration sent emails on Saturday afternoon to some 2.3 million U.S. federal government employees telling them to detail their work accomplishments from the previous week by Monday evening or risk losing their jobs.
“Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager,” reads the email, sent from the Office of Personnel Management. The memo’s subject matter is: “What did you do last week?”
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Employees were instructed to not send any classified information, links, or attachments and the head of the Department of Government Efficiency wrote on X that workers who were nonresponsive to the email would be considered as having handed in their resignation.
Musk wrote on X that the requirement is “consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions.” Those instructions include getting tougher on reductions to the federal government.
The federal union that represents workers said it will challenge any unlawful terminations.
“Once again, Elon Musk and the Trump Administration have shown their utter disdain for federal employees and the critical services they provide to the American people,” said AFGE President Everett Kelley in a statement.
According to Reuters, some federal agency leaders are telling workers to not comply as they determine a protocol for responding to the order from the president’s office.
“To be clear, this is irregular, unexpected and warrants further validation by management,” said one management email sent to NOAA employees, as reportedly seen by Reuters.
It’s not clear to his Republican caucus members where North Pole Rep. Mike Prax actually stands on House Bill 69. That’s the Democrats’ big spending bill that pours hundreds of millions of unaccountable dollars from unknown sources into the school districts, where students have some of the worst attendance rates and test scores in the nation.
It’s a bill that Gov. Mike Dunleavy has already said he would veto, unless it came with accountability measures.
On Wednesday, when the House Democrats brought the bill to the floor to force it out of the House Education Committee, Prax voted with the Democrats.
As one of his Republican members loudly whispered “Prax! Prax!!!” to him, he stared stoically ahead, ignoring the message that he had pushed the wrong button. He refused to acknowledge the colleague.
The bill was forced from the Education Committee on a vote of 21-18. He later explained as a mistake. Some have questioned that assertion.
In Prax’s Friday newsletter to his constituents, he never mentioned his Wednesday mistake. He wrote about HB 69, but avoided explaining his actions.
Instead, he wrote in his legislative newsletter about how the big spending measure should not pass, while at the same time saying he wanted a floor debate on it.
“Just today, House Republicans made a motion to bring HB 69, a Majority education bill to the House floor for the debate it deserves. In a vote of 20 to 18, the Democrat House Majority rejected the motion, refusing to take up their own bill,” Prax wrote.
That’s because the Democrats are waiting for House Rep. Maxine Dibert to return; she has been in the hospital for several days. There is no way that bill will hit the House floor until Dibert returns to ensure its passage.
“For weeks, HB 69 has remained stalled in committee. When finally given the chance for open discussion, the Majority shut it down,” Prax wrote of the Democrat majority.
“Alaskans deserve to know where their elected officials stand on education issues, yet House Republicans were denied the opportunity to debate the bill in full view of the public,” he wrote.
From his wording, it sounds like he is either for the bill or against it. It is unclear. Then he went on to quote his Republican colleagues:
Rep. Will Stapp of Fairbanks: “My problem with HB 69 is that the House Democrat Majority has not offered any way to pay for it. The truth is that there is no way they can pay for this without instituting a tax or eliminating the permanent fund dividend, but they want the public to believe they can. It is disingenuous and irresponsible.”
House Minority Leader Mia Costello of Anchorage: “House Republicans should be part of the education discussion—we owe it to Alaskans to have a real conversation about how to improve our schools. Our caucus includes members with deep experience in education, and we are committed to improving outcomes for students, teachers, and families. This is a critical issue, and we will continue to push for the opportunity to discuss meaningful solutions to both funding and policy.”
“House Republicans remain committed to advancing the discussion on HB 69 and ensuring that all legislation receives the consideration and public debate it deserves,” Prax wrote.
Rep. Chuck Kopp, House Majority Leader for the Democrats, said on the floor that when the bill does come up for a vote, Alaskans will see Republicans crossing over to vote for it.
“Mr. Speaker I believe that the citizens of Alaska are gonna see that the justice of our cause is shining like the noon-day sun. This is what they sent us here to do … and I think when we finally see a vote on this bill, there’s gonna be a distinct blurring of the lines between majority and minority caucuses,” Kopp predicted.
Prax represents one of the reddest districts in the state — 74% of North Pole voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump for president in November. Prax was nominated to his seat by Gov. Mike Dunleavy in 2020, when Rep. Tammie Wilson resigned to work for Dunleavy in his Fairbanks office.
Sen. Cathy Giessel’s latest newsletter to her district talks about the need for more state revenue, and how that will have to come from Alaskans’ paychecks.
“Our traditional dependence on oil taxes to pay our bills doesn’t work anymore. Most of our funds come from the Permanent Fund earnings. Alaskans knew this would happen when they created the Permanent Fund in 1976. ‘New Revenue’ usually makes Alaskans think of personal income taxes. And that is in our future, without question,” she wrote.
Giessel, although once a fiscal conservative, joined the Democrat-led caucus in the Senate and has now flipped on every single conservative principle, including abortion.
Now, as she serves as chairwoman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, she is normalizing the concept that Alaskans will end up paying an income tax to the state. The income tax was eliminated in 1980, when royalties from oil started paying for state services, and the oil boom flow of money led to a growth in government.
The U.S. Department of Education under the Trump administration says that race-based decisions in education – including race-based hiring, admissions, and scholarships – are unlawful, and any institution that does not comply with the department’s antidiscrimination requirements will face loss of federal funding.
“The Department of Education will no longer allow education entities to discriminate on the basis of race,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the department, told The Center Square.
“This isn’t complicated,” Trainor said. “When in doubt, every school should consult the SFFA legal test contained in the [Dear Colleague letter]: ‘If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.’”
Trainor also said that “additional guidance on implementation is forthcoming.”
Trainor’s Dear Colleague letter states that federal law “prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”
“The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance,” according to Trainor’s letter.
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” Trainor wrote.
Schools have until the end of the month to begin complying with the letter’s content.
According to Trainor’s letter, “the Department intends to take appropriate measures to assess compliance with the applicable statutes and regulations based on the understanding embodied in this letter beginning no later than [Feb. 28], including antidiscrimination requirements that are a condition of receiving federal funding,” Trainor wrote.
Trainor said in his letter that “the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), which clarified that the use of racial preferences in college admissions is unlawful, sets forth a framework for evaluating the use of race by state actors and entities covered by Title VI.”
Since 1964, Title VI has existed to prohibit racial discrimination in federally-funded programs, as stated by the Department of Justice.
“Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly,” Trainor wrote.
“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” Trainor wrote.
“Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them – particularly during the last four years – under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’),” Trainor wrote.
“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” Trainor wrote.
“The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” Trainor wrote.
Visiting fellow in higher education at The Heritage Foundation Adam Kissel told The Center Square that “the DEI party in education is over.”
“The Supreme Court was quite clear that racial discrimination in higher education is illegal,” Kissel said.
“The U.S. Department of Education has clarified that workarounds and winks, including facially neutral programs that are designed to achieve racially disparate outcomes, violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Kissel said.
Kissel also recommended that “the department should quickly issue guidance emphasizing that some provisions of its legacy Title VI regulations are no longer good law.”
“The department’s legacy civil rights regulations are built on toleration of discriminatory ‘affirmative action’ preferences and practices that are no longer allowed,” Kissel said.
