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.
The Alaska Republican Party summer picnic starts this evening at 6 pm at the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. The event will feature the politico band called “Spank the Dog,” with Paul Fuhs, vocals and guitar, John Bitney, guitar and vocals, Miles Baker, drums and percussion, and special guest appearances by Dan Saddler and Chuck Kopp.
As for candidates, you can meet more than 27 of them, as they have booked up all the side tables.
In addition to free hot dogs, you’ll find food trucks on site, including the Lisa Murkowski for Senate Mobile HQ food truck with free otter pops.
Others include actual food, so check out Del Real Kitchen’s food truck, for mostly Mexican cuisine; and the Pikiniki food truck for an Asian fusion meal.
The Anchorage Young Republicans are in charge of the entire event and they promise free activities for kids.
They’ll also announce the winner of the raffle – 70,000 Alaska Airline miles and a week’s stay in the Grand Mayan Resort in Puerto Vallarta, valued at $9,300. Tickets, $10, are available from Ryan McKee, 907-841-3274. Tickets will also be available for sale at the picnic.
In Wilmington, N.C., Donald Trump fell into the oldest trap in the book. He said something that could be easily misconstrued by a ready and willing media.
The left has savaged him. The reporters fell for it hook, line, and sinker, relishing in the moment when they could attack him.
Even politicians who are normally conservative lost their minds.
The Donald, in his offhanded way, said that Hillary Clinton picking judges would very likely undermine the Second Amendment.
He is dead on. There’s no question about it — Hillary will change the makeup of the Supreme Court and will neuter our constitutionally guaranteed right to arm ourselves.
Here’s what Trump said: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks.”
In his offhanded way he continued… “Although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is, I don’t know.”
Clinton and her rapid response team immediately called his remarks a blatant threat against her. They tweeted it out and prompted the media to ask the Secret Service if they had a comment about this “veiled threat.”
The Secret Service did not have a comment, but the damage is done when the question is asked.
This “nothing burger” has blown up on Trump because that is what happens in the public arena during an election cycle. The dirty politics masquerade as legitimate reporting. There is not a single reporter in America who will be voting for Donald Trump.
Trump had best learn that lesson now and stick to his written remarks. In this shark tank, every word is bait.
Trump is right, of course. The Second Amendment is under siege and has been for the past eight years under the current president. Only the “Second Amendment People” have stood in his way.
It’s been a fight for the very Constitution, but it’s also been a great eight years for the firearms business: Gun sales and ammunition sales have thrived under President Obama.
After the Charleston, N.C. church massacre last year, and also after the shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, Obama touted the gun control reforms enacted in Australia as a model for America.
Those measures include banning semi-automatic rifles, even going so far as to confiscate the banned weapons that were currently owned across Australia. For those who did not hand over their weapons, the law provides for a 12-month prison penalty.
That’s the kind of gun control measure Obama has been pushing.
Obama has also pushed for the ratification of the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, which would allow the UN laws to supersede US sovereignty, our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
WAR OF WORDS
The media has lost its hive-mind over Donald Trump, and has brought out the heavy artillery. This is what they did to Sarah Palin, another Second Amendment advocate.
When Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Tucson in 2011, how quickly the media allowed themselves to be manipulated by the left to promulgate the line that this was somehow the fault of Palin, because of this SarahPac graphic:
Nevermind that those same “target” symbols are used widely throughout the media and are standard-issue icons used by graphic designers, and that political groups everywhere include “targeting committees” in determining which politicans they will focus on.
Alas, reporters and editors are quick to defend the First Amendment. They have First Amendment committees, workshops and symposia. They love the First Amendment because it allows them access they need to cover the news, and keeps them out of jail.
Journalists are low-propensity gun owners, however. They can’t tell what makes an AR different from an AK. They report about assault weapons and gun violence, but never about bomb violence and knife weapons. When they talk about magazines and clips, they are speaking another language, and yet they are shaping the public’s perception.
When it comes to us “Second Amendment People,” who will speak for us?
Not Hillary Clinton, and not the news media that is backing her lock, stock, and barrel. No, this gaffe by Trump will become the debate that will go clear into the fall, as gun owners become the political target of the 2016 presidential election.
(If you are a journalist reading this, don’t get up in arms. Here’s a quick set of bullets to help you become weapon literate.)
2:30 PM, AUG. 9, 2016 – Six years hence, and Alaskans still think of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens as the beloved family member who will come home soon, smile on his face and some pithy observation, perhaps about the Internet.
Things are just not the same without him.
It was right about now, on Aug. 9, 2010, when the small floatplane plane carrying Senator Stevens and eight others crashed about 10 miles northwest of Aleknagik, and it was a moment when Alaskans felt their history had changed forever.
The weather was bad, and the mountainous area was generally flown under visual flight rules, with no radar support for flights that low. No one knows why the plane crashed — perhaps the pilot had a heart attack or stroke. “Temporary unresponsiveness” of the 62-year-old pilot was how the National Transportation Safety Board described it the following year. Five of the nine onboard died in that crash, including pilot Theron Smith, who had suffered a small stroke four years prior.
Stevens served as U.S. Senator for Alaska from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009. He was a lion for Alaska, having played a major role in the creation of Statehood, the Trans Alaska Pipeline System, and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Few remember his strong support of women’s sports and the work he did as a sponsor of Title 9, as well as the establishment of the U.S. Olympic Committee. He sponsored Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.
After being targeted by a US Justice Department witch hunt in 2008, he narrowly lost his re-election to Mark Begich. The Natives of Alaska abandoned him at the ballot box, which ended up being one of the biggest hurts of all, as friends would later tell it. Nearly all rural precincts voted for Begich over Stevens that year. But before sentencing the entire case was thrown out because of gross prosecutorial misconduct.
For his family, today is not just another day. Although Stevens served more time in the U.S. Senate than any Republican in history, he was father, husband and friend.
Ted Stevens speaks a group at the Petroleum Club in Anchorage on April 24, 2009 at a fundraiser for Dan Sullivan for Mayor. Steve Strait photo
‘A LION WHO RETREATED BEFORE NOTHING’
This blog’s writer had been a speechwriter for Gov. Sean Parnell for merely a few weeks before the fatal crash.
I remember the growing tension in the air on the 17th floor of he Atwood Building as the governor was awaiting official word on what was already feared.
The working over of his formal remarks was painful and I did not feel up to the task. No one ever is ready for such an enormous and tragic event.
Governor Parnell looked at what I had written and, with uncharacteristic impatience, said: “No, it has to be bigger. He was a lion for Alaska.”
The final version included that phrase, which is as true today as when Governor Parnell spoke it spontaneously and with reverence: “Senator Ted Stevens fought hard for our future in Alaska. He was larger than life. Ted was a lion who retreated before nothing. He was a devoted husband… a loving father. His impact on Alaska will live on in future generations.”
The memorial service for Ted Stevens in Girdwood, on Aug. 29, 2010. Steve Strait photo
The Chicago Tribune shoots women athletes in the foot: While announcing Alaskan Corey Cogdell-Unrein’s win of a bronze medal, there was simply not enough room in the headline for “second bronze” or “trap shooter,” what with having to mention her husband and the NFL Bears.
The newspaper blunders on: “This is Cogdell-Unrein’s third Olympic games, but Unrein, a defensive end in his second season with the Bears, was unable to get away from training camp to join her in Rio and see her in the Olympics for the first time.”
By the time you had your first cup of coffee today, the Alaska Marine Highway System unloaded a massive life-sized humpback whale sculpture. It’s Juneau’s bronze metal artwork.
After years of contention and fund-raising, the six-ton whale headed through the rain for the Douglas Bridge this morning, where the sculpture will be erected and properly feted. It’s taken 10 years, and the dedication is another year away, but what’s another year in the history of Juneau public art?
We found a KTOO video of the whale en route to downtown Juneau this morning (congrats to the digital video guy for his early-Monday efforts). Here’s a screenshot:
MEANWHILE, IN ANCHORAGE, A LONELY PARK
Every time we do a site visit to Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’ new parking-garage-park atop the 5th Avenue Mall parking structure, we see the same thing: Not much … Nothing to see here, folks … Move along.
The parking garage’s top level cost taxpayers $11 million to build, back when the garage was constructed, but it’s now it is off-limit to cars as has become the home of the wind and an occasional lonely seagull. The idea was to have a playful downtown park that would be used by all the hipsters the mayor was hoping to attract, since the Towne Square Park has been taken over by the homeless. Whatever becomes of the rooftop park, it appears to need that certain something. The photo is meme-worthy.
Mayor Berkowitz’ jailyard-theme park on top of the 5th Ave. Mall Parking Garage. All it lacks is razor wire.
BUSINESS REPORT CARD
The envelope, please. It’s no surprise that conservatives do better when it comes to protecting business owners, entrepreneurs, and job creators. Here’s the list.
Anchorage Democrat Geran Tarr, in an expansive and unguarded interview with reporter Steve Quinn, opened up about her doubts about the direction of the AK-LNG project being managed by Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and his Alaska Gasline Development Agency.
Rep. Geran Tarr
The interview appears in the current issue of Petroleum News, which is behind a subscriber paywall but will be in print on Monday morning.
Tarr, who is in her fourth year on the House Resources Committee, not only questions the background of the AGDC President Keith Meyer, who has run risky-but-failed projects in the past, she points out the instability of the governor’s oil and gas team, with new players in charge every few months.
At every quarter update to the Legislature, a different person has been reporting to the House and Senate Finance Committees.
Tarr said that at the outset of the Bill Walker Administration, she thought it was more normal because it was a new governor in office, but “we haven’t got to a point of stability. We’ve had some pretty major departures from people I’ve had a lot of confidence in like Marty Rutherford and Mark Myers.” Myers was commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources, and Marty was his deputy commissioner, who became acting commissioner before leaving at the end of June.
“It’s surprising that folks would come on in the beginning of the administration and leave just a little over a year after taking the job,” she told Petroleum News. “Generally a person who takes such a high level position is making more of a commitment than that. That’s been difficult. As you lose that institutional knowledge, the next person doesn’t know what happened before.”
Tarr voted to create AK-LNG and has been very involved and outspoken about the process. “She’s done her homework and invested a lot of time in understanding the project,” said one of her legislative colleagues.
She has been a reliable left-leaning Democrat, promoting more taxes on the oil industry and criticizing Republicans routinely for their policies and politics. But she recently wrote an op-ed in which she pushed back on Gov. Walker for threatening her if she did not go along with his fiscal plan. “I must push back when the Governor says that this is about my election. Again, it’s a matter of fairness and equality, I have shared that with Governor Walker,” she wrote.
Wade Rathke, founder of ACORN, is now the head of a mental health advocacy group in Juneau. YouTube Screen Shot.
DISGRACED ACORN CHIEF IS ORGANIZING IN JUNEAU
A notorious national organization’s founder is now leading a local mental health advocacy group in Alaska’s capital.
Wade Rathke was the founder of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
ACORN sucked down millions of dollars of taxpayer money and was on tape committing voter registration improprieties. The scandal-laden organization was investigated by the FBI for a “coordinated national scam” of voter registration fraud.
“ACORN is not an organization that should be subsidized by taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” Speaker John Boehner wrote in 2008. “ACORN, which for years has been closely connected with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, appears to have played a key role in the irresponsible schemes that led to the recent financial meltdown that has already cost Americans trillions of dollars in the form of government bailouts and lost retirement savings. Congress has not yet held investigatory hearings to examine the details of ACORN’s involvement in these schemes. Until credible oversight hearings are conducted and completed in a manner that clears ACORN of wrongdoing, the organization should not receive taxpayer money.”
It gets worse. In 2008, The New York Times reported that Rathke’s brother had embezzled $948,607 from the group and its affiliated charitable organizations. An employee of ACORN’s accounting firm told Rathke that an investigation had led to discovery of the embezzlement.
“Clearly, this was an uncomfortable, conflicting and humiliating situation as far as my family and I were concerned,” Wade told the New York Times, “and so the real decisions on how to handle it had to be made by others.”
ACORN decided to cover it up, and not inform staff, law enforcement or even members of the board.
Wade Rathke told the Times that “the decision to keep the matter secret was not made to protect his brother but because word of the embezzlement would have put a ‘weapon’ into the hands of enemies of ACORN, a liberal group that is a frequent target of conservatives who object to ACORN’s often strident advocacy on behalf of low- and moderate-income families and workers.”
He was forced to resign from ACORN but still has leadership ties to the ACORN International network. In a message to his supporters, he noted that ACORN International launched a group in South Korea and in Prague. The Prague group was called the “ACORN Comrades Club.”
Rathke now runs the newly formed Juneau Mental Health Consumer Action Network, or MCAN. What can possibly go wrong?
MOVING ON
Bruce Tangeman, former deputy Revenue commissioner under the Sean Parnell Administration, is gone from his job as CFO at the Alaska Gasline Development Agency.
He exited suddenly last week as the Walker Administration continues to conform the gasline agency to his purpose. The gasline agency is supposed to be independent of the Governor’s Office, but as reported here earlier this year, the two have become indistinguishable.
Also hitting the door is external affairs director Miles Baker, who is taking a month off to travel and unwind before pounding the pavement for work.
Others leaving their positions include Deputy Legislative Director is Lacy Wilcox.
Nathan Butzlaff is leaving the DC Office of the Governor, heading to the Midwest.
MOVING UP
Sarah Palin has found a buyer for her Arizona house, according to the Washington Post. That means Alaskans are likely to see more of her, unless she secures a spot in the Trump Administration. Just sayin’.
Craig Fleener is now top lobbyist for the State of Alaska, and is house hunting in Washington, D.C. He will be known as the governor’s director of state and federal relations, and is possibly the highest paid employee of the state. Facing a real learning curve in DC without Nathan Butzlaff to help him, Fleener will also remain the Arctic advisor to the governor.
