Former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has been picked by the Alaska Aviation Board to serve as the director of the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
“We are pleased to announce that David Bronson has been selected to serve as the next Director of Anchorage lntemational Airport. David brings a wealth of experience, strategic vision, and a deep commitment to advancing the airport’s role as a vital hub for Alaska’s economy and connectivity. We are confident that his leadership will further strengthen the airport’s operational excellence and foster meaningful partnerships within the aviation community,” said Ryan Anderson, commissioner of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.
The airport is a city unto itself, with a police and fire department, and the turnover of passengers that come through every day is in the tens of thousands, which would make it Alaska’s fifth-largest city, albeit a transient one. It has stores, restaurants and is responsible for one in nine jobs in Anchorage. Anchorage International is at times No. 2 in the world for cargo flights, which come there primarily for fuel.
The airport uses no tax dollars but pays for itself.
“This decision was reached afier thorough deliberation, and your input played a pivotal role in shaping this outcome. Your dedication to supporting the future of aviation in Alaska is deeply appreciated. and we look forward to collaborating with you as we work together to achieve shared goals for Anchorage International Airport and the broader aviation network,” Anderson said.
Bronson, a retired Air Force officer and pilot, is a commercial pilot, and also has his own private plane.
On Friday, the Legislative Affairs agency released the second round of legislation that has been filed in advance of the 2025 legislative session, which begins Tuesday in Juneau at 1 p.m.
The first batch of the early-bird bills was released in late December. Details are in this story:
In the second batch, you’ll find legislation to change laws governing public employee benefit plans, to protect girls’ athletic teams from male intrusions. There are bills to designate one month Hispanic Heritage Month and another bill to designate a month Women’s History Month. Other bills cover mental health coverage in medical programs, and rights of minors undergoing psychiatric evaluation, and the use of restrains on minors when they are in psychiatric hospitals.
The entire list of the second tranche of bills can be read here:
Baseball is a game of characters, and no one had more character than Bob Uecker, who passed away Thursday at the age of 90. He was a favorite of generations of the game’s fans, so before we get all twisted up by next week’s big political stories, let’s take a minute to smile about one of the games’ classiest clowns.
Uecker played in the big leagues from 1962 to 1967, amassing a batting average of exactly .200, which – and he was always the first to admit it – was downright awful. Yet, few players had as much fun playing the game as did Uecker. He was a jokester, loved by his teammates despite his inability to hit above the Mendoza Line.
One of the really odd trivia facts about such a dismal hitter is that Uecker only hit 14 home runs during his Major League career, but three of them came off Hall-of-Fame pitchers: Gaylord Perry, Ferguson Jenkins, and Sandy Koufax.
It was after his playing days were over, however, that Bob Uecker parlayed his comedic nature with his love of the game into a career. He was the Milwaukee Brewers’ broadcaster for over half a century, and was considered as much a part of that team as any of the players or coaches.
Uecker’s success as a broadcaster actually led to his induction into the broadcasters’ wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003. His self-deprecating induction speech had Hall-of-Fame ballplayers in stitches with some of his better known quotes . . .
“I knew when my career was over. In 1965 my baseball card came out with no picture.”
“I think my top salary was maybe in 1966. I made $17,000 and 11 of that came from selling other players’ equipment.”
“I led the league in go get ’em next time.”
“Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues, but to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.”
In addition to his career in broadcasting, Uecker starred in the TV comedy “Mr. Belvedere” for six seasons and was a regular guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. It was Carson who tagged him “Mr. Baseball.”
It was Uecker who quipped, “I must be in the front row,” during one of his Miller Lite beer commercials, a line that became almost as famous with sports fans as the one he used while playing a broadcaster in the Major League movies – “Juuust a bit outside.”
Guys like Bob Uecker are part of what make baseball unique. In an era in which players’ egos are almost as big as their multi-million dollar contracts, it was wonderful to hear Bob Uecker keeping things fun.
Tim Barto is vice president of Alaska Family Council and a regular contributor to Must Read Alaska. His lifetime love of baseball is shared by Suzanne Downing, who will inevitably be criticized for allowing a baseball-themed column to creep into this edition.
President Donald Trump has named Alaskan Cale Clingenpeel as a special assistant to the president for economic policy, focusing primarily on trade, immigration, and labor.
Clingenpeel grew up in Anchorage and graduated from South Anchorage High School in 2012. He interned for Sen. Lisa Murkowski for a couple of years while he earned a bachelor’s degree in International economics from Georgetown University. He went on to complete a master’s degree in international economics from Johns Hopkins University.
In 2016 he was a delegate to the Alaska Republican Convention.
He was also the chief economist at a growth equity fund and was senior advisor to the chairman and economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Trump’s first term.
Clingenpeel served on the 2024 Republican National Convention platform committee policy staff and as an external economic advisor to President Trump’s 2024 campaign. Clingenpeel was most recently the chief economist at the America First Policy Institute, where hewrote columnson issues relevant to the economy.
Must Read Alaska readers have had a lot of harsh words over the years for outgoing President Joe Biden. But reader/commenter “Whidbey TheDog” (pseudonym) asks if people could say even one nice word about the president.
So here’s your chance, Must Read Alaska readers. We’ll publish your comments below, but only the ones that are “nice” about Biden. For instance, your MRAK editor offers that Biden said once how children love to touch his hairy legs in the pool. That’s . . . nice.
But there’s so much more than his hairy legs and children.
Here’s your chance to give Biden your best. (Please don’t misspell his name Bidum or Bribem when you comment; it creates a lot of work for the editor.)
The comment section is now open for your pleasure. Go!
The campaign season has apparently begun for the 2026 congressional election cycle. The Democratic House Majority PAC’s sub-PAC is already going after Congressman Nick Begich of Alaska, who has been in office for two weeks.
The group called House Majority Forward is the same one that tried to keep Alaska’s one congressional seat in Democrat hands in 2024. It has purchased an ad buy to attack the Republican candidate who won, along with nine other Republicans in the U.S. House.
House Majority Forward will specifically attack:
GOP Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (ad here) of Iowa and Ryan Mackenzie(ad here) of Pennsylvania. The ads tie the Republicans to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’snomination to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Marianette Miller-Meeks is supporting Robert Kennedy Jr., who plans to restrict safe products farmers rely on based on conspiracy theories,” the narrator says the ad. “That will drive up the cost of meat and produce.”
Other ads will shred Zach Nunn of Iowa, Tom Kean of New Jersey, Nick LaLota of New York, Mike Lawler of New York, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Of those targets, only Begich, MacKenzie, and Breshnahan are freshmen who just took the oath of office two weeks ago.
“Over the coming weeks, HMF will launch television and digital ads in order to hold Republicans accountable for refusing to lower costs, and conduct extensive quantitative and qualitative research and polling in order to develop a deeper understanding of how Republican policies are hurting American wallets,” House Majority Forward said.
Alaskans may be polled to find out what is important to them so the group can craft its message around the issues of the day.
A Chinese national sentenced this week for illegal guide-outfitter operation he ran in Alaska will serve his time on supervised release for two years. Jun “Harry” Liang also agreed to turn over $73,000 and a luxury vehicle he owns.
According to court documents, beginning in August 2021, Liang, 41, and his co-conspirator Brian Phelan, 53, of Fairbanks, conspired to provide guide-outfitter services for caribou and brown bear hunts out of Fairbanks.
Neither defendant was licensed by the state of Alaska as a big game guide-outfitter.
During the 2022 hunting season, Liang collected $60,000 in advance payments from two undercover agents posing as non-resident hunters in exchange for guide-outfitter services for a brown bear hunt. The money was transferred to Liang’s account through wire transfer and deposited checks.
In August 2022, Liang and Phelan falsely informed the Alaska Department of Fish and Game that Phelan was the brother-in-law of the two undercover agents, which led the department to issue a non-resident brown bear permit and tag, not knowing the information was a lie.
On Sept. 20, 2024, Liang pleaded guilty to one count of Lacey Act false labeling, and additional violations for failing to obtain a special recreation permit and engaging in business in park areas without a permit in Denali National Park. As part of his sentence for the Lacey Action violation, Liang is also required to pay a $10,000 fine. For guiding without a license on Federal Land, he will pay over $9,000 in restitution to the Bureau of Land Management.
On Dec. 30, 2024, Phelan was sentenced to two and a half years’ probation and fined $2,000 after pleading guilty to two counts of violating a regulation for management, use and protection of BLM land, and one count of Lacey Act false labeling.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement, Alaska Region, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, and IRS Criminal Investigation Service, Seattle Field Office, investigated the case.
President-elect Donald Trump recently snapped the gaze of the national security establishment to an often-overlooked geographical feature — Greenland.
Trump’s comments have been enough to start a long-overdue conversation about the semi-autonomous territory owned by Denmark, a landmass that retired Admiral James Stavridis, who served as the Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, has called “a strategic goldmine for the United States.” Stavridis was speaking both literally and figuratively.
Trump has likely done something that many of the so-called national security experts have never considered: He has looked down on a globe from the top. The traditional U.S.-centric view does not tell the full story nor provide the proper perspective. A top-down glance unveils key observations that reveal the wisdom of focusing on a geographic feature that has been brushed aside for far too long.
Greenland and the entire Arctic region are typically considered simply rugged and quaint. Yet, their significance must be
properly elevated as a fundamental component of U.S. national security and economic interests. Trump has done just that.
A North-Pole-centered perspective reveals that Greenland is the largest geographical feature in the Arctic region. As a result, it holds oversized strategic significance in controlling land, sea, air, undersea and space domains for a substantial part of the planet. Proper utilization of the Greenland landmass creates opportunities for multi-faceted dominance of the entire region.
This same perspective reveals a massive trade route, given the right climatic conditions and ice-breaking capabilities. It provides a maritime shortcut between the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States, and similarly for trade between Europe and Asia.
The Houthis in Yemen have reminded the world of an important economic truth — the ability to shut down transit through a key trade route can have ripple effects on the global economy. Suffocating transit through the Red Sea has tripled the cost of shipping from Asia to the East Coast of the United States, enacting huge global inflationary pressures. These negative impacts would be dwarfed by a nation that could control and restrict transit through the Arctic Ocean.
The view from the North Pole also enlightens the viewer about the closer-than-expected proximity between Russia and North America. The protective buffer of the Atlantic Ocean does not tell the full story, and the distances between the United States and Canada and their Russian adversary are much shorter than would otherwise be understood.
Through this literal worldview, Greenland looms large in its significance. This is especially true when it is properly viewed as the primary barrier between Russia and the east coast of the United States. Such positioning provides the rationale for the United States Space Force’s posture on the island with its early warning radars and space control systems – situated to protect against strategic surprise.
Trump’s strong statements about proper economic and strategic utilization of Greenland have been informed by such strategic orientation. These statements are also a natural extension of his rightful insistence that European NATO members pay their fair share to meet collective defense requirements.
While the United States has a commendable 75-year history of supporting European and collective security, fair share also means that America’s European allies must support North American security. That starts with Greenland and continues with a robust strategic focus on the Arctic region.
None of this addresses the largely untapped and abundant natural resources in the Arctic region, from oil and natural gas to precious metals and rare earth minerals, which are desperately needed to sustain a thriving modern global economy. Calling it a goldmine is not hyperbole.
Not only have Trump’s comments gained our attention, but they have also captured the attention of Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede. Egede has eagerly proclaimed that his territory is poised to enhance its collaboration with the United States regarding natural resources and security efforts.
Thus, with just a few words informed by a properly oriented security perspective, Trump has already motivated and cultivated a collaboration that could strike gold for American interests.
United States Air Force Brigadier General John Teichert (ret) is a prolific author and leading expert on foreign affairs and military strategy. He served as commander of Joint Base Andrews and Edwards Air Force Base, was the U.S. senior defense official to Iraq, and recently retired as the assistant deputy undersecretary of the Air Force, international affairs. General Teichert maintains a robust schedule of media engagements, and his activities can best be followed at johnteichert.com and on LinkedIn. General Teichert can be reached at [email protected].
On Friday, three days before the end of his presidency, President Joe Biden set a new record for the most pardons, clemencies, and commuted sentences ever granted by a president.
He commuted the sentences of nearly 2,500 non-violent drug offenders, whose sentences were more harsh than the sentences given today for similar offenses.
“Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes,” Biden said in a statement. “This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars.”
The White House didn’t release the names of the offenders whose sentences he has commuted.
Biden has long has a lax view of illegal drugs, and seems unconcerned that the drug trade is fueled by his open border policies and involves layers of other violent crimes by criminal gangs. The Secret Service and F.B.I. still have not released a report on the packet of cocaine found in the White House near the Oval Office in July of 2023. The agencies closed the investigation a few weeks later, saying they could find no evidence, although the DNA on the package provided a “partial hit.” Critics like Sen. Ted Cruz have raised concerns about a coverup.
