Sen. Lisa Murkowski could not not answer the tough question posted by Big Lake Republican Rep. Kevin McCabe this week: Would she change her vote on Sec. Deb Haaland if she had to do it over?
Haaland has shut down oil, gas, mining, and even life-saving roads in Alaska. And that is only in Year One of the Biden Administration.
“I’d like to change her mind on the decisions that she [Haaland] has made that have negatively impacted the state of Alaska,” Murkowski responded. “Whether it’s with regards to the NPRA, or in regards to what we’re seeing with yet another pause on oil and gas. I’m planning on changing her mind. She hasn’t stated what her mind is but I’m worried about where her mind is on build out of the King Cove Road.”
Murkowski stayed on the fence, indicating that there is not much that can be done about the Biden Administration.
“The reality is we are where we are … We are where we are. We have a secretary who is putting in place policies and proposals that are not good for our state,” she said. But then she reversed herself and indicated that Haaland is irrelevant, because she is not actually driving the decisions. It’s the Biden Administration that has opinions that are different from those held by pro-resource Alaskans.
“I would suggest to you, though, that Deb Haaland is perhaps not the mastermind behind much of this,” Murkowski explained to McCabe. “You have an administration that has a different view of what it means to this country to be energy … less energy vulnerable … We can say energy independent, but our reality is we’re intertwined in many different ways.”
If Haaland was not running the Department of Interior, someone else would execute the Biden policies. Murkowski said that Biden doesn’t appreciate the value of our country producing its own resources.
“Even if we could do a do-over on Deb Haaland, I don’t believe for a minute we would in much of the same situation than we are now with an administration that just has a different view of resource development,” Murkowski said, not taking responsibility for her actions that led to Biden winning and President Trump being impeached.
Murkowski responded to McCabe and other legislators who asked her questions at the end of her annual remarks to the Alaska State Legislature on Tuesday. McCabe said he asked the question because all the other legislators seemed to be pandering to Murkowski.
“She gave me a politican’s answer. She pivoted smartly away from the question, so no I don’t think it was a good answer,” McCabe told Must Read Alaska.
Oil prices soared by over 8 percent on Thursday, with Brent crude hitting over $105 a barrel for the first time since 2014, and Alaska crude oil prices expected in the same range. The price of Alaska North Slope crude is published a couple of days behind the other major oil markets.
The price surge came after Russia launched a widespread attack on Ukraine, where ports in the Donetsk region ship out commodities, including grain, steel, and gas from Russia to the European Union. The pressure on energy, with oil prices now at levels not seen since early 2014, adds to already extraordinary inflation in the United States, Europe, and around the world.
Russia on Wednesday launched the multi-prolonged attack on Ukraine by air, land, and sea, and captured the mothballed-but-toxic Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
What does the Russia-Ukraine war mean for the State of Alaska’s budget, now that the state is two-thirds of the way through the current 2022 fiscal year?
The Russian invasion means oil and gas commodities will remain high for months to come and that the State of Alaska budget this year will end up with a significant surplus. For 2022, the revenue forecast was based on $75.72 oil and $71 per barrel for Fiscal Year 2023. The prices were said to stay in the $60 range through 2030.
Will this mean the Legislature will act on the governor’s supplemental budget, which proposes to pay Alaskans the rest of last year’s Permanent Fund dividend — about $1,200 more than the half-dividend that was paid in October?
This is not a certainty, since many in the Legislature don’t want to set a precedent of giving Alaskans their full share of the oil wealth. But those who have argued that the money is not there for full dividends now have no argument to stand on. This is also an election year for all but one member of the Legislature, and they will be hearing about high fuel prices from their constituents.
What will high oil prices — say, extended periods of over $100 a barrel — mean for the 2023 fiscal year budget that is now being shaped by House and Senate Finance committees? If the past is any indicator, the pressure will be on to spend more, expand programs, and increase government worker wages and benefits.
In play now, for example, is a bill that would create a defined benefit package for Alaska State Troopers, police officers, firefighters and correctional officers — a plan that may lead to decades of increased state spending. House Bill 55 passed the House last year, 25-5, and is now in onto the Senate last year on a 25-5 vote. It would cost the state about $6 million more a year. There could be many more nickel-and-dime increases put into the state budget under the cover of having surpluses.
If prices remain in this ballpark, just from value of royalties alone, there will be an additional $1 billion deposited into the Permanent Fund this year.
The Department of Revenue published an update on prices on Feb. 15, before the conflict broke out in Eastern Europe.
Will the Legislature repay the borrowing from the Constitutional Budget Reserve? The Legislature owes at least $12 billion to the Constitutional Budget Reserve. That is supposed to be paid back, but nothing forces the Legislature to actually do that. It’s not likely that this Legislature, in an election year, will see that as a high priority.
Can the governor just give out an energy rebate like Gov. Palin did? The increase in oil prices, just like 2005-2014, is great for treasury of the State of Alaska, but now, as then, it is a punishing economic hardship for Alaskans who fuel up and who heat with heating oil. During the administration of Gov. Sarah Palin, Alaskans got a historically high dividend, and an energy rebate check as well. But this Legislature is not the same as the one that approved the energy rebate in 2008, when Palin approved the expenditure and then was given credit for it.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy cannot give the people anything without the authorization of the Legislature. The current Legislature will not want to give a rebate that would make Dunleavy look good during his re-election season.
Reversing a decision it made prior to the start of the legislative session, the Legislature’s Legislative Council on Wednesday dropped the mask mandate for Alaska’s Capitol in Juneau.
The new rules say that individual legislators may mandate masks in their offices, but everywhere else in the building it’s a personal choice. The new rules also remove the requirement that legislators, staff, and media members get tested regularly. The testing requirement has not been enforced since the beginning of session.
During the House Finance Committee’s Labor & Workforce Development Subcommittee on Wednesday, only Anchorage Democrat Reps. Ivy Spohnholz and Liz Snyder wore masks; even former mask fanatic Democrat Rep. Zack Fields did not wear one during the meeting, and the committee staff did not. In Senate Resources, only Juneau Democrat Sen. Jesse Kiehl wore one. In House Resources, only Democrat Reps. Grier Hopkins of Fairbanks and Sara Hannan of Juneau kept their N95 masks on.
It’s been on-again, off-again for mask requirements in Alaska’s Capitol for the past two years.
Masks are still the local law for the greater Juneau area for those who are unvaccinated for Covid-19, in spite of data that shows that over 40 percent of those catching the virus in Alaska are vaccinated.
Those not “fully” vaccinated must wear masks while in indoor public areas and at crowded outdoor events in Juneau. Masks must be worn in all municipal facilities, regardless of vaccination status. Students are masked in the Juneau schools, although high school basketball and hockey players now can take their masks off while playing.
While still blaming Covid economics for its fiscal situation, Chugach Electric Association on Jan. 20 asked the Regulatory Commission of Alaska for permission to withdraw Chugach’s request for a 4.1% rate increase, along with permission to “decouple’” its rate structure as it merges Municipal Light & Power into the company. Chugach had proposed that decoupling would require the 4.1% increase, and had proposed that increase go into effect Feb. 1, 2022.
Decoupling sets the revenue needed to cover known costs, then allows rates to change with consumption to meet the revenue target, according to the Alliance to Save Energy website. Decoupling also adds a “true-up” mechanism that adjusts rates more frequently based on consumption.
The RCA granted Chugach the request to withdraw the request on Feb. 9, and set a date of Feb. 28 for Chugach Electric to resubmit an alternate proposal to remedy the electric utility’s fiscal situation.
Undiscussed are the effects of the $1 billion sale of Municipal Light & Power to Chugach Electric — a sale that was marketed to the voters by the Ethan Berkowitz Administration with the promise of “No Increase in Base Rates.”
Of the entire Chugach Electric Association customer base, the RCA received fewer than 15 public comments on the proposed merger, with its rate increase and decoupling proposal.
“Each of these comments opposed Chugach’s limited decoupling proposal in whole or in part. In response to these comments, Chugach filed a Motion to withdraw TA514-8 and TA392-121,” the RCA order summarized.
In a separate RCA proceeding, Chugach Electric and Matanuska Electric disagree about the process for implementing their “Tight Power Pool.” The formation of this power generation linkage between the two utilities was mandated by the RCA as a condition of the sale of ML&P to Chugach.
If the “Tight Power Pool” disagreements are not resolved, the fiscal state of Chugach Electric will be another issue for the RCA to deliberate.
The Alaska Democratic Party has made its endorsements for local Anchorage elections. They are the candidates you’d expect for Democrats: Kameron Perez-Verdia, Forrest Dunbar, Meg Zaletel, and John Weddleton for Assembly, and Margo Bellamy and Kelly Lessens for Anchorage School Board.
In doing so, the Alaska Democratic Party used a secretly produced website that has no “Paid for” disclaimer, as required by the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Who runs the website? That’s none of your business. All you need to know is that the Democratic Party, using its newsletter links, endorses what the secret website endorses. APOC rules rarely apply to Democrats.
The Democrats are slipping through the campaign laws using the AlaskaBluEvolution, which says it is owned by a person who gets no donations and is not “endorsed by any candidate, candidate’s committee, or political party.” The proxy website depicts Democrats as a large group of (possibly) men crowded together with their arms in the air, and Republicans as a small group of men standing around wearing “Q” on their t-shirts. All of the endorsements were recently sent to registered Democrats in one of the party’s newsletters.
A page from the AlaskaBluEvolution.
The party’s endorsement of Forrest Dunbar, Meg Zaletel, and Kameron Perez-Verdia for Assembly are not surprising. They are Democrats or de facto Democrats.
But Assemblyman John Weddleton? He posits himself as a true nonpartisan, and earlier this month he even attended a meeting of the Young Republicans, where he went maskless — uncharacteristic for the south Anchorage Assemblyman who is mask-vigilant when on the Assembly and in public settings.
Weddleton has consistently donated to Democratic candidates and has never donated to Republican candidates. He supported (former) Sen. Mark Begich for Senate numerous times, and given directly to the Alaska Democratic Party, giving $500 in 2012. As an Assemblyman he has consistently supported property tax increases. He has, on his social media, associated himself with Black Lives Matter and Anchorage Democrats, as well as pro-Palestinian groups.
Weddleton is putting out requests for funds to help him provide “balance” to the Anchorage Assembly.
Running against Weddleton is Randy Sulte, a newcomer to politics, who hopes to replace the Democrats’ favored candidate during the April 5 Anchorage municipal election. Sulte has the endorsement of Mayor Dave Bronson.
On Thursday at 6 pm, the Anchorage Assembly is having a public hearing on its new reapportionment maps. These are the new lines for the Assembly seats, and it’s all about Democrats vs. Republicans. So far in the reapportionment process, the Democrats have asserted control over the new Anchorage political boundaries.
The Assembly is considering four maps. Three of the maps — 6, 11, and 12, are all similar; the fourth is one that the liberal Assembly fought to keep from the public, as it is offered by conservative Jamie Allard, who represents Chugiak/Eagle River.
Map 6 is offered by a hard-left group called Anchorage Action, which says it is nonpartisan. The map is designed by Robert Hockema, a Democrat affiliated with the Meg Zaletel campaign for Assembly. In the Map 6, Anchorage Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar’s home has a line drawn around it so that he will be in District 1. If he loses his current race to challenger Stephanie Taylor, which seems likely, he can run for a District 1 seat. If he wins reelection, this would still be his last term, but he would be able to run again in the new district.
Map 7 links South Anchorage and Eagle River. Offered by Robert Hockema, a Democrat affiliated with Assemblywoman Meg Zalatel’s reelection campaign, the map has maintains what is basically the existing boundary near Zaletel’s home address. Both Zaletel and Dunbar are at the bright edges of their proposed districts, the result of careful planning by the mapmakers. Map 7 also draws a line around Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar’s house.
Map 11 is offered by Assemblyman John Weddleton of South Anchorage. It appears to be the least gerrymandered, although it chops up Spenard and downtown Anchorage. It keeps Dunbar and Zaletel in their districts.
Map 12 is offered by Jamie Allard, Assemblywoman from Eagle River. It follows natural boundaries better than any of the other maps, does not create special carve-outs, and also protects the conservative stronghold of Eagle River, while Maps 6 and 7 weaken Eagle River’s already marginal influence. Allard has fought to have her map considered, and the chair of the Reapportionment Committee, Chris Constant, has fought to exclude her map.
The public can be forgiven for not knowing about the public hearing. There’s little information being circulated by the leftist-controlled Assembly, which will ensure its people are there to support the Democrat maps.
After Thursday’s special public hearing, the Assembly will have a Friday work session on the maps, and then another public hearing will be held next Tuesday. The Assembly is anticipated to rush through the process and vote on it before the April election.
As I predicted shortly after it happened, the State paid off the two psychiatrists that the Dunleavy Administration fired from the Alaska Psychiatric Institute at the beginning of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s Administration. The $400,000 and change was a bargain.
The State has lots of employees who should simply be paid off or sent home with pay and ordered not to represent themselves as State employees.
Alaska Psychiatric Institution psychiatrists are one of the reasons for the development of the Exempt Service of State employees. The Alaska Constitution, almost uniquely, requires a “merit system” of employment in State government, whose personnel system is an exemplar of positivist law.
The Constitution called for a merit system of employment and the early legislatures set out to lay that out in statutory language. The State Personnel Act (AS 39.25 et seq.) sets out the contours and limits of a merit system.
The State Pay Plan (AS 39.27 et seq.) sets out what you could legally get paid. Other statutes set out how much leave you could earn and retain, and how much you could earn in retirement.
The whole idea of a mid-Twentieth Century government employment system was that everything would be in statute and regulation with administrative appeal processes. If judicial action was required it would be a matter of application of clearly expressed law. Fond hope!
The objective system quickly ran into practical reality. The aborning Alaska Marine Highway System had a personnel and pay system based on Washington ferry union contracts, which couldn’t be reconciled with the State’s statutory pay schemes. Teachers had an elaborate system of pay and benefits based on Bureau of Indian Affairs practice and local school district patterns, which likewise couldn’t be reconciled with the statutory schemes.
There were many other types of employees who simply couldn’t fit into the ordered pegs and holes of the State Pay Plan and thus was born the Exempt Service, those employees who weren’t susceptible to recruitment and pay under the statutory scheme. One of the most visible was the head psychiatrist(s) at API; you just couldn’t recruit a shrink for what the State paid even a governor or commissioner.
These guys at API were making well north of $200,000 wages and benefits. Nobody ever accused me of being a nice guy on these sorts of cases, but if I could have settled these cases for about a year’s wages and benefits for each of them without facing an Alaska jury, I’d have done it in a heartbeat.
In my time, I’d authorize six figures to settle a case of wrongful discharge anywhere in Alaska other than Anchorage without hesitation. Alaskans love to give State money away when they’re sitting on a jury. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that the money that they’re giving to someone is their money. I don’t know that I’d want to face a jury even in Anchorage these days.
I’ve written about this in previous columns and had numerous discussions with officials about it; “exempt” as in “Exempt Service” doesn’t mean that the employee is exempt from all labor laws, a concept hard for some to grasp.
I’m told that the Governor’s Office, in those early days, had asked the Division of Personnel for a list of all “at will” employees of the State. In my time, the answer would have been “there are none,” but Personnel gave them a list of all employees in the Exempt Service. Well, all the vessel employees of the ferry system are in the exempt service, but they’re under union contracts and are about as far from “at will” as you can get. The teachers are exempt. The emergency firefighters are exempt. Being in the Exempt Service only means you’re exempt from the State Personnel Act and the Pay Plan; it doesn’t necessarily mean that you serve at the governor’s pleasure.
The Governor’s Office either didn’t ask the right question or somebody didn’t give them the right answer.
The whole State Personnel Act needs a fresh look from the perspective of the modern world. The workplace has changed a lot since it was originally enacted in 1961. We learned painfully in the 1980s’ oil price crash that when the union contracts expired, we really didn’t know how to run the government. It pains me to say that in some ways the federal government has done a better job in distinguishing groups of employees.
Most of the “Partially Exempt” service are true political appointees and do serve at the pleasure, but not all of them do. Division Directors are true policy makers. The upper level assistant attorneys general are policy makers. Below that, it becomes a case by case question. It is especially an issue in Law where in the lower levels of the attorney classification many are researchers, brief writers, and briefcase toters with no policy-making responsibilities.
Then there is the fact that the Judiciary Branch has arrogated to itself power over the Executive Branch by contriving a “covenant of good faith and fair dealing” in employment relations that gives somebody in a black robe the authority to substitute his/her authority over that of any Executive Branch manager.
In a sane world, the Walker Administration would have shut attorney and now litigant Libby Bakalar up or fired her if she wouldn’t shut up. I know I’d have had no trouble walking into her office with a couple of empty boxes and telling her to pack up and get out. I’ve read the court decision more than once and I can’t really figure out what the Dunleavy Administration did wrong other than fire a Democrat.
In the case of the API psychiatrists, any reason, no reason, but not an illegal reason was the standard, so all they had to do was walk in with the boxes and tell them that they didn’t fit in the plan any more. Yet we have a lawyer with a low IQ — a judge — deciding he knows better.
That said, if I’d have been facing it, I’d have just ponied up the money to keep from facing a jury or a lawyer with good social connections and a low IQ judge.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.
History teaches us that nations, in some ways, are like people. While having many things in common, each is unique. As with people, a nation’s behavior is often understood in terms of the psychological attitudes and style that characterize its personality.
A failure to understand cultural complexity of a nation’s psychological behavior in the historical context creates tensions between governments and often leads to political conflicts.
From the mid–1980s through the 1990s, I taught several academic courses at the University of Alaska Southeast, namely: “How Soviets View the World,” “Russian Character in Russian Literature,” “Russian History,” and “Russian Language.”
The central focus and objective of these courses, in addition to the subject matter, was to explain to my students that every culture, including Russian/Soviet culture, must be understood in the context of its history, literature, arts, music and peoples’ psychological behavior. In almost every class I recited Russian poetry in order to cultivate students’ interest in Russian literary creations. Indeed, Russian poetry is a soul of Russian culture and a key for understanding Russian psychological behavior.
Considering the significant decline of interest in poetry in the West, including the United States, the growing interest for books of verse in East European countries, including Russia, is still an unusual phenomenon. For the Russians, poetry means hope. In poetry, the reader may find support for his/her faith in such human values as dedication, dignity, honor, fortitude, heroism and loyalty.
Modern Russian poetry has absorbed the finest traditions of the 19th century (e.g., Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov) and the early 20th century (e.g., Block, Fet, Mayakovsky, Yesenin) schools.
In modern Russian poetry, the accent on ideology and morality remains as strong as ever. The historical reason for the ideological poetry is the emergence of a new socialist society and, therefore, interest in psychological poetry had grown tremendously during the Soviet period of Russian history (1917-1991). In fact, Russian literature and art have always been well-known for probing the innermost recesses of the individual’s behavior.
The idea of the revolutionary transformation of life runs through the whole of Soviet poetry (1917-1991). Soviet poetry carries a message of friendship, loyalty and brotherhood. It stands up for the world’s essential values such as motherhood, creativity, honesty, love, the joy of communion with nature and peace between all peoples.
Three prominent Russian/Soviet poets have had a tremendous influence in Russian culture. They are Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak and Yevgeniy Yevtushenko.
Anna Akhmatova, 1889–1966, is associated in the reader’s mind with the tragedy of a lonely soul seeking understanding and sympathy. Akhmatova’s WWII time and postwar poetry, however, speaks of patriotism and human dignity. Her writing is simple and her dreams are perfectly presented so they become tangible. Shortly before she died, Anna Akhmatova received an honorary degree of Oxford University.
The Russian Soil
In all the world no people are so tearless,
So proud, so simple as are we.
In lockets for a charm we do not wear it,
In verse about its arrows do not weep,
With Eden’s blissful vales do not compare it,
Untroubled does it leave our bitter sleep.
To traffic in it is a thought that never,
Not even in our hearts, remote, takes root.
Before our eyes its image does not hover,
Though we be beggared, sick, despairing, mute.
It’s the mud of our shoes, it is rubble,
It’s the sand on our teeth, it is slush,
It’s the pure, taintless dust that we crumble,
That we pound, that we mix, that we crush.
But we call it our own for ‘twill open one day
To receive and embrace us and turn us to clay.
Boris Pasternak, 1890–1960, was a son of a well-known painter in Russia. He was educated in Germany and later became a poet of world stature. His early poetry was quite complicated, but his later style was simple and clear. By using his own original syntax, he revealed the essence of phenomena and brought out their philosophical content with great skill. Pasternak is the author of the classic novel “Doctor Zhivago” and one of the best Russian translators of Shakespeare and Goethe. He lived a very modest and dedicated life and only in the 1970s did Soviet officials recognize his works.
It’s unbecoming to be famous
It’s unbecoming to be famous.
It isn’t that lifts aloft.
Maintaining archives tends to maim us.
Hoard manuscripts and you are lost.
The aim of art is self-discharge
And not the clap-trap of success.
It’s shameless to be looming large
For merits which are but a guess.
Live on through life without imposture,
Live so as in the final end
To hear the love-call of the future,
Expanse and distance to befriend.
Hiatus—leave them in your fortune
But not by any means in papers.
Although the process be a torture,
Let whole chapters of life escape us.
And ducking down into obscurity,
Conceal your steps beneath its cloak.
So landscapes sometimes hide their purity
Beneath a veil of fog or smoke.
Though others will retrace in hot
Pursuit the imprints of your feet,
Remember: you yourself must not
Distinguish triumph from defeat.
Not even by the slightest fraction
Must you your proper self transcend.
Just be alive, in thought and action,Alive and always to the end.
Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, 1933–2017, was a leader of the contemporary Soviet and Russian poets. He was especially popular among the students and young people. Yevtushenko poetry is patriotic, dramatic, and imbued with a sense of civic responsibility. Yevtushenko traveled a great deal around the world, representing the former Soviet Union in a highly patriotic and heroic fashion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, he lived and taught poetry in the United States.
Say, do the Russians want a war?
Say, do the Russians want a war?
Go ask our land, then ask once more
That silence lingering in the air
Above the birch and poplar there.
Beneath those trees lie soldier lads
Whose sons will answer for their dads.
To add to what you learned before,
Say—Do the Russians want a war?
Those soldiers died on every hand
Not only for their own dear land,
But so the world at night could sleep
And never have to wake and weep.
New York and Paris spend their nights
Asleep beneath the leaves and lights.
The answer’s in their dreams, be sure.
Say—Do the Russians want a war?
Sure, we know how to fight a war,
But we don’t want to see once more
The soldiers falling all around,
Their countryside a battleground.
Ask those who give the soldiers life,
Go ask my mother, ask my wife,
Then you will have to ask no more,
Say—Do the Russians want a war?
Indeed, current U.S. administration in Washington D.C. must take cultural, historic, and psychological behavior factors into consideration in order to achieve an effective and peaceful outcome in dealing with today’s Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
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, andClipper 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.
In the recent debate with former Alaska State Sen. John Coghill, a true gentleman if ever there was one, I could not broach all of the flaws that exist in our current state constitution. One of them is Article 1, Section 5:
“Every person may freely speak, write, and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right.”
When one looks at the federal “Bill of Rights” and in most of our own in the Alaska constitution, they are worded with restrictions placed upon government, rather than granting permission to citizens. The rights then are seen as pre-existing, given to us by Natural Law from the Almighty.
“No law shall be made …” and “No person shall be denied …” is how all of them should properly and justly read. It is easily understood that were it not this way, we would suffer under the rule, “The Government giveth, and the Government taketh away.”
But read Section 5 of Alaska’s Constitution again. That is precisely what it does — it grants us permission, with a finger-wagging warning that should we abuse it, we would pay a penalty. It goes without saying that abuse of the freedom of speech was already thoroughly ensconced in American statutes and Anglo-Saxon common law, and was not necessary to be included.
Even during the debates held in 1955, this was seen as a danger. None other than the last living convention survivor, and the Dean of Alaskan liberals Vic Fisher, understood that the wording was fraught with potential mischief. He was assured that Idaho’s state constitution had similar wording and had therefore been “tested” — as if it could never be abused in the future.
The liberal Mr. Fisher was on to something important in 1955. I wonder what his thoughts are today regarding the abuse that is now ongoing in the state legislature with the heroic Rep. David Eastman.
But the template of our vaunted state Constitution of 1955 came out of a liberal think-tank associated with the Rockefeller created-and-funded University of Chicago, called the Public Administration Service, or PAS. Their various officers, who were Socialist New Deal retreads, were even invited to advise, observe, and speak at the 1955 confab in Fairbanks.
A word on the term “holocaust,” which Eastman used in reference to something other than the Jewish Holocaust. I hate to say it, but the term seems to have been patented by the liberals, and I am here to inform them that it is not.
The prolife movement has used it for nearly 50 years, and will never stop using the term. If it doesn’t actually parallel the Jewish holocaust, it is because the body count of aborted babies in the US alone now exceeds 10 times the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis.
But they don’t count, you see. And why?
Because the liberals told us so.
The politically conservative Jews, such as Andrew Barr, the secretary of the UK’s Jews for Justice, are also warning us that we are going down a terrible path with cancel culture. If the witches’ brew that is the Democratic Party succeeds in ousting Rep. Eastman, the rest of us will be next in our workplace, schools and churches.
House Speaker Louise Stutes and House Majority Leader Chris Tuck are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Legislative bodies must extend courtesy to their confreres. If you want to pass bills, today’s opponent is tomorrow’s ally. Throwing bean-balls at the head of conservative mavericks by inviting childish and bed-wetting witnesses, eager to throw mud through “guilt by association” is a threat to the other members, and is deliberately meant to be. It will result in an end to legislative comity. It might eventually lead to a modern version of Sen. Preston Brooks and the caning of Sen. Charles Sumner.
Aside from having to modify Article 1, Section 5 of the Alaska Constitution, it appears that the hellbent, dangerous, and evil witch hunters in the state legislature will have to be voted out — if we can restore election integrity.
Should Eastman suffer some sort of legislative discipline, or expulsion, a bone-chilling nightmare will descend on us here in the Last Frontier.
To quote Donald Trump’s speech: “They weren’t really after me, they were after you. I was just in their way.”
Bob Bird is chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show, the Talk of the Kenai on KSRM radio, Kenai.
