Today, a coalition of left-leaning state legislators announced their support for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election.
In making their endorsements, Sen. Gary Stevens (R-Kodiak), House Representatives Bryce Edgmon (N—Dillingham), Zack Fields (D- Anchorage) and Dan Ortiz (N—Ketchikan) all highlighted Murkowski’s strong record of tireless advocacy for Alaska.
“Lisa fills Ted Stevens’ shoes admirably in doing what’s right for Alaska. I’m proud to endorse her,” said Stevens.
“Lisa always delivers big wins for Alaska. Look no further than the federal infrastructure package, which will be huge for our state. Somewhere high above, Uncle Ted has to be smiling. I know I am. Thank you, Lisa,” said Edgmon.
“Sen. Murkowski’s work to protect Medicaid was crucial to protecting Alaska’s economy. With the bipartisan infrastructure bill, she delivered the most federal investment in the state since AN CSA,” said Fields.
“Senator Murkowski has been unwavering in her tenure as a U.S. Senator for Alaska with her compass being set by the U.S. Constitution. She has been a highly effective legislator acting in the best interests of all Alaskans and our democracy. I’m 100% in support of her re-election to the U.S. Senate,” said Ortiz.
Murkowski and her re-election campaign said they look forward to announcing additional endorsements as the race progresses.
She has been challenged on the right by Kelly Tshibaka, who has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, but Murkowski no credible challenger from the Alaska Democratic Party and is expected to win the Democrats’ endorsement, now that it’s more evident that State Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson is not in the running and it appears the Democrats cannot find a candidate they can back.
Earlier last year, the Alaska Democratic Party vowed to take on Murkowski, saying she had been a deep disappointment to them.
Clifford Armstrong, the former chief equity officer for the Mayor’s Office, has agreed to resolve all pending claims in the case involving his dismissal from the municipality. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed by either party.
“The outcome of this case was the result of good faith negotiations between both parties,” the Mayor’s Office said.
Armstrong was hired by the unelected acting mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson in April, immediately before Mayor Dave Bronson won the run-off election in May against Quinn-Davidson’s pick, Forrest Dunbar.
Bronson released Armstrong from employment and hired a new chief equity officer. The leftist Assembly objected to Armstrong losing his job, and said that the Assembly must agree to any firing of a person who holds this particular position. The Mayor’s Office sasserted that was a violation of the separation of powers, and the matter was headed to court.
Mayor Dave Bronson and Clifford Armstrong issued the following statements:
“Unfortunately, I became entangled in a larger political and legal dispute related to the Chief Equity Officer position,” said Armstrong. “I am happy with this settlement as it removes me from that dispute. I wish the MOA and the new Chief Equity Officer good luck going forward.”
“I wish Mr. Armstrong all the best in his future endeavors,” said Mayor Dave Bronson in a statement.
After he was fired, Armstrong published a cartoon that depicted the administration as the Ku Klux Klan.
The left-dominated Anchorage Assembly has made itself into a full-time operation, with a workload of far more than 40 hours a week for each of the Assembly members. Between meetings, work sessions, committee meetings, and community councils, it’s no longer a part-time job. The Assembly has had an Assembly meeting every week since the beginning of the year.
The Assembly now wants to direct the workflow and work days of the Executive Branch by having representatives from the administration attend all of its meetings.
City Manager Amy Demboski says the administration and its managers are busy, and cannot attend all the meetings that the Assembly has. She said the Administration will answer questions in writing.
Assemblyman Felix Rivera sent a letter of demands to Demboski, who has responded that the Assembly can demand all it wants, but cannot direct the employees.
Rivera wrote:
“First, I do apologize that the official meeting invite was only sent out yesterday. But it should be no surprise that the Assembly’s Committee on Housing and Homelessness is meeting on the third Wednesday of the month at 11am. It has met at this date and time for years. In fact, I stated so at the Assembly meeting on Tuesday, January 11 during my committee chair’s report and even included some of the agenda items for today’s meeting during that report. I explicitly stated that we would be covering some carry-over items from December as we weren’t able to delve into them due to staffing issues,” Rivera wrote to Demboski.
“While I respect the administration’s policy, as a member of the legislative branch, I am compelled to follow the Assembly’s policy and guidelines on the matter of communications with the administration. That policy does not require me to include you, the Municipal Manager responsible for countless other duties, on a simple email to remind Mr. D’Amato about a meeting,” Rivera wrote.
“And I’d like to underscore this fact. It was not an invitation. As chair of the committee, I expect staff to attend to support its work. Especially staff which lead a division within the Anchorage Health Department named “Housing and Homelessness.” Never in the decade long history of this committee has any chair had to officially request staff to attend this important committee which, I can state unequivocally, has critical life and death discussions. But for some reason, this committee has not had adequate staff support since slightly before my tenure as chair. Specifically, this committee has languished and been unable to do its work since October (so October, November, December, and now possibly January, based on your email) because the administration has not sent the necessary staff to assist us in our work,” Rivera wrote.
“Although I am happy to provide clarity on agenda items, I would like to state emphatically that written responses to emailed questions does not replace a verbal discussion at a committee meeting. There are always follow up questions, sometimes multiple layers of follow up questions, whenever we discuss these matters in committee. As I stated above, there are two items for today that have been on the agenda for months which did have written responses from the administration in December. But the administration’s written responses left several questions unresolved and even added new questions. All of these matters should be property discussed in committee in the public eye, not in back and forth emails which are placed on an obscure website for the public to review if they happen upon them,” he wrote.
“As I stated earlier in my email — I find your statements troubling, Ms. Demboski. I am simply trying to do the work of the committee as chair and I would truly hope that the administration is willing to assist and not be an impediment. But to be frank, all I have faced are barriers from the administration to getting the work done,” he wrote.
Demboski responded:
“While I appreciate you sharing the committee’s historical schedule, I think it is reasonable to note that many of our directors are new, and if it isn’t on their calendar, they likely do not have it at the forefront of their minds. Furthermore, I understand the Assembly isn’t required to follow the Administration’s process (hence why I asked for cooperation), but Executive Branch staff do, and will continue to, follow those processes. Thus, intentionally ignoring our process, unfortunately, will only slow down your request and create frustration for you.
“I also realize you have only been on the Assembly since 2017, and during that time the lines between the Legislative Branch and Executive Branch were blurred. I want to be very clear: you do not control/direct/dictate to executive staff the administrative functions of their positions. It the responsibility of the Executive Branch to ensure the government operations are effectively managed and administered, that requires prioritizing staff time and resources.
“I can relate to your feelings of frustration; as you stated below, “never in the decade long history of this committee has any chair had to officially request staff to attend this important committee.” There have been many firsts over the past 7 months. Never in the decades-long history of the City has a Mayoral appointment not been confirmed by the Assembly. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly not only, purposely failed to confirm citizens appointed to Boards or Commissions for political reasons, but delayed, for months, appointments to Boards and Commissions. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly attempted to move the Administration from their rightful, and historic, location at Assembly meetings. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly publicly disparaged a Mayoral appointment as to harm their reputation. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly claimed right over an MOA building, in violation of Municipal Charter, State Law, and the clear Doctrine of Separation of Powers. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly intentionally ignored statements about fund certification by the Chief Financial Officer of the City. Never in the decades-long history of the City has an Assembly implied the Chief Financial Officer lied to rating agencies to purposefully downgrade the City’s bond rating in the hopes of making an Administration look bad. Mr. Rivera, I could go on, but I am confident my recap will fall on deaf ears.
“If you would like information from the Administration, we are happy to provide it. If staff are invited to meetings, they need adequate time to prepare, sufficient basis for the appearance requests, and operational availability with keen consideration that the services we provide to our community will not be impacted. The work done by the AHD saves lives every day, this is critical work that is not theoretical, it is clear, life-saving, and essential to countless members of our community.
“As I have offered many times, you are welcome to share your questions in writing and we will gladly do our best to answer all your questions. If you have specific agenda items that you feel are areas that would benefit from Director feedback, please articulate those and we will do our best to provide you good information that you and your staff can use for your purposes,” Demboski wrote.
Without explanation, the email bulk service MailChimp canceled the account of Must Read Alaska on Friday morning, causing a six-hour delay in getting the Friday newsletter out to Alaskans.
The Must Read Alaska newsletter is the most widely read newsletter in Alaska, and has been in existence since 2015, using the MailChimp distribution service. Must Read Alaska provides conservative content on topics of interest of Alaskans.
The notice from MailChimp only stated that the content violated the company’s “acceptable use policy.” The company provided no response to MRAK’s request for clarification.
The abrupt cancellation by MailChimp has prompted MRAK to move to another email provider, and the newsletter is now out to 10,000 of the 13,000 email addresses in the MRAK universe. It will take several days to restore the newsletter and to ensure that all the addresses are imported into the new system, and the content will be abbreviated as I adjust to the new platform.
I appreciate everyone who reached out today to ask me if the newsletter went out this morning. The answer is the newsletter went out at about 2 pm Alaska time to a much smaller list than usual. But we are not defeated.
A magnitude 5.1 earthquake at 8:18 pm on Thursday was centered about 30 miles northwest of Ninilchik, or about 41 miles west of Kenai, and was 73 miles deep. It was felt across the Kenai, Mat-Su, and Anchorage as a brief shake and a few-second roll.
No immediate damage was reported and no tsunami alert was issued.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday that during the Delta wave of Covid infections, both vaccination and having a prior infection provided protection against infection and hospitalization from the virus.
Scientists reviewed data from New York and California to determine the level of protection offered by vaccines, previous infection, and both. Between May and November 2021, people who were unvaccinated and did not have a prior Covid-19 infection remained at the highest risk of infection and hospitalization, while those who were previously infected, both with or without prior vaccination, had the greatest protection.
Viruses are constantly changing, the CDC explained on its website.
“These changes occur over time and can lead to the emergence of new variants that have new characteristics, including ones that impact the level of immunity vaccination and/or prior infection can provide. The level of protection offered by vaccination and surviving a previous infection changed during the study period. Vaccination remains the safest strategy for protecting against Covid-19,” the health agency said.
The CDC analysis was conducted before the emergence of the Omicron variant and the findings cannot be applied to the current Omicron wave, the agency said.
Also, the study ended before booster shots were widespread, thus it doesn’t reflect a benefit of additional vaccine doses. The CDC analysis did not include information on the severity of initial infection.
Kenai Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce has filed for governor. He faxed in his letter of intent to the Alaska Public Offices Commission today.
He said he is sick and tired of waiting for the Alaska economy to come back around and just as he has run the Kenai Borough like a business, he’s ready to run the state of Alaska like a business, something he sees not being done now.
“Opportunities abound and we’re not taking advantage of those opportunities right now, he said. “I love this state. It’s my home, and I will do whatever it takes” so the state can have better outcomes.
Pierce was first elected to the borough mayor’s office in 2017, and was on the Assembly before that. A Republican, he ran on not raising the borough mill rate and will end his term in 2022 having done that and leaving money in the borough treasury.
He is challenging Gov. Mike Dunleavy, also a Republican, and a handful of other contenders, including former Gov. Bill Walker, and former State Rep. Les Gara. Rep. Chris Kurka filed in December to run.
Firing someone from the Executive Branch for a disrespectful “poke in the eye” letter of resignation is not enough, according to Federal Judge John Sedwick.
If Gov. Dunleavy’s chief of staff had only fired state elections attorney Libby Bakalar because of her vulgar and partisan blog, that would have been OK.
Alaskans have a right to expect their election lawyers will be fair and impartial, the judge wrote. And in her many extreme and vulgar blog and social media posts, Bakalar attacked not only President Trump, but insulted all who voted for him — the 54 percent of Alaskans who cast their ballot for Trump in 2016.
As the senior elections lawyer for the state, Bakalar could have been fired for using awful judgment that was likely to hurt the public trust in the Division of Elections, where she had a key role in advising Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott. But Sedwick didn’t like the way that Chief of Staff Tuckerman Babcock fired Bakalar, and therefore has found her firing unlawful.
“That is to say, frequent and widespread partisan commentary by an elections attorney is reasonably likely to undermine the public’s trust in the integrity and credibility of elections,” Sedwick wrote.
“While Defendants now rely on the unprofessional content of Plaintiff’s blog, which contained irreverent and vulgar language, that concern was not mention by Babcock during his deposition. Indeed, he specifically refrained from suggesting he knew anything specific or particular about her blog or its contents. Rather, he maintained that he just generally was aware she had strong opinions and a blog,” the judge said.
“However, Defendants, who made the decision to fire Plaintiff without consultation, failed to show that they had any awareness of this particular concern, or that they acted in response to it rather than a dislike of her personal views.
“Without an adequate showing that Defendants actually were motivated by a reasonable concern for the potentially disruptive effects of Plaintiff’s publicly espoused political opinions, the court must conclude that her termination ran afoul of the First Amendment,” Sedwick wrote.
In other words, Babcock should have simply cited Bakalar’s many coarse political rants as cause for her dismissal.
The judge seems unsure if Bakalar was a policymaker, and therefore she might enjoy some immunity for her extreme views, even while she was the key advisor to Alaska’s election system.
“In Biggs, the Ninth Circuit held that a city attorney operated as a policymaker in city government, because, even though the attorney was a subordinate, she presented reports to the city’s governing council on legal issues, worked on high-profile issues, drafted regulations and ordinances, and spoke to the press on occasion.136 These responsibilities, notably similar to Plaintiff’s, were enough for the court to find that she occupied a position where political alignment was a valid job qualification. Based on Biggs, it was reasonable for Defendants to think that a high-level assistant attorney undertaking the responsibilities she outlined in her resignation letter could be fired for political reasons. While this court ultimately concluded that Plaintiff’s position was distinguishable given her role as counsel to the Division of Elections, no existing precedent or body of persuasive case law would have made this conclusion readily apparent. That is, there is no existing precedent that placed this issue beyond debate,” Sedwick wrote.
The decision may be appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As it stands, it’s a partial win for Bakalar, who is now an attorney for the City of Bethel, and a partial loss, as she is not able to hold the governor or Babcock personally liable.
Part 2 of 4 on traditions of Old Believers in Alaska
Marriage among Alaskan and Siberian Old Believers does not have a unified procedure or typical pattern. As a rule, Old Believers, even those in Russia, do not practice venchaniye (i.e., wedding ceremonies under the Russian Orthodox Church traditions), nor do they acknowledge the legitimacy of civil marriage requirements of the state.
The semeyskiye of Trans-Baykal, for example, are divided into many different sects and some of them refuse to recognize Orthodox Church ceremonies. The semeyskiye of the Austrian faction of the popovtsy and Beglopopovtsy, however, confirm their marriages by following Russian Orthodox Church ceremonies, in which the brides are crowned. The semeyskiye-popovtsy, who recognize the authority of the priests of the Orthodox Church, sometimes intermarried with Russian political exiles sent permanently to Siberia by the tsarist government, or with members of the aboriginal population.
Old Believers from Bukhtarmin Fortress in the Altay Mountains (Kamenshchiki) have had prayer halls (molelny dom), but they confirmed their marriages in the Orthodox Church of the Bukhtarmin Fortress. Only bespopovtsy and Temnovertsy (Dark-believers) concords ignore priests, and they confirm marriages not under the church, but in the prayer halls within a secret society.
Prior to a marriage, startsy (elders) check and calculate the blood relationship of the youth or marriageable prospects. Numerous rules that prohibit marriage are written in the old books. These regulations are predominantly related to kinship relationships, requiring a four-generation gap (po vosmomu kolenu) between bride and groom, and subsequently reducing the eligible pool even more than the common pan-cultural restrictions, that say a spouse must be approximately the same age (or the man older), the same tolk (religious affiliation), and that both partners have never been married before. Marriage is forbidden if the elder discovers discrepancies or flaws in blood relationships between two prospects.
Old Believers in Alaska are of the patrilineal descent and recognize patrilocal residence. Patrilineal descent affiliates an individual with kin of both sexes related to him or her through men only. In patrilineal systems, as with the Old Believers in Alaska, the children in each generation belong to the kin group of their father; the father, in turn, belongs to the group of his father, and so on.
Although a man’s sons and daughters are all members of the same descent group, affiliation with that group is transmitted only by the sons to their children. Therefore, daughters must leave home when they marry. As Kondratiy Fefelov of Nikolaevsk said, “The son stays and the daughter leaves, so that the married couple lives with or near the husbands’s parents. The parents refuse the warm nest to their daughter (roditeli otkazyvayut tyoploye gnyozdyshko ikh docheri).”
Alexander Dolitsky (center) talks with Kondratiy Fefelov (right), the priest of popovtsy, and his wife Irina (left) about the structure of Old Believer kinship and kinship terminology. Nikolaevsk, April 2001.
The Orthodox Church permits divorce and remarriage. Certainly, Orthodoxy regards the marriage bond as in principle lifelong and indissoluble, and it condemns the breakdown of marriage as a sin and an evil. But while condemning the sin, the Church still desires to help the sinners and to allow them a second chance.
Old Believers condemn and discourage divorces, but on very rare occasions, when married couples face irreconcilable differences, such as frequent domestic conflicts or chronic and large consumption of alcohol, mostly by male members of the household, the priest of the popovtsy or nastoyatel (layman) of the bespopovtsy will grant a divorce. Nevertheless, as the priest of popovtsy, Kondratiy Fefelov, emphasized during one of our meetings in April of 2001, “…there must be a good reason for a couple to petition for a divorce before the church. The church will not grant a divorce only because couples fall out of love with each other; this is not a good reason for breakdown of a family.”
Wedding Customs and Ceremonies
Weddings are traditional peasant village affairs. Prior to the actual wedding, typical Russian peasant ceremonies such as the engagement negotiations are carried out by the parents of the bride (nevesta) and groom (zhenikh). The final agreement is toasted with presents and a drink. Other ceremonies include devichniki, the time of increased sewing by the bride and her girlfriends, and the evening parties during which the groom and his friends come to call.
There is also the light-hearted “buying of the bride,” in which the groom comes to take her to her new family, and the touching farewell (proshchaniye) of the bride to her parents. The wedding party, with a “chain” of handkerchiefs, proceeds to the prayer hall of bespopovtsy or to the church of popovtsy. The venchaniye, or crowning ceremony, takes place after the regular Sunday service, and the wedding (svadba) is celebrated for three consecutive days at the home of the groom’s father. The bride’s dowry trunk (sunduk) is delivered by her kinsmen and “sold” to the wedding party.
Later, after a meal (pir or obed) the young couple stands for the bowing ceremony (poklony), which is the opportunity for kin to give them wise advice and numerous presents. On the last day of the wedding, the young couple must “buy” the presents from the best man (svidetel) and the matrons of honor with kisses, bows and witticisms. At this point, the bride’s mother-in-law (tyoshcha) is also auctioned off.
Paul J. Wigowsky, a Russian-speaking school teacher with many years of experience in teaching Old Believer students in Hubbard, Oregon, has written an extensive, well-researched and reliable description of Old Believer faith, history, and traditional lifestyles:
“After the regular service has ended, everyone leaves except for the bride, groom, the members of their “chain,” the parents of the bride and groom, the nastoyatyel, and three or four other male witnesses. None of the younger and unmarried people are supposed to see the wedding ceremony itself, and the first wedding an Old Believer sees is usually their own. The bride and groom are asked once again three times if they are marrying of their free will, and if they answer ‘YES,’ then the ceremony begins in earnest. After an initial prayer said in unison, the bride and groom exchange rings, naming each other husband and wife. They are then blessed by their parents, who present them with the icons which have been chosen from among the supplies of both families, to be given to the newlyweds for their own household. While the blessings are being administered, the couple kneels before the parents of both families.
“After this, the bride is taken to the back of the church where her marriage-cap (shashmura) and scarves are laid out on a dresser. She removes her krassota (the crown), which she has been wearing all through the ceremony, and the bridesmaids then plait her hair into two braids, tie them up over her head, and place the shashmura over it and two scarves over that. The bride is now given the appearance of a married woman, since unmarried women and girls wear their hair in a single braid down the back. She is never to show her hair to any man other than her husband, according to traditional decree.
“She then proceeds to the groom, and bows before him to the floor, and kisses him. This is to indicate, symbolically, that she is now his and that she will be loyal and submissive toward him for the rest of her days. The “chain” then forms again, while the nastoyatyel reads the portions of the sacred texts which describe the duties of wife and husband toward each other and toward their future children. The bride then says a prayer and asks her parents their forgiveness for leaving them to become a member, in essence, of the groom’s family. After a closing group prayer, the ceremony is finished and the people go to the groom’s house for breakfast.”
Because weddings are meant to be elaborate, plentiful and lavish, they cannot be held on any of the fast days or during the Lenten periods. This tends to make the wedding a seasonal event, normally scheduled just before the 7-week Easter Lent. The groom’s family prepares a variety of foods and makes sure that they have plenty ofhome-made alcoholic drink — braga.
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.
