95 percent of airmen and guardians — or about 473,000 people — are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, the Air Force announced Friday. Another 23,500 troops were unvaccinated as of 8 am Friday, more than half of whom are in the Air Force Reserve or Air National Guard.
“That accounts for around one in every 20 people in the department,” the Air Force Times wrote.
Chart provided by U.S.A.F.
The Air Force’s deadline for guardsmen and reservists to complete their Covid vaccine regimen passed Thursday, while active duty Air Force and Space Force members had a Nov. 2 deadline.
The Alaska Veterans Administration now requires clients and visitors at all of its Alaska facilities to wear surgical masks, not cloth masks, to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
“Surgical masks are required at all Alaska VA Healthcare facilities for employees, patients, and visitors. This means surgical masks must be worn instead of cloth masks. We will give you a surgical mask If you arrive at one of our facilities without one,” the VA wrote.
“Remember: wear your mask properly over your mouth and nose, continue to physically distance, and wash your hands before and after taking off your mask!” the VA said in an email to veterans.
Mike Coons, who is a veteran in Alaska, said he received the message on Friday, and wondered if this will policy will soon be applied to other facilities — in airports and commercial jets, on military bases, or federal buildings.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines a surgical mask is as a “loose-fitting, disposable device that creates a barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and potential contaminants in the immediate environment.”
The Matanuska-Susitna Borough says that the new political boundaries drawn by the Alaska Redistricting Board has robbed the people of the Mat-Su by diluting their votes with other population centers.
In the new map, the borough has one House district — 29 — that is tied in with Valdez.
The Mat-Su Borough had proposed having four House seats exclusively in the borough, and two House seats that it would share, but it didn’t want to have that district including Valdez, and Valdez has also said it doesn’t feel naturally paired with the Mat-Su. It’s an oil export city on Prince William Sound, and it tends to vote solidly Republican, 53.1% to 41.9%. Valdez voted Republican in the last five presidential elections, after voting Democratic in 2000.
Another section of the borough was shaved off and added to the district that represents the Denali Borough, District 30.
The plan, according to the Mat-Su lawsuit, dilutes the effective strength of MSB voters, by throwing a few of them into a borough to the north, and a few to a borough to the east. That, the lawsuit says, is not respecting the borough boundaries and those voters living in that section.
As one of the nation’s fastest growing areas, the Mat-Su Borough has an estimated population of 108,317 and projects it will grow to 130,000 by 2027.
The Denali Borough, according to the U.S. Census, has 2,097 residents. Valdez has a population of 3,985.
Every one of the districts in the Mat-Su “overpopulated” on the map by 400 people, the most significant deviation in the state. Anchorage’s 16 districts are underpopulated by 10 percent, which is the number that has been used historically as the highest deviation that would be acceptable.
All lawsuits challenging the final redistricting map must be filed by Dec. 10. This is the first lawsuit to be filed, but others are expected.
Most of my working life has been spent in the private sector but I did work three or four stints in Alaska state government. Very early in the first stint I was talking with a newly appointed Revenue commissioner one Saturday afternoon who asked if I knew why a certain type of public employee so often traveled to the Philippines to bring back a 20 year-old wife right before he retired.
I had no answer and thought the question was rhetorical. He proceeded to tell me the actuarial/financial implications for the (mostly closed since then) defined benefit retirement programs, facts very new to me at the time. The public employee and teacher defined benefit plans may be now mostly closed to new hires but the payments will continue to almost the very end of this century, and the state costs are very high.
Years later, a long-time state accountant working in a unit assigned to me discovered another costly anomaly in these programs, this time a loss of accounting control for which state government threw in the towel and began absorbing the cost for all other employers.
Remarkably, a closer look revealed that another accountant in a different department had made the same discovery many years earlier when fixing the problem would have been a magnitude less expensive. That time the discovery occurred when one gubernatorial administration was transitioning to another and the discovery was put on a shelf. It’s impossible to say how many times this ongoing situation was discovered and shelved, but it was always much less tricky politically to have the state keep picking up the cost and it remains part of the annual spend today.
Some Alaskans may recall an instance almost a generation ago in which a municipality sold its utility enterprise to private investors. Those private investors understandably didn’t want to include any defined benefit pension liability in their purchase so the municipality retained that liability. The state picks up any unfunded liability, no matter the employer. Someone could speculate that the municipality received a higher price for its utility because the state assumed and paid that very real cost, still pays it.
Every part of state government has accumulated costly burdens, management mistakes, and derelictions over the decades. Paying for them remains a large but uncalculated part of the annual budget. For example, much more recent than the retirement costs is the design and construction of the two newest ferries. Those ferries were designed for routes that don’t exist so cannot be used much at all until costly refitting – mostly adding crew quarters – is completed, pretty much doubling the real cost of those vessels. Some say those two small ferries will have cost $500 million before it’s all said and done.
The earlier so-called fast ferries were a similar debacle, and those were sold at a huge loss earlier this year. A private sector enterprise might not survive such costly mistakes, one after the other, but a state government merely passes the cost along. Many people include the Interior Gas Utility, funded entirely with a state loan with no security and no interest, and the first payment not due until the current class of legislators are long gone, as another costly mistake that may require as much as $100 million more to avoid a costly walk-away.
According to Juneau Empire reports and legislative staffers at the time the Juneau school district has effectuated a scheme that turned an unnecessary second high school into a $300,000 windfall paid to the school district by the base student allocation. Juneau has fewer students in two high schools than it had in one before construction of the second (construction paid by reimbursed debt service in the bargain). A glitch in the BSA/Foundation allows Juneau to collect $300,000 over and above the costs of operating that second building. No one should bet that other school districts have not also found ways to game school funding.
Similar ongoing needs for money have been taken on by state government in wildland firefighting, satellite boosting, railroads, rural education, higher education, state airports, and uncounted other offices without anyone asking what happens if our economy cannot produce enough to meet the increasing annual costs.
Nowhere in the annual financial report – the CAFR – is there a tally of these liabilities, and only for that reason are they not balance sheet liabilities. (The hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid oil tax credits only appear in an obscure footnote, not on the balance sheet.) I doubt there is anyone who has a handle on the full scope of these liabilities, but the ongoing payments are part of the annual state budget, now $13 billion for not many more than 700,000 people ($75,000 for a family of four).
An income tax is a desperate scheme to conceal these mistakes, and to put the private sector much more directly on the hook for this huge liability. Tax proponents want these real but unspecified costs to show up on your balance sheet going forward. Yes, state employees would also have to pay a state income tax but when state government needs to increase wages in order to remain competitive, or if income tax receipts dwindle as workers leave the state, it can merely increase tax rates. The private sector cannot increase its prices to keep pace.
I am sure that the total annual costs of unnecessary expenditures I have cited here plus the legislative inattention to state petroleum property tax receipts (which the Dunleavy 2020 budget proposed to remedy) exceed the $1 billion that the Walker people intended their state income tax would collect by year four or five. Taxes are always a zero sum game. Only the private sector creates wealth. Income taxes transfer that wealth right out of your pocket.
If you’re a small business owner you see that an income tax enacted and signed into law in 2022 would allow state government to keep pace with wage inflation for itself and its own employees at the expense of your employees, your business, and your family’s net worth. Government has become far too large for our economy, and our economy shrunk in part because government shoved it aside. Now our population is also shrinking, and people who want to get ahead are too likely to leave. Alaska doesn’t need a fiscal solution, it needs to be rebalanced with reality.
The specter of a state income tax is a crushing weight on the heart and lungs of our private sector. Every investment decision, every business expansion, every look at Alaska as a possible place to relocate a business is seriously retarded by the drive to put private businesses and their employees on the hook for decades of poor decisions by state government – legacy costs of the government we built with petroleum revenue.
Income tax proponents don’t even see a problem with having a state income tax at the same time we have the PFD program (despite how poor are the records of Cuba, the Soviet Union and other income redistribution schemes). Income tax supporters would penalize wage earners with an income tax to coincide with the huge inflation rate that private sector employees and employers already face. Tax supporters would give us an income tax at the same time the White House has given us inflation and undertaken steps to dismantle the remaining real economy Alaskans have.
Because $13 billion is a huge amount of state spending for 700,000 people, and because state government should take measures to clean up its own messes we should demand that each of the four or five men running for governor, and any men and women who may yet enter the race, pledge to veto any state income tax. That pledge would speak much louder than faithless rhetoric about finding new revenue and Alaska being open for business. The pledge requires no state appropriation.
As you see candidates at forums, knocking on your door, and speaking to interest groups please ask them to make this pledge.
Tom Boutin spent 17 years in state government, but also had a career spanning 30 years in the private sector, much of it in timber. He retired as president of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority.
Soon after my graduation from the high school in Kiev, Ukraine, at the age of 17, I was employed at the shipbuilding plant named Leninskaya Kuznitsa (Lenin’s Forge), today known as Kuznya na Rybalskomu.
This was a large plant situated on the Dnieper River, with a labor force of about 15,000 employees, mostly manufacturing civilian vessels and a few top–secret small and medium–size naval ships.
My family’s friend Naum Osipovich Talinovsky, one of the leading engineers and a high–ranking manager at this industrial plant, helped me to get the position of razmetchik (layout or marker) — a job that required a reasonable knowledge of math, good reading and understanding of the technical drawings, and some tool-making skills. I was pretty good for the first two skills and absolutely had no talent for the third one.
Leninskaya Kuznitsa(Lenin’s Forge), today known as Kuznya na Rybalskomu.
There were four or five layouts/markers at the plant, and I was going to be the next generation of this rare profession. With 21 large workshops at the plant, I was assigned to workshop No. 9, with nearly 500 employees—toolmakers, millers, turners, drillers, bookkeepers, accountants, engineers, technicians, crane operators, etc.
Six months of vocational training was required to learn the profession. Yuriy Sokolov, the senior and only razmetchik at workshop No. 9, was responsible for my training. Yuriy was a lean, muscular, tough–looking, hardy and relatively tall man. He was in his early 30s. Yuriy’s last name was Sokolov — a hawk in the literary translation from Russian into English.
Once, after a work day, in the dressing room, I noticed a large hawk tattoo covering Yuriy’s entire chest. In the Soviet Union, prior to its dissolution in 1991, tattoos were mostly associated with criminal activities and gangs. I instantly understood the significance of this bodily feature, but could not make a meaningful connection.
During two years of working with Yuri at the plant, I hardly ever saw him smiling or laughing — and, evidently, there was a reason. At some point in our working together, when Yuriy warmed up and settled his mistrust of me, he revealed a personal and tragic story that took place during his youth.
At 19 years old he was convicted unjustly and harshly in an incident that involved the son of a high–ranking Communist party official. Evidently, in some street fighting between young gangs, a large and illegal knife was involved as a weapon—a big NO in the Soviet criminal justice system. One of the participants in the fight and the owner of the knife was the son of the high–ranking party official. After the arrest of all involved in the incident, the influential father of the knife–wielder begged Yuriy to claim ownership of the knife to save the skin of his filthy son, assuring Yuriy that he would get him out of this mess. “I have connections, I will get you out of this mess. You will walk out of it as a free man, and, afterwards, I will show you my gratitude,” he promised to Yuriy in private.
Naïve, Yuriy trusted the man and confessed to the authorities that the weapon was his. However, when the time came for the hammer to hit the nail, the influential father backed down and dropped the ball on Yuriy. As a result, Yuriy was sentenced to 10 years in a high–security gulag (prison labor camp in the former Soviet Union) in Siberia. Life was tough in Siberia; he worked in the logging industry in the tayga (boreal forest).
During two years (1969–1971) of my working with Yuriy, he revealed to me numerous stories of his life in the labor camp—about political religious prisoners he met, the frequent cruelty of the security guards, and long working hours in the vast Siberian tayga. He kept repeating, “Over there, nobody wants you, but you exist.”
He constantly used the gulag’s unique profanities and vulgar language in conversations. In the beginning, I could hardly understand his speech, which mostly consisted of criminal slangs and villain expressions. For example, because of my poor tool–making skills, Yuriy frequently yelled at me, “You are neither good with women [he used a woman’s private part of the body in this expression], nor for the Red Army” (i.e., you are not good for anything; or you are neither fish, flesh, nor red fish).
He always spoke loudly,like a master sergeant to his subordinates, directly and criticized the socialist economic system for its inefficiency and lack of productivity. It didn’t matter who was around him.
“The stupidity of this planned economy is remarkably screwed up,” he used to complain. “For two weeks we are all busy here up to our forehead and for the next two weeks we are waiting for the supply to arrive, goofing around like convicts in the penitentiary.”
Yuriy’s toughness and directness reflected his rough years in the gulag and an absolute mistrust of the high–ranking party members.
During the slow weeks at the workshop, management would organize ideologically related meetings for all workers during lunch time. Once, the management invited a member from the Institute of Atheism of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences to propagate anti–religious dogma based on the Marxist–Leninist ideology.
During the post–WWII period (from the mid–1940s to the late–1980s), the Soviet government tolerated religion, but did not encourage it. However, the government persistently advocated atheism and viewed religion as “an opium for the people.” The visit of the member from the Institute of Atheism was deliberately targeted to two young individuals at the workshop, Gregory and Glebe, who practiced Baptism (there have been many Christian denominations in Ukraine) and openly talked about their Christian faith with other workers at the workshop. They created an “anti–Soviet” atmosphere among workers.
Gregory and Glebe attended the meeting and courageosly engaged in the discussion with the propogandist from the Institute. Shockingly for the attendees at the meeting, the young and inexperienced propogandist from the Institute lost a debate against deeply religious Gregory and Glebe and finally left the workshop, licking his wounds and being embarrassed for his lack of theological knowledge.
Nevertheless, two weeks later, the Institute sent a senior member to recover from the initial embarrassing defeat; and Gregory and Glebe again stood their ground. They were not intimidated by the management or afraid to lose their jobs. In fact, they were disciplined workers and highly qualified toolmakers. The management valued their skills and work ethic. They did not lose their jobs.
I was aware that many workers, including engineers, technical personnel and some management at the workshop were secret believers; but were apprehensive to reveal their Christian identity and faith for fear of losing their jobs—all except Yuriy.
After these two meetings, Yuriy became even more vocal, constantly talking about God and his family’s faith and devotion to Christianity, recalling relevant gulag’s stories on this subject.
One day, Yuriy came to work looking cloudy and tired, periodically checking his pulse. Several hours later, he suddenly collapsed from a massive heart attack. I could not help him; I did not know how. I ran to the medical center for help. By the time medical assistance arrived, Yuriy was dead. He was 33 years old. He left behind his wife and three-year-old son.
Political and religious refugees, including myself, who escaped totalitarian socialist régimes, are aware of the liability and cruelty of one–party socialist socio–economic systems and a secular official public philosophy.
These political and religious refugees must be attentively listened to.
This essay is my tribute to Yuriy and other victims of the corrupt, brutal and totalitarian communist regime. It is also a plea to my fellow Americans to protect our exceptional country, its unique history, socio–economic construct and Judeo–Christian moral values.
Otherwise, there will be no place to go.
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 an interview with The Washington Post, Congressman Don Young said that his vote for the massive infrastructure bill drew the ire of former President Donald Trump, but it’s not concerning him.
“Rep. Don Young knew the call would not end well, as the Alaska Republican forcefully rejected Donald Trump’s plea to oppose the more than $1 trillion infrastructure legislation,” the Wa-Po reported.
“How did the former president take the news?” the newspaper asked.
“Not well,” Young recalled, but there wasn’t any shouting. “No, no, no, no, no.”
“Young, 88, the longest-serving member of Congress, thought about all the contradictions he saw in Trump, particularly the chaotic style that made him a politically toxic figure.
“’I think his policy is just so good,” Young said during a 45-minute interview this week. “Just shut up — that’s all he has to do. He’s not going to. I know that.”
Of all the Republicans Trump has targeted in the past few months, none have quite the carefree attitude of Young. His political sin was voting Nov. 5 for the massive infrastructure package over Trump’s objection, along with his quick embrace of the 2020 election results that showed Joe Biden’s victory.
The newspaper continued, detailing all the foes that Young has beat in his long career: the FBI, both congressional ethics committees, a case of Covid-19, “and every political challenger since his 1972 loss to a congressman who was probably dead at the time.”
He has gone from being a powerful chairman of two committees to an outsider who sits — literally every day Congress is in session — on the very back bench of the House chamber,the paper wrote.
The newspaper said that Young is not worried about being aligned with President Joe Biden, in a state that is still Donald Trump country.
“He prominently hung a photo of Biden, in the Oval Office next to Young and Alaska’s Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, for the signing ceremony of a law that helped revive Alaska’s tourism industry. The photo of Biden joins those with nine other presidents Young served with along a wall in his office,” the Wa-Po reported.
Read TheWashington Post story, which is behind a paywall, at this link.
After more than 15 years as president of the Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation, Jim Dodson is retiring. The Board of Directors hired Jomo Stewart to serve as president and CEO. Stewart has served on and off in different roles for the FEDC.
“I would like to thank the FEDC Board of Directors both present and past for their support and confidence over the past 16 years,” Dodson wrote. “And I would like to thank the investors (those supporters of FEDC and those who have worked on task forces and committees supporting the work and effort of FEDC to sustain and grow our community,” he wrote in his farewell memo.
Dodson, a lifelong Fairbanks resident, served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, with the 5th Special Forces Group and is a graduate of the University of Alaska. In 2019 he was named University of Alaska Fairbanks 43rd Business Leader of the Year.
The Kenai City Council has voted unanimously in favor of a resolution stating it opposes Covid-19 vaccine mandates and mask mandates. The resolution was offered by members James Baisden and Teea Winger and took effect immediately upon passage on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the Biden Administration asked businesses to voluntarily implement President Biden’s vaccine mandate, after the administration was checkmated by a federal appeals court that paused the mandate while ordering a legal review of the extreme measure that constitutionalists have fought.
Congressman Don Young on Tuesday voted in favor of House Resolution 550, a complicated piece of legislation that creates, among other things, a national Covid-19 vaccine database.
Also known as the Immunization and Infrastructure, H.R. 550 was sponsored by Rep. Ann Kuster, a New Hampshire Democrat, in January.
According to the bill, the government would spend $400 million on an “immunization system data modernization and expansion,” a system it says is “a confidential, population-based, computerized database that records immunization doses administered by any health care provider to persons within the geographic area covered by that database.”
The database would allow the government to notify people about when their booster shot are due. Although the system is described as confidential, confidential in this case means confidential from the public, until of course records are indiscriminately released like has happened with the IRS, Department of Defense, Veterans Administration, or any number of high-profile government leaks and hacks.
Eighty Republicans crossed over to help move the bill to the Senate, including Young, who is famous for being a bipartisan lawmaker. It passed 294-130.
Young’s office explained that the bill is not a vaccine passport bill:
“The Congressman opposes a broad federal vaccine mandate and vaccine passports. In fact, the Congressman has cosponsored H.J.Res 65, which would overturn OSHA’s vaccine mandate. Contrary to what critics say, the Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act (H.R. 550) actually protects patients’ privacy by keeping the federal government from accessing Immunization Information Systems (IIS) databases in an attempt to carry out the Biden agenda. The primary issue is that in Biden’s multi-trillion dollar American Rescue Plan, funding to modernize IIS databases was included, but there was no explicit legal mechanism to put guardrails on what “modernization” meant. H.R. 550 limits what Biden can do, in turn protecting states’ rights.
“The Immunization Infrastructure Modernization Act (H.R. 550) isn’t at all related to a federal vaccine database or vaccine passport. In fact, the bill actually increases security, bolsters cyber defense, and helps better protect Americans’ health privacy. The state-level IIS databases already exist and have been in use for decades. All this bill does is beef up their security. In fact, the bill goes a step farther to reign in the Biden Administration by ensuring federal money cannot go toward repurposing an IIS to enforce vaccine mandates.
“Again, this bill does not create new IIS databases. Immunization information (whether it’s immunization against COVID-19, Hepatitis A, or chicken pox) already exists in state-level databases. The information contained within them is decentralized, anonymous, and contains no personally identifiable information. H.R. 550 ensures existing systems are kept private and hardened against potential cyber-attacks. Alaska’s patients are already rightfully concerned about digital health privacy following the DHSS cyber-attack which exposed health information.“
According to Breitbart News, some conservative members of the House are deeply unhappy with the bill, including Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill, who views the legislation darkly.
“These systems are designed to allow for the sharing of crucial information and maintenance of records. Do we really trust the government to protect our medical records?” Miller told Breitbart. “The bill’s author even bragged in her press release that these systems will help the government remind patients when they are due for a recommended vaccine and identify areas with low vaccination rates to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines. This was clearly a legislative tool to enforce vaccine mandates and force their Orwellian rules onto those who do not comply.”
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) cautioned Breitbart readers that H.R. 550 is “Democrats’ habitual pattern of reckless and wasteful spending” that expands the power of the federal government in trampling individual rights.
“This legislation would unnecessarily appropriate millions of taxpayer funds intended to expand bureaucracy in Washington. A database solely created to record and collect confidential vaccination information of Americans explicitly encroaches upon individuals’ fundamental right to medical privacy,” Donalds said. “As a fiscal conservative, I cannot in good faith support legislation that contributes to the Democrats’ habitual pattern of reckless and wasteful spending and the intrusive heavy hand of government.”
The bill’s main sponsor, Democrat Rep. Ann Kuster (D-NH), explained that the system will be used to “remind patients when they are due for a recommended vaccine” and identify areas with low vaccination rates to “ensure equitable distribution of vaccines.”
Critics say the bill will allow the federal government to track unvaccinated Americans, who could be targeted, segregated, and forced to comply with vaccination mandates.
The bill has passed to the Senate and was referred to the Senate, read twice, and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
