- Mineweb is reporting that on Thursday a federal court judge has validated an agreement that the EPA would stay its regulatory process against the Pebble Mine Project until no earlier than January 2, 2015.
- Susan Estrich, a well-known Democratic operative and former Michael Dukakis aide, wrote a piece the first appeared on the syndication service Creators.com that slammed Sen. Mark Begich’s campaign for using a “Willie Horton-style ad” against his opponent, Dan Sullivan. Her article is gaining traction with postings and/or links in the Washington Free Beacon and The Courier.
- Lena Dunham is using her Millennial clout to urge her Girls fans to support Democratic candidates this November by specifically naming certain Republican Senate candidates, including Alaska’s Dan Sullivan, in a mass email from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Her last involvement with GOTV was through a controversial ad that compared her First Time to her First Voting Experience.
- The ADN has a must-read on the resignation of Alaska’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs deputy commissioner McHugh Pierre at the governor’s request. It reports that Pierre “inserted himself into one of the inquiries into the alleged sexual misconduct of a married recruiter, an incident of which Parnell’s office was aware. The recruiter, a high school classmate of Pierre’s from the late 1990s,” was accused of sexual harassment. It was recommended that the recruiter be discharged. Nothing came of it after Pierre got involved, however. Deputy chief of state Cindy Sims was aware of the situation as of June.
- Today an Anchorage judge will hear oral arguments regarding the validity of the Unity Ticket of Bill Walker and Byron Mallott that was formed after the primaries. The AP’s Rachel D’Oro wrote an article that has segments from the documents filed ahead of today’s arguments.
- Political pranksters are running amuck in Juneau according to the Juneau Empire by swapping Begich Senate yard signs for his opponent, Dan Sullivan. Political silly season usually doesn’t start until the last week of October.
- The Fairbanks News Miner is reporting that the borough had to approve an additional $1 million for ongoing legal disputes between the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the state and owners of companies over the value of the trans-Alaska pipeline. Mayor Luke Hopkins told Max Buxton, “You’re talking about the attorney fees, but we’ve recovered a lot more in the value of the pipeline.”
- Charlo Greene gave a live interview with the Huffington Post where she smokes a joint while discussing her very public resignation on KTVA last Sunday.
- Yesterday’s 6.24 earthquake was the second largest earthquake in Alaska’s history and according to a seismologist in the Dispatch, “We got lucky.” The earthquake’s effects were still strong enough to momentarily interrupt the Chamber of Commerce’s press conference with U.S. Senate candidate, Dan Sullivan.
- Polls being produced from both sides of the aisle are indicating that if the election were held today, GOP canidate Dan Sullivan would win.
- Crossroads GPS has released a new digital ad calling on Alaskans to fire Sen. Mark Begich.
- According to the Influence Explorer, Put Alaska First has bought $25,000 in online media buys against U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan while Focus on the Family Action group has placed $34,608 in mailers in support of Sullivan.
Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com
Parnell also changed the mission statements of the office of governor and the Department of Natural Resources without legislative approval which is also a violation of the state constitution. (the legislature knew nothing about it). DNR Dan was aware of the violation as commissioner but went along with it. The changes removed words like ‘for future generations ‘ and ‘conserve resources.’ Now that’s integrity!
Why, yes, we are.
“Yesterday’s 6.24 earthquake was the second largest earthquake in Alaska’s history.” Where on earth did this come from? Probably more like the 100th largest earthquake in Alaska’s recorded history, right?
Why did it take the Gov’s office so long to get rid of Mr. Pierre? He should have been let go with Katkus.
The Soviet Army had “political officers” at every echelon. These were party loyalists who were the “eyes and ears” of the Communist Party and were outside the military chain of command. The analogous position in the Alaska National Guard is the position held by McHugh Pierre.
What many Alaskans might appreciate is that the Alaska National Guard actually has two of these “political officers”. The ranking General Officer (lately Katkus) wears a uniform yet is also a State Commissioner. The Deputy Commissioner (lately Pierre) wears a suit. Both of these positions are appointed by the Governor and each has an understood primary directive to enhance the political image and career of the Governor. Raped women and all these other transgressions might “not look so good” so the first instinct of a political officer is to cover it up. The Governor seems to have encouraged this tactic by his refusal to act on credible evidence. Governor Parnell refused a standard of “reasonable doubt”; he was willing to wait for evidence that left “no doubt”.
Governor Parnell thought he had it made when the Active Army Inspector General reviewed the record provided by Katkus and found no evidence of a cover up. That didn’t work after diligent efforts of good citizens such as Fred Dyson could not be quashed. Now, as in the Dahlstrom scandal (new state job created by Parnell for a sitting legislator in direct violation of the State Constitution) folks are headed under the bus.
A soldier is expected to obey the lawful orders of those appointed over them. While that obedience is essential to a military organization, that also makes soldiers vulnerable to abuse. That principal of obedience is the backbone of a military organization. When that supervisory authority is abused the wrath of God should descend on those who abuse that authority – and firing is not enough.
We need civilian control of the military; however, we do not need an appointed State Commissioner to also be imbued with the power of a two-star General Officer. Step one of reform is to not allow the Commissioner of Military and Veteran Affairs to wear a uniform. His or her position should be analogous to the Federal Secretary of Defen
@Arctic: Got it. Duh. I’m on deadline for a larger piece about the races up here until early next week. Also, I don’t have the resources to do the deep dive that this story deserves. Will be covering what others who do have the resources write about it, however, and if I come up with something, I’ll certainly do what I can with it. I trust that the ADN’s Jill Burke has this covered. She’s one of the very best.
Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
@Arctic: DVMA?
Will you be covering the DVMA goings-on in more depth in a later post?
Sandra,
Mark Begich’s outside groups have outspent Sullivan’s. Begich’s campaign has also outspent Sullivans.
I would hate to think of Alaska as a state that can be so easily bought — that all it takes is a surge of negative ads (I counted 3 in a 12 minute period on tv last night) against an incumbent to sway voters to believe all that bull. Karl Rover and the Koch Brothers are behind the huge number of ads they have bought for Dan Sullivan, some of it with his Mommy’s and Daddy’s money. The charges are general, never backed up by specifics ad definitely show money cannot buy a quality product. Thank you Supreme Court and Citizen’s United. What Alaskans need to hear to make an informed decision is indeed being drowned out by all this Negative Noise. But that’s the point, isn’t it?