Here’s the recent ad from the Independent Expenditure group, Alaskans for Walker-Mallott. As of October 14, the group reported raising $350,000. Barney Gottstein and lawyer Robin Brena had each given $50,000, and the Alaska State Employees Association has given the group $10,000. The Alaska AFL-CIO contributed the remaining amount.
Gov. Sean Parnell supporters will call foul over the heavy union involvement. But in the end, it’s not going to matter much. The ad features Melissa Jones, who was sexually assaulted while serving in the National Guard. It’s brutal for the governor.
UPDATE: The Alaska Dispatch had previously published a story about Melissa Jones, who is featured in the ad. It appears that her assault took place in 2007, before Parnell’s tenure as governor. Jones didn’t know if it was a fellow National Guard member who assaulted her, or someone else. She didn’t go to the police, but told a chaplain about it, who told others. All of this happened during Sarah Palin’s time in office. Still, the message is clear and it’s a powerful ad.
I’ve never seen this blog before. I followed a link left by a reader in ADN reader feedback to get here.
I would add a few things. I’m a long-retired abuse investigator and as an independent citizen have successfully paid for and performed investigations of bureaucrats, as well as politicians, on both sides of the aisle, including for 25 years in Alaska. I have unearthed substantial corruption, completely self-funding my many investigations in three different states that have caused numerous politicians to be removed from office.
Reading here about the Parnell responses and more importantly, non responses, to the sex abuse allegations in the Guard, it has to be one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen or heard of. None of the “explanations” Captain Zero’s campaign has alleged even begin to pass the “duck test.” It is an endless pastiche of collusion, cover ups and victim blaming.
The administrations of Palin and Parnell, along with the unwavering support of A.G.s Colberg, Sullivan and Geraghty, have made a joke of the Alaska Open Records Act. In all my years of using the acts in Alaska and various other states, I have never encountered anything, anywhere else, remotely like the stonewalling and obfuscation I’ve experienced from the Alaska cabal since 2007., although I’ve seen similar violations from the Bush and Obama administrations when using FOIA.
I’m a 17-year SOA retiree. I am concerned about the dismal state of the PERS/TERS retirement fund, and Parnell’s SB21 giveway is prodigiously threatening to that fund. I can’t imagine that I will be around for all that many more years, but the situation of current and future retirees is critical. SB21 has jeopardized workers’ bonds of trust and contracts of employment with the state, it has jeopardized the fate of the Permanent Fund, and it has jeopardized the state of Alaska’s critical infrastructure and services to its residents now and into the foreseeable future, if it is not repealed.
Lastly, after seven years of Palin/Parnell (I retired during the Knowles administration) I just received my first communication from them, a two-page letter dated October 27th and signed by Commissioner of Administration Curtis Thayer. It was in response to a letter to its members and other retirees by the retiree organization RPEA/AFT. Thayer goes to great lengths to explain, through expensive and purely political messaging at state expense less than a week before the election, that (despite all appearances to the contrary) its “too little, too late” intervention into dealing with unfunded trust fund liability and chaos in administration on the part of Parnell appointees, is an appropriate response to eight years of prodigious bungling.
A poster here, “Jon K,” expresses puzzlement why the Alaska State Employees Association would want Walker to win, contending that Walker, “… is apparently going to force every department head to make significant cuts to their budgets.”
Here’s the answer: ASEA ably represents its membership, but it simultaneously represents the current and long term welfare of every single resident of Alaska.
Lincoln was right. A (state) “… divided against itself cannot stand.” ASEA represents a voice for responsible leadership, rather than the staggering and irresponsible billion-dollar giveaways to Parnell’s past and future employer, Big Oil. Its parent organization, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and its Alaska retiree affiliate, the AFSCME Alaska Retiree Chapter 52, have nothing more sinister in their aims than our mutual need for bipartisan “good government.”
One hopes, that by this time next week, our long collective nightmare will be over and that the Walker/Mallott fusion team will soon begin the mammoth task of overhauling the foundering fiscal ship of state.
The Walker Mallott campaign had nothing to do with the creation of the National Guard ad, does not approve of it and by law, has no authority over it.
http://www.walkermallottforalaska.com/walker-mallott-campaign-not-tied-to-recent-ad-featuring-former-alaska-national-guard-member/
Technically the Hatch Act doesn’t apply to military personnel: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939#Applicability_to_U.S._military_personnel
Although they are bound by similar language in a DOD directive. More importantly, I don’t believe the person in the video is a member of the Guard now, and presumably free to use her personal photos as she chooses. Of note, Dan Sullivan is also using photos of himself in uniform and posing with federal equipment, and he is a currently serving member of the military…
This person in the video is violating the Hatch Act which prohibits using the military uniform for political purposes. This video also uses Federal equipment which also violates the Hatch Act. If this individual did no know that she was violating the Hatch Act, why didn’t she? A complaint needs to be filed and she and Vince Beltrami, Barney Gottstein et al need to be held accountable. The law is not just made for certain segments of society, it is made for progressives as well.
Lensky,
I would like to maintain some level of objectivity; however; I cannot help but ponder your last point as every day passes and those emails possibly between executive personal, legislators, and agencies outside the Alaska National Guard have not been released. I cannot now put aside the comments from Chaplain Lt. Col. Rick Cavens in his 21 Oct 14 ADN commentary: “After considerable conversation and prayer among all of us (his fellow chaplains) to discern our direction and motives, in 2010 and 2011, we told the Governor’s Office and his people about the issues in the Guard; we told people in the Alaska Legislature; we told the National Guard Bureau in Washington D.C.” Then from the report of Jill Burke in an ADN article on 21 Oct 14 in which she quotes Governor Parnell during his meeting with the troops at the Armory as stating: “When somebody came to me with allegations of criminal misconduct, I sent my chief of staff to the FBI office with those facts. Four to six weeks later the FBI came back and said ‘There is no basis'”.
Regardless of who did what, this list of who received these reports does not include one member of the Alaska National Guard yet I am to believe that reports only involved a Governor, who was slow to accept the reports, and his Commissioner/General? Too many folks in the loop for that to be possible and this had to generate pertinent communications, other than phone calls, between more people than Sean Parnell and Tom Katkus.
The National Guard better start putting together new recruiting ads.
That’s not clear at all. She might have been drugged. Or not. She ended up back at her home and apparently figured out she’d had sex. With who? Was it consensual? Was it the cab driver, a neighbor, some random guy walking down the street? Getting past that, if the experience was so terrible, so scarring, why didn’t she report it to the police? What evidence exists that she was assaulted at all? Finally, why is she making a blatantly political ad while wearing a uniform, a Hatch Act violation?
http://www.ktva.com/alaska-national-guard-scandal-not-worth-talking-about-for-sullivan-942/
First version: Ohio Dan Sullivan says that the allegations of sexual assault of Guard members and attempts at assault of high school girls isn’t “a story. And refuses to say if Parnell did or did not consult with him (though he was already on the record down in Ketchikan saying Parnell never asked him for legal advice.)
Second version: Hours later, Dan Sullivan says ““Dan Sullivan had no knowledge of these allegations while at the Department of Law.” Of course, in a very lawyer-like fashion, he doesn’t say if he heard anything about the allegations while DNR commissioner.
When that dog didn’t hunt,, Ohio Dan came up with a third version: He now claims that IF Parnell had consulted with him he would have done everything in his power “to get to the bottom of this situation.” Including appointing an independent special counsel?
Ohio Dan can spin this any way he wants, but the fact is that the scandal and coverup is a story. An awful story- with numerous terrible crimes apparently committed- that Ohio Dan might have done something about if he wasn’t too busy appealing the Katie John case to pay attention.
And we now have a new chapter in the story: Ohio Dan helping to push Parnell under the bus on order to save his own skin.
Walker can end these ads by donating $5000 to a DV group every time this ad runs. Put your money where your mouth is, Bill.
“Independent expenditure group” pretty well identified as AFL-CIO in the ad, aka Vince Beltrami, aka, they guy who put together this ticket. Come on, people, you know how this works with Big Union money.
And about using the uniform of the United States Armed Forces in a political ad…I think the young lady has another problem…
Our schools had to find out from the media that there were sexual predators- recruiters chasing high school kids. Parnell did not think the safety of our kids was important enough to share with the schools this information about these predators?
Keeping this information secret is important for the re-election campaign. Much more important than our kids safety. (Sarcasm).
Parnell must resign. He should not wait until the voters toss him out.
What did Dan Sullivan know, and when did he know it ?
Yet another product of that vast conspiracy of America-hating communist tree hugging terrorists, union thugs, lefty wackos, fellow travelers, and National Guard chaplains who want to wrestle control of Alaska away from the current administration.
As Amanda so correctly pointed out days ago, Sean Parnell could hardly have concocted another way of dealing with this scandal which would have caused more damage to his re-election campaign. In fact, perhaps Sean Parnell is himself a key player in this vast conspiracy.
Think about it. It explains a lot.
Yes this is conjecture. But I know Walker and I know how willing he is to lie. In any event, you seriously think that two of Walker’s biggest supporters – Robin Brena and Gottstein – didn’t colloberate with his campaign? Really?
Jon.
I didn’t create these rules and I don’t sit on the Supreme Court. Now you just made a claim you cannot prove. Are you going down the “conspiracy” road now? Drilling holes in your leaking boat is not the best way to let out the water.
Really dude? She was drugged, confused, and assaulted. That much is clear. Are you really sinking to blaming the victim to defend Parnell?
Lynn, you cannot possibly be this naive.
Jon K. Pay attention. This isn’t from the Walker campaign. This is from an independent expenditure group
Jon,
Check carefully who paid for this message. It wasn’t Walker. He cannot control what independent groups want to say and, in fact, would be violating the law if he attempted to control these messages. And I suspect you know that.
And Walker just posted on Facebook page that he isn’t politicizing the scandal!! Unbelievable. Walker is shameless. He will do and say anything.
From AD:
“Very little was clear after that, and she thinks her drink was drugged. She believes she took a taxi back to her apartment in East Anchorage. Someone else got in — either with her, or through an unlocked door. She said she was raped multiple times but didn’t want to give details of what happened. She doesn’t know if the assaults were committed by soldiers, guardsmen or civilians.”
Was there a trial and conviction in this case? If so, is this one of the 29 cases referred to by “Two- Star Commissioner General” Katkus? Rape is brutal yet so is being falsely accused. Too bad we won’t focus on that aspect for all concerned.
Lots of holes in this woman’s story. She never called the police, doesn’t know what happened, doesn’t have any details. She was upset at first that her name was public, now she is suddenly filming an ad?
Most tellingly, she doesn’t even know who raped her? How is this the Guard’s fault, how is Parnell responsible?
http://www.adn.com/article/20140911/rape-victim-says-alaska-national-guard-violated-her-confidentiality
To suggest that no action was taken doesn’t appeat to be accurate — it’s been reported that allegations of sexual assault were referred to law enforcement. Clearly Parnell was too trusting of Katkus, but I don’t think it is fair to accuse him of being indifferent or dismissive of criminal acts.
I also don’t understand why the Alaska State Employees Association wants Walker to win. Walker is apparently going to force every department head to make significant cuts to their budgets.
Powerful moving ad. Sandy P needs to start packing the Walkers are coming.