- FiveThirtyEight came out with their own Senate Forecast on Alaska’s U.S. Senate race resulting in Dan Sullivan having a 76% chance of winning in November. Harry Enten wrote a supplemental article to explain the details of the poll’s results.
- The Washington Times has a review about the new book on the prosecution of Ted Stevens, written by Rob Cary, a lawyer on the Stevens defense team. Full disclosure: the review is written by my father, who, if you read it, you can tell is a big fan of mine.
- In the coming years, politicians will determine the finer points of how ObamaCare affects our medical care. U.S. Senate candidate, Dan Sullivan has shown fundamental lack of understanding regarding this very important issue. His lack of healthcare knowledge has also been highlighted by the Dispatch and now by the HuffingtonPost.
- FactCheck.org has found that two of Senator Mark Begich’s ads are bogus regarding his claim that he “voted against Obama’s trillion-dollar tax increase.” In actuality, Sen. Begich voted against a resolution as part of fiscal year 2013’s spending levels. The particular ads in question are his campaign’s “Two Views” (otherwise known as Cheap Chic) and “Reprise”.
- Alaska Journal of Commerce has an editorial regarding U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s performance in the Kodiak debate. Andrew Jensen might have drawn blood with his opening sentence, “About the best thing you could say about Republican Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s performance at the traditional Kodiak Chamber of Commerce Fisheries Debate is that he survived.”
- I reported earlier that the House race between Rep. Cathy Munoz and Democratic opponent George McGuan might have become tense. since McGuan’s campaign manager placed THAT Facebook post. The Juneau Empire’s recount of their latest political forum was the very definition of dignified discourse.
- Senate Dan Sullivan’s trip to Nikiski was featured in an article for the Washington Post on our U.S. Senate race. It highlights the differences in candidates and their campaign styles. Who knew hard hats and safety goggles were what made Sullivan “most excited”?
- Deborah Bonito, Sen. Mark Begich’s secret weapon in the form of local business owner and wife, made the Seward City News during a campaign pit stop on behalf of her husband.
- The Washington Times is reporting that Labor is pulling out the stops to ensure a Begich victory in November.
- Fairbanks News Miner reports that the North Star Borough Assembly has turned down Interior Gas Utility bond oversight that would have given the Assembly more control over how IGU raises money for planned NG distribution system.
- Attention male candidates: Lauren Ashburn with The Hill has an article detailing the rules you need to follow so to not make yourself national media fodder for coming across as (insert adjective here).
- State legislators from both sides of the aisle are in agreement that Medicaid expansion will not only be a controversial topic, but also one that will be addressed come this legislative session according to the Dispatch.
- The Juneau Empire covered the Soldotna gubernatorial forum and Kaylee Osowski’s details of the debate are eyebrow-raising. Let’s just say, the janitors had a lot of mud to cleanup afterwards.
- Mark Begich has been using the F-word on the campaign trail when discussing the future of ObamaCare. Greg Giroux with Bloomberg, highlighted Begich in his article detailing how Democratic candidates around the country are using the word “fix” or in Sen. Begich’s case, “fix it” to distance themselves from the Affordable Healthcare Act with their voters.
- Read all about the new Delta Junction School Board members per the Fairbanks News Miner.
- The Dispatch reports that Alaska Superior Court Judge Michael Corey has announced that he will determine the legal operational fate of Uber in the state. This comes at the same time that the New York Times has an article about how Uber has received an “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau.
- Alaska Air is tiptoeing around the concept of using biometric scanning devises as a potential evolution of paperless airline ticketing. While it sounds great, nowhere in Bloomberg’s article about this new aspect of flying does it state guidelines to prevent Alaska Air from selling or giving people’s biometric information to law enforcement-something they currently need a warrant to obtain.
I’m reading the Stevens book now, very well done. Fascinating insight and it is damn scary what the Federal govt did to one of its citizens.
Begich was a big spender as Mayor. Parnell is a big spender at the State level. A big spender always sees another wheel barrow of money as the solution to whatever problem presents itself or the denial of funding strictly to further a personal vendetta or a political objective. They treat spending as a tactic that placates the people, rewards their loyalists, punishes their opponents, can create a false sense of hope for the future, and mostly buys time for the politicians to delay the hard decisions.
We now have to decide where to spend our limited dollars and not accept motives such as a vendetta against others or blind party allegiance more focused on destroying the other party than doing good for the people. For example, if the legislature wants to fund Medicade expansion then those dollars have to be taken from somewhere else. Locally, we can no longer afford the quid pro quo system in Juneau that silences the stewards of our fiscal resources by banning them from caucus membership if they fail to vote for yet another bloated state budget. We simply have reached the point in spending of “either/or” not “just more”.
The era of the big spenders is ending, especially in Alaska, and I submit that Begich is now no more capable of functioning in the new fiscal reality facing us at the Federal level than Parnell is at the State level.
The Sully campaign interns are going into overdrive on this website-demonstrating they know as much about Health Insurance as their candidate. Nothing. This is demonstrated by their continuous use of false equivalencies. Grow up. Health insurance is nothing like auto, flood or home insurance.
What the heck is going on with Alaska Airlines? Would I want a corporation to have the authority to possess something so fundamental about my being so they can sell it to anybody with a checkbook? Every major businesses claims to have encrypted data, that hasn’t stopped hackers from stealing the very information that is supposed to be protected. Right now its just money, this is a whole new level of potential theft. Great job Amanda on catching this. Maybe somebody else will pick this up and get more information.
The Munoz – McGuan race is too one-sided to be tense, and Cathy Munoz is far too friendly and gracious to take any bait from a newcomer. However, the hope in Juneau is that Cathy Munoz can understand that Kito is a middle-aged fellow, and while his campaign manager may be seen as young and extremely inexperienced she is a cutie (see bikini photo on her Facebook page). If that is what Sam needs then so what! Later Sam can go crawling to Cathy Munoz and say he doesn’t know where his head was (but Juneau knows).
The forum was extremely lopsided in that McGuan has no time to even learn the state and local government vocabulary let alone the issues. He needs to spend some time on one or more public boards, or even on the city assembly if he aspires to the public arena. His entire exposure to government according to his bio is the one year he spent at the US Coast Guard Academy before demission.
McGuan was recruited by Tom Begich, the Tongass Democrats, and Chris Tuck. Maybe something can be traded for the ML position. A good trade I should think.
Says that is he’s Governor, “the fish board will meet on the peninsula.” The board has the legal authority to make those decisions, not the Gov. Here’s a clue that 1) he’s pandering without knowing how things work or 2) he doesn’t care about the law. What a guy!
The Facebook remark did not come from George’s campaign. And yes, the Chamber of Commerce forum was very cordial.
Lies, lies and more lies. Oh, we must be talking about Senator Begich’s tv ads. You know, the one’s that are labeled “bogus” by the organizations that FACT CHECK the facts. You know, the one’s that have been deemed the biggest lies by Time Magazine and the LA Times.
Anyone who has children and votes for Begich should never punish theiir children for telling monstrous fibs. Heck, you might as well tell them that lying is okay and have Begich be their spiritual advisor. Well, I wouldn’t go quite that low. Maybe you should let the devil have that job (just teasing).
It’s time for a change. We deserve someone who will sometimes tell us the truth.
It seems that it would be a whole lot less work for Mark Begich if he just had the guts to stand up to Harry Reid and Obama. But, he doesn’t and prrobably never will. Instead, he ckooses to lie to us, Alaskans, time and time again. It seems like more of his ads than not are declared bogus by the Factcheck.org.
On November 4th, let’s show Begich that Alaskans won’t tolerate a politician that lies to us constantly and vote the guy out.