- The Heat is On the Division of Elections to count those votes and for the campaigns in limbo to make a declaration of victory/defeat. The Fairbanks News Miner, the Daily Caller and many more are chomping at the bit to know the winners.
- Alaska is making the news, but not in so much as in a ‘Yay Alaska!’ way, but more in an [insert colorful explicative of choice] Alaska! The Christian Science Monitor, amongst many, has a piece by Becky Bohrer regarding Typhoon Nuri and its ripple effect of frigid weather for Outside. How this winter vortex is going to affect our economic sector, that’s anybody’s guess.
- Teflon Don has coasted into another victorious Congressional term and that has caused KTUU’s Grace Jang to ask some of his previous opponents what they view as his strengths behind his roaring successes at the poll?
- The Hill has a glossy overview of some of the worst candidates of 2014.
- Chieftain Metals Corp. of Canada has provided scarce details regarding its desire to simply barge the ore coming out if its Canadian located Tulsequah Chief mine across Alaskan waters, instead of dealing with the difficulty of building a road to connect its Canadian mine to Canada’s current road system. Details here at the Dispatch. Expecting more than a little ire from Alaskans when word of this starts to gain traction.
- Now that the Democratic Party has had their hat handed to them by the American people, the next question will be not where they went wrong, but how to steer their party toward 2016 victories. Politico has a feeling either Rep. Joaquin Castro or Rep. Joe Kennedy might be behind this effort, just don’t call it a comeback.
- The Juneau Empire reports that a federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit brought on by the State of Alaska challenging the federal government’s roadless rule that prohibits the building of roads and timber harvesting in national forests.
- Alaska has bucked another trend popular with Outside. Young Alaskans tended to vote more Republican than Democratic last week, than the way their peers in the lower 48 traditionally do. The Fairbanks News Miner explains what this has meant for Sen. Mark Begich’s re-election campaign.
- Look out ALEC (and its many AK legislative members); ALEC’s counter, SiX, is coming to a state near you. Activists are launching a major state-focused organization called State Innovation Exchange to boost progressive state lawmakers and their causes and utilizing time honored tactics like oppo research, video tracking and other assorted old-school tactics that were honed to perfection in places like Southie and Five Points. Politico explains the importance of the annual winter Democracy Alliance meeting and SiX’s plans for the future. Hopefully, they’ll leave their socks full of pennies at home.
- The Hill reports that things are not all warm and fuzzy between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama. This isn’t boding well for a strong finish before the Republican handover in January.
- Sen. Dennis Egan’s decision to join with the Senate minority caught the Juneau Empire’s attention since he had previously caucused with the majority.
- University of Alaska received a hefty $8.1 million grant from the Alaska Department of Labor to enhance mining workforce training throughout the state, including a new mill process operator certificate through UAF’s location per the Fairbanks News Miner.
- Alexandra Gutierrez with APRN has unfairly received a lot of flack regarding her spreadsheet projections by district and the gubernatorial race. It was originally supposed to be a personal exercise that was shared with a journalist friend who thought it was so good (same here), she posted it to twitter and from there it went quasi-viral.
- Yesterday would have marked the 100th birthday of one of the most amazing women of the 20th century: Heddy Lamarr. Not only was she a Hollywood actress/glamazon, but was also an inventor that created the technology today’s Wi-Fi is built upon. So, if you’re reading this via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or any of the other sundry cordless Internet hardware devises, take a moment to wish the Mother of modern technology a Happy Birthday, wherever she might be.
- Politco Pro has a piece on the potential tensions around Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sen. Maria Cantwell, one of oil’s biggest antagonists, is expected to cause trouble. For Murkowski’s part, federal agencies that have gone all but unsupervised will get more oversight, says Murkowski spokesperson Robert Dillon.
- While Murkowski and Cantwell might be arguing over the Key Stone pipeline, in Saudi Arabia, the second largest exporter of oil to the U.S., the men in charge are considering lifting the ban on allowing women to drive. As it is now, they can’t. However, the maleficent men are wondering if the ban is actually hurting the economy. Here’s how it would work: the ban would be lifted only in the cities, only on certain days of the week, and a woman could drive only with permission from a male relative: her father, husband, brother, uncle, cousin, or in a pinch, her son.
About twice a week, AD gets really lazy and lets some intern re-write a press release as news.
You missed the Dispatch’s joke of a story about ACS. According to the Dispatch story, you got the impression that ACS was going great guns in a difficult market. Today, Wall Street downgraded the ACS stock from “hold” to “sell”. What’s wrong with the Dispatch? Is it the reporters or the editors that”s responsible for the paper’s downfall. It’s horrible.
Great. So we have ALEC telling all our Republicans how they should be legislating, and now we will have “SiX” telling all our Democrats how they should be legislating. With uncertain financial times ahead and continually shrinking oil revenues, why don’t we cut out all the fat in the middle and just fire the legislature? We could save a lot of money if we weren’t paying for their salaries, per diems, office budgets, smoking lounges, travel reimbursements, “consulting” fees, and glass palaces.
In it’s place, we could just enact a streamlined approval process which would automatically add any crazy piece of crap legislation that either organization comes up with to state statute. Fair and balanced. Just think of all the money the lobbyists would save by not having to by not having to funnel their “speech” in ways that don’t look like bribery! The bars in Juneau might take a hit, but it would be for the greater good…
I mean really… how dare Alexandra do math in public? Everyone knows girls can’t do math, can’t drive, can’t…
Whew, for a second there I thought you meant Headly Lamarr… (three guesses as to my favorite movie of all time)
The fact that it’s considered to be so politically incorrect that it could never be made today speaks very poorly of our culture.
No one I know believes Senator Egan was invited to join the Senate Majority. Not so very long ago anyone could tune into the KINY radio station at which a local septic tank company had paid the $10 price for a “Problem Corner” ad so that we could all hear Senator Egain say, “You dump, we pump.” I believe that ad would cost $15 today, and it may have been at least a year since Senator Egan was the program host.
Recognizing Heddy Lamarr is a great and timely blurb. At the same time I think that revisiting the decision to allow women to drive could also be timely.
Criticizing Alex G for making projections is really pathetic. I’ve looked at her numbers and they seem plausible.