- Charles Koch, the billionaire CEO of Koch Industries and the modern-day Machiavelli of American politics, sent shock waves through the country when he told the Wichita Eagle that he wanted to reform the criminal justice system. Politico was one of many media outlets that featured the story.
- Politico reports that Net Neutrality is back, alright!
- Eni Petroleum had a fire at their North Slope drilling project. Nobody was hurt and the fire will not halt continued operations.
- Brazil’s Petrobras made history by producing 2,286,000 barrels of oil and NGL.
- In underreported news, The Hill reports that U.S, Japan, and South Korea have signed a pact to more easily share information (spy secrets) about North Korea with one another.
- Trident Seafoods is in talks to purchase Western Alaska Fisheries in Kodiak with a price tag of $37 million, so sayeth the Kodiak Daily Mirror.
- CNN/ORC released a poll yesterday regarding support for prospective Republican presidential candidates. The Hill took that information and divided up the results into sections: the establishment candidate, Gov. Jeb Bush, is out with 23% support among Republicans and 10% more than 2nd place finisher: Gov. Chris Christie.
- One time Alaska State House candidate and political rising star, Schaeffer Cox, is now sporting headlines, but of a different type. The Fairbanks Daily News Miner reports that his attorney has asked a federal court for a second delay in filing his opening briefs for Cox’s appeal against his 2012 conviction on federal charges that sentenced him to 26 years in prison.
- Politico announced that since things are going gangbusters with establishing a diplomatic relationship with Cuba, doing the same with Iran is not out of the question.
- The Hill has a list of 10 senators who could quite possibly lose their seats in 2016. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is number 10. The story cites a possible Joe Miller run from the right, coupled with the potential reemergence of Mark Begich. It does not cite the fact that Murkowski appears to be avoiding the Valley, where Republican primaries are won.
- The Frontiersman has an article about how state officials are rightly alarmed at higher than safe levels of fecal bacteria being found in Cottonwood Creek. What is going on with Alaska’s water?
- The Frontiersman also has a well-reported piece about how the snafus in the state’s Medicaid program are affecting local providers.
- Heads up DOT: researchers at Washington State University are working on developing a greener way to keep roads safer in the winter than the traditional salt/dirt/scrape mode utilized in Alaska. Potential savings and positive environmental impact is detailed by the Peninsula Clarion.
- PLATTS has a video that wades through potential outcomes of the continued falling price of crude, particularly on its impact on LNG.
- Bloomberg predicts that Russia may go though its notoriously rich wealth funds within 3 years without budgetary cuts.
- CNBC believes that oil prices are about to go up again and asks if we are ready, to which Alaska, Texas and North Dakota all answered back with a hearty, “Yes!”
- Ok, so it might not be purely a political story, but if ABC News has a story about a fellow Alaskan surviving three days in sub-zero temperatures while fighting off wolverines with a stick and lives to tell about it…I think it deserves mentioning as a bullet point of awesomeness.
- Is it just me, or is it still odd;y cool that a conservative state senator FB posts and tweets pictures of marijuana plants? Sen. Mike Dunleavy did just this on his official accounts.
- Also on Facebook: The Alaska Inaugural Balls page has a weird looking engraving of the Unity Ticket sporting their Lucky Wishbone move; it looks like a bad imitation of Hans Solo’s carbonite moment.
- Want to see where you stack up to the political movers and shakers of the world? The Washington Post has a fun article and calculator that does just that for you. I’m taller than Vladimir Putin and Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. Who knew?
As an alternative we can always raise the rent on the federal government. They ought to pay through the nose until the day comes that the percentage of land locked up in Federal Hands in New York is the same as in Alaska
Regarding the coliform contamination in Cottonwood Creek; do I see a way to save the State of Alaska another potential $449,000 by saving up to $425,000 of state spending to reduce water way pollution plus $24,000 of grant funds from Alaska Clean Water Actions ? I suppose some of this is already federal money;however, couldn’t we at least “re-appropriate” it to a more worthy cause?
How to deal with poop contamination in Wasilla’s Cottonwood Creek is a great example of how our elected officials are going to have to deal with our future in these times of declining revenues. According to the linked article, currently state government funds are being used to monitor the contamination level and to help mitigate the problem; however, facing our fiscal future should any state funds be expended for this problem? Henceforth, should this be treated as a local government problem and any funds required for monitoring and/or mitigation be paid by local residents?
Or, should our leaders simply ignore the situation in Cottonwood Creek and “hope” nothing happens to harm anyone or their property? Or perhaps they might wait until the Federal EPA becomes involved, then, to save face, some of them can claim all necessary funds to address this problem have been owed to us since statehood or perhaps these same elected officials might authorize state funds to sue the Feds for interfering in state affairs.
Wow! Given what we have been hearing Rand Paul say at speeches and events over the last year or two, Charles Koch sounds like he is laying down the ground work for supporting Rand Paul in a Presidential run.
And that promises to be lots of fun… It’ll make lots of the ‘old guard’ in the GOP pretty nervous.
Interesting break-even production chart by Citi Group. There is a lot of oil that is far cheaper to get out of the ground than anything in Alaska. Focus on the second chart and look to the far right and there is Point Thompson, not a good place.
http://www.businessinsider.com/citi-breakeven-oil-production-prices-2014-11
Medicaid payments (to providers), not “statements.”
Re the The Frontiersman story “about how the snafus in the state’s Medicaid program are affecting local providers.”
This is about a State-funded contract to make Medicaid statements that has been all bollixed up. In fact, it was all bollixed up when Parnell- certain commissioners- were complaining about the initial hiccups in the Obamacare online system. Later his campaign and certain commissioners were still at it.
At least the feds pretty much fixed their system. That’s more than Parnell and his fellow hypocrites in the former administration did with theirs.