Category Archives: news

Commissioner Dan Sullivan is now again Lt. Colonel Sullivan

Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan is now, once again, Lt. Colonel Sullivan. Sullivan, who is in the Marine Corps Reserves, is being called to active duty on Sunday. Sources say that he’ll be heading for Afghanistan to work on an anti-terrorism mission.

Deputy Commissioner Joe Balash is expected to be named acting commissioner during his deployment. It’s been speculated that upon his return, Sullivan will announce that he’s running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat incumbent Mark Begich.

In a state where the number of veterans per capita ranks as one of the highest in the nation, Sullivan’s military service and deployment is thought by many political observers to be a strong political asset should he become a candidate.

Sullivan has served in the Marine Corps since 1993 on active duty and in the reserves as an infantry and reconnaissance officer.

He’s been recalled to active duty in both 2006 and 2009.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Iliamna Village Council makes a Pebble Mine-sized mistake

For years, residents and members of the Iliamna Village Council, the governmental entity for the village of Iliamna in Southwest Alaska, a village close to the proposed Pebble Mine, have claimed neutrality. For years, they’ve told anybody who would listen that they aren’t for or against the controversial mine, but rather that they, unique among residents and groups in the area, are trying to brush past the huge and confusing politics associated with the mine and are waiting for the science to lead them in the right direction.

The mine, believed to be the largest undeveloped gold and copper mine on Earth, which also sits on the headwaters of the Bristol Bay and the largest wild sockeye salmon run on Earth, is a magnet for conflicting reports and scientific assessment, much of which passes above the head of journalists and the public.

Because of all of this — as well as the lightning-rod nature of the project — reporters like me have long given deference to those who would be living in the mine’s backyard. They have more to gain, and as much to lose as any citizen involved in the fight, many thought. At the very least, many have bought into the argument that the village is a responsible body which should be conferred with when making decisions about the area.

But earlier this month the village made a colossal mistake that threatens to undermine its credibility when dealing with issues involving the permitting of the Pebble Mine. It also undermines its claims of responsibility and neutrality, and gives substance to the long-standing charge that the village and the council have been “bought and paid for” by the Pebble Partnership.

Here’s the gist: the Environmental Protection Agency, which has the power to shut the project down, submitted a report in April about the effects of the mine on the area’s waterways and its salmon, called the Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment Report. The assessment doesn’t bode well for Pebble. The EPA said that the proposed gold and copper mine, which also sits in the headwaters of the largest wild salmon run in the world, could devastate that salmon population.

The Pebble Partnership, a joint venture of British mining giant Anglo American PLC and Vancouver, Canada based Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., objected strenuously to the assessment, calling it “biased, manipulative and contrary to EPA’s own guidelines.”

The five-member Iliamna Village Council also opposed the EPA’s assessment and requested that its own, handpicked scientist review EPA’s work and prepare comments to the EPA for the council’s submission.

It hired Dr. Donald Macalady to do so. Macalady is a professor emeritus of chemistry and geochemistry at the Colorado School of Mines, and the school’s previous director of the Center for Environmental Risk.

Macalady’s report was damning, to put it mildly. Among other things, it said the mine would likely eliminate the salmon spawning runs “in a large portion of the area’s watersheds,” and that this “elimination will be essentially irreversible.”

With the fish so go the wildlife. With the fish and the wildlife so go the area’s primary economy, subsistence lifestyle and culture.

What will be left of the area “is a legacy of scarred countryside and continued risk of degradation of water resources,” Macalady wrote.

“You are being asked to make a choice between undeniable short-term economic benefit at the cost of a completely altered environment and little hope of long term benefit,” he wrote.

The president of the village council, Sue Anelon, submitted the report to the EPA as a public comment without reading it. When she, or someone, did get around to reading it, the council, apparently, was aghast. It asked to retract the report. The EPA has declined to do so.

The council is made up of five members, four of whom appear to be related and at least four of whom are employed now or have been employed by the Pebble Partnership. This has for years opened them and the village up to charges that they have been unduly influenced by Pebble’s money.

Prior to Pebble coming in to punch holes looking for gold, the Iliamna area was impoverished. The 2010 census counted a total of 299 residents in both Iliamna and its sister village Newhalen. Out of those, only 26 had commercial fishing permits, and only 22 fished those permits, according to the Alaska’s Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. The estimated gross earnings for both villages from commercial salmon fishing in Bristol Bay was about $1 million.

A large majority of the people in the Bristol Bay region oppose the mine. Bristol Bay Native Corporation, the regional native corporation that has 9,000 shareholders, voted in 2011 to oppose it. However, the closer you get to the mine and the employment opportunities that it provides, the less strenuous the opposition. Indeed, compared to some other villages in Southwest Alaska, Iliamna is booming. Trucks bearing Pebble’s logo zoom around the village. There’s a store with stocked shelves. People have money in their pockets and jobs abound.

Anelon didn’t return a phone call requesting comment, but she did talk to the Associated Press, who quoted her as saying that the materials Macalady produced “stray a significant distance from” the council’s position.

Anelon, who has long claimed to be open to different scientific assessments of the mine, just assumed that Macalady “was all on the same page as the village,” she said.

That page, apparently, is only one that will support the mine.

Here are more key points from Macalady’s report:

Not taking into account mining accidents, the mine’s footprint would result in 56 miles of stream channel to be “eliminated, blocked, or dewatered…along with the destruction of about 5 square miles of wetland area.”
“Groundwater flow in the region will be diminished and the positive effects of this flow (on salmon spawning) eliminated.”
Copper and other metal contamination into the water is “inevitable…This contamination could be expected to enter the watersheds immediately adjacent to the mine site, potentially rendering additional miles of stream and river unacceptable for salmon spawning.
The mine would alter water temperatures, which is “likely to adversely influence the suitability of these waters for successful spawning.”

He ends his report with some possible suggestions for an economic future, among them asking that the government and groups opposed to the mine assist in establishing an ecological research and training institute, which would provide employment for people in the region.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Obamacare: the politics of delay and denial

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Don Young voted on a bill to give President Obama the authority to delay, by a year, the employer health care mandate portion of Obamacare. The mandate was to go into effect in 2014, and would have required businesses that employ more than 50 full-time workers to provide affordable insurance, or else be subject to a fine.

This doesn’t mean that Young approves of Obamacare. Young, who has for more than four decades been the beneficiary of some of the best tax funded health care available, has been one of the bill’s staunchest critics. In a release on Tuesday, he called it “one of the worst bills Congress has ever passed,” and promised to continue to advocate for full repeal.

Many critics of Obamacare crowed after the administration announced the delay in the mandate. Others, however, saw a greater game at work, one that could ultimate strengthen the program.

Now that employer mandates are off the table, at least temporarily, the thought is that people are increasingly going to be signing up for individual coverage. Such coverage was always available to the individual, but often times it was too costly, overly burdensome to get, and many were denied due to pre-existing conditions. However, insurance exchanges, one of the key provisions of Obamacare, are still set to be up and running by the end of this year, and individual coverage could be cheaper and easier to get under those exchanges.

Recently, California announced that such exchanges could cut rates for individual insurance by up 29 percent for some consumers. And on Wednesday, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that New Yorkers who buy individual policies will most likely see their premiums cut by half in 2014.

Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to buy that plan for as little as $308 monthly. The costs could be lower with federal subsidies.

That consumers might find individual health care insurance affordable makes Obamacare foes nervous. The public, once it tries it, actually might like it. They might actually be able to afford the kind of insurance that state and federal officials get. Such a notion is anathema to many, including Young and Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, as well as other Republican governors. Parnell, among others, has refused to help set up those exchanges. The feds are doing it for Alaska, no matter that if the state cooperated, the exchanges would be better for residents.

Apparently, Parnell and others would leave uninsured Alaskans uninsured in the hopes that they can force Obamacare to fail.

Some Republican governors however, seem to have the health of their residents more in mind than partisanship. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for example, said that he’s not fighting Obamacare because it was in the best interest of New Jersey for its residents to have access to affordable healthcare.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Republican strategist eyes Alaska

Texas Republican strategist Chris Turner, with Stampede Consulting, has been in and out of town now for a few months. This time, however, he’s been in Alaska for nearly a week. With his wife and 11-year-old son, he’s here, ostensibly, for a vacation. And he has been on the usual vacation tour circuit: spotting bears in Denali, whales in Seward, etc, etc. . .

But any Republican strategist worth his spit would see a vacation in Alaska right now as more than just an opportunity to spot wildlife, as evidenced by the fact that he showed up at Speaker of the House John Boehner’s Anchorage fundraiser on Tuesday evening wearing a suit.

(The event was officially off the record, but I can report that Boehner lived up to his red wine drinking, cigarette smoking, weeping reputation. He actually wept during a speech.)

The U.S. Senate race is looming. The balance of power in the chamber may very well rest on how Alaskans vote. The technologically savvy, incredibly effective army of Obama Democrats will be setting up in force in the next year to ensure Sen. Mark Begich’s reelection. And the Republicans are not going to give up without a vicious fight.

“Alaska will be ground zero,” Turner said. Big money is coming to the state in a big way on both sides of the aisle. In addition to the Senate race, if the oil tax repeal makes it on the ballot, oil money will gush. If marijuana makes it, pot money will cloud the airwaves. “Alaskans have no idea what’s coming at them,” Turner said.

Then, depending on how the never-ending process known as redistricting is complete, there’s all those state candidates.

Turner doesn’t know who, or if, he’ll be working for. So far, former candidate Joe Miller and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell have announced they’ll take on Begich, DNR Commissioner Dan Sullivan is said to have been considering a run, but has recently flat out denied this.

What Turner does know, he said over lunch on Tuesday afternoon, is that whoever it is, he or she needs to have as powerful a ground game as the Democrats have, a ground game that will both challenge Begich on pressing the flesh and on the technological front.

The Dems have gained the ground-game advantage largely because of Obama’s team, which won in 2008 by organizing neighbor-to-neighbor contact, along with the most advanced get out the vote computer applications. That effort has continued to evolve and was deployed to breathtaking efficiency in 2012.

Begich will have all those tools at his disposal, tools that the Republicans have been dismal at deploying.

Team Romney was supposed to change that. His team promised that they had “the Republican Party’s newest, unprecedented and most technologically advanced plan to win the 2012 presidential election.”

That plan, dubbed “Project Orca,” turned into a nightmare. Everything about the system failed. Hundreds of thousands of campaign volunteers were foot-stomping frustrated, and that was before the system crashed on Election Day, leaving senior staff in Boston to tally votes on a calculator.

Turner, who worked on other presidential campaigns but sat out Romney’s, claims that he’s got the ground game answer. He’s coy about the specifics, and so is his decidedly unsophisticated website. But out of 100 races that he was involved with in the last election cycle, he claims to have won 92. (It should be noted that not all of the candidates were the most savory.)

If there’s a good candidate, Turner thinks he can help win the Senate seat for the Republicans.

That’s a big if, however. The only declared or potential candidate so far who has shown even a hint of the kind of tenacity that Begich has is, of all people, Joe Miller. And if Miller wins the Republican primary, Republicans across the land will cry big Boehner tears.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Healthcare hearing leaves things unsaid

Alaska state Rep. Lora Reinbold, who chairs the Administrative Regulation Review Committee, held an interesting if unbalanced hearing on the effect the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, is going to have on Alaska.

“Is Obamacare the best or worst thing to happen to the U.S.? That’s what our hearing is about; we want to learn the facts and clarify what is currently known about the program’s effects in Alaska,” she wrote in a press release announcing the hearing, two days before it was held.

Reinbold, a Republican from Eagle River, is not a supporter of the Affordable Care Act, and is a cosponsor of a joint legislative resolution to call on Congress to delay the implementation of the act.

Those testifying, all invited by the committee chair, included Deborah Erickson, the executive director of Alaska’s Health Care Commission, Jeff Davis who is president of Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, Division of Insurance Director Bret Kolb.

Dr. Ilona Farr, who is a primary care physician and who has been one of the state’s most vocal opponents of the ACA, also testified. She was the only health care provider who did so.

Alaska has the third highest cost of health care in the world and its citizens pay among the highest premiums rates for insurance in the country. At about 120,000 uninsured Alaskans, the state has among the highest rates of uninsured per capita in the country.

The committee didn’t invite patient advocates or anybody from the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, or any of their members including Providence Hospital or Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

Nobody from the public testified.

With the absence of those voices, it was difficult to get a balanced perspective on the Act and how it will affect such people and institutions, say nothing of what it would do to such people and institutions if Gov. Sean Parnell declines to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid.

It was a topic that those presenting only touched on, which was also surprising given that it is one of the few things about the Act in which the state has a voice.

In the other major area that the state could have had say—health exchanges—Parnell ceded the state’s voice and has allowed the feds to build Alaska’s exchange, which is supposed to be up and running by September. (Read more about exchanges here.)

The major take-away from the hearing, based on those testifying, was that health care costs are going to rise under the Act.

Farr, as she has done in the past, also spent much of her time talking about the negative impact that onerous regulations were going to have on doctors.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

How DOMA decision might affect married gay couples in Alaska

I was wrong when I wrote earlier that the Supreme Court’s decision on DOMA wouldn’t affect gay couples in Alaska. Joshua Decker, Director of ACLU in Alaska told me that gay couples who married in one of the 13 states which allowed gay marriage should be able to receive the same federal benefits – over 1,000 of them — as other married couples. (Read the full list here).

But in fact they might not receive all of them. “Same-sex couples who have married in, say, New York state, and moved to Alaska may find that they will get only some federal benefits, not all, because their marriage is not recognized in Alaska,” Decker said.

The issue might be the amount of state involvement in federal programs and benefits. Some such programs, like welfare and Medicaid, have strict federal guidelines. Other programs, like the Family Medical Leave Act, have more state involvement and defer more to state requirements.

Alaska Assistant Attorney General Cori Mills said that the Department of Law is still trying to get a grasp of the total ramifications of the ruling. What is clear, she said, is that Alaska law, which says that marriage is between a man and a woman, is still law.

We’ll see, but as Lyle Denniston from SCOTUSblog points out, the decision, related to benefits, “might be a particular problem for already-married gay couples serving in the military, who often have to move from state to state.”

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

DOMA’s done

From the SCOTUSblog, explaining in plain English what the striking down of DOMA means:

“The federal Defense of Marriage Act defines “marriage,” for purposes of over a thousand federal laws and programs, as a union between a man and a woman only. Today the Court ruled, by a vote of five to four, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, that the law is unconstitutional. The Court explained that the states have long had the responsibility of regulating and defining marriage, and some states have opted to allow same-sex couples to marry to give them the protection and dignity associated with marriage. By denying recognition to same-sex couples who are legally married, federal law discriminates against them to express disapproval of state-sanctioned same-sex marriage. This decision means that same-sex couples who are legally married must now be treated the same under federal law as married opposite-sex couples.”

Take note: Because gay marriage is constitutionally banned in Alaska, the law does nothing for the couple that Sen. Lisa Murkowski wrote about when she came out against DOMA. It only applies to couples in the 13 states that allow gay marriage.

The California ruling is a narrow one, and only allows gay marriage to go forward in that state.

Here’s what Murkowski said about the DOMA decision:

“I welcome today’s Supreme Court decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act because the federal government should empower households, respect the decisions of states and otherwise get out of the way. This ruling represents victories for states’ rights and equal treatment under the law.”

More reactions and excerpts on the decision throughout the day.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Silence from the right over Murkowski and gay marriage

Josh Barro writes in Business Insider about the deafening silence from the right following U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s statement in support of gay marriage. He finds nothing.

I too spent a good part of my day on Wednesday and this morning looking for reaction to Murkowski’s statement on gay marriage. Nadda. Not from the National Review. Not from the American Spectator. Not even from Joe Miller or Sarah Palin, neither of whom have been shy about taking shots at Murkowski.

Just a few years ago, the right would have been in an uproar and would have denounced Murkowski as a heretic.

Barrow suspects that “deep down, many socially conservative writers are less confident than they used to be that gay marriage is wrong. So they’ve abdicated any effort to argue against gay marriage or hold accountable Republicans who support it.”

I suspect that deep down, they know it’s a losing issue for them. And they are also jittery about being on the wrong side of history days before the U.S. Supreme Court is set announce one or both of its decisions on gay marriage.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

What goes on on high at the University of Alaska

Two and a half pages of a 49-page report about the 2011 assault of a UAA hockey player by the coach was released to the Anchorage Daily News on Wednesday. Although many in UAA’s administration knew about the assault –including UAA Chancellor Tom Case, and Vice Chancellor Bill Spindle –the investigation was only conducted after it was reported in the ADN and the community began to demand action.

While it’s hard to take too much from what was released, a few things are worth highlighting:

The report said that the coach Dave Shyiak “possibly” committed a misdemeanor assault but that charges will not be forwarded because it would be against the wishes of the victim.
Following the assault, the athletic department made a “very sparsely conducted” inquiry into the incident.
The investigator chalked the lack of inquiry up to the “lack of a Standard Operating Procedure.”
UAA, however, seems to dispute that. Kristin DeSmith, a UAA spokeswoman, said that anyone with a significant responsibility for student and campus activities is a “campus security authority” and is required by federal law to report a potential crime.

In other words, those who knew about it and didn’t report it might have violated federal law. That would include Case, Spindle and recently fired Athletic Director Steve Cobb.

Further, what’s been released so far appears to directly contradict the statement released by Case following Cobb’s firing. In that statement, Case said that he had spoken to the investigator, and was assured that the investigation “found no basis for recommending criminal charges against Coach Shyiak or anyone else.” And that Cobb “did in fact conduct a good faith review of the allegations at the time.”

Case also called the allegation “overstated.” (It should be noted that Cobb wasn’t fired because of the assault on his watch. He was fired, according to Case, because he had become a “distraction.”)

Either the investigator didn’t tell Case the truth about what he was finding, or Case lied to the public. In either case, someone should be held accountable.

But they likely won’t. It’s been 37 days since the assault was reported in the media, and not one member of university leadership, including any member of the Board of Regents, has yet to denounce the assault and ensure parents that their kid won’t get hit by a coach, a teacher, or secretary.

The University of Alaska’s motto is Ad Summum, meaning “To the Highest Point.” Sounds good, until your look at what goes on on high.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Quote of the day and the wisdom of Lisa Murkowski

On the same day that Sen. Lisa Murkowski came out for gay marriage, Exodus International, the oldest and largest Christian group that promoted “reparative therapy” in order to “cure” homosexuality, is closing its doors following a remarkable apology to the gay community by Exodus’ president Alan Chambers. Here’s a passage from that apology, but it’s worth reading in full:

“Please know that I am deeply sorry. I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents. I am sorry that there were times I didn’t stand up to people publicly “on my side” who called you names like sodomite—or worse. I am sorry that I, knowing some of you so well, failed to share publicly that the gay and lesbian people I know were every bit as capable of being amazing parents as the straight people that I know. I am sorry that when I celebrated a person coming to Christ and surrendering their sexuality to Him that I callously celebrated the end of relationships that broke your heart. I am sorry that I have communicated that you and your families are less than me and mine.

More than anything, I am sorry that so many have interpreted this religious rejection by Christians as God’s rejection. I am profoundly sorry that many have walked away from their faith and that some have chosen to end their lives. For the rest of my life I will proclaim nothing but the whole truth of the Gospel, one of grace, mercy and open invitation to all to enter into an inseverable relationship with almighty God.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski comes out for gay marriage

She’s the third Republican senator to come out for gay marriage. Read her op-ed in full below:

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The Pursuit of Happiness – Without Government Interference

Not too long ago, I had the honor of nominating an Alaskan family as “Angels in Adoption,” a celebration of the selflessness shown by foster care families and those who adopt children. They arrived in Washington, DC, a military family who had opened their doors to not one child but four siblings to make sure that these sisters and brother had the simplest gift you can give a child: a home together. We had lunch together, and they shared their stories with me. All the while, the children politely ate lunch and giggled as content youngsters do. Given my daily hectic Senate schedule, it’s not often that I get to sit down with such a happy family during a workday – and I think of them often, as everything our nation should encourage.

I bring them up because the partners were two women who had first made the decision to open their home to provide foster care to the eldest child in 2007. Years later – and after a deployment abroad with the Alaska National Guard for one of them – they embraced the joy and sacrifice of four adopted children living under the same roof, with smiles, laughter, movie nights, parent-teacher conferences and runny noses.

Yet despite signing up and volunteering to give themselves fully to these four adorable children, our government does not meet this family halfway and allow them to be legally recognized as spouses. After their years of sleepless nights, afterschool pickups and birthday cakes, if one of them gets sick or injured and needs critical care, the other would not be allowed to visit them in the emergency room – and the children could possibly be taken away from the healthy partner. They do not get considered for household health care benefit coverage like spouses nationwide. This first-class Alaskan family still lives a second-class existence.

The Supreme Court is set to make a pair of decisions on the topic of marriage equality shortly, and the national conversation on this issue is picking back up. This is a significant moment for our nation when it comes to rethinking our society’s priorities and the role of government in Americans’ private lives and decisions, so I want to be absolutely clear with Alaskans. I am a life-long Republican because I believe in promoting freedom and limiting the reach of government. When government does act, I believe it should encourage family values. I support the right of all Americans to marry the person they love and choose because I believe doing so promotes both values: it keeps politicians out of the most private and personal aspects of peoples’ lives – while also encouraging more families to form and more adults to make a lifetime commitment to one another. While my support for same sex civil marriage is something I believe in, I am equally committed to guaranteeing that religious freedoms remain inviolate, so that churches and other religious institutions can continue to determine and practice their own definition of marriage.

With the notion of marriage – an exclusive, emotional, binding ‘til death do you part’ tie – becoming more and more an exception to the rule given a rise in cohabitation and high rates of divorce, why should the federal government be telling adults who love one another that they cannot get married, simply because they happen to be gay? I believe when there are so many forces pulling our society apart, we need more commitment to marriage, not less.

This thinking is consistent with what I hear from more and more Alaskans especially our younger generations. Like the majority of Alaskans, I supported a constitutional amendment in 1998 defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, but my thinking has evolved as America has witnessed a clear cultural shift. Fifteen years after that vote, I find that when one looks closer at the issue, you quickly realize that same sex unions or civil marriages are consistent with the independent mindset of our state – and they deserve a hands-off approach from our federal policies.

First, this is a personal liberty issue and has to do with the most important personal decision that any human makes. I believe that, as Americans, our freedoms come from God and not government, and include the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What could be more important to the pursuit of happiness than the right to choose your spouse without asking a Washington politician for permission? If there is one belief that unifies most Alaskans – our true north – it is less government and more freedom. We don’t want the government in our pockets or our bedrooms; we certainly don’t need it in our families.

Secondly, civil marriage also touches the foundation of our national culture: safe, healthy families and robust community life. In so many ways, sound families are the foundation of our society. Any efforts or opportunity to expand the civil bonds and rights to anyone that wants to build a stable, happy household should be promoted.

Thirdly, by focusing on civil marriage — but also reserving to religious institutions the right to define marriage as they see fit — this approach respects religious liberty by stopping at the church door. As a Catholic, I see marriage as a valued sacrament that exists exclusively between a man and a woman. Other faiths and belief systems feel differently about this issue – and they have every right to. Churches must be allowed to define marriage and conduct ceremonies according to their rules, but the government should not tell people who they have a right to marry through a civil ceremony.

I recently read an interview where Ronald Reagan’s daughter said that she believes he would have supported same-sex marriage, that he would think “What difference does it make to anybody else’s life? I also think because he wanted government out of peoples’ lives, he would not understand the intrusion of government banning such a thing. This is not what he would have thought government should be doing.”

Like Reagan, Alaskans believe that government works best when it gets out of the way. Countless Alaskans and Americans want to give themselves to one another and create a home together. I support marriage equality and support the government getting out of the way to let that happen.

The politics of PRISM and fear

You know your life has taken a strange turn when you find yourself searching for a statesman among our federal delegation only to increasingly find yourself looking U.S. Rep. Don Young in the eye.

You also know your life has taken a strange turn when you, a consistent critic of federal investigative powers and the judicial branch, finds herself defending the government’s attempt to protect its citizens.

I’m referring to the National Security Agency’s phone surveillance program, which has caused near mass hysteria across the country, hysteria that both of Alaska’s U.S. senators have done nothing to quell and in fact appear to be exacerbating for political gain.

By now, most have heard of the recently exposed program dubbed PRISM in which the government is collecting huge amounts of data from phone records in an attempt to find patterns in order to thwart terrorism attacks. It appears that PRISM was voted on in the 2008 reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted for.

The situation is constantly evolving, but this is what we know now: the government program pertains only to the date, length, and phone numbers involved in each call. Sen. Mark Begich told millions of Americans on Fox News that the program allows the government to tap the phones of millions of Americans.

That’s not true. The program does not give the government carte blanche to listen into our calls.

Let me repeat this because our senators aren’t doing so: The program does not allow the government to listen into the phone calls or even gather information about the phone number or who it belongs to. If the government then finds a troublesome pattern in the phone calls and wants to find out what is being said, it then requests a warrant from the FISA court, a court established in 1978 to authorize government wiretaps in foreign intelligence investigations.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of reasons to be distrustful of governmental overreach. Not long ago, Alaskans got a front-row seat to what happens when the government wants you and will stop at nothing to get you. And the late Sen. Ted Stevens was just one high profile example of that overreach which many more are victim to. Our prisons are full of low level drug dealers who are spending decades behind bars because some overzealous prosecutor wants a win on his record. Idealistic environmentalists are being charged as terrorists and spending much of their lives in prison under terrorism laws for nothing more than property damage. And our executive branch is ordering the firing of missiles at U.S. citizens and killing them without any legal proceedings.

In comparison, from what we know about the program, PRISM seems downright benign.

According to Michael Hayden, the former head of NSA under President George Bush, this is how the program works:

“So, you roll up something in Waziristan. You get a cell phone. It’s the first time you’ve ever had that cell phone number. You know it’s related to terrorism because of the pocket litter you’ve gotten in that operation…you simply ask that database, hey, any of you phone numbers in there ever talked to this phone number in Waziristan?”

In other words, someone from a terrorism network in Waziristan is calling, say, me. And the NSA wants to know if I’ve been calling any other numbers that might be connected to that terrorism network. This database of information allows it to do that. It could, perhaps go to the FISA court with a warrant to listen to future calls, but it wouldn’t have had the ability to look retroactively at calls that I might have made.

Google is able to discern that last week I was coveting lululemon’s yoga pants. Yahoo knows that two days ago (heaven help me) I clicked on a story about Bristol Palin’s imminent appearance on a reality show. But the government shouldn’t know that last week I got a call from a terrorism network in Waziristan and then the month before, called someone who was connected to the same network in Waziristan who is visiting his cousin in California?

In fact, I would be appalled if I found out that the government had the ability to track such calls and didn’t do so to thwart a terrorism attack. And so would much of the rest of the country if that Waziristan cousin lobbed a bomb in California with my assistance.

Murkowski has sent out press releases criticizing the program. “Alaskans believe the government has no business snooping around our property, our library books, our phone calls or e-mails — and that our privacy rights are guaranteed by the Constitution,” she wrote. “Our investment in protecting American lives and liberties simultaneously is not a blank check.”

She goes on to defend her rather mixed record in protecting privacy.

Though it’s true that she has voted for and against various amendments and against various Patriot Act reauthorization bills, it’s also true that she voted for the original Patriot Act and also the bill in 2008 that allowed this program.

Begich’s hands are cleaner on this. He has consistently voted against the Patriot Act, has spoken loudly about privacy and is cosponsor of what seems to be a much needed bill that would make the FISA courts more transparent. However, he, like Murkowski, is doing little to educate the public on the program and what it does and doesn’t do. Instead, both seem intent on fomenting fear for political gain.

“Alaskans have a right to know why information about their personal communications is being monitored,” Begich said.

If there’s one thing that’s clear and that’s been stated repeatedly it is that the information is being used to stop people from harming us. Begich knows this. So does Murkowski. And they both know how the program works.

Back to Young the statesman. He, like Begich, has been consistent in his opposition to the Patriot Act. However, he has so far declined to make that an issue, nor to join with the rest of the crew in spreading fear.

Though not his usual modus operandi, as of this writing Young has stayed silent on the matter. His spokesperson said that he’s waiting to gather more information before he speaks on it.

Young’s waiting to gather information so he actually knows what he’s talking about and perhaps will be able to do what he was elected to do: tell the public the truth, instead of beating the drums of demagoguery

Contact Amandamcoyne@yahoo.com

Thank God it’s Friday’s random facts

THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS: The median age in the Wade Hampton Census Area is 22.5. The median age in the Anchorage census area is 39. Percentage of persons living below poverty in the Wade Hampton area is 30 percent. Percentage of persons living below poverty in the Anchorage area is 7.9 percent. Source: U.S. Census.

SPOILS OF OIL: Of the $170 billion Alaska’s oil patch has provided the state since 1978, the state has spent $125 billion and saved $45 biilion. Source: University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research.

YOUR NOSE GROWS WHEN YOU LIE? That’s not true, however, your nose’s temperature does increase every time you tell a lie, according to thermal-imaging studies conducted by researchers in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Granada in Spain. (Which possibly means the collective nose temperature of Congress could boil water). Source : AARP.

ALASKA’S PER CAPITA INCOME RANK IN THE U.S. In 2012, Alaska ranked 10th in the United States in terms of per capita income. The average per capita income in Alaska was $46,778.00. Source: Bureau of Business and Economic Research, University of New Mexico.

DO YOU BELONG TO THIS CLUB? In 2012, six million U.S. households out of some 118.5 million had $1 million or more in investable or liquid assets (excluding sponsored retirement plans or real estate), Nationally, this represents about 5 percent of all households. In Alaska, there are 6.47 percent of the state’s households which hit this level. Source : Phoenix Marketing International.

FREE ENTERPRISE ISN’T FREE: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $136.3 million last year lobbying Congress, spending more than three times as much for such as the next biggest trade association. The chamber’s president is paid an annual salary of $4.9 million. Overall, the Chamber operates on a budget of $1 miilion a day / $5 million per week. Source: New York Times.

NUCLEAR NUTS: China, Pakistan and India have increased their nuclear weapons by about 10 warheads each. Meanwhile, the United States and Russia continue their disarmament as prescribed by treaty. The U.S. reduced its number of warheads to 7,700 from 8,000, and Russia cut its arsenal from 10,000 to 8,500 warheads. Source: The Stockholm International Peace. Research Institute.

THE FIRST ZIP CODE: By governmental edict, the residents of the Pribilof Islands were directed to spell their names according to which island they lived. St. George residents were ordered to spell their name with one f and the residents of St. Paul spelled their names with two fs. So, residents if St. George spelled their names : Lekanof, Merculief, Philemonof. And the residents of St. Paul : Lekanoff, Merculieff, Philemonoff, etc. Source: Pribilof residents.

NOBODY TOLD THE RESIDENTS OF THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS ABOUT THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION: The residents of the Pribilof Islands, under a trilateral agreement between the United States, Japan and Russia, served as indentured servants to harvest the fur seals which were indigenous to St. George and St. Paul up until 1959. Source: Century of Servitude: Pribilof Aleuts Under United States Rule, by Dorothy Knee Jones.

PAY OR PAY FOR ELECTRICITY: Unless the State of Alaska chips in for the cost to build the Susitna-Watana dam, the retail rate for Susitna power in 2024 for Railbelt customers will be about 40 cents per kilowatt-hour. In comparison, it will be about 21 cents per kilowatt-hour if utilities provide the electricity using natural gas. If the state pitches in $5 billion—or roughly $15,000 per family of three Railbelt residents—the cost of electricity from the dam will go down to about 23 cents per kilowatt-hour. Source: University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research.

NICE GOVERNMENT PARKING PERKS: Amount paid by state workers in Albany, New York for a covered, reserved parking space: $108.00 a month. Amount they pay for a covered non-reserved space: $54.00 a month. Amount paid by Alaska state workers for a covered, reserved or unreserved parking space working in the Atwood Building in Anchorage $0. Source: Offices of General Services, New York.

PAYING FOR THEIR SWEET PARKING SPOTS: Estimated total amount the tax payer will pay for the Atwood parking lot: $77 million with interest.

Not an Onion headline: Unwed Bristol Palin to be on Celebrity Wife Swap

“I just think that God provides opportunities like this, and you can either go out and do them or not do them,” said Bristol Palin when asked why she would continually submit herself to criticism by appearing on the second season of Dancing with the Stars.

Apparently, God continues to giveth and God taketh away. Baby daddy’s for one. Dignity for another. Here’s the latest:

Reality-TV staple Bristol Palin (daughter of Sarah, of course) and comedienne/plastic surgery connoisseur Joan Rivers will trade households on “Swap,” with Joan and daughter Melissa bundling up and heading to chilly Wasilla, Alaska for a week, and Bristol and sister Willow moving into Joan’s Hollywood home. (Didn’t we already see Bristol try to make it in L.A., you ask? Yes, it was called “Bristol Palin: Life’s a Tripp,” and no one watched.)

Cost of opting out of Medicaid expansion

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, originally sought to coerce states into expanding Medicaid to everyone who makes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. States that refused to go along with the expansion would have been denied federal Medicaid funding. However, in the Supreme Court ruling that upheld health reform, the justices also found that such coercion was unconstitutional. Now, the states can decide whether or not to enact the Medicaid expansion.

Alaska is one of seven states that is still deciding. Thirteen have opted out and Iowa is trying to create its own policy.

Most governors of the states that have either opted out of the expansion or are undecided, including Gov. Sean Parnell, have cited costs of expansion.

But a recent study by Rand Corp. published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs calculates the impact of the states opting out of the Medicaid expansion, and finds that opting in is good fiscal policy:

With fourteen states opting out, we estimate that 3.6 million fewer people would be insured, federal transfer payments to those states could fall by $8.4 billion, and state spending on uncompensated care could increase by $1 billion in 2016, compared to what would be expected if all states participated in the expansion. These effects were only partially mitigated by alternative options we considered. We conclude that in terms of coverage, cost, and federal payments, states would do best to expand Medicaid.

Currently, about 125,000 Alaskans are without insurance. Because health care is so expensive here — more expensive than anywhere else in the country — many who are insured only have catastrophic coverage. Medicaid expansion in Alaska would cover roughly 32,000 Alaskans by 2014, the time when the Medicaid provision of the law would be enacted. The federal government will cover all of the costs of that expansion for the first five years. By 2020, the states will pick up about 10 percent of the costs.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com