Rocketing for Rural Alaska
And Question of the Week: Do you support a sales tax for Alaska?
Good morning from Somewhere in Alaska!
If you love space stuff, you can watch the launch as a rerun on YouTube: The Space X Falcon Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral finally launched Sunday evening from Cape Canaveral and is deposited Astranis's first MicroGEO satellite in orbit for Alaska, all 800 pounds of it. There had been a week’s worth of delays, including tornado warnings, lightning strikes and satellites that were in the way of the trajectory.
“Our Alaska project is coming to fruition today,” said Anchorage’s Shawn Williams, vice president of government affairs and strategy. “This new, ubiquitous middle mile allows the telecoms and other providers throughout Alaska to connect communities that have never been connected. Alaska is getting a lot of money for fiber buildouts, too. It’s going to take three to seven years for everyone to get their buildouts done and there will still be areas that are not connected with fiber. If there’s a telecom that has a fiber award in their hands, they can build out their last mile first in the community and use this technology to get people connected within a month or two. Whenever the fiber shows up, they can use this satellite middle mile option as a backup and have fiber as the primary. What we don’t want to see is people waiting seven years to get the Internet.”
Williams said we can expect it to be through testing and into service for rural Alaska by August.
Legislature on the clock
Happy May Day! The Legislature has 17 days to complete its work, but last week the governor signaled that he may call a special session to consider a state sales tax, something that has some level of support, in leadership at least, in both the House and Senate.
Public testimony opportunities for Monday and Tuesday
Among bills moving are laws such as stiffer penalties for drug dealers, more oil taxes, and the ability to hide marijuana convictions from the public eye. The list of bills that committees are holding public hearings on is here.
Repeal ranked choice? On Tuesday, a hearing on a repeal bill for ranked choice voting. The Left is mobilizing to be heard.
Too effective? Bernadette Wilson is out at Americans for Prosperity
The news of a change at the top of Alaska’s chapter was a surprise to the many volunteers who have been moving the needle on issues.
Coincidence? Wilson cut from AFP & defined benefits bill quickly moves
This is one of the key bills that Bernadette Wilson has been opposing, and in less than one business day of her removal from AFP, it moved out of committee to Finance.
Murkowski votes against reinstating back pay for firefighters
They refused the Covid vaccine, were fired, and now Sen. Rand Paul has a bill to give them justice, and reparations for wrongful termination. But four Republicans said no.
Question of the Week: Do you support a state sales tax?
Sunday’s Daily Caller column
The hypocrisy is stunning. Democrats want slaves in China to provide America with solar panels and parts we could produce here in America.
Sullivan shelter update
The Sullivan Arena closes as a shelter for the hardest-to-serve homeless, the male folk who won’t follow rules of traditional shelters, so have been sleeping in the open arena of what used to be a concert and sports venue. It’s the season when the tents will show up in the greenbelts once again, even as the city keeps buying up hotels and housing the homeless at expenditures that are between $30,000 and $80,000 per homeless client per year, with tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on the ever-growing homeless population in Alaska’s largest city.
Army orders stand down of aviators for safety training
The last time the Army ordered a stand-down of this scale was in 2015, when three deadly helicopter accidents occurred within 10 days, according to Army Times. Everybody is going to take a minute to focus.
Fish, family, freedom, flushables
Some things aren’t what they say they are. Rep. Mary Peltola has cosponsored legislation to stop flushables from being flushed because they clog up the system.
Death of print news
Weekend edition of the Juneau Empire was the last to be printed in Juneau. Hope it was a collector’s edition.
New federal rule charges higher fees to home buyers with good credit
The money good-credit borrowers pay is used to underwrite the loans of those with poor credit. If anyone ever asks you for the current woke definition of equity, this is it — ensuring equal outcome, no matter what.
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Passing: Christine Hutchison, Kenai activist
Christine testified, ran for office, wrote letters, ran meetings, and was an officer in the Republican Party of Alaska.
Bronson makes small vetoes in the big budget
Nothing the Anchorage Assembly should normally fuss over, but since they hold the cards, in 3-2-1…
This day in history
May 1,1889, May Day, traditionally a celebration of the return of spring, marked by dancing around a Maypole, it was taken over as a socialist holiday by the International Socialist Congress.
Columns
Jim Minnery: Politics is weird, but Alaska’s gender politics is at a whole new level
Recently, HB 99, a bill to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the State’s anti-discrimination list, made it out of two House Committees with help from Republicans Justin Ruffridge from Soldotna and Jesse Sumner from Wasilla. Interestingly, those are the two most conservative leaning areas of the state.
Win Gruening: Dick Knapp, RIP
On Jan. 2, 2023, Admiral Richard J. Knapp, 93, crossed the bar in Haines, Alaska. Our nation and, as Win writes, our state lost a loyal servant and a true patriot.
Downing: Republicans in Congress vote to end solar panel carve out for communists
But our own Mary Peltola is a nay vote, sticking with the pro-slavery policy of the Democrats.
Rick Whitbeck: Senate Bill 114 is reactionary, anti-energy, and anti-Alaska economy
Same song, different day. Alaska’s legislators are about to overhaul the state’s oil tax laws based on the worst government policy known to man: the need for more spending money.
Jay McDonald: Anchorage School District is marred by culture of secrecy
There is a controversy stirring around Robert Service High School, but parents eager to make sense of what their children are telling them have been left with more questions than answers by the slow and tight-lipped Anchorage School District.
Art Chance: Alaska at brink of helter-skelter
Economy, utopian greenies, government workers — it’s all looking like a royal collapse is coming.
Linda Boyle: The Covid cult continues
In some schools in America, they are still masking children at school, harming these kids three years after the pandemic was declared, possibly irreparably.
Downing’s Sunday Daily Caller column
The Democrats, ActBlue, the FEC, and the mainstream media are pretending ActBlue isn’t the biggest grift in campaign history.
Rick Whitbeck: If Chugach Electric board goes woke, we go broke
There are three candidates being pushed by the Alaska Center for the Environment. Conservatives need to know they intend to shut off the gas.
Alaska oil: $80.27
Henry Hub gas: $2.41
Alaska North Slope Production: 489,673
Permanent Fund (principal and earnings reserve): $76,772,900,000
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