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Troopers took Colony Middle School principal for mental evaluation, but…
The court order to have a school principal taken in for a psychological evaluation was faked. The Troopers, after reflecting on the veracity of the document for a few days, and following their instincts about how Principal Fulp seemed of sound mind to them, said they could not even get the Alaska Court System to confirm that it was real or fake.
You read that right. The dangers of red flag laws.
Kudos to the Alaska State Troopers and Dept. of Public Safety for being transparent about what happened.
Journalist: Peltola called Capitol Police on Laura Loomer
Congresswoman from Alaska was being led by her husband to their chauffeured limo, when they encountered a known muckraker and her microphone. Watch the video of what happened.
Budget problems? What budget problems?
University of Alaska Anchorage shuts down academic programs, opens up a Pride Center. A place of their own.
Again? Anchorage Municipal Attorney resigns
This is the third attorney the mayor has had in his tenure. A few key members of his administration have left or have one foot out the door. Trouble in paradise.
Governor’s state of the state address: Thank you to Alaska’s heroes
There have been storms, fires, earthquakes, pandemics, and a lot of Alaskans who have stepped up to do the right thing these past four years. Read his speech.
Analysis: The State of the State address was a big pro-life message
The governor says the state needs more, not fewer babies. You know what to do.
Legislative bits and pieces
Hold the date for Tuesday Feb. 7 at 11 am, when the Legislature will hear Sen. Dan Sullivan speak to joint session.
Looking for your legislator’s phone number or room number in Juneau? Here’s the list.
Sen. Mike Shower has been sworn in and attended the State of the State Address on Monday. Still no word what held him up for nearly a week.
House Rules Chair Craig Johnson has moved Rep. Zack Fields up to the front row of the chamber, so he can sit next to Rep. Cal Schrage. Although Schrage is not a Democrat, he leads the Democrat minority caucus and Fields is whispering his assistance, since Schrage is still somewhat of a rookie at all this.
Senate Finance: When the committee meets today, it will get a presentation on the state budget by Neil Steininger, director of OMB. The slide deck is here.
Senate State Affairs: If you question whether the Alaska Senate went off the rails, look no further than the State Affairs Committee, chaired by Democrat Sen. Scott Kawasaki, which started off the year with invited presentations by the people who brought you ranked choice voting.
Alaskans for Better Elections, including attorney Scott Kendall, and Sightline Institute, another dark money group, gave a glowing report on Tuesday. Also Democracy Rising reps were invited to give a presentation on how well ranked choice voting went in Alaska. They love it!
You can watch the presentation here, but the committee didn't post the slide presentation in the document tab at www.akleg.gov, so the public does not have access. Republican committee chairs could never get away with that.
SNAP benefits are not a snap: Commissioner Heidi Hedberg explained to Senate Health and Social Services why the SNAP benefits have been so slow to go out: “There’s sort of three high-level causes for the backlog, and that’s due to the legacy IT systems, a cyber attack that delayed the planned improvements to those IT systems, and the burden of the pandemic that required additional manual processing of benefits to eligible Alaskans.”
She was referring to a May, 2021 cyber attack on the department that hasn’t yet been fully resolved. It currently takes over 40 minutes to process a single application using the old COBAL computer language system from the ice ages they had to revert to.
Send a message to all legislators: This link will allow you to send a 50-word message to all legislators.
Sound bytes from Senate Finance on Monday
Sen. Bert Stedman: “ Don’t be surprised if the committee wants to look at revenue anticipation notes to make payroll.” Borrowing to make payroll would be shocking, and not really practical. Law requires the Revenue commissioner certify that Revenue Anticipation Notes will be paid back within 12 months, otherwise they’d be selling debt without going to the voters.
Stedman: “The sacred cow that wasn’t mentioned is the ER (earnings reserve) of the PF (Permanent Fund).” He then said that going to the Earnings Reserve account for cash flow doesn’t cut it with the public.
Stedman: “We’re looking at negative appropriations that are relatively harmless.” He said they are not looking at the University, the Marine Highway or Power Cost Equalization if they need money to meet payroll at the end of the (fiscal) year.
Stedman: “Once you run out of cash, then oil prices go down, you might as well turn the lights off, so let’s come up with a better solution here at the table.”
Sen. Donny Olson: The way the House is acting, the vote may not be there to access the Constitutional Budget Reserve (paraphrasing here).
Daylight comes to Utqiagvik
It’s been a long, dark spell, but the sun comes back eventually in the farthest northern town in America. Almanac stuff of dreams.
COLUMNS
Rick Whitbeck: A neighbor weaponizes climate change
The cultists won’t leave our kids alone. One dad started talking trash about another dad who defends jobs and the economy for a living. This parent isn’t standing for it.
Linda Boyle: The battle for back pay continues for our warriors
Those who refused the Covid shots are still hung out to dry.
Alex Gimarc: The lying liars who lied on Ballot Measure 2
The Legislature needs to repeal it, but Alaskans for Better Elections is running an ad campaign telling Alaskans just how much they love ranked choice voting. Alaskans for Better Elections is all dark money.
Win Gruening: Juneau Assembly review of dock proposal raises questions of conflict
The Assembly’s anxiety about major city waterfront development is understandable but that should not interfere with evaluating and approving private projects like this. Unfortunately, the default position at the city is, “how can we throttle this project back?”
Patrick LeMay: My business was libeled by Ship Creek Group blog
Business owner in Anchorage sets the record straight after being accused of wrongdoing by a leftist political consultancy’s blog. The dustup at City Hall involves the Tshibaka family.
Fritz Pettyjohn: What divides us — beer and wine
A thousand generations ago, in the pivotal event of societal evolution, beer was invented. With beer, men were domesticated.
MUST READ ALASKA SHOW
Tune in to hear Kelly Tshibaka talk about her new nonprofit that will educate the American public about the reality of Ranked Choice Voting.
Tune into the Must Read Alaska Show for an interview with Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel. You can watch it here on Facebook.
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