Akidis: Lock Him Up

It is a great day for Alaska politics. According to this ADN article, former Rep. Tom Anderson was convicted of all 7 charges brought against him. I, for one, will be celebrating when they take him away. Anderson said,

"The prosecution has criminalized being a legislator over this
past year. And I think I fell victim to that," he said.

Lock up the bastard. As a mother, I can't help but think about his wife, Sen. McGuire, and their kid. My advice to Anderson is don't say anything that you wouldn't want your kid to read when a teenager. You know it will happen eventually.

Happy Alaska Flag Day

According to the Gavel to Gavel website, today is Alaska Flag Day. This comes from 50states.com:

Alaska adopted the flag for official state use in 1959. The blue field represents the sky, the sea, and mountain lakes, as well as Alaska's wildflowers. Emblazoned on the flag are eight gold stars: seven from the constellation Ursa Major, or the Big Dipper. The eighth being the North Star, representing the northern most state. Alaska's flag was designed in 1926 by a 13-year-old Native American boy, Bennie Benson, from the village of Chignik. Bennie received a 1,000-dollar scholarship and a watch for his winning entry in the flag design contest.

From ASP

Happy Independence Day! What better time to display Old Glory (or at least this early version of it) than today? The webpage from which it is found, has several different early flags of the American Revolution with brief explanations of them below. Read it, and remember. Memory may be the most important part of politics. It's a shame we don't use it properly.

Gara Criticizes House Leadership and, uh, half of the Senate Bipolar Leadership

In this ADN article, with regard to Governor Palin's budget spending, Representative Gara spins it thus:

Some Democrats, who had urged the governor to veto
some of the projects, hailed Palin’s broad cuts. “The Republican
leadership went on a spending spree,” said Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat from
Anchorage. “The state can’t afford a $1.8 billion pet-project budget.”
Gara said he agreed with Palin’s calls for more public involvement in the
budget-writing process. “Instead of writing the budget in someone’s
office, there should be public testimony to defend what projects are being
requested,” Gara said.

Somebody screwed up. Either Rep. Gara got his talking points mixed up, or Sabra Ayres, the reporter, didn't get the memo. Rep. Gara fails to mention that the number two man in the Senate is a man from his own party, Sen. Hoffman (yes, Hoffman alone is number two. Sen. Stedman, unfortunately, is an empty three-piece suit).

Frankly, I expected more from Rep. Gara. He is usually more on top of things. After all, he was routinely seen meeting last session with fellow Democrats from the House and Senate in the Juneau restaurant The Zephyr, on Seward Street, and no, I don't think it was an open caucus.

It's all a show anyway. Does anyone really think Les Gara is concerned with keeping a Conservative budget? If you do, I have a bridge to sell to you.

ASP Listed on RedState.com

Well, it looks like some folks down in America have noticed ASP. The website has been listed at Red State under their directory of "State Blogs." That sounds great, but I wish they would get the title right.

This turn of events has reminded me to reiterate a point: ASP doesn't attempt to stay within party lines. It strives for the truth, whoever is saying it. I'm not an avid reader of Red State, but a surface observation of the website demonstrates that they are willing to point out the blemishes of someone's policy, no matter what party they are from. And they make no qualms that they affirm at least some of the values of the Republican party platform.

Back in the Saddle

(Mat-Su Valley) After a hiatus of several months, ASP is back. Jellaby Baumgartner, editor of ASP, apologized to those who made the effort to check in with the website on a regular basis, only to be left hanging with no explanation. Because of previous travel commitments, Jellaby was unable to continue posting, and Akidis was “unable or unwilling” to manage the website alone in his absence. But, Jellaby is back for good, and says his priorities are now “correctly ranked.”

Jellaby commented on the tidal wave of news that took place in his absence. “There’s a lot that’s been going on, for sure. It’s a hell of a lot of ground covered,” he said. “That’ll teach me to never turn my back on what’s happening in the legislature. Alaska is never a boring place. I did manage to keep up with some of the AGIA issues while I was gone, though I plan to do a thorough review of the bill soon.”

Jellaby says he plans to stay in state indefinitely. “I have no plans to travel over the next year, which is good because the year is turning busy. The PNWER conference, education spending, gas tax this fall: Hold on tight.”

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Akidis: Unbelievable

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she is using valuable spots on the US Energy Council as an educational program for underdeveloped and uneducated legislators, Lyda now refuses to pay the way of Senators who plan to travel to the US Energy Council conference in DC this month. Even the Senators from her Bipolar Working Group will be required to pay from their own pocket for this important conference.

"Attending is optional," Green said. "In years past, we had 10 or 12
legislators who went, and the Legislature practically shut down. I would
rather see us continue working."

Unbelievable. It’s not optional for Alaska, Lyda. This isn’t New Jersey. We’re talking about the US Energy Council, not the National Farm Bureau.
The timing of this debacle could not have been worse. Even now, the federal community doubts whether Alaska can pull off a gasline (here, here, and here). According to the Alaska Journal of Commerce, a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission expressed concern over whether a gasline will be built.

A key state lawmaker, House Majority Leader Ralph Samuels, said he is
concerned that the FERC report to Congress may be paving the way for more
aggressive action by the federal government in pushing the state.
Federal laws enacted by Congress in 2004 require a study of a possible takeover of the
project by the federal government. That study, by the U.S. Department of Energy,
is currently underway.

Maybe Lyda thinks this is one of those evil divisive ideological issues that Sen. Ellis talked about in his creed. While Uncle Fed is salivating over Alaska’s resources, Lyda continues to play games with the future of one of Alaska’s most valuable resources. The only thing worse than poor leadership is incompetent leadership.