Columns 2016

Given the shenanigans of our current Legislature, it’s sometimes hard to decide which of their actions makes the average Alaskan most crazy. For instance, they are now into the second week of their special session and the utter silence emanating from Juneau is deafening. Yet they are getting paid better for that silence than you will ever be for working your butt off.

Maybe Alaskans have become so accustomed to corrupt officials that it doesn’t even faze us anymore when a legislator does something sleazy. In fact, this one particular sleazy issue goes a long way towards getting Alaska ranked Continue reading →

I hear the Alaska legislature is in special session trying to do what it couldn’t do in the regular session or the extended session. But it’s so quiet down in Juneau I have to wonder if they’re really there or just faking us out. Someone should knock on the chamber door and see if anyone is home.

On second thought, isn’t this the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. They couldn’t differentiate their asses from a hole in the ground for the first four months. Why do we think a Continue reading →

Here’s the lines in Senator Kevin Meyer’s Sunday opinion piece that actually made me spit up a bit. “After hearing a ‘budget first’ mantra all year, the governor chose to include issues on the special session ranging from insurance to foster care guidelines. These issues are important but are they urgent compared to addressing the $4.1 billion deficit and impending flurry of pink slips?” He goes on to moan and whine about how it’s all the fault of the governor and the Democrats despite the fact that his party controls both Alaska Houses.

So let’s take a look at some reality here. If in fact Mr. Meyer has been hearing a budget first mantra all year, why don’t we have a budget? Lest there be any doubt, all of us here in the hinterlands heard that mantra. We simply couldn’t figure out how supposedly intelligent legislators managed to work for four months and still come up looking surprised that they accomplished absolutely nothing.

The sun is shinning, the trees are blooming, the flowers are blossoming, so it must be baby bird season.

Baby birds are not terribly cute except in a “so ugly they’re cute” fashion. The first thing you think when you see a featherless baby bird is dinosaur. Because this is exactly what a naked little baby bird looks like.  Birds are descendants of the dinosaurs that once roamed this earth.

So this is what it’s come to. Statesmanship, patriotism, the welfare of our country, not giving the button to nuclear weapons to a reality star… all this goes by the wayside because party unity and hating the Clintons is more important. I have been disappointed in our congressional delegation many times in the past but this time is the worse. They are all uniting behind Donald Trump because they believe defeating Hillary Clinton is more important than electing someone with even a modicum of credentials for the job of United States President.

This is like a patient asking for someone who just got a nurse’s assistant diploma from DeVry University to do their open-heart surgery because they don’t like the highly credentialed surgeon available for the procedure.