Will Dunleavy’s Budget Lower Alaska’s Carbon Footprint?

Alaskans use more energy per capita than residents of any other US state.*  Much of the total energy use comes from the development of oil and gas, which is part of the total divided by the population to get average/person.  However, Alaskans are also dependent on most food and goods being shipped in from Outside.  So the transportation costs for those goods mean we use more energy than others in the US.

So, with Dunleavy’s massive cuts, there is surely going to be an equally massive out-migration from the state.  For people losing their jobs, an extra $1000 in PFD isn’t going to pay the mortgage, rent, or other expenses.  Most will not find equivalent jobs in Alaska and will find much better opportunities Outside.

So Alaska’s carbon footprint is likely to go down.  

That’s the silver lining, thin as it might be.

While the blog has focused on Argentina lately, I have been paying attention to Alaska’s summer of heat, fire, and dire budgetary actions.

I watch with dismay [unlike a number of politicians and social media agitators, I tend to understate things] as Alaskans throw logic on the Dunleavy fire, thinking that will make a difference to him.  Logic has already turned those Republicans in the legislature who are not immune to it, and the same for everyday Alaskans.


But it’s my sense of all this that logic has no effect on Dunleavy.  Well, not the logic that starts with assumptions that Alaska matters.   He’s solely listening to his Outside financiers whose agenda is to exploit the resources of Alaska (and anywhere else with exploitable resources) with no concern for the impacts on the state, the climate, or people.  Their Ayn Randian beliefs are that their personal self-interest is all that matters.  They assume their wealth can shield them from the worst of the remnants of a once civilized society.

So, destroying the university is a good thing for them.  It means that there is no independent intellectual, scientific base in Alaska that is capable of raising questions about resource extraction policies, or to question industry reports saying that ‘no harm will be done.’

Cutting government watchdog agencies is good too.  The fewer government employees watching over corporate compliance, the more corporations can get away with.  The cruise ship on-board inspector program, which cost the state nothing, was vetoed out of existence.  So cruise lines can illegally pollute all they want without anyone watching.

Today’s Anchorage Daily News says the department that oversees the  development of the natural gas pipeline is cutting half its staff.  Let’s see how well they’ll be able to spot problems down the line.  Remember when Shell included stuff on manatees in their Chukchi Sea environmental impact statements?  They’d just lifted the language from EIS from Florida.  And it got through the first round of regulators as I recall.

The Koch brothers are making a hostile takeover of Alaska.  This is about power.  The ability to get done what they want.  Logic plays no role.  Well, that’s not quite true.  Their logic is about what they can get away with.  It has completely different assumptions than the logic of most Alaskans.  Their logic is about making as much money as they can, with no concerns about Alaska.  The appeals of all the Alaskans hurt by the cuts are irrelevant to them.  They’re reveling in their power a)  to destroy Alaska as we know it and b) to then exploit it freely.  

And as for Alaska’s carbon footprint?  With increased oil, gas, and other mineral extraction, there may well be an increase despite the people who leave the state.


*The assertion that Alaskans have a larger carbon footprint first came to me in an article by a close relative that looked at the alliance of some environmental groups with anti-immigration groups based on the logic that when poor immigrants come from Central American use more carbon in the US than they did at home, and thus they shouldn’t be let into the country.  That, of course, begs the question about US residents’ moral entitlement to use more carbon than their southern neighbors.  The article also raised the issue of Alaskans using even more carbon  than average US residents.   The link unfortunately only goes to an abstract - I haven’t found free access to the whole article.  People with UAA or Loussac library cards should be able to get access to the article.

Alaska Gov On Koch

Given that our governor got most of his funding from Outside of Alaska;
And that his deputy chief of staff set up the Koch funded Americans for Prosperity Alaska chapter;
And that his budget director is an imported budget cutter who has presented us with a disastrous budget;
He refuses to consider even the possibility of any new taxes;
Or to consider cutting tax credits to oil companies that are almost equal to the gap in the budget


I can't help but conclude:

Signs Of Our Discontent - Rally Outside Americans For Prosperity's Private 'Public Meeting"

Background:  The Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy introduced a budget that cuts almost everything drastically.  He recently announced public meetings across the state to meet with Alaskans on the budget.  We quickly learned that Koch funded Americans for Prosperity had organized and was running the meetings.  One had to get free tickets online by giving up personal information - name, phone, email, etc. - and agree to lots of stipulations including no signs, no political T-shirts, no recording, need to show ID, and on and on.  More specifics here.  And there was a hearing sponsored by House Finance Committee Sunday afternoon.

Various groups including Senate Democrats and unions called for a demonstration outside the venue where the governor was going to speak in Anchorage tonight.  Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar acted as the MC.  That was today.  Here's the first of a few posts of pictures of the demonstrations.  I'm guessing there were altogether, about 300 people.  The NYE (New York Equivalent is a metric I came up with a an anti-Palin rally to give people outside of Alaska a sense of what an equivalent crowd would be in New York City.) would be about 9000 people.

This shot I got from the stairs on the side of the 49th State Brewery where the Americans for Prosperity private meeting was held.  (They said they had room for 150, even though various legislators offered larger venues for free if the governor would speak without all the restrictions.)  This picture doesn't show all the people in front of the building, so I took this picture too.

So these posts are going to focus on signs.  There were lots of signs!  Some were printed up and distributed - particularly supporting education.  But there were a lot more home made signs.  I've  grouped them into categories.  Like all such groupings, there are instances that easily fit into more than one category.  But this at least tries to capture what people were expressing in a bit more organized way.

GROUP 1:  COMMENTS ON THE PRIVATE NATURE OF THE GOV'S PUBLIC HEARING

This first group seems to be focused on the fact that this 'public' meeting wasn't public.  That a private organization was staging what the public was going to hear from the governor and limiting what the public could say in the meeting and could even document to tell others.  (An ADN story did quote an AFP person saying that individuals could use their phones to record, so they loosened up, but still people had had to sign a document forbidding recording.)


GROUP 2:  CONCERNS ABOUT SELLING OUT THE STATE TO OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Tomorrow I'll put up more.  There was a lot of focus on raising revenues instead of cutting, opposition to the governor's budget in general, and more specific concerns, particularly cutting education.

Alaska Governor's Roadshow Sponsored By Koch Funded Americans For Prosperity

We knew before the election that Dunleavy's campaign was largely financed by his brother in Texas.  But now it looks like that was just the beginnings of an actual coup.  The Koch's Americans for Prosperity have arranged and organized a set of what were advertised on the Governor's website as public meetings to discuss the Governor's budget proposal.  I'm starting to think that AFP actually had a lot to do with the budget itself now.  In fact, just after the election in November, Jeremy Price was appointed Dunleavy's Deputy Chief of Staff.  According to Must Read Alaska, a blog written by the former communications director of the Republican party in Alaska, 

“In 2014, Price was tapped to begin a branch of Americans for Prosperity in Alaska and has since grown the organization to a well-known voice for economic freedom. The group is supported locally and receives organizational support from its national parent, Americans for Prosperity, which is back [sic] by the Koch Brothers.”

ROADSHOW

The governor announced a road trip:  From the Governor’s Webpage:

“Governor Announces Statewide Roadshow to Outline Permanent Fiscal Plan for Alaska
March 18, 2019
Juneau, AK – Today, Alaska Governor Michael J. Dunleavy announced “A Statewide Discussion for a Permanent Fiscal Plan” a series of community focused discussions and meetings to outline a permanent fiscal plan for Alaska, including the vision behind his FY2020 budget proposal and a package of constitutional amendments meant to address the state’s long-term fiscal stability.”

Then there’s a long explanation of why his budget is necessary to save Alaska from deficit — cutting the state functions drastically is ok.  Raising any revenues — taxes —  is not.  (Trump seems ok with a trillion dollar deficit, but Dunleavy will have none of that.)  So here’s the posted schedule:

“Upcoming Events and Locations:
Kenai, AK – Monday, March 25, 2019
6pm – Public Event at The Cannery Lodge
Anchorage, AK– Tuesday, March 26, 2019
10am – Talk of Alaska
6pm – Public Event at 49th State Brewery
Nome, AK– Wednesday, March 27, 2019
4pm – Public Event at Old St.  Joseph’s Hall
Fairbanks, AK– Thursday, March 28, 2019
8am – Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce
6pm – Public Event at Westmark Hotel
Mat-Su, AK– Friday, March 29, 2019
6pm – Public Event at Everett’s
*Times and locations are subject to change.”

But there aren’t any links to these events on this announcement.  The Anchorage Daily News reports that 

“JUNEAU — A day after Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced he will hold a series of public meetings across Alaska to discuss his budget proposal and long-term fiscal plan, ticketing arrangements reveal the meetings are being sponsored and managed by the conservative-libertarian group Americans for Prosperity.
That sponsorship was not disclosed when the governor said he would hold public meetings in Anchorage, Nome, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Kenai and Fairbanks next week.”

Well, it’s not exactly clear what’s happening now.  I went to Americans for Prosperity (AFP) websiteand found six events listed for Alaska Public Policy Forums.   I’m posting a screenshot because I don’t know how long this will be there.  (The sixth one (another one for Kenai) just didn’t fit easily in the screen shot, but it looks just like the others.)

​

Note that these are labeled “AFP Presents:  Fortifying Alaska’s Future.  So, the public tour for the governor to discuss (that implies two way conversation, right?)  the budget with the public, turns out to be a propaganda event organized and paid for by Americans for Prosperity.  But clicking on these events gets you to a page that basically says this link doesn’t work.  

The ADN article touches on what I would have found at the links, I’m assuming, before the linked pages were taken down:

“The events’ ticketing web pages says [sic], “this is a private, policy focused event dedicated to discussing Americans for Prosperity’s issues,” but that isn’t true, said Ryan McKee, Alaska state director of Americans for Prosperity.
“They are open to the public, absolutely,” he said.”

And,

Dunleavy press secretary Matt Shuckerow agreed, adding in an emailed statement that the administration ‘partnered with AFP-Alaska and the Alaska Policy Forum to assist in hosting, organizing, coordinating these events’.”

And there were some restrictions.  From a press release from Alaska Senate Democrats 

“On the event website, Americans for Prosperity provided a 415-word disclaimer on the terms and conditions of the event which threatens Alaskans if they do not comply with their rules. If you don't follow these set rules, you will be denied admission or forced "to leave the event."

From the terms and conditions document.

“This is a private, policy focused event dedicated to discussing Americans for Prosperity’s issues.”

But the Gov was passing these off as public meetings from the governor’s office.  Here is an abbreviated and somewhat paraphrased version of the conditions:  

• All attendees must register themselves and guests with real names and may be asked to show IDs
• No signage allowed, No candidate stickers, pins, t-shirts etc.
• By attending you irrevocably consent and authorize AFP to distribute, use, broadcast, or disseminate into perpetuity your likeness in such media for whatever purpose without further approval from you and with no compensation forever and wherever
• But you may not record, reproduce, or transmit by any means any portion of or the entirety of any AFP event without specific written permission.  

You can see all the terms at the link.  [As I read the terms, I suspect this is a standard AFP document, not particularly written for these events.  I’m guessing they stuck it in rather than getting their attorneys to make a special one.]   Mind you, this is how the governor was going to explain his budget to the state, and, since they were called public meetings and discussions  by the governor, most of us thought there would be two way communication.  Governor's explanation and public responses.  

Instead this shows how completely Dunleavy has been bought by the Koch’s to do their bidding.  And raises serious questions about how much of Dunleavy’s budget and policies have been crafted by Koch and Americans for Prosperity. 

Fortunately, unlike  in Wisconsin and Kansas and Michigan and other states that have had this sort of attack, in Alaska Gov. Dunleavy doesn’t have a fool-proof supportive legislature.  A lot of Republicans in the Senate (which they control), are not happy with the governor’s budget.  And somehow — I still have figured out how — the Democrats pulled off a coalition of all the Democrats and a number of Republicans in the House. 

It’s still not clear to me that this roadshow is going to actually happen, and if it does, how one is to get tickets, or whether the AFP Terms and Conditions can legally apply to ‘public’ events of the governor. 

We’ll see.*  And for folks who have been through this in the last decade in other states, pay attention and let us know who these imported characters — like our ‘visiting budget director’ Donna Arduin — and what they did before they got here.  We are doing lots of research, but first hand knowledge is helpful.

And if you want to keep track of what’s happening, long-time Alaska reporter Dermot Cole seems to be the most relentless interpreter of Alaska political events at the moment on his blog Reporting From Alaska.

*Before posting this, I just called Noah Hanson, press secretary for the Senate Democrats and learned that Sen. Donny Olson of Golovin has offered to pay for a venue for a public forum in Nome if there are no stipulations such as the AFP agreement discussed in this post.  

Thank You Dermot Cole For Keeping The Heat Of Facts On The Gov

Dermot Cole was one of the writers let go by the Alaska Dispatch News when the Binkley's took over the paper.

Well he's blogging like crazy now - fact checking everything the governor and his minions say.

Today there's a list of quotes from Dunleavy on the campaign.  It's in answer to Paul Jenkins' attempt to convince people we should have expected this because Dunleavy is doing what he said he'd do.

People who ousted Dunleavy from Kotzebue and people who carefully watched the hearings Dunleavy chaired on Erin's Law expected the worst.  But not based on what he said, but what he did.

And Cole points out all the things Dunleavy said either explicitly or implicitly about not cutting the ferry system, the university, schools, etc.

It's worth a read.  Find Dermot Cole's Blog Here.    Here's the beginning:

"Paul Jenkins, who has been pontificating about Alaska for nearly as long as I have, wrote a column in the Anchorage Daily News saying that the giant budget cuts proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy are in keeping with the Dunleavy campaign promises.
That’s what people who didn’t pay attention to Dunleavy’s promises are now claiming."

"The legislature now has a balanced budget before them THEY now can decide priorities of the budget. My administration is agnostic on this."

A short one today, I hope.  Some reactions to the governor's letter to the university community.

"The previous administration burned through nearly every dollar in the state's savings account."

Actually, he wanted to increase revenues with appropriate taxes but the Republican controlled Senate banned the word taxes.  And he did cut the budget each year.  But rather than destroying the state, the way your budget will, he got some money from the PFD account (lowering the checks) and from savings accounts.  You, governor, also refuse to consider increasing revenues.  That's a serious problem.

 "While some wish to ignore Alaskans and propose billion-dollar taxes and PFD grabs, I've made clear that this is out of line with the core beliefs of most Alaskans."

Whether it's out of line with people's core beliefs, I can't say. If that's true, you're saying the core beliefs of most Alaskans are:  we want our services and our free oil money, but we refuse to pay for any of it.   Taxes are certainly NOT against the core beliefs of most educated Alaskans who understand the numbers and the impacts these proposed cuts will have and who understand that there are some things - like roads, police, schools, public health - that are a much better bargain for a society if the public pools their money (as in taxes) to buy collectively.  Yeah, some with lots of money can buy private security guards and send their kids to private schools, but society as a whole needs everyone to get a decent education.  Only con artists benefit from an uneducated public.

And those who believed Dunleavy's campaign promises that he'd balance the budget and pay out the old PFD cuts and keep the state running - they desperately need  good education and mental health systems.

"The legislature now has a balanced budget before them  THEY now can decide priorities of the budget.  My administration is agnostic on this."  

As strategy, I guess this is a good move on the governor's part.  He's basically saying, I've balanced the budget and the legislature can decide on where to cut.  They'll get the blame, he hopes.  But really, to tell the university they can work out with the legislature where to cut is like telling your kids, "Hey, here's 50 cents, go buy yourself dinner.  I'm agnostic about what you eat, but just keep it within our budget."  You can't buy dinner for 50 cents and you can't run a university on 40% of last year's budget.  It's a disaster for years to come.   (Dermot Cole has already addressed the governor's claim that it's only 17%.)

I don't know who's helping the governor do all this.  Well aside from Donna Arduin.  Or if he really thinks - "the sky won't fall" because government is bloated.  This is like not believing in gravity.

I once asked my students - as we discussed ontology - if the University was real?  They all agreed it was.  I argued it was just something that people made up. And they could make it up into something entirely different.   That the state could decide to sell all the buildings to some company and they could call it whatever they wanted and the university simply wouldn't exist any more.

But that was a philosophical argument to make a point about the nature of reality.  It seems our governor is trying to prove my point.   Some people will die.  Others will suffer needlessly because of the cuts this budget requires.  Even if the legislature restores half the cuts.

In a letter to the editor the other day, someone wrote this was simply the governor's opening gambit of a chess game.  There is no opening gambit in chess that compares to this.  Well, there's one - knocking over the board and all the pieces.

What the governor does have going for him is that his letter is in good English, it's polite, and if you don't know anything about the situation, it might sound reasonable.

API Contract Awarded - NO BID - To Wellpath by Alaska Gov. Dunleavy

At the bottom of this post is a copy of the contract I found posted at DHSS today between the State of Alaska and Wellpath, for the latter to take over operations of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute.  Before we get there, I'll just highlight what I see in the contract.  There seems to be a fair amount of boiler plate (standard contract wording) and then specifics.

I see two phases:
Phase 1 - Startup  when they will figure out how they're going to pull this off

("contractor shall take all actions reasonably necessary for API to be in full operation and capable of serving patients by June 30, 2019. . .")   

It's not clear what's happening in the mean time.  Is the current state staff doing the work?  I haven't heard about the place being shut down and patients sent elsewhere.  But I would imagine staff is all looking for work somewhere else.  It does say that

"Wellpath shall provide sufficient staff to effect a transition of existing staff and all services to assume complete operation of API no later than July 1, 2019." (p. 6/21)

Phase II - Beginning July 1, 2019 is when they take over.

"Commencement of Phase 2 will begin on the Operations Date, upon acceptance of completion of Phase 1.  Upon commencement of Phase 2, Wellpath shall be authorized to manage and operate all aspects of API. . . "

Appendix C is Description of Services.

Then there are Exhibits:

Exhibit 1 - Staff Planning
Several pages listing positions and number of people to fill them.  Note there are only

12.5 positions listed under Healthcare
130 positions under Nursing
48.5 positions for "Treatment/Mental Health"
34 positions for "Safety"

28 of these are for "Therapeutic Safety Technicians."  When I looked up what that meant, I found a LinkedIn job announcement from Wellpath for this job posted 'one week ago."  They are no longer accepting applications.   It requires a minimum age of 19 and a high school diploma.

Here's the contract's summary of the Staffing Plan:

ARNP refers to Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners.

Appendix D:  Payment for Services

Phase 1 Startup Billing is for $1 million.   This is to figure out how they plan to take over operations. If this were a a competitively bid contract, it would seem to me this work would have been done by the companies doing the bid on their own dime.  I could be wrong, but I know companies put in a lot of prep work in their bids for contracts.

Phase 2 Operations Budget is for $1,383.82 per diem for 80 available beds.  Or $110,705.60 per day.  Or over $40 million for a year.
Phase 2 Estimated Annual Pass-Through Expenses:  $3,266.525.

So, as best as I can read this, the bill will be for about $43 million a year.
Looking back at previous budgets, I see API listed at around $33 million a year.

[NOTE:  Budgets were never my area of expertise.  I only occasionally try to get into them to find things, so I'm making preliminary observations here, waiting for others to jump in and clarify all this more accurately.]

0619-131 API HospitalAdminS... by on Scribd

[UPDATE Feb 22, 2019 9:00pm - I forgot to put up this image for people who would like to see who these people are who are now taking over API.  Wellpath CEO Jorge Dominicis, Correct Care Solutions co-founder Jerry Boyle, Wellpath President Kip Hallman.]

Image from Bizjournals.com

  

Alaska Politics From Afar

We'll be back in Anchorage in about a week.  Meanwhile gramping duties divert my blogging concentration.  I've been the healthiest adult for the last few days - my coughs much better, but others have it now.  So yesterday I dropped nieta at a program at the Kidimu and picked her up two hours later.  (No school this week.)  Later we went shopping for dinner with a stop at the library to drop off a book and get another.  Walking home with two bags of groceries - it was ok, but I should have thought about weight a bit more when I was shopping.  Then back to the library for READ to a dog a little later after preparing the veggie chili.  Today a friend comes over and we'll walk down to the Historical Museum after lunch here.  It's all good, but there is soooo much happening in Alaska, so let me try to at least mention some things.  I will say that I'm pleased with the much increased coverage of Juneau by the ADN and by AKLedger and Dermot Cole since I tried to blog the legislature in 2010.  

It was clear to me back in 2013 that Dunleavy was a danger to Alaska.  I watched in Anchorage as he chaired the special session of the Senate committee that was charged with moving the legislation (Erin's Law) out of committee to allow the full Senate to vote on it.  The bill was to require age appropriate lessons in schools on child molestation and teach kids how to report it.  Dunleavy took the clean, three page bill that had passed overwhelmingly in the House and added six pages that gutted much of the original bill and added a bunch of stuff on parental rights.  Parental Rights, I found out at the time, is code for things like home-school, anti-public school, and giving fathers more power in custody issues.  In the Erin's Law case it would mean giving abusive parents more control to keep their kids from finding out how to report sexual abuse.

So, it was clear that Dunleavy was working from some weird ideological place that allowed him to ignore the damage he was doing to kids in Alaska.

And that's my best guess about what's happening now.  After Dan Sullivan's family in Ohio bought him the Alaska US Senate seat over Mark Begich, Dunleavy's brother, also Outside, figured he could buy the Alaska Governorship the same way.  And he did.  And Mark Begich - the Alaskan born and raised Democrat - was the victim once again.  Along with his brother's money (and who else's we don't know) comes a crazy anti-government, libertarian opportunity to experiment by cutting money from Alaska education and everything else.

It's like, hey, if you guys help me get my brother get elected, you can then show the world how your ideas of cutting government will work.  But we already know this failed spectacularly in Kansas and Wisconsin and Michigan among other places.

And unlike those places, the Republicans in the Senate aren't as ideologically crazy as the ones in the other states.  Well, a few are.  And somehow - I still haven't figured it out - the Democrats have managed to get themselves into a bi-partisan majority in the State House.  So Dunleavy won't have it as easy getting his budget through in Alaska as the others did in their states.

But, if someone breaks into your house and lets the water overflow in the tubs and toilets, turns off the heat in the winter, and randomly destroys things, it's going to cost a lot to get it back into livable shape.

So I'm looking forward to being back in Alaska so I can get a better sense of how much damage we're going to incur from this ideologically-crazed governor and his (I need a gender neutral word for 'henchmen')

I'm also thinking about how democracy can survive if a majority of voters can be swayed by lies and nonsense, and another significant chunk thinks their participation is pointless.  We may not get our ideal candidate, but Trump and Dunleavy should have taught enough people that less than ideal is way better than horrible.  

That's the key question for me - how do we help citizens care enough to figure out what candidates will really do before they vote for them.  And to help other citizens to overcome their belief that their vote doesn't matter because all candidates are bad.

But the kinds of propaganda that the Nazis used to gain power has been perfected by Republican marketing geniuses with no morality.  We have Fox News as the most recognized example, and Putin's been using those techniques to wreak havoc in the US 2016 election, in Brexit, in the French election, in Ukraine, and in Italy.  He's showing the way to kill democracy is to kill truth.

Alaskans, let's not let our state Senate prop up Dunleavy the way the US Senate has been propping up Trump.  (And there are good signs they aren't.)  This guy has to go.  As fast as possible.

I realize this might sound like a rant to some, but I'm pretty sure my take here is accurate.  And I have two six year olds coming over for lunch in 30 minutes.  But I also wanted to mention the election board in North Carolina that invalidated a US House election because of a consultant who committed election fraud (note:  NOT voter fraud) by manipulating mail in ballots.   I'd note we had this same thing happen on what we believe to be a much smaller scale when Rep. LeDoux hired a California election consultant to get her Hmong constituents to vote.

"A subsequent count of absentee ballots gave LeDoux a 117-vote win. But state elections officials also said they found evidence of voter fraud among the absentee ballots, and they sent their findings to prosecutors for review.
Elections officials said they received absentee applications in the names of seven dead people. Those ballots were not mailed out, but officials also identified 26 suspicious ballots that were returned.
All 26 of those votes went to LeDoux."

That consultant died and it appears that ended deeper investigation into the issue.  But let's be vigilant.   Republican election fraud, voter suppression, and gerrymandering are  much bigger threats than Republican imagined voter fraud.

Heavy Rains In San Francisco While Alaska Hit By Unnatural Disaster As Dunleavy Reveals Budget

From Accu Weather:

"Atmospheric river to fuel torrential rain in California"

It was raining steadily, but not terribly hard as we caught the bus to the CalTrain station this afternoon to visit good friends who live a little south of SF.

But the disaster happening in Alaska is totally man-made.  The ads promised a balanced budget and Permanent Fund Dividends forever.  They were paid for, in large,  by candidate Dunleavy's brother.  And the people who vote based on such ads and party identification - but ignore any kind of obvious signs, like the ones I saw at the special hearings set to pass Erin's Law.  





The Alaska state budget is a daunting document.  While I acknowledge that it is complicated, often the people preparing a budget have a vested interest in making it as confusing as possible.  Terms aren't clearly explained or the explanation is hard to find, especially online.  The lists of budget terms online like this one and this one don't explain all the terms and acronyms used in the budget.

Quantities aren't always clarified - like how many zeros you need to add to the numbers in columns to get the actual number.  Often people hide things they don't want people to discover - like funding for a pet project or removal of funding from an agency.

And there are different types of budgets.  Operating and Capital Budgets for instance.  But also Unrestricted General Fund That's all preface to the next item.

x

Screen Shot Budget 2020-02-13 by on Scribd

Note:  I'm not even sure what LF means on this page GF is General Fund.  Unrestricted means the funds are restricted to a specific use.  This page comes from here.  But at the State's Budget page you can find a whole slew of different takes on the budget.

I've just highlighted the education parts of the budget.  Despite the fact that Dunleavy taught in public schools in rural Alaska as well as being principal and a superintendent, this budget show total disdain for public schooling.  That was already clear when he talked about 'parental rights' at the Erin's Law hearings.  The parental right movement is related to the father's rights movement.  It's also connected to the home-schooling movement.  There's a touch of anti-government and a tough of fundamentalist religion and a touch of so called 'traditional family values.'  And it was clear to me back in 2012 that Dunleavy would try to cut public schooling if he were in a position to do it.  (Let me say that like in any group that forms, there are people with legitimate issues about how they were treated.  But a number of movements are really protests against losing power they once had - like men's power over their wives has eroded quite a bit over the last 100 years.  See this article on father's rights groups.

"The fathers’ rights movement is defined by the claim that fathers are deprived of their ‘rights’ and subjected to systematic discrimination as fathers and as men, in a system biased towards women and dominated by feminists. Fathers’ rights groups overlap with men’s rights groups and both represent an organised backlash to feminism. Fathers’ rights groups can be seen as the anti-feminist wing of a range of men’s and fathers’ groups which have emerged in recent years, in the context of profound shifts in gender, intimate and familial relations over the past four decades (Flood, 2010). While fathers’ rights groups share common themes, there are also diversities in their degree of opposition to feminism, their involvements in political advocacy, their reliance on Christian frameworks, and so on.Three experiences in particular bring men into the fathers’ rights movement. Painful experiences of divorce and separation, as well as accompanying experiences of family law and the loss of contact with one’s children, produce a steady stream of men who can be recruited into fathers’ rights groups"

And here's a piece on parental rights from a Home School website.

I offer those links, not as 'proof' or as an exhaustive review of the topic, but just as an appetizer to become more aware of the code words 'parental rights' which sounds very reasonable on the surface.  I think the link to the Home Schooling movement helps predict this budget.

The other issue that people have raised with this budget is the 'visiting budget director' as Dermot Cole dubbed Donna Arduin.  I haven't done adequate research on her, so for the time being, you can look at this (Sarasota) Herald-Examiner article form 2014 that reviews her run as a Libertarian 'expert' budget slasher, whose budget analyses are regularly debunked by real economists.

Sometimes being in Alaska and late on Lower 48 trends is a good thing.  We can learn from others' experiences.  Here's hoping that Alaskans will figure out really quick what we've done by electing Dunleavy before too much damage is done. Here's hoping we can learn from what's happened in Kansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.  [UPDATE Feb 14, 2019:  I added Kansas and links for a little more background about those states' outcomes of cutting taxes and government.]

Hopefully, those who blindly believed Dunleavy's promises to get people all their back PFD checks AND balance the budget without any new revenues, will realize it was all a scam before the state infrastructure for schools and health and safety are destroyed.  Perhaps the people who are now finding out that those tax rebates Trump promised are not really coming, will transfer that awareness to what Dunleavy is trying to pull off.

Miscellaneous Bits And Pieces

I've been working on a post in reaction to the Covington High School buzz.  (I'm trying to think of a reasonable name for the many social media/mainstream media phenomena that cause a temporary ringing in our ears, then are gone as something else gets our attention.  This is clearly not a good way to get an understanding of what's happening in the world.  Well, this is my problem.  This parenthetical comment was not what I was writing about, but could become a whole post on its own.  And the Covington post is raising so many issues that I can't tie it all together.  But maybe that shouldn't be my goal, since the world itself is messy.  But the whole point I used to think, was that a blog post should make at least a small part of the universe a little less opaque.)

Also working on the lack of useful instructions for people who sit in the emergency rows in airplanes.

My daughter invited me to her Barrecor exercise class yesterday and it was much easier than the high intensity workout my son took me to three years ago in San Francisco.  After the one - in which I made it through the routines without embarrassing myself - I ached badly for three days.  But today, no new aches or pains.

Today I did a bike ride, which here on Bainbridge Island means lots of ups and downs through big trees.  And water.  There was a raft of water birds at my turnaround spot, and a view of Seattle.

And the sun came out and lit up downtown Seattle across the channel.  Here are two different pictures - one from my old Canon Powershot and the other from my new used iPhone 7.


I like the Canon result better, but maybe it's because I tried to enlarge the iPhone image too much.


Getting good granddaughter time while we're here.







And Murkowski voted to open the government without requiring $5 billion, or is it $7 billion now?

And Dunleavy's new commissioner of administration apparently lied to the a Senate committee about his background.  But, hey guys, he went to a Christian college, that's all Dunleavy had to read.




And finally, I recommend this video be shown at the School Board meeting when they discuss the minimum times kids should get to be at recess and lunch.  Right now it's being whittled down to nothing, which means teachers have kids with way too much unused energy who can't sit still in class.  (I couldn't figure out a way to embed the video itself, so you get the whole tweet.)

#MostWatched Principal gets students up and dancing pic.twitter.com/Yc7cDmtpAN

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) January 24, 2019

So, it's not that I don't have anything to write about, rather there's too much, and I'm trying to write the posts so you can read and get the bigger sense of things.  Not easy.  Remember that once each day ends, it's gone.  So don't complain about waiting in line - take those seconds or minutes and enjoy your life.  Try thinking about something important.  Text your members of congress what you're thinking they should do.  Send a note to someone you care about.

[UPDATE 10:14 pm:  And the ADN had an article today about how three major oil companies have carbon pricing already built into their long term plans, the House has reintroduce a carbon fee and dividend bill, and the Senate is working on one too.  There is good news.  But as Vox notes:

"But what’s gone largely unnoticed is that Exxon’s proposal comes with a massive catch: In exchange for a tax, the company wants immunity from all climate lawsuits in the future."]

State of Alaska vs. Purdue Pharma, Attorney Resignations, Evolution Of A Blog Post

[NOTE: My original title was, "Might Dunleavy's Purging of Alaska State Attorneys Be Prelude To Drop Lawsuits Against Supporters?"   This blog post starts with a chance discovery of DocumentCloud.  A quick search for Alaska came up with a few pages from a state lawsuit against Purdue Pharma.  Then I connected this case with another event - Dunleavy's call for exempt employee resignations. I get more info about the original discovery.  Then more information from someone involved, and finally conclude that while the original idea might be valid, theoretically, in this particular case, it's probably not.  I'll let you go through this process with me.  It's sort of like the scientific process - you make a hypothesis, then do the research, then conclude.  In this case the hypothesis isn't confirmed.  But the info collected is interesting.  I'll start with the original draft of the postand comment on it in [brackets]. The original draft was written Dec. 17. I'm now calling that PART I.  Then PART II is my follow up today.]


[PART I:]  This is just a thought, but worth pursuing.  [In hindsight, could have been titled "the hypothesis"]

The incoming Dunleavy administration has called for the resignation of all exempt employees - including those in the Department of Law.  Many of these attorneys, one would assume, are in the middle of ongoing lawsuits.  It would be useful to get a list of the current ongoing lawsuits the State of Alaska has filed, so we can see what happens to them under the Dunleavy administration.

For instance, I serendipitously came across a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma [makers of Oxycontin] claiming their misleading marketing and other actions helped lead to, or at least exacerbate, the opioid crisis in Alaska.  [This was the original discovery - Alaska's lawsuit against Purdue Pharma - which is something everyone should know about.]

It would be useful to check out whether Purdue, and other organizations being sued by Alaska,  had any role in Outside, campaign funds that supported Dunleavy.  This will probably be tricky since the point of some of those funds is to keep the donors anonymous.

DocumentCloud search for 'Alaska' came up with the state's complaint against Purdue.  Here's a summary of the complaints - they are explained in more detail in the document.  [It was the discovery of DocumentCloud that led to my discovering the Purdue Pharma case.]

As alleged in this Complaint, Purdue engaged in false representation and concealment of material facts about the use of opioids to treat chronic pain. 

"Purdue knew, deliberately ignored, or recklessly disregarded, that:

1. its statements about the risks and benefits of opioids to treat chronic pain were false or misleading;
2. it failed to correct prior misrepresentations and omissions about the risks and benefits of opioids
3. its statements made to promote the use of opioids to treat chronic pain omitted or concealed material facts; and
4. for many patients the pain relief of "12-hour" OxyContin dosing lasts well short of 12 hours; and
5. there is no evidence to support statements that abuse-deterrent formulations of Purdue's opioids make the drugs less likely to be abused or diverted or less addictive; and
6. it lacked the commitment it professed to reducing or deterring abuse and to cooperating with law enforcement, as evidenced by its failure to report suspicious prescribers as required by law and its misrepresentations regarding the abuse-deterrent properties of is opioids."

(This complaint is dated October 30, 2017.  A Department of Law Press Release dated July 13, 2018 links to a judge's order that denies the defendant's attempts to dismiss most of the charges.  So I'm assuming this case is on-going. ) [I confirm this later.]

How many other cases are there like this that some large corporation might like to have dropped?

Am I being alarmist here?  I don't have any evidence that any wrong doing has taken place or will in Alaska regarding well funded defendants.  However, defendants have made large contributions to defeat judges in states with partisan judgeships.

It's not hard to imagine a wealthy defendant making contributions anonymously to a PAC that would support a gubernatorial candidate who could end a state's lawsuit.  And given that our new governor has asked for the resignations of all exempt employees - which includes a lot of prosecutors - I don't think it's unreasonable to raise this question.

Given the high visibility of the opioid crisis in Alaska, dropping this case would probably get a lot of blowback.  So I just want to make sure people are paying attention to this case and others that potentially could be dropped under Dunleavy.

An article in the Knox News about Tennessee's lawsuit against Purdue mentions Alaska's lawsuit several times.

PART II  Dec 19, 2018  I'm abandoning the [brackets] since this is the new update.

I talked to an Alaska state attorney yesterday.  Given the headlines about the governor asking for resignations, I wasn't sure if the email addresses would still be valid.  But I got an email back quickly, which told me that the Purdue Pharma case was, indeed, still ongoing.  The judge had set a March 23, 2020 trial date.

What about the resignations of the attorneys?
The line attorneys had been assured by the new Attorney General that their jobs are safe.  Only management are on the line.

What about a list of all the cases?
There are so many cases it would be hard to list.  But that includes many that are just in the investigatory stage - that can't be made public at this point - plus there are different departments pursuing different cases.  Actual, ongoing cases?  Not so many.

And the Purdue Pharma case?
This is such a high profile case, it would be hard to shut down.  There are cases all over the country on this.  Essentially three major groups.

1. Litigating states- almost 30 states who have filed suit in their own state courts and who are either litigating through their AG or through outside counsel such as Motley Rice (AK and 7 other states) or another firm
2. MDL- Multi district litigation in Cleveland OH, multiple plaintiffs mostly cities, counties and tribes although one or two states have submitted themselves to the federal courts jurisdiction
3. Multistate investigation- includes some litigating states (but not AK) and the remaining states that have not filed suit yet

There's a Reuters article that gives an overview of the lawsuits around the country over Oxytocin.  

Another Reason Purdue Pharma (and other cases) won't be dropped - money

Cases like these bring revenue to the state.  When I asked for a ballpark, my contact wouldn't make a guess.  But when I asked "Say $5 million?"  my contact said more than that and likened this case to the the tobacco lawsuits which are still bringing in revenue, even as cigaret sales have declined.

My Hypothesis Not Confirmed

Did Purdue Pharma or the Sackler family that privately owns Purdue make contributions to the Dunleavy campaign in order to get the new governor to drop this case?
I couldn't find anything about Purdue Pharma in the Alaska Public Offices Commission searches (though I don't use them that often so I might have missed something.)
Open Secrets reports show fairly low expenditures by Purdue Pharma and nothing Alaska related.   Nor could I find anything of interest for members of the Sackler family who privately own Purdue Pharma.  That doesn't mean there's nothing there, but it would take more sophisticated sleuthing.  And given the number of suits around the country against Purdue Pharma, Alaska's probably has to be one of the smaller ones, simply because of our low population.
And the report from the state attorney I talked to indicates the attorneys have gotten no reason to believe the case won't continue, and the potential revenue to be gained is a good reason to continue.

What's next?

It probably wouldn't hurt to monitor state law suits against corporations.  People should know what the state is doing, especially, in this case where the state stands to recoup some of the costs of dealing with the opioid crisis.

I didn't know anything about the suit against Purdue Pharma and so I will do another post on this topic.  For those who can't wait, I suggest you read this (long, but chilling) New Yorker article - The Family That Built An Empire of Pain - about the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma and how this company contributed to the current opioid crisis because of how profitable it is.

I'd note that the Anchorage Daily News has reported on this case:

October 2017 - Alaska sues drugmaker Purdue Pharma, saying its OxyContin stoked opioid crisis
December 2017 - Alaska hires Outside law firm to investigate potential opioid lawsuit
July 2018 - Judge allows Alaska’s lawsuit against opioid manufacturer to proceed

And another case where five Alaska Native tribes joined a nationwide suit by Native American tribes against opioid makers and sellers:
November 2018  Alaska Native tribes sue drug companies over cost of opioid epidemic

And they've republished Washington Post stories on suits against Purdue Pharma, like this one on the Ohio case I mentioned above in this post:

April 7, 2018 An epic battle over the opioid crisis moves to an Ohio courtroom

And this one:

Sept 7, 2018  Man who made billions from OxyContin is pushing drug to wean addicts off opioids

Why I Fear Dunleavy As Governor - What I Saw In 2015

I'm excerpting the title and beginning of a post I published May 22, 2015.  It's about how Dunleavy, during a special session, tried to hijack a bill to required age appropriate lessons on child molesters in Alaska schools.  It's a classic tale of abuse of power.

"TO DUNLEAVY" (v) "When a situation unexpectedly comes along giving you the power to help another in need, you instead try to extract some gain for yourself while harming the other." 

 EXAMPLE:  "He dunleavied HB 44." As in when you find yourself as the chair of a committee in a special session with just one bill with strong bi-partisan support, and instead of quickly passing the bill, you water down its key provisions, and then add a lot of unrelated amendments that you had tried to pass in the regular session, but couldn't.

This is not how I intended to begin this post, but it seems to encapsulate a lot of analysis in a few words.  Below is the whole post which will show how I got to this point. "  

Here's the link.  

You can read the detailed analysis of what he tried to do to the bill - including banning Planned Parenthood from doing any education work in schools.  

John Creed, who saw Dunleavy close up as teacher, principal, and Superintendent in Kotzebue, has his own take on  Dunleavy's values.   Here's an excerpt:

"I genuinely enjoyed his company," said Jans. "We hung out when I was passing through Kotzebue. As he moved up the food chain, though, he became increasingly authoritarian, easy to anger, and generally inaccessible on a personal level. An aloof, bullying side in him emerged, which I witnessed and heard many others comment on. Not to mention he got strange at times in a way I can't quite quantify but made me uncomfortable about him in a leadership role."

Walker's Statement About Why He's Ending His Campaign For Governor

I spent all day in US District Courtroom #2 - Henry v. MOA.  I got out at 2pm, with my head spinning and my stomach protesting the lack of a lunch break.  Stopped at the Court Clerk's office to see what I could find about the case on their computer.  I ended up taking images of the Summary, Main Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations from the Brown Study that was released the other day to the public.  Then I biked home along Chester Creek.  There, my wife asked if I'd heard the news.  I hadn't.

So here's the Governor's announcement and explanation.  I could have lived reasonably comfortably with Bill Walker getting another four years.  I voted for him last time and he's an honorable man, intelligent, and appears always to have the best for Alaska in mind.  I don't agree with all his positions, but that's true about most elected officials.  As of today, it's (sort of) a two way race between Mark Begich and Mike Dunleavy.  Walker's name will still be on the ballot and I'm sure some people will vote for him (please don't unless you were planning to vote for Dunleavy.)  And the Division of Elections has said 1000 absentee votes are already in, and surely some of those folks voted for Walker.

I'll try to get something up about the trial later tonight or tomorrow.  Meanwhile, here's the email the Governor sent out.

Dear Alaskans,
I ran for re-election because I still believe that, more than anything else, Alaska deserves integrity, honesty, and courage.
Alaska First is, and cannot only be, a campaign slogan. When I said I ran for governor to do the job, not make the decisions to keep the job, I meant exactly what I said.  Every decision I have made as your governor, I have made on the basis of what I believe is best for Alaska.
With that said, effective today, I am suspending my campaign for re-election as Governor. With more time, I am confident that Val and I could deliver a message and a campaign that could earn a victory in this election.
But there are only 18 days remaining before election day. Absentee ballots have already been mailed, and Alaskans are already voting. In the time remaining, I believe we cannot win a three-way race.
This week I have talked to many Alaskans to determine whether I or Mark Begich had a better chance of running a competitive race against Mike Dunleavy. The determination was made that, at this point, Begich has the better odds.
Alaskans deserve a competitive race. Alaskans deserve a choice other than Mike Dunleavy, whose record and campaign rhetoric indicate he will:

• eliminate Medicaid Expansion that has provided healthcare access to 44,000 Alaskans, created jobs and brought $1 billion federal dollars into the Alaskan economy while decreasing State healthcare expenditures by $16 million, kept hospitals from closing, and saved lives;
• defund the Alaska LNG Gasline project that has made historic progress, will create 12,000 high paying construction jobs, 88,000 direct and indirect jobs and deliver low cost energy to our homes and businesses;
• undo the bipartisan approved sustainable fiscal plan that has resulted in fiscal stability, significantly reduced the deficit, improved our credit rating and preserved the PFD program into perpetuity;
• cause our most vulnerable to suffer the brunt of the additional $1 billion in budget cuts he vows to make to education, rural Alaska and those receiving healthcare.

Moreover, my administration has worked tirelessly to improve the relationship between Tribes and State and restore respect for Alaska's First Peoples in state government. Yesterday, I apologized on behalf of the State of Alaska for the wrongs committed against the Alaska Native people throughout our history, because I believed that was best for Alaska. My expectation is that this work critical to the healing of historical trauma and unifying all Alaskans will be undone in a Dunleavy administration.
On balance, it is my belief that despite my many differences with Mark Begich, his stance on the important issues I have listed above more closely align with my priorities for Alaska.
This is not the first difficult decision I have made this week, but it is one I know I must make. There simply are no words to express my deepest gratitude to the incomparable, dedicated team of outstanding Alaskans who have served in my administration and to the thousands of supporters, donors, volunteers and campaign staff who have been passionately committed to my re-election. And above all, I want to say thank you to my family and to Donna, my first lady for life.
As I said earlier this week, ultimately, it's not how long my team and I serve, it's how well we served the people and the state we love while the opportunity was ours. We have served with integrity, courage, devotion, and compassion, never asking ourselves whether a decision is politically correct but always asking if it is right for Alaska. I am proud of the work we have done in the most challenging fiscal crisis in state history and it is the honor of my life to have served as the governor of this great state.
Thank you, God bless you all, and may God continue to bless Alaska.
Bill Walker

In this age of cynicism about politics, I thank Governor Walker for what he's done in the last four years and for taking this difficult step.  

Gubernatorial Debate - Walker, Begich, Toien, But No Dunleavy [UPDATE - Walker's Lt. Gov Resigns] [2nd UPDATE]

UAA, the ADN, and a few others sponsored a debate at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium, Monday evening from 5;30pm to 7pm.


It was a pretty low-key affair with each candidate showing courtesy and significant agreement with each other.  My quick crowd estimate (counting people in a few rows and then counting how many rows) gave me a 200-300 estimate.  

Current Governor Bill Walker, Independent, was sincere, practical, sounding a bit frustrated that the legislature wouldn't do the responsible thing and create an overall fiscal plan including new revenues.  He was critical of the fact that they had used up, I believe he said, 80% of the budget reserves in the last four years.

Former US Senator and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, Democrat, had similar themes though he also argued strongly that the Permanent Fund needs Constitutional protections or politicians will use it up.  He also called for new revenues.

Libertarian candidate Billy Toien's take was a little different.  He pointed to stacks of documents - 30 years of budget data he claimed - and said there is no crisis.  He argued that there were various special funds - I think he said about 50 - that should all be put into the general budget and the deficit would go away.  Some were mentioned - like the Alaska Aerospace Corporation and the Alaska Railroad.  I'm skeptical that moving them all into the general budget would solve our fiscal problems, but it raises the issue of whether these units get considered for cuts during budget time in the same way that regular government agencies do.

Toien, unlike Walker and Begich, was opposed to all new taxes and existing taxes and seemed to believe that the additional revenues generated by putting the independent units' funds into the general budget should be distributed to the people of Alaska.

Republican Mike Dunleavy, we were told, had a conflicting engagement and wasn't there.  His presence probably would have added some lively debate.  And he was criticized by the other three - they said he was making short term promises with no eye on the future and that all the things he promised - maintaining the permanent fund and current services, plus cutting the budget, and no new revenues - were impossible to achieve.


I thought Begich and Walker treated Toien with the sort of condescending respect one would use for a little kid who participates in an adult activity.   But everyone was very cordial.

There were three ADN journalist who were given a chance to ask question.

Tegan Hanlon.

Annie Zak and Tom Hewitt.  I wasn't taking notes, but all the questions were pretty routine.  Things like, what is on the top of your list of things to cut?

I was waiting for one of the candidates to mention KABATA (the Knik Arm Bridge And Toll Authority), but no one did.

Toien came across to me as the kind of guy who has latched on to a couple of ideas that may, by themselves, have some merit.  But that they were utterly untethered from the bigger picture.

Walker is sincere and has 'the adult in the room' sort of tone.  He takes his job seriously but it seemed all process - we have to do things reasonably, take the revenues seriously - and little content, and he didn't spell out why he would be more successful with the next legislature than he has been so far.

Begich was able, as he always has been, to talk fluently about facts on all sorts of issues and tie things together.  He has the enviable ability to smile and respond with humor to anyone, even those whose ideas he is totally opposed to.  I would have like to see how he interacted with Dunleavy.

Dunleavy appears to believe, as do many Alaskans, that he has the election in the bag because Begich and Walker will cut into each others' vote count.  So he can just skip forums like this one.  If that's true, Alaska is in for a rough next four years.  Begich's strategy on entering the race - that he or Walker would drop out after the primary when it was clear which had the better chance against Dunleavy - hasn't worked out.

[UPDATE Oct 16, 2018 4pm:  Walker's Lt. Gov Byron Mallott resigned last night, apparently due to comments made about women or to a women.  The Governor has replaced him with Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson, Director of Rural and Native Affairs.  See ADN for more details.  It's amazing how quickly many Democratic men step down after an incident like this compared to Republican men.]

[UPDATE Oct. 16, 2018 5pm:  A FaceBook post 15 minutes ago::
Kate Laird: This is the most interesting bit: Asked whether Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Begich could replace Mallott on the lieutenant governor ticket, akin to the formation of the 2014 “unity ticket” between Mallott and Walker, Heckendorn [Walker's campaign manager] said, “We have been in conversations with Begich about the best way to move forward for Alaska, and those conversations will continue. We’ve been in conversations before we had any idea of what had happened with Byron. We’ve been in conversations with Begich for a few days about how to move forward in a way that’s best for Alaska.” <nevermind my minor question about why they couldn't have had that chat before ballots were printed ...>]