Sky Visits from Juneau

Sky and his parents spent the night last night. They're visiting from Juneau. Sky's mom was nominated to be Alaskan Nurse of the Year, but someone else was picked last night. But at our house, she's nurse of the year.




It was fun having a three year old spend the night - big smiles, runny nose, mercurial changes from happy to not. But he was very careful with the nick nacks and was a good eater.

The Alaska Supreme Court Decision on the Parental Consent Act

Last week the ADN had the following headline:

Supreme Court's abortion ruling angers GOP lawmakers

SEEK CHANGE: Coghill, Dyson want Alaska Constitution amended so state can require parental consent for underage girls.

By STEVE QUINN

Radical Catholic Mom argues strongly that pro-life legislation is the wrong way to go in Alaska:

The ONLY method is a Constitutional Amendment. That is the only way. Until there is a Constitutional Amendment, no pro-life bill will be able to survive the AK Constitution.

The discussion on her blog caused me to look up the ruling which can be found here. Below I've excerpted some sections of the decision so you can see the general logic of the court in the decision. The basic question is whether the law - which requires parental consent for girls under 17 to get an abortion, with exceptions for girls who are deemed competent to make the decision on their own (if they are married, in the military, legally emancipated, etc.) or getting parental consent would not be in the interest of the girl. On the face of it, telling parents, whose consent is required for getting a shot, that they do not have veto power over an abortion, seems contradictory. The court does weigh this parental responsibility to look after the interests of the child because children are recognized as not yet mature enough to make many decisions against the constitutional right of a woman to have control over her body. The question then is whether the Parental Consent Act (PCA) is the least restrictive means to achieve the balance between the two competing rights. The majority decides it is not.

Justice CARPENETI (appointed by to the Supreme Court in 1998 by Governor Knowles) wrote the dissenting opinion and was joined by Justice Matthews (appointed to the Supreme Court in 1977 by Jay Hammond.) They believed that the PCA did maintain the balance.

[p. 4] II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
In 1997 the Alaska Legislature passed the Alaska Parental Consent Act
(PCA). The PCA prohibits doctors from performing an abortion on an “unmarried,5 unemancipated woman under 17 years of age” without parental consent or judicial authorization. The Act subjects doctors who knowingly perform abortions on minors6 without the required consent or judicial authorization to criminal prosecution. The7 parental consent requirement can be met through written consent from a parent, guardian, or custodian of the minor. The Act also includes a judicial bypass procedure whereby8 a minor may file a complaint in superior court and obtain judicial authorization to terminate a pregnancy if she can establish by clear and convincing evidence either that she is “sufficiently mature and well enough informed to decide intelligently whether to have an abortion” or that being required to obtain parental consent would not be in her best interests. If the court fails to hold a hearing within five business days after the9 complaint is filed, the court’s inaction is considered a constructive order authorizing the
minor to consent to terminate the pregnancy. 10


[p. 6] The State appealed, and on November 16, 2001, we issued our decision in
Planned Parenthood I. In that case, we concluded that the privacy clause of the Alaska11 Constitution extends to minors as well as adults and that the State may constrain a pregnant minor’s privacy right “only when necessary to further a compelling state interest and only if no less restrictive means exist to advance that interest.” We also12 reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the PCA actually furthers compelling state interests using the least restrictive means available.13


[P. 8] As we have previously explained, the primary purpose of this section
is to protect Alaskans’ “personal privacy and dignity against unwarranted intrusions by the State.” Because this right to privacy is explicit, its protections are necessarily more22 robust and “broader in scope” than those of the implied federal right to privacy. 23 Included within the broad scope of the Alaska Constitution’s privacy clause is the fundamental right to reproductive choice. As we have stated in the past, “fewthings are more personal than a woman’s control of her body, including the choice of whether and when to have children,” and that choice is therefore necessarily protected by the right to privacy. Of course, our original decision concerning the fundamental24 right to reproductive choice specifically addressed only the privacy interests of adult women, but because the “uniquely personal physical, psychological, and economic implications of the abortion decision . . . are in no way peculiar to adult women,” its25 reasoning was and continues to be as applicable to minors as it is to adults. Thus, in26 Planned Parenthood I, we explicitly extended the fundamental reproductive rights guaranteed by the privacy clause to minors. 27


[P. 9] In the case at hand, the PCA requires minors to secure either the consent of
their parent or judicial authorization before they may exercise their uniquely personal reproductive freedoms. This requirement no doubt places a burden on minors’ fundamental right to privacy. As such, the PCA must be subjected to strict scrutiny and can only survive review if it advances a compelling state interest using the least restrictive means of achieving that interest. 28

They agree that the state’s interests are compelling.

[p. 10] B. The State’s Asserted Interests Are Compelling.
The State asserts that the PCA works, on the most generalized level, to
advance two interrelated interests: protecting minors from their own immaturity and aiding parents in fulfilling their parental responsibilities. We agree with the State that29 these are compelling interests.

We thus echo the United States Supreme Court’s statement that, “[u]nder
the Constitution, the State can ‘properly conclude that parents . . . who have [the] primary responsibility for children’s well-being are entitled to the support of laws designed to aid [in the] discharge of that responsibility.’ ”38

But,

[P.12] C. The PCA Is Not the Least Restrictive Means of Achieving the State’s
Compelling Interests.

We recognize that the legislature has made a serious effort to narrowly
tailor the scope of the PCA by exempting seventeen-year-olds and other categories of pregnant minors from the Act’s ban. It is true that the PCA is less restrictive than many other state statutes in terms of the scope of its coverage. But scope is only one of the important criteria that determine the extent to which a parental involvement law restricts minors’ privacy rights. The method by which the statute involves parents is also central to determining whether the Act’s provisions constitute the least restrictive means of pursuing the State’s ends.

By prohibiting minors from terminating a pregnancy without the consent
of their parents, the PCA bestows upon parents what has been described as a “veto
power” over their minor children’s abortion decisions. This “veto power” does not39 merely restrict minors’ right to choose whether and when to have children, but effectively shifts a portion of that right from minors to parents. In practice, under the PCA, it is no longer the pregnant minor who ultimately chooses to exercise her right to terminate her pregnancy, but that minor’s parents. And it is this shifting of the locus of choice — this relocation of a fundamental right from minors to parents — that is constitutionally suspect. For a review of statutory schemes enacted around the nation reveals a widely[p13] used legislative alternative that does not shift a minor’s right to choose: parental notification.

[p. 14 ..... But the State and its supporting amici fail to effectively rebut the trial court’s express findings to the contrary. According to the superior court’s findings, the PCA’s bypass procedures build in delay that may prove “detrimental to the physical health of the minor,” particularly for minors in rural Alaska who “already face logistical obstacles to obtaining an abortion.” The trial court found that judicial bypass procedures “will increase these problems, delay the abortion, and increase the probability that the minor may not be able to receive a safe and legal abortion.”

In fact, they argue, the parental notification, ultimately promotes the dialogue between the pregnant minor and her parents more than does a consent requirement.

[p. 15] Ultimately, because the PCA shifts the right to reproductive choice to minors’ parents, we must conclude that the PCA is, all else being held equal, more restrictive than a parental notification statute. The State has failed to establish that the “greater intrusiveness of consent statutes” is in any way necessary to advance its compelling interests. In fact, in its briefing before us, the State has not focused on the PCA’s benefits as flowing directly from the parental “veto power”; instead, it has consistently suggested that the PCA’s benefits flow from increased parental communication and involvement in the decision-making process. According to the State, the PCA protects minors from their own immaturity by increasing “adult supervision”; it protects the physical, emotional, and psychological health of minors, “[p]articularly in the post-abortion context, [by increasing] parental participation . . . for the purposes of monitoring . . . risks”; it ensures that minors give informed consent to the abortion procedure by making it more likely that they will receive “counsel that a doctor cannot give, advice, adapted to her unique family situation, that covers the moral, social and religious aspects of the abortion decision”; it protects minors from sexual abuse since “once appr[]ised of a young girl’s pregnancy, parents . . . will ask who impregnated her and will report any sexual abuse”; and it strengthens the parent-child relationship by “increas[ing] parental involvement,” “parental consultation,” and open and honest
communication.

[p. 16] The dissent suggests that where a minor forgoes judicialbypass, parental consent guarantees “a conversation.” But it guarantees no more than a one-way conversation and “allows parents to refuse to consent not only where their
judgment is better informed and considered than that of their daughter, but also where it is colored by personal religious belief, whim, or even hostility to her best interests.”44

While the decision is 16 pages, the dissent is 31 pages. The real difference is in the section of where they discuss whether the PCA is the least restrictive option. The dissent argues that it is. In the link to the decision this section begins on page 33.

The dissenting opinion is worth reading, but we have visitors from Juneau and you can read it at the link.

Fun Time at Central Middle School

KS, an Indian Ed teacher in the Anchorage School District invited me to meet with some of his students to talk about the Peace Corps. What do you say to 7th and 8th graders in 30 minutes? Well, I grabbed some pakimas, a farmer shirt, some Karen hill tribe shirts, a yellow King's polo shirt, and a pink polo shirt from my school in Kamphaengphet along with some books and pictures.

We had a good time learning how to put on a pakima (the blue and the red checked men's sarong like cloths) trying out the different shirts and looking at pictures of my 7th and 8th graders 40 years ago. Time went by fast and the kids were great.

Assembly Work Session on Anti-Sanctuary City Ordinance

The basic issues:

1. Paul Bauer has introduced an ordinance that would, among other things, require police to check immigration status of people they stop for traffic violations and to develop a working agreement with Homeland Security. This comes about because Anchorage has made itself a "Sanctuary City."

2. Hispanic civic organizations are strongly opposed because they believe they will be singled out as well as other people who 'look' foreign or have accents.

3. The Assembly Sub Committee had testimony from the following:

• Paul Bauer, the Assembly member who introduced the ordinance, had 30 minutes to present a slide show.
  
• Municipal Attorney said their analysis did not find constitutional problems, though there might be some problems with separation of powers issues - the assembly makes laws and the administration implements the laws. So if the ordinance would tell the police how they had to do their job, that might raise problems.
• The Municipal Prosecutor had several issues
• the negative effect it would have on police-community relations - that it would reduce trust of government and thus tips people give the police which is an important part of crime prevention and investigation
• the effect on reporting domestic violence - women would not report their sponsors for fear of losing sponsor plus other issues
• workload for his office
• Chief of Police Heun said the would continue doing what they do now. If they stop someone they ask for a driver's license. If the person doesn't have one they call it in to check and talk to them to see if we have probable cause to detain them. We have a functional arrangement with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
• Robin Bronin, Alaska Immigration Justice Project (my notes aren't too good at this point, she reiterated points about impact on community and also about domestic violence I believe.)
• Angelina Estrada-Burney from Bridge Builders - Their organization's board has unanimously voted to urge the Assembly to vote no on this.
  
• Margaret Stock - this was by far the most impressive testimony. She introduced herself as a conservative Republican. I shouldn't be amazed anymore when I meet someone from Anchorage who turns out to be a nationally recognized expert on a topic. In this case - checking the web after the work session - I've found all sorts of things about her. From ilw.com:
  

  Margaret Stock is an associate professor of law in the Department of Law, United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y.; an attorney; and a lieutenant colonel in the Military Police Corps.
  

  She had a number of problems with the ordinance.
• The term sanctuary city is not a legal term, but one created on talk shows and blogs
• The Immigration Reform Law Institute that is pushing this 'ideological experiment' is using Anchorage as a Guinea Pig but if Anchorage gets sued, they won't help with the legal costs, and they are proud that Paul Bauer has introduced their ordinance.
• Generally went through a list of practical implications of this type of ordinance, written, she alleged, 'by people with no practical experience with immigration law'
  
• the illegal alien lists used are extremely unreliable
• causes people who are not a problem to be reported
• lawsuits will result as people are wrongly detained
• The Cost Benefit analysis is way off - it will be a very expensive ordinance because of future litigation
  

I've said in previous posts that both my parents were immigrants to the US and that my grandparents were unable to get visas to the US and perished in Nazi Germany. So I'm come to this with a bias.

I did get a chance to talk to Paul Bauer alone after the meeting. He talks calmly, politely, and reasonably. He has a background in the security field and said he was stationed in Berlin for a while in the military and they gathered information from East Berlin. So it is quite believable that security is a high priority item for him, for which some individual liberties are legitimately sacrificed. And at some point I might agree with that general principle, but I suspect that on a continuum from 1 to 10, he would be ready to sacrifice liberties at 1 or 2, while I would be waiting for 8 or 9. He also talked about prevention - that he wanted to deal with gangs before they became an issue and the same here. Even if illegal immigration is not a problem yet in Anchorage - and everyone agreed that we don't have very accurate numbers - he wants to get ahead of the curve.

But his arguments about national security [he started with a slide of Al Qaeda terrorists] seem to be contradicted by other parts of his argument, particularly when he emphasized that 50% of the "illegals" were Mexican and another large percentage were of other Central/South American heritage. I don't think that we are worried about Mexican being terrorists.

I don't really understand why people get so emotional about immigration. All non-Native Americans were once immigrants. There is some primal fear that is at work here. I can't help but believe that for many it is the fear of 'the other.' This is legislation that the blatant racists can get behind and say is about "obeying the law," not race. Just because sites like Alaska Pride support this law, doesn't make it racist, but it doesn't make me feel more comfortable.

If you check websites on immigration, clearly this is a hot button issue. Is immigration the 'gay marriage' of the 2008 election? Is this one of the Republican wedge issues? Is this ordinance and the attacks on Begich over the budget part of the conservative offensive to tarnish the Deomocrats' most successful politician?

Assembly Work Session on Anti-Sanctuary Ordinance

[1:42 pm. The meeting is over, the subcommittee voted to recommend not passing this ordinance. This is a very rough live blog that was updated now and again during the meeting. I will try to clean it up later today.]

Live Blogging Assembly Work Session
12:00
Assembly Work Session on Local Enforcement and Anti-Sanctuary

Assemblymember Matt Claman opened the meeting at 12noon. Assembly member Paul Bauer is making a presentation with power point. The first slide was a set of pictures on Al Queda people who entered the US illegally.


Now a list of defininitions - illegal immigration
Qualified Alien - definition - lawfully permitted ....
Alien who has been battered or subject to extreme cruelty

Reasons for Illegal Immigration
War, reunite families, prostitution



Illegal Immigration is NOT victimless crime

Misdemeanor vs. Felony
sedond and subsequent times becomes felony

Recognize concerns about profiling. 50% of illegals are of Mexican origin and 24% are of non-Mexican South America

Gateway states - California, Washington, Oregon - laws that allow immigrants to come
Cal 2.83 million, Wash - 280,00, Oregon Sanctuary State, as is Alaska - because of Anti Patriot act resolution

Health Costs to US - people get health benefits but tax payers pick up the burden, and they spread diseases long ago wiped out in US

Mexico's defense of illegal immigrants - 20 Billion dollars to Mexico - they will not enforce their borders, release valve for them

Alaska Justice Center numbers - estimate 7-10,000 in AK

12:25 - Bauer finishing up his presentation - talking about the ordinance he is introducing
Where people indicate he is not a citizen, ...

Official Use of Individual Immigration Status Information - federal rules, no one can be prohibited

If we pass this we just say you come to agreement with homeland security. This does not preempt our laws.

12:36pm Continued live coverage Municipal Attorney says he does not think the ordinance is unconstitutional. Though there is something that could raise questions about separation of powers. The assembly makes law and the administration implements them. We are not sure the assembly can tell the administration what it must do is a potential problem.

Questions:
Teshe

Claman -whether the resolution turned Anchorage into a Sanctuary City?
Attorney: Not exactly sure what the popular press means when it uses the word Sanctuary City. But based on the legal research, this did not make law. This resolution did not change the legal environment of the municipality of anchorage.

[I'm learning how to do this - taking pictures, trying to upload, etc. The Library wifi is slow, so bear with me]

12:00 Matt Claman opening the meeting
Bauer will present first, then others


Teshe - I appreciate Mr. Bauer’s presentation, I’d like a copy of the slides.
I would like to make a statement at the end. There are a number of people here who want to address this. Thank you to Mr. Bauer for his presentation.

Claman: Only question. Dr. Selkregg? I handed out a copy of the Muni Attorney’s memorandum. The Question I had that is based on the 2003 statement that Anchorage is a sanctuary city. A resolution is an opinion and does not have affect of a law. Hard to understand how that changed us to a sanctuary city?

Bauer: since this became a big issue, cities have made themselves sanctuary cities. The state started in in May and in July the city did. The situation growing so much, the Congressional Research Service, when they asked about enforcing immigration law, a list of cities that they called sanctuary.

Claman: Did you write the ordinance yourself?

Bauer: I’m not a lawyer, it comes from a public interest group attorneys that used this as a model. This is very minor compared to what is out there.

Claman: Is the group you are discussing the Immigration Law Insittute?
The next person I’ve asked to make a presentation is the Municipal Attorney

M. Attorney:

Selkregg - Question about outcome of the law. Could you explore that with us? I think it’s a critical issue.

Attorney- Footnote 2 - refer to CRS report. Katie, Texas - even though a law may be permissable on its face, sometimes laws are extremely difficult to apply in the field on a day to day basis. The expeirences that happen in the field attract law suits. Racial discrimination suits, wrongful arrest, defamation. I think about APD and have no questions they won’t try to carry out the law impeccably. This kind of law regularly attract constitutional claims about the way they are applied.

Selkregg - I’d like to know more about what is happening in other cities as the outcomes of this kind of law. Laws may look like ok, but the actual impact may be bad - such as laws that affect who can vote.
12:48pm
Selkregg - concerned that Bauer said not everyone would be asked about their citizenship
Bauer - In your view - how do you view the ordinance yourself? What do you think it means. Ms. Selkregg says its the end of the world, we'll get all sorts of law suits
Attrny: We haven't said it unconstitutiona. By and large, it passes muster. It imposes some responsibilities on APD.
Bauer: Specifically/
Attrny: ob - responsibility to ask about citizenship of detained person; cooperate with federal forces. We've said there is nothing on the face of that that is unconstitutiona. It requres APD to enter a cooperative agreement with Homeland Security. But we did say there was a separation of powers.
Bauer:
Claman: Sorry you had your three questions, lots of other people, I may have to limit questions

added 1:13pm
Municipal Prosecutor: Some concerns about how this will affect our office. Similar to concerns APD has. Law enforcement needs to have close ties to community to do its job. These are the people we protect. They are also important sources of information, which we need as evidence to prove our cases. AT times this is hard to get, no one wants to talk to the cops. This requirement to enquire about people’s immigration status, it would deter immigrants from coming forward to cooperate with police to solve crimes. Concerns about domestic violence victims not filing because of concerns about their immigration status or their batterer will no longer be their sponsor. I should note there are special provisions for specific types of visas for victims of domestic violence under federal policy. Important to place emphasis on protecting victims of domestic violence. Anything that could deter immigrants from reporting domestic violence concerns me.

Finally, effect on workload in my office. We are source of information on legal matters for APD. Prosecutors take a lot of calls when they are off duty about legal questions and providing advice to police - we will be their primary source of advice. Very complex body of law.

Committee Questions:?
Bauer: Position of prosecutors office, because of close ties of APD to community, that we should neglect helping out and enforcing illegal aliens in the community. You did hear illegals cause a burden to the community.
Prosecutor: I’m expressing concern about enforcing laws.
Claman - we have four more people have to stop already one pm.

Rocky Heun, Chief of Police: Willingness to answer questions. Police will always fall back on probably cause and ????. No matter how law shakes out, we’ll continue doing, what we do right now. To investigate and enforce the law. We will make a traffic stop, for instance. If a person doesn’t have a drivers license, then we start talking. Attena go up. Check to see if they really have one, and talk to see if we have enough probable cause to detain them. We contact ICE, we have a functional relationship. ICE will give us advice - take guidance from ICE if we have probable cause to believe that someone is an illegal immigrant.
Scope of the problem as we know it. Mr. Bauer and I contacted ICE and we couldn’t get the scope of the problem. I went back to the APD files:
Arrests 2005 total of 6 2006, 7, this year 5. Total 18
We made total of 15,000 in 05 this year 10,750

APD arrests of illegals 42,817 chargeable offenses , we had 18 illegals. That doesn’t mean there are illegals we aren’t in contact with. Office of Detention and removal of ICE regularly check the jails to see if there is anyone there to be remanded. I don’t know those numbers so I’m interested in the FOIA request that Bauer has filed.

Tesche: Do you have statistics about violent crimes committed by illegals that hasn’t been made public?

Heun: I don’t have that, but I can get back to you.

Tesche: I want to test the proposition that there is a crime wave by illegals.

Bauer: One question. In your contacts what were circumstances of arrests that led APD to make contact with these folks.
Heun: Most were traffic stops, based on our suspicion
Bauer: Why dig further?
Heun: Not having a drivers license, you engage in conversation that leads to things.
Selkregg: I know you’ve been working with the immigrant community, if we pass this proposal, how will it affect our relationships.
Heun: Intl. Associ. Of Chiefs of Police have guidelines. This is a concern. Always a concern when any element in the community perceives itself to be isolated from the police.
Claman: Immigration Justice Project
Robin Bronin, Alaska Immigration Justice Project

Robin Bronin, Alaska Immigration Justice Project
….Congress has been creating legislation to help immigrants come forward, especially those who have failed to get their documents because a spouse has been abusing them.
Claman: We would like copies of both documents.
Bauer: Do you now or have you ever harbored or supported illegal immigrants and if you did would you give us numbers and could you help us develop our statistics?
Bronin: I don’t have that information 1:17

Bridge Builders, Angelina ????: Sent email to all members of assembly, that board members of BB have passed a resolution against this ordinance. Our member come from various ethnic communities of Anchorage. We want Anchorage to become the first city without prejudice. This ordinance would be harmful to our goal.
We work with the police and ASD hoping that Anchorage will serve as a cultural mecca, that people will value the diversity of Anchorage. Distressed with the anti-immigration sentiments on blogs and media that this ordinance has generated.

Bauer: Hi Angelina. One question. As the ordinance is drafted…. What fear do you see that legal immigrants would have?

Angelina: Who would be asked - profiling? Would people with dark skin or an accent be asked but not others?

Bauer: I agree with you. And the ordinance does have things that get that through. The presentation prior stated statistics… in no way can you get away about illegal immigrants.

Angelina: We believe in equal respect for all people here.

Selkregg: Have you asked UAA and hospitals about this?
Angelina: We work with them but haven’t asked

Fed. Employee, attorney, : I’ve been an attorney in Professor at West Point, Dept. Of Law. But today only talking on behalf of myself.

Dept. Of Defense has a significant number of illegal immigrants fighting in Iraq. We do grant postumas citizenship to those who die in combat

I’m a registered Republican and conservative who lives on the hillside.

Sanctuary City term is not a legal term. It is basically a talk radio and blog term. The slide show had lots of errors. All the Al Queda entered country legally.

Ordinance offered by people with no practical experience with immigration law. It is ideological experiment. Not a problem in Alaska. We are a guinea pig for this organization. They are very proud Bauer has introduced this here in Anchorage and brag about it on their website.

This generally causes people who are not a problem to be reported. Hard to determine who is or is not a citizen. I’ve had people walk into my office who said they were illegal aliens and after 45 minutes I told them they were citizens. And vice versa. Very had to figure out if someone is illegal alien. Run the name through the data base, but the data base is full of errors. Rep. ???, ran her new attorney’s name through the data base and found she was listed as illegal. She’s not.

Cost Benefit - lawsuits happen, expensive, go on for years, ordinances get struck down. Facing millions of dollars in attorney’s fees. The institute doesn’t pay the attorney fees for legislation they foist on them.

It requires checking anyone who is not a citizen.

Bauer: It’s 1:30 this meeting is over.

Claman: We started 6 minutes late, so we will go six more minutes.

Tesche: I don’t know enough about immigration law to ask a question.
Johnson: C/B analysis - Bauer says he wants it passed because it will create fear. And attached link
Bauer: You need to get your facts straight.
Claman: We’ll resolve that off the record.
Bauer: I have a lot of questions. You have impeccable qualifications. I did training at West POint ROTC. Millions of dollars of lawsuits.
???: Not this one, this one hasn’t been tested.
Bauer: Thank you. This is a totally different ordinacne.
???: Yes, we’re a guinnea pig they got you to file
Bauer: They didn’t get me. I chose on my own there were two models and I DID NOT chose number 2.
Claman: Close public hearing. Subcommittee ready to make recommendation?
Tesche: I would incorporate all the comments on the record and propose a do not pass.
Johnson: I listened to everyone and have had calls. I felt all along, to be honest, that the resolution of 2003 was non-binding. I have to say I do not feel this is a Mu;nicipal Issue and I’m not comfortable tying up MOA resources and support do not pass.
Claman: As chair. I don’t get past the sanctuary city analsysis. It’s an expression of opinion and they are valuable and they differ. It is not binding on what we do. I can’t get to the point of sanctuary city. Also recommend do not pass.

The attorney name is Margaret Stock.

The meeting is over. I’ll post this then try to clean it up and add stuff later. 1:10pm

Charlie Wilson's War

At the movies last week, we saw the preview [I know, they call them trailers these days, but 'pre' 'view' as something you see before seeing the actual film and something you see before the feature movie, still seems to make more sense than something you drag behind, like a trailer] for Charlie Wilson's War, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

I want to make a plug here for George Crile's book. It's a very engrossing giant of a book that tells the nonfiction stories of Congressional intrigue, setting up the US arming of the Muhajedeen resistance to the Soviets in Afghanistan, and wheeling and dealing with the powers that be in Pakistan. This book goes into great detail, but reads like a good adventure spy novel. There's no better way I know of to till in some of those blanks about how we got where we are today in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I know that the movie, no matter how good it is, just can't go into the details that book does. If kids studied history by reading books like this, it would be the favorite subject of more than few people like Ropi.

So, before the movie publicity causes all the library copies to be checked out, go get your copy and start reading Charlie Wilson's War.

Library Day, Anchorage is Our Home

Lunch with A.S at the Thai Kitchen. Decided to bike it because it would be easier to park than the car at the UAA library afterward. It was nice being in the library, it's been a while.










Found my book - Scott Gant's We're All Journalists Now. Someone on the Next Hurrah had recommended it. And it fits right in the my previous post on bloggers credentialing. When I read this in the inside cover

Are bloggers journalists, even if they receive no income? Even if they are unedited and sometimes irresponsible? Many traditional news organizations would say no But Gant contends otherwise...

Then the bike trail home, by the south fork of Chester Creek at the bridge at UAA.






But I left the bike home later when I went downtown to the museum for the showing of Anchorage is Our Home - co sponsored by Healing Racism Anchorage and the Hispanic Affairs Council of Alaska (HACA). The film is a series of clips from interviews of people in Anchorage talking about racism they have encountered, how it affected them, and the kind of Anchorage they would like to see. The Mayor dropped by and said a few words - mentioning particularly Paul Bauer's proposed new Assembly Ordinance to require Anchorage Police to ask anyone they stop for any 'legal' reason to produce proof of their legal status in the US. There is an Assembly Work Session on this Wednesday at noon in City Hall.

You want to know who supports Bauer's proposed ordinance? Check out the Alaska Pride blog. While you are there check out his White Nationalist links some of his

Other Favorite Sites

* The Truth About Martin Luther King
* Council of Conservative Citizens
* American Nationalist Union
* American Renaissance
* Jeff Rense
* Conservative HQ Forum
* Boycott Cabela's

General WN Blogs

* Anti-Semite Sam's Blog
* Aryan Matters Blog
* Bill White's Blog
* Dietrich's Blog
* Estonian Sunshine Blog
* Expose Them All
* Masher News Blog
* Nationalist Dissident Voice (UK)
* Panzerfaust Blog
* PC Apostate Blog
* Snow White's Blog
* South Africa Blog
* State Line Star
* The Rabbit Hole
* Tuonela's Blog

* White Reference Blog

I don't have the heart to provide the links to these sites, but you can get them on the Alaska Pride site. Look at a few of these and then tell me that racism doesn't exist in Alaska.

Mountain Ash Berries on Ice

Big Oil's Still Big Oil

[This began at the end of the previous post on the state censoring a blog, but it got so long I decided to make it a separate post.]


While you check out Alaskan Abroad, don't skip the letter "consultant Daniel Johnston recently sent to legislators." I quote in part:

For those of you who had to suffer through my testimony the past two years you will recall numerous references to risky places like Libya, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Russia where the government share of profits ("take") was in the high eighties i.e. around 85+%.

So now Alaska is considering a change to the petroleum profits tax which will add another 1% or so to Government take. Yawn. [emphasis mine]

This, as we read in today's Anchorage Daily News that Rep. Mike Chenault of Nikiski "successfully pushed through an amendment to bring the rate back down to 22.5 percent." And, "Rep. Mike Hawker objected to raising the tax." If it weren't for Rep. Mike Doogen, I'd be wondering if we shouldn't make Mikes ineligible for the legislature.

These guys are still buying the oil companies' arguments that they will leave for easier pickings. If that's the case, why aren't the oil companies answering the questions about their Alaska profits?

Several state legislators, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Hollis French, D-Anchorage, and House Resources Committee Co-Chairman Carl Gatto, R-Palmer, have unsuccessfully tried to press the companies for cost and profit information specifically for Alaska.

They've found those who produce oil in Alaska don't like to talk about their profits in the state, and in some cases won't say anything.

Do the Mikes really believe their line about their accounting doesn't break out Alaska finances separately? They're playing hardball and you guys are blinking.

We've watched the surveillance tapes. We know what goes on. Mikes, is your free market ideology blocking your common sense? The free market posits two parties making a deal. The oil companies are making a deal. They are offering much lower than they are willing to settle for. They'd be stupid if they offered their last best level first. And the state, the owner of the oil, this scarce commodity that is now pushing $100/barrel, is the other actor. It should be asking much higher than it's willing to settle for. Given what the oil companies are paying elsewhere, it should be a lot more than 25%. Either you guys are a little slow on how the game is played or you've got reasons to push the oil company line that you aren't sharing.


Call your legislators and tell them not to sell out the state. If this oil was in your back yard, would you settle for 22.5% of the profits and let the guys who got it to market take all the rest, minus their costs? Sure you would.

Remember, these Republican legislators are the same people who have kept Randy Ruedrich as their party chairman. This is the guy Sarah Palin filed ethics complaints against when she quit the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission.

State Censoring Blogs?

This was posted on the political/oil/Czech rock blog Alaskan Abroad Saturday:

I just found out the state blocks AA [Alaskan Abroad] on state-owned computers, at least for classified employees. The ban doesn't apply for legislators or the Third Floor. How cool is that?

My response? Not cool at all. The most positive explanation would be that something in his plastic people coverage snagged the State internet filter. But then it would have snagged the ADN as well, surely. And I know State workers can get the ADN because they've linked to this blog from the ADN.

And why would the third floor have access? Or do they have unfiltered access to the internet?

So, first, is this really happening? If it is, who sets the State policy on state employee internet access? Why would a blog that focuses on Alaska politics and oil issues get blocked? This is a giant step backward for bloggers.