Gabrielle Rubenstein announced plans to resign from the Alaska Permanent Fund Board of Trustees Wednesday, but not before providing a key vote in removing Ethan Schutt as chairman and replacing him with Jason Brune. Former Attorney General Craig Richards referred to it as a “coup.” I heard last week from other sources that the trustees had informally discussed in advance the plan to make Brune the chair, violating the open meetings act. The vote was 4-2 with Richards and Schutt opposed. The Anchorage Daily News has the best coverage. Referring to his “coup” comment, Richards said, “It’s exactl ..read more

The imaginary war on Alaska continues. “Regardless of who is on the top of the ticket, the National Democrats and the failed Biden-Harris agenda will still be on the ballot this November,” Sen. Dan Sullivan said in a press release after President Joe Biden stepped aside, with Vice President Kamala Harris his likely replacement. Sullivan’s press release went on to claim that part of the Biden-Harris agenda is “Biden’s unprecedented war on Alaska—with 68 executive orders and actions specifically targeting our state and our working families.” Sullivan appeared on Fox News on June 26 and said the ..read more

Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s analysis on President Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of the 2024 race is cogent and enlightening. If you haven’t done so already, listen to what she said Sunday night. I am in awe of the discipline and skill required to produce her daily “Letters from an American,” which has more than 1.5 million subscribers. She has her critics among some academics, but I know of no one else writing about history and politics who can match her schedule, her batting average and her range. She has something important to say almost every day. Sunday was no exception, an impor ..read more

Moms for Liberty is a recently hatched nationwide group that circulates lists of books it wants to ban from public school libraries. Ruth Ewig, a Fairbanks Mom for Liberty, says the Moms want to ban objectionable books from public school libraries, but she objects to me saying that the group wants to ban books from libraries. Ruth Ewig testifying to the Fairbanks school board in April. She wrote a letter to the Daily News-Miner July 19, complaining about a blog post that appeared here on June 6. Here is the blog post in question. Ewig said I am a “woke journalist” and it is a “distraction fro ..read more

One of the many odd things about the Dunleavy administration lawsuit over imaginary oil revenues from undiscovered oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the dreamlike quality of its estimates. The ANWR lawsuit claims in its first paragraph that the “state would have earned hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in royalties and other revenues” had the Biden administration not intervened. This is the state’s lawsuit. It was timed for July 2, so that Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor could issue this press release saying, “As the rest of the nation celebrates the Fourth of Jul ..read more

The Alaska Permanent Fund Board of Trustees is set to meet July 24 in Fairbanks, a regular quarterly meeting at which decisions will be made and updates presented regarding the operations of this vital institution. But there are only five members of the trustees at this point—two employees of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a former employee of Dunleavy, a contract employee of Dunleavy and Gabrielle Rubenstein, a political supporter of Dunleavy. The employees are Revenue Commissioner Adam Crum and Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson, while the former employee is Jason Brune, former environmental com ..read more

It’s time for Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan to be candid with Alaskans about how their flawed political process helped elevate Josh Kindred to a lifetime seat on the federal bench. They now admit he was the wrong man for the job. They don’t admit that their secrecy and lack of transparency is part of the problem. President Trump appointed Kindred on November 21, 2019. The Senate confirmed him 54-41 on February 12, 2020. Kindred resigned under pressure this week for misconduct. Let’s start by looking at the so-called “bar poll” of 2017, a survey of Alaska Bar Association members conduct ..read more

I have little to add to the disastrous conclusion of the brief career of former federal judge Josh Kindred, except to point out that Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan praised him as a great choice for the federal bench just four-and-a-half years ago. They said they trusted the former attorney for the Alaska Oil and Gas Association and former regional attorney for the Department of Interior. They said they knew Kindred, then 41, to be a man of good character who was committed to justice. They had asked President Donald Trump to nominate him for the federal court. “I commend this body, parti ..read more

I spent several days traveling and away from the blog. I want to update you on some things. In response to reader requests, I have changed the subject line in emails sent to everyone on my mailing list to reflect the topic of the day and not just the name of this blog. It appears, however, that this change is in some cases directing my missives out of regular inboxes and into other categories, namely “promotions.” This has happened to some readers using gmail. Please check your spam folder to see if my emails have landed there. I hope to get this straightened out, but it may require some added ..read more

The Biden administration temporarily blocked the proposed 211-mile Ambler road project Friday. Here is the record of decision. The usual suspects had the usual comments. 'The decision is illegal and outrageous, said Alaska politicians and the mining industry. The decision is great news, said members of Alaska environmental and conservation groups. This is not the last word on the project, as the administrative and legal battles will continue. Sen. Dan Sullivan is pushing an amendment in a defense bill that would override the Biden administration, claiming the proposed road is a matter of natio ..read more