On the 10th, Ishmael Melville at Kodiak Confidential posted this picture, taken on Smith Island on Prince William Sound, on July 1. The paper on the oiled beach is of the June 26, 2008 edition of the Anchorage Daily News. It reminds me of the kidnapping pictures, where a newspaper is put next to a kidnapped person, or in the hands of the kidnapped person, to show he or she was alive on a certain date.Ish also tracked the non-appearance of Rep. Don Young on The Rock last week. It seems that Young's campaign had announced a meet-and-greet with the candidate there, but when he got there, he didn't come out in public. Come on, Don, the people in Kodiak can be extraordinarily friendly to our congressional delegation:
Ish also brought attention to Brendan Joel Kelley's excellent Anchorage Press article about Kodiak State Representative Gabrielle LeDoux's run against Don Young in the Alaska GOP primary.
Four Alaskan blogs covered the opening of the Anchorage Barack Obama headquarters. Writing Raven noted the lack of Alaska Native attendees, hoping for more outreach by the Obama campaign to the Native community than she has seen so far. Celtic Diva got some good shots of some of the people attending the event, one of which made it onto the Obama campaign's web page. Mudflats was there, too, taking cool photos, and making an observation about the Alaska Obama campaign I've also been making - since January: "The organization was pretty darned impressive."
And Myster from Own the Sidewalk was there. Her essay on thoughts about the opening is certainly worth reading:
"But the best thing about the Obama party, at least for the few minutes I was there, was that everyone seemed to be smiling. There was a lot of hope in that building. There was a lot of good energy. We were feeling good to be a battleground state, to think that maybe this time we were actually going to play a role in electing someone worth believing in."
There was a lot of attention paid to the indictment of Alaska State Sen. John Cowdery, on conspiracy and bribery counts. There seems to be some speculation about who Senator A is in this indictment. Steve Aufrecht, whose coverage of this, as in the earlier Alaska GOP corruption events, is the most through and authoritative available, fnames Donny Olson as "A." Steve writes that the indictment's reference to Senator B having "resigned from office in 2006," doesn't preclude former Sen. Ben Stevens from being "B," even though the DOJ indictments have been very precise in the past, and that Stevens didn't "resign," he merely didn't run for another term. Robert Dillon writes at An Alaskan Abroad that "B" is Ben. Then there's still the mystery senator on page 11 of the indictment. I predict more than one new arrest this summer.
Progressive Alaska spent a lot of time on Sen. Ted Stevens this past week. I've been covering three issues that coalesced into one neat package during the Senator's July 2 joint press conference with Gov. Sarah Palin:
1. Increasing evidence that Sen. Stevens' ability to do his job for six more years should be closely scrutinized.
2. The Senator's full endorsement of the faulty premise behind the novel, America Alone.
3. And - most importantly - Ted Stevens' hypocritical, cynical proposal, called "Energy Blueprint," is a brazen attempt by him to cover for legislation that he is responsible for, that has cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars over the past seven and a half years.
Celtic Diva covered the issue of the book, at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis, DailyKos, and in the Anchorage Daily News. The Anchorage Press made an attempt to get information out of Ted's DC office on this, but came up short on providing more information.
Sen. Stevens' role in the creation of the "Enron Loophole," back in December 2000, along with Sen. Phil Gramm (now John McCain's financial advisor for his presidential campaign), and Gramm's wife, Wendy, who was then on the Enron board of directors, is the most under-covered story of the 2008 campaign in Alaska. The Mark Begich campaign has been quick to understand the full implications of the corrupt legislation, issuing a statement yesterday that warrants more coverage this coming week by the Alaska media.
That's all I've got time for now.
images - photo of oil on Smith Island attributed to Dave Janka; YouTube from the Alaska Report; image from the Obama opening by Mudflats; Alaska GOP seal by Dennis Zaki
4 comments:
Phil, please don't put words in people's mouths. I think most of the evidence points at Ben Stevens. I tried to be careful NOT to say it wasn't Stevens, but I was raising an inconsistency which raises a speck of doubt. The indictment says that Senator B resigned in 2006.
Specifically I said:
"[Dillon at An Alaskan Abroad says this is Ben Stevens. But Stevens, in my recollection, did not resign from office, he simply did not run for reelection in 2006. The Feds are usually precise with details like this.]"
I couldn't find anything that said he resigned before the election. In September 2006 he was referred to as Senator Ben Stevens.
Steve,
Sorry, I was trying to paraphrase you in a way that did your explanation justice. I guess that next time I'll just quote...
Hi Phil,
That oily newspaper photo was provided to the Prince William Sound RCAC by David Janka, who I am assuming shot it.
Ish,
I'll fix it...**&%crash$**#...
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