Friday, August 5, 2011

Ten Thoughts on FuglvogGate

1.  Try to say "FuglvogGate" fast ten times without biting your tongue.

2.  Very, very few people are saying, "This goes to show we should have elected Joe Miller."  I have a hunch that had we elected Miller, there would have been far more 2011 scandals coming out of that DC office.

3.  Murkowski should have had somebody look fully into this when she got wind of it in December.

4.  When he told her he was really, really in trouble over a month ago, she should have immediately put him on leave pending an internal investigation, or have said, "Start cleaning out your desk, Arne."

5.  Murkowski's ways of wiggling out of this remind me of how she dealt with the press when the Kenai property scam started becoming an issue.  At first she sought to see if it might blow over or go away.  Then she minimized what truly was a situation that came her way only because she was a powerful politician.  Finally, she pretended to come clean.

6.  Craig Medred sort of gets the systemic questions the Fuglvog case brings up.  Shannyn Moore gets it.  Wes Loy - looking back through all his articles that mentioned Arne - continues to impress me as the most incurious fisheries reporter in Alaska history.

7.  People like Loy, Medred and Laine Welch, with experience reporting Alaska fisheries issues for mainstream Alaska media are getting fewer and further between.  New, more progressive voices than these, like Moore and Stephen Taufen, struggle to be able to make a real salary covering fisheries issues in this increasingly corrupt, corporate world.  Here's part of Taufen's last column on Murkowski and Fuglvog (and other issues), written almost a year ago:
And now that Lisa Murkowski – Miss What Do I Stand For? – lost the Republican primary (but unlike the Quitter, she won’t give up), she stands to fill the six-inch pumps of Alaska’s federal lobbyist stormtroopers.  In all likelihood, Arne Fuglvog will trail along at her heels to service the fishing companies of Seattle, Tokyo and Seoul.  Lisa’s failure to take on the industry regarding about $2 billion in revenues missing annually from Alaska’s fisheries - due to illicit accounting techniques as foreign-owned firms shift revenues and expenses across borders among their affiliates and parent firms, all to avoid U.S. nexus taxes (and even foreign taxes) - will be richly rewarded as a lobbyist.
Well, she cashed in a lot of chips, and beat Miller and McAdams in the recount that wasn't actually counted, and nobody has bothered to ask Taufen's unanswered questions about  "illicit accounting techniques."  Perhaps now, when one of a similar technique's masters has been busted, might be a time to ask some deeper questions, do some real investigating.

8.  Moore brought up the fact that the State of Alaska was at one time involved in on investigating Fuglvog.  Where has that gone?  The same direction as any investigations of fishery issues involving Ben Stevens, most likely.

9.  When is the last time you heard of a $100,000.00 fine and ten months in prison for a misdemeanor?

10.  Now is the time for Alaska Natives in the Yukon and Kuskokwim drainages to hit the National Marine Fisheries Service's credibility, and to hit it hard.  Again and again and again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I guess that Lisa's support for native communities hit by sparse fishing opportunities really is just posturing on her behalf. Remember her write in campaign was supported by many native voters; they were led to believe that she had their back and was in their corner, when really she is part of the corporate fishing cabal that is killing subsistence in certain bush communities. All that time she spent teaching folks to spell her name and this is how they get repaid for their hard work.

Anonymous said...

re:10-
And the peoples on all the other river drainages into Norton Sound , north of the Yukon River Delta
and yes, again and again.
Alaska Pi

Anonymous said...

Lanie Welch focus on fish markets and positive stories about the industry, not crimes and investigation stories. She does a good job.

Anonymous said...

^^^ Yea positive stories about rationalization and by-catch measures. There's been ongoing corruption in fisheries that's been unaddressed for 20 years. It's all well known fact by fisherman and regulators but is anything done about it? NO! Why? Because reporters like Loy and Welch refuse to acknowledge the obvious problems that have arisen WORLD-WIDE and are being ignored in "the most sustainable well regulated fishery in the world."

Get a clue, their paychecks they make covering fisheries come from industry backed advertisements and coverage of industry events. If they don't go along with industry, regardless of what's really taking place, they won't be making that check. No better than people like fuglvog (and he ain't no fish pirate) who will lie and cover up the truth to make a profit.

Anonymous said...

^^^ Yea positive stories about rationalization and by-catch measures. There's been ongoing corruption in fisheries that's been unaddressed for 20 years. It's all well known fact by fisherman and regulators but is anything done about it? NO! Why? Because reporters like Loy and Welch refuse to acknowledge the obvious problems that have arisen WORLD-WIDE and are being ignored in "the most sustainable well regulated fishery in the world."

Get a clue, their paychecks they make covering fisheries come from industry backed advertisements and coverage of industry events. If they don't go along with industry, regardless of what's really taking place, they won't be making that check. No better than people like fuglvog (and he ain't no fish pirate) who will lie and cover up the truth to make a profit.