The Alaskan GOP: The Party of Bear-Shit Crazy

Being an Alaskan political blogger has become a full-time occupation since the current legislative session began in January. Our local republicans have been accused of conflicts of interest (Micciche); ignoring the US Constitution (Chenault); padding their paychecks by keeping office supply money (Chenault and Olson); reinventing history by exonerating Exxon from culpability in the Exxon Valdez oil spill (Olson); sending an email to a secretary with the message 'What a crock of shit'(Chenault); making fart jokes in the Alaska House of Representatives (Chenault) and explaining why he voted to override a citizens' initiative and thereby letting cruise ships dump sewage in coastal areas by saying that Anchorage already does so (Micciche).

In this breaking story, GOP Party Chairperson, Debbie Holle Brown has now barricaded herself in the Republican Party Headquarters in Anchorage, had the locks changed and has threatened to have anyone entering the building arrested. Apparently, she's doing this to keep the old guard (Randy Ruedrich) from re-taking control of the party after Brown and fellow teabagger, Russ Millete took over in the Ron Paul coup last year.  Ruedrich already out maneuvered Millette by exposing Russ's lack of fund-rasing experience and general incompetence and had Millette demoted...

Crazy!

April 9th Update:
Debbie's out.  The GOP executive committee voted to remove Brown as the chairperson citing that she had raised less than $1000 for the party.  Since expenses were around $4000/month, the executive board said it was business, not politics that guided their decision.

The Brown Queen of the GOP: Through the Looking Glass, Comically

It's official, Russ Millette, the elected chair of the Alaska GOP was ousted last night by the Republican Party leadership and in his place, Kasilof's own Debbie Holle Brown has ascended the throne.

Former party chair, currently under investigation for various shenanigans, Randy Ruedrich led the coup.  Claiming that Millette was basically incompetent, a charge that no one disputes, the Republican Executive Committee decided to have Debbie Brown, the elected vice-chair, take over the top position.

Yes, THAT Debbie Brown who always had something (inane) to say at Kenai Borough Assembly meetings.  THAT Debbie Brown that asked to have the three-minute public testimony allowance expanded just for her because it took her at least three minutes to give her introduction to what she was going to say.  That Debbie Brown whose word salads make Sarah Plain seem like a Rhodes Scholar. THAT Debbie Brown who when serving on the Kenai school board, the rest of the board and school superintendent had to create a new rule to keep her from making unauthorized, and well, crazy statements on behalf of the board. 

Brown, who herself was under investigation for misusing Party funds apparently was cleared, but her husband, former borough assemblyman Jack Brown, faces over $30,000 in fines by APOC for misusing District 34 funds.

Well, does Ruedrich and the old republican guard think they can use Brown as a puppet?  Do they think she has the capacity to really lead the party?  Will she actually have any power?

Ruedrich and company are not taking chances.  They've already transferred the republican political war chest to a fund out of Brown's reach.

It will be fun watching to see how all of this will unfold. 

Debbie Brown and the A-Pauling Republicans

So, Randy Ruedrich retired and the CBC Republicans have been ousted from leadership roles by a union of Paulbots and Teabaggers.   Russ Millette is now the Republican Party Chairman.


And now, please sit down and pour yourself a stiff drink, Kasilof's Debbie Brown is co-Chair.
Debbie, who makes former Gov Sarah Palin's word-salad rants seem erudite, somehow convinced the Ron Paul/Joe Miller/TeaBag coalition that she is leadership material.


Or maybe they were aware of the bard's warning:
“Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.” 
― William Shakespeare, Richard III


Anyway, it seems that Ruedrich drained the remaining $100,000 from the Repub's bank account before Russ or Debbie could put their names on the checkbook.


More details can be found here and here.


Debbie has appeared in SOL a few time before.  Check out what she did to earn that notoriety here.

Stop Not Making Sense

I didn’t go to the last Borough Assembly meeting, but I listened to the KDLL news report about Debbie Brown’s and George Pierce’s testimonies against funding non-profits.  Neither of them has any of their facts straight, but what do you expect?  For what it is worth, Debbie was able to speak a few clearly understood sentences and that’s different, although what she said was…crazy, so nothing really has changed I suppose. 

George confused the Kenai Watershed Forum, the non-profit that the Borough Assembly is considering partially funding, with state and federal regulatory agencies that were “taking land away from people”.  Debbie talked to the assembly as if they were kindergarten kids, explaining in the most basic terms what a non-profit does.  “They benefit their members"was her conclusion.

Robert Ruffner, the director of the KWF, noted that they did a lot of work for the borough particularly spearheading replacing substandard culverts that were impeding salmon migration and such, and that they hired local contractors at market rates to do this.  The KWF has been able to obtain several matching grants to replace the culverts. Because of their familiarity with the process of coordinating with inter-government agencies, they have expedited these projects, and have already replaced some dozen of these culverts and at a fraction of the cost that the borough would have incurred on its own.

So, people like Debbie, George, the ACT people and Fred Sturman, try to come across as folksy, homespun, common sense citizens, but in fact, they are not anything more than self-serving, stingy grinches. 

There are a few homespun sayings that come in mind about them:

Penny wise and pound-foolish.  So, this crowd would rather avoid paying for a few things now that would then take so much more money in the future to correct.  And we’re talking about preserving one of the few healthy remaining salmon runs on the planet.  What they are really saying is that they’d rather save a few dollars on property taxes, which are already some of the lowest in the nation, and to hell with worrying about having our grandkids have fish in the Kenai River. 

They would cut off their nose to spite their face. These folks are so caught up in their no-tax dogma, that they would oppose things that would, without a doubt, benefit the economy, recreation and culture of the Kenai. I think they are just basically cheap bastards. Oh, and the kicker here is that the $100,000 that the KWF is asking for would come from what the state gets from the haul of commercial fishermen and passed back to the borough.  So, not a penny of property tax would actually be used and the money the state receives from the fishing industry would then be used to enhance and perpetuate the fishery – and benefit all of us.  A win, win, win situation. 

They fiddle while Rome burns: So, there are clear and undisputed problems and there are clear and undisputed solutions, but Debbie and company would rather engage in political theater rather than actually solve the problems.  Notice that neither of them offered alternatives that might actually solve anything.  

The KPB barely dodged letting the crazies run the asylum this last election. Just check out the comments to any PC story and see that we have some very, very scary neighbors. Check out the PC story on this here.

6 Pack

The salmon are in the freezer, most of the big summer chores are almost done and maybe, just maybe, there will be some time to devote to this blog once again.

The PC reported that there are now six candidates for borough mayor.  New to the field is Tim O'Brien, a retired oil patch worker from Nikiski.  Of course, that follows last week's announcement that former borough mayor, Mike Navarre, entered the contest after he was able to convince Ron Long to drop out of the race.

Ron and Mike had enough common sense to realize that they would be competing for the same voters.  Ron, from Seward, and despite being on the borough assembly and its president for one term, really didn't have the name recognition on the peninsula and wasn't interested in schilling for votes, so it probably wasn't too hard for Mike to talk him into withdrawing from the race.

O'Brien doesn't seem to have any clear reason why he is running, well, except that his friends convinced him to giving it a try.

Right now, despite six candidates, I see a three-way race between Dale Bagley, Gary Superman and Mike Navarre.  Debbie Brown and Fred Strurman won't get anyone other than ACT folks to vote for them.

Here are the links to each candidiate's web site:
Mike Navarre: Nothing but press releases right now
Dale Bagley: Some info regarding his past accomplishments, light on what he might do.
Debbie Brown: Big on ideas, little substance on her site.
Fred Sturman: Fred's got one idea - cut spending.  Not one idea of exactly how or what he would cut.
Gary Superman: Nothing here right now other than his announcement that he is running.
Tim O'Brien: No web site yet, but there is a Tim O'Brien running for mayor of New Britian that has one!

ACT Won: A Peninsula Travesty

At last night's borough assembly meeting, upon reconsideration, the assembly defeated the measure that would have put the mayor vs manager style of government on the ballot this fall. Homer's Bill Smith was the swing vote, as he changed his mind from last month. He noted that no one from the public came to an assembly meeting and spoke in favor of having a borough manager over a strong mayor.

ACT, however, testifies at every borough assembly meeting held in Soldotna and their message is that they are the voice of the people of Kenai.

They sure as hell don't speak for me. Here's a sampling of some of their testimony.

Viki Pate has no trouble justifying ACT's flip-flop on this issue (remember, ACT was for having a manager before they were against it). She stated that when ACT was for it, it was because they wanted competent government. But when the assembly tried to move the issue to the ballot for people to actually decide for themselves, Pate accused the assembly of being fascists. Huh?!?

Fred Sturman attempts to come across as a folksy voice of reason but is full of unsubstantiated statistics to support his idea that borough needs to cut the budget. He never offers any specific cut options and is blind to pay raises Mayor Carey gave to his staff and the deficit spending budget Carey proposes. Fred offers the occasional verbal gems like last night's declaration that the 80s were so like the.....80s.

Debbie Holle Brown only speaks to the assembly when something is very dearly important to her - but she seems to have something to say about everything even when she has noting to say. Well, maybe she has something to say, but darn if I've been able to figure out exactly what that is. She usually tries to make her point by yapping on about something else and then as her 3 minutes are winding down, rushes to tie together the loose ends that she spun. Last night she even had the audacity to ask for "A special eduction IEP for testifying"so that people like her could ramble on forever. So, she spent about 2 minutes saying that she couldn't get her point across in 3 minutes. Geez, just stick to what is pertinent and maybe you could.

The angry Kasilof woman who sometimes is in too much of a hurry to put all of her clothes on is another example of those speaking as the voice of the Kenai. When I hear her rage, I wonder if there should be a metal detector at these meetings.

These folks have become the most powerful force on the Kenai - but just what are they promoting? Viki Pate would do away with all public schools, Fred Sturman would eliminate most all borough services. It's a mystery what Debbie Brown wants as she is not capable of articulating a clear thought. Those who have followed her political career when she was a member of the school board know that she doesn't know much of anything. And those whose nuts are about to slip off of the remaining threads of their sanity are easily manipulated. The Kenai is not immune to crazed gun-wielding whackos.

In other assembly news, the ordinance that would have put the sports dome on the ballot this fall was tabled after the group that brought the measure forward withdrew their support for now. Despite being tabled (and any attempt to bring it back would have to start the process anew), Debbie Brown and others spoke against it, maybe just to hear themselves talk. I don't think the ordinance would stand a chance to pass and I wouldn't support it because there are so many winter sports to enjoy here - why create an expensive artificial indoor environment in these days of high fuel costs. We are a northern state with tremendous winter sport opportunities.

Oh no, did I just agree with ACT on something?