Alaska's GOP Governor Insists He Wasn't Threatening Community

[deminks]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/alaska-governor-sean-parnell-threatening-community


JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Gov. Sean Parnell said Friday that he wasn't threatening the Ketchikan Gateway Borough when he said its lawsuit against the state over school funding could "shade or color" reaction to the community's requests for state money to fund infrastructure projects.

Parnell told The Associated Press that the comments he made to Ketchikan reporters about how he and lawmakers could view the borough's capital appropriations requests weren't intended to be retaliatory. The Republican governor said he simply gave an honest answer to the Ketchikan Daily News on Thursday when he said it could be hard for legislators to separate the lawsuit from borough budget requests. He made similar comments to KRBD radio.

Parnell said that when he was drafting his budget request for next fiscal year, the prospect of a lawsuit was pending and he did not hold it against Ketchikan, "and wouldn't. That's just not who I am."

(end snip)

It IS who GOPers are.

[bravenak]

1. He's a liar.

He did threaten them and threatened them again in his non apology. He basically said, of course suing the state will mean less money for your community.

[Blue_In_AK]

6. I really hate that guy.

Every day I hate him more.

[Scootaloo]

2. I still don't fathom why Alaska is consistently Republican

I lived there for twelve years. The overall culture is liberal - or at least, socially libertarian. The people there love the wilderness (you kind of have to, it's invincible for 7 months out of the year), they are consistently the most stoned people I've ever spoken with, they really don't give a damn who you're with or what you do - a great number of Alaskans are in Alaska to get away from such things.

But take 'em to the polls and you get a bunch of crazy-ass republicans out of 'em.

I imagine it's tied to a fairly isolationist culture - "just leave us alone" - mixed with the persistent notion that Republicans are all about "small government and self-responsibility." And since Alaskan communities are so far-flung and well... isolated, getting the word out is hugely expensive and hard to organize. So you get this weird place where the Reagan democrat - liberal but fuck the govenrment, man! - is alive and strong.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Believe me, I've lived here since 1975,

and I can't figure it out either. Everything you said is true, not to mention the fact that we have probably the most progressive state constitution in the country, we had legal abortions before Rowe, civil rights for our Native population before the 1965 civil rights act, decriminalized marijuana since 1975, the people own the resources (we're very socialist that way), and I could go on and on. And yet these knuckleheads keep getting voted in. I suspect a lot of the Republican voters are transplanted Texans and Oklahomans who came up with the oil companies.

Of course, there have been some VERY hinky elections up here since at least 2002, as DU's own Brad Friedman of BradBlog can attest.

[Bandit]

9. I think it is mostly environmental concerns that drive Republicans here.

They think they should have access to every inch of land and should be able to log it, mine it, drill it, or do any damn thing they want with it and the "Liberal Government" interferes with that. They think the Government hampers their getting rich off PUBLIC lands...Alaskans are usually very independent people that like doing things their own way and they see the Government as an obstacle to that. What I truly do not understand though is why so many (the majority) Alaska Natives vote Republican considering how bigoted most Republicans generally are. I think it would be a very wise thing if Democrats did some village out reach and try and understand why they are Republican and how we might change their minds.. They have far far more in common with us than with Republicans.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Translation..."I'm not Chris Christie."

[Berlum]

8. Repubbies are steadily slinking away from the slo-mo Christie Disaster

...which will reach FiNal juDgeMent DAY zoon enuf.

Christie is an compleat embodiment and realization of degenerate Republicon "Values."

As he slowly twists and squirms and sinks beneath the political scum, he reminds people across the Fruited Plains of what Republiconism is really all about. Thus, "slinking away" definitely appears as the strategery of Repubbie Governor in Alaska...and so many others...

[Blue_In_AK]

4. Sean Parnell is so bad he makes me miss Sarah...

Seriously.

[roguevalley]

7. he is scum. i hope this leaves a mark, the fascist

[Blue_In_AK]

10. The Mudflats has a nice post up today about this

http://www.themudflats.net/archives/41898

Parnell goes 'Christie' -- Shakedown in Ketchikan

<snip>

What makes Parnell’s Christie moment even more remarkable than even Chris Christie’s “Christie moment,” is that the statement you’re about to read didn’t come cloaked in speculation. Nobody wondered if Parnell knew about the shakedown. There are no subpoenas, or investigations. There is no in-depth political analysis or speculation about what the governor knew and when he knew it.


The governor announced his abuse of power out loud and into a microphone, directly to the community whose cooperation he was trying to extort.

<snip>


The news hit lawmakers in Juneau like a ton of bricks. “This is huge. People are just stunned. At least in New Jersey, they tried to hide it, not announce it in public,” said State Senator Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage) on the ‘Fridays in the Mud’ segment of the Shannyn Moore Show this week. “It’s stunning. I thought i misread it when I first read it.”

“That’s the problem you have in Alaska,” Wielechowski went on. It’s just rotten to the core. Retaliation has become sort of part of our political culture here in Alaska to the point now where they feel like they can go into chamber meetings with the press there and recorders running and just say it out loud…

“We need change. And ultimately who’s Parnell’s boss is the Alaskan people. And they’re going to have a chance in November to decide whether they want to keep that kind of person around or not.”

<snip>

[Cha]

11. Sounds like a fucking threat to me.. what is he.. some minor league

chris Christie wannabe?

[Blue_In_AK]

12. They're all using the same playbook.