Juneau Independent

Normally on solstice I would be packing last year’s Christmas tree into the back of the truck for a bonfire at Sandy Beach. But with the minus temperatures and gusty winds, I am inside thinking about the significance of crossing over toward more light in our daily lives.

On Saturday evening, water began pouring down Wire Street. It was dark, it was very cold and it was hard to see what was going on. Whatever it was, it sure wasn’t good.

A couple of months ago, I was reporting on the typhoon that hit Western Alaska and stopped by a news conference convened by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. I was there to ask him about long-term plans for protecting vulnerable coastal villages. But the governor diverted my focus by talking about Donald Trump and the president’s concern. The previous week, Dunleavy said, “I was texting him at one in the morning, his time, about this disaster.”

“Alaska’s future is bright,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy proclaimed last week, “but we have to have discipline and be forward-thinking now so that our short-term budget challenges don’t turn into long-term burdens on Alaskan families and businesses.”

Oh, thank goodness. A hidden benefit. My laptop is offline and there is no WiFi here and I am blessed. I am on a solitary spiritual retreat so I am actually doubly blessed.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy, now in his final year in office, has spent more time talking about Alaska’s resource potential, whether getting oil and gas and minerals out of the ground or getting paid to store climate-warming carbon dioxide underground, than he has spent dealing with the reality of today’s state checkbook.

When I heard that Governor Dunleavy was providing five Alaska National Guard members to “assist the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Anchorage with administrative support,” I wondered several things.

On Dec. 5, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation director Randy Bates wrote an opinion piece arguing against Salmon Beyond Borders and the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association's (ALFA's) assertion that, 10 years after the Walker administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with British Columbia, the Dunleavy administration is "leaving Alaskans in the dark."

Last week, the Trump administration released its 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS). The president called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history.” But in patented Trump fashion, it’s filled with contradictions.

On the verge of World War II and in the early Cold War, isolationists promoted the idea of walling off the country from the prospect of “foreign wars” and entanglement in alliances which would inevitably draw us into conflict. This “Fortress America” concept was xenophobic, anti-immigrant, nationalistic and, honestly more than slightly paranoid about the enemies both “without” and “within.”

On Dec. 5, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Randy Bates published an opinion piece refuting Salmon Beyond Borders’ and the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association’s assertion that the Dunleavy Administration has largely abandoned the promises outlined in the Alaska-British Columbia Memorandum of Understanding and Cooperation, signed 10 years ago by the Walker Administration. Clearly, we struck a nerve.

In a Friday hearing, members of the Alaska Senate spoke critically about a proposed new ferry terminal in Juneau, questioning why the project would be worth its multimillion-dollar cost.