The opinions expressed on the show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KENI. Amy DeVosky, the show starts now. Our lines are open at 907-522-0650. This is The Morning Drive on NewsRadio 650 KENI.
Good morning. It is Monday, January 27th. Current time, 6.06 a.m. Man, what a gusty weekend this weekend, huh? Oh, my goodness, yes. Slightly breezy. Slightly breezy. That's what we call it in Palmer. Slightly breezy. Exactly. Just a little relief from everything, though. Yeah, it definitely was gusty in here and warm. Oh, my goodness, it was warm.
Oh, man. I mean, I'm looking at it right now. It's 41 degrees at my house right now in Palmer. Doing good. I'm 40 degrees. Now, I've got to say, though, over in Spenard, so that's 40 degrees here at the Diamond Center. Over in Spenard, it was 44, and most of the weekend, it was literally 46 degrees. Yeah. I got up yesterday morning, and when I got up, it was...
And then it dropped down to 45. But it was warm all day. And, you know, the roads in most places where I was going were beautiful. They were just dry as a bone. You know, there were some areas. I went and visited my dad last night. But, you know, I took off Fairview Loop Road. He lives off of Fairview Loop. And so I went to go see Dad and my stepmom. And I've got to be honest with you. As I'm driving down the road, I'm just like, Fairview Loop is like motorcycle driving weather.
Oh, except you don't want to get hit by those wind gusts on motorcycles, just letting you know I used to ride them. Talk about something that makes you, like, wet your seat. It definitely does get hit with those gusts there. I've got to say, Anchorage, it's the same. I mean, on Friday, I know I went off on my tirade on the mayor and, you know, Chris Colson about all the ice in Spenard and all the people not able to walk over there. God must have heard because...
All the sidewalks in Spenard are basically ice-free. All the side roads in Spenard are now basically ice-free. So don't worry, Mare and Chris. God took care of the ice for you. Yeah, I got to tell you, you know, with the really warm weather and the blowing wind, it really did a great job clearing the roads and the sidewalks. I got to be honest, you know. So it feels more like April out there than...
than it does January. But I was thinking yesterday, I'm like, what in the world are they going to do with the Iditarod? Because you're at that point now where it is so warm, even if you look at the weather reports that were happening in Willow and North. I mean, it's pretty warm. Oh, yeah. Speaking of that, up north, they do have Region 6 closed for the Mat-Su School District. Region 6 is closed.
Oh, thank you for that update. Well, Mustard Alaska has an article up, reports of funnel cloud or tornado thunderstorms by pilots near Anchorage. Urgent weather reports from large aircraft pilots in Anchorage airspace said there was a possible funnel cloud and thunderstorms on Sunday afternoon. But the weather was too cloudy to see either the base or the top of the phenomenon, the exact place unknown but was southwest of Anchorage. High winds in Anchorage made for tough flying and power outages across the area.
A pilot report is a report of real-time weather encountered by aircraft in the flight, and Suzanne has a report up that is reporting this phenomenon. She says several of the heavies, the cargo jets that come through Anchorage, were forced to do go-arounds because of the wind.
And on approach, many jets could be seen fighting the wind on Sunday afternoon on a webcam mounted on top of Alaska Aviation's museum. It was something. Over where I live, I hear all the jets when they take off and land. And yeah, oh, they were having to put some extra power into the takeoffs. And just so you know, as soon as I heard about those tornadoes, I grabbed my Galena slippers and ran them out by the door just in case. You haven't heard of Galena slippers? They're a lot like ruby slippers. They're just from further down the Yukon.
And just so you know, FYI, you can't see it out my window behind me, but literally, Amy, a snow and hailstorm has just started over here. Oh my gosh, I can actually see it. I can actually see it. It is whipping out there with snow coming down, and this is really impressive. I mean, looking out there, it's just like, whoa, that wasn't like that 35 minutes ago. Actually, 50 minutes ago, it wasn't doing that.
Yeah, I was going to say, now that you say it, I can see it out the back of your window. Over there, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty impressive. It's pretty impressive. I've got to tell you, I'm looking out my window, and it's just dark, but there's nothing. There's nothing right now in Palmer. Oh, yeah, looking here over at Midtown and West Anchorage, all my cameras, snow is flying on them right now. So people coming in, get ready for some snow storms. And the temperature still is 40 degrees, so this could prove interesting.
You know, I couldn't help it yesterday. You know, I've been waiting. The weather's been so crazy. My car is so dirty. I was like, I've got to, like, wipe off at least two layers of dirt. So it's my fault because I washed my car yesterday. Bingo. That's exactly what I was thinking. Now we know who did this. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it's my fault. My fault. All right, well, let's get to a couple public announcements. There's not a whole lot of them, but there is a few. So let's just run through them real quick. The Matsuborough, the South Connecticut River Community Council has a special land use district committee meeting tonight.
That is going to be at 630 at the South Kinnick River Community Building, which is located at 17958 East Kinnick River Road. So if you want more information on that, again, just go to matzugov.us and you'll be able to find it there. As far as the city of Wasilla goes, they do have a city council meeting tonight that's going to be from 6 to 9 in the Wasilla City Hall Council Chambers, located at 290 East Turning Avenue in Wasilla.
As far as Palmer goes, I don't see anything on your calendar, but the library is closed today. Just FYI, in case you're one that likes to go to the library on Monday, it is closed today. Moving on to the Municipality of Anchorage. For boards and commissions, there are a few things on the calendar today. The Cemetery Advisory Board has their meeting at 5 p.m. at the Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery Director's Office, located at 535 East 9th Avenue.
The Transportation Commission has a meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at the Assembly Chambers at the Lucek Library. Saversa, that's Chugack Eagle River's road board, has a meeting tonight at 6.30 at Eagle River Town Center in the community room. That's the room right down the hallway from the library.
And that does it for boards and commissions for Anchorage for today. If you want more information on any of these meetings, I know I went through them relatively fast. Just go to muni.org, then click on the Mayor's tab, then click on the Events tab, and you'll go right to boards and commissions' landing page. As far as the Anchorage Assembly goes, there's nothing on their calendar for today. For the Kenai Peninsula Borough, there's only a couple things on their calendar today. The North Penn Recreation Service Area Board has their meeting tonight scheduled from 6 to 8.
at the Nikiski Pool. And then the Planning Commission has a meeting tonight, and that's from 730 to 930 at the Kenai Peninsula Borough Admin Building, which, of course, it's going to be in the Betty J. Glick Assembly Chambers, located at 144 North Bankley Street in Saldana. If you want more information on this meeting, just go to kpb.us, and you'll be able to find it there.
There's nothing on the calendar for the city of Kenai or Sultana for today. So moving down to the city of Homer, they do have a special city council meeting at 3.30 today.
which will be followed by their typical city council committee meeting of the whole at 5 and their regular city council meeting at 6 p.m. If you want more information on any of these meetings for the city of Homer, just go to cityofhomer-ak.gov. That really does it for our boards and commissions and all of our public announcements for this morning. If you'd like more information on any of these, I just recommend you go to your local government web page. They really are pretty user-friendly these days.
What was the meeting going on in Chugiak area? What was that again? Subursa. The Chugiak, yeah, ready? It's a very long acronym. The Chugiak-Birchwood Eagle River Rural Road Service Area Board Meeting.
Okay, so they're probably gambling on getting extra state money for all the extra traffic they're going to be getting. Oh, ha, ha, hearty, har, har, har, har, har. Yeah, I was going to say, the new casino, I'm saying that was very large air quotes, in Birchwood, which is basically two trailers pushed together that...
You can only get in if you've been invited and only eight people at a time, and they don't have running water, so if you've got to use the loo, apparently they brought in porta-potties so you can go back up. It's so weird. I've got to be honest with you. It's just, it was, the way it went about, the community council is furious.
So I've been told. And I've talked to a number of residents that are in the area that just come in and they tell you all about the things going on. People are not happy. They feel like it was very underhanded. And the way it went about, it was not very neighborly. Let's put it that way. And I've got to say, though, I mean, come on. This is pretty high grade. They're using a double wide. I mean, come on. With no running water. What do you mean? Peters Creek runs right past the place.
What can I say, Daryl? It stinks to high heaven. You're welcome. You're welcome. All right, we're going to go ahead and take our first break of the morning. If you'd like to call and be part of the show, 522-0650. Welcome back. Current time is 618 on this Monday morning. Hopefully everybody is all geared up.
Ready for another week. Here it comes. I have to tell you, Daryl, I was going through my show prep for last week, and there were so many stories. I think we got to maybe 10% of the stories that actually came out last week. Oh, I agree with you there. So I at home have a running list of stories, and I try to, by the end of the week, usually clear most of them. I still have 16 pages of headlines to go through. I mean, that's like 110 stories. It's huge.
It was unbelievable. It seemed like every day you try to jump in and get as much as you can in. But it was everywhere. I've got to tell you, on the federal level, it is rapid fire. I mean, they are going gangbusters. We'll get into that in a minute. But here in Anchorage...
Don't forget now we have a municipal election coming up April 1st, and the filing deadline closed at 5 o'clock on Friday. So the list that we have now, people can still drop, but the list that we have as of today are for assembly seats and school board seats.
So for District 1 in North Anchorage, Daniel Voland is running for re-election. Nick Danger and Daniel George are all filed. If I were voting in that race, I'm friends with Nick and Daniel, but I would vote for Daniel George. He's been community council president down in Mountain View for a long time. Great guy.
Kyle Walker and David Littleton filed and Jared Gerker filed. So, of course, that's a Jared all the way for me. That's an easy one. Senate District D, West Anchorage, Cameron Perez-Verdia filed for re-election. Jonathan Duckworth and Amy Steen. Now, I don't know Jonathan or Amy, so we'll have to do a little recon on that. Do you know either of them, Daryl? I do not, but I do know Sleepy Perez, so, I mean, that's a little bit of a thing there.
That's got to be so embarrassing. I mean, what he's talking about is there was an assembly meeting with Cameron where he called in, and he didn't have his phone on mute, and he fell asleep, and he was snoring on the overhead. No, he wasn't. No, I heard. I've got to record. I heard it. I heard it. Yeah. He was definitely snoring. I definitely heard it. All right. Senate District F, which is Midtown. We have Aaron Baldwin Day, Annette.
LaMarche Oliva and Don Smith. Senate District 5, Angela Frank, John Stiegel, I guess is how you say it, and Yarrow Silvers. Senate District 6, which is South Anchorage. You have Darren Colbrey and Keith McCormick. Then we have for the school board, we have two seats up. Seat A, Margo Bellamy versus Alexander Rosales.
And school board seat B, we have Mark Anthony Cox versus Kelly Lessons. So those are the major ones. Of course, there's lots of road service area board members and stuff like that. Most of those are unopposed. But the big ones here are clearly school board and the assembly. So as those races take shape, we will make sure to cover those stories as well. You know, Daryl, every now and then,
You know, I have this stark reminder that some people just aren't serious. Like, you just, when they open their mouth, you know it's nonsense. And it's really sad to see, but when it comes back, it comes back here to Alaska. And I see people open their mouth and just say something stupid. And I can't help but think, like, do they actually think people are going to believe them? Now, Suzanne had this article in Mustry, Alaska.
And it says, scare tactic, Tlingit leader warns tribe members to carry identification or risk deportation by Trump. Like, I can't even get past the headline. Like, okay, let's be honest. Do you really think that Donald Trump is going to deport Alaska natives?
Where would he send them to? So what they're doing, so just so you know, this isn't just here. I know, it's in the Laura 48 too. Oh my gosh, so I'm watching them up on stuff. It's crazy. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Let's get into it. The president of the Yakutak Tlingit tribe has sent a letter to members warning of a possible arrest and deportation due to President Donald Trump's recent executive orders. Cynthia Peterson said the tribal members should carry tribal identification cards issued by the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida, India.
Okay, to me that's racist. I mean, if you're saying, what, you can't tell the difference between a Native American and... Okay, first of all.
ICE is not targeting Native Americans. Like, let's be honest. It goes on and says, Navajo Nation Deputy Attorney General Chris Beecher preached the same fear message last week, saying tribal members should carry their state and tribal IDs at all times since the Trump administration is acting quickly to deport illegals and mistakes could be made. Like, like.
I don't even know what to say about this article. Like, when I started to read this article, okay, first of all, Cynthia Peterson, you have zero credibility. Now, see, this is what you've done. You've made it look in the eyes of most Alaskans that you're ridiculous. At this point, where in God's green earth did they get the notion that Trump is going to deport Native Americans? Brown people. Because, see, they've got this...
concept that trump and the rest of the republicans out here in the conservatives that that we see color and that brown people are bad and they're just going to deport brown people that that's what i'm reading in the lower 48 and some of the some of the liberal stuff that's their that's their fear-mongering if you're brown watch out you know again this goes to you know if you're a journalist trump is going to lock you up if if you know and this is their politics by division and this is why i say
I think a lot of Americans have absolutely turned people off. But when I see something like this pop up here in Alaska, first of all, she's an idiot. Second of all, she has no credibility. Like, to say this, it tells me you are a dishonest person because you're trying to scare people for absolutely no reason with no basis. Like, I have lots of friends that are Alaska Native, and I don't know one of them that is scared of being deported.
Where are they going to send them? I mean, they've been in Alaska. Greenland. I just get to the point where some of these stories, you look at it and you think the ridiculousness of it all is anybody who believes this crap, first of all, you're weak of mind. Like, seriously? Like, you actually think you're going to?
I can't even, Daryl, I can't even with this story. Like, I started to see this story could pop up, and I just was like, okay, this is too much for me. Like, the level of ridiculousness, I mean, I get it when AOC says something stupid because she's an idiot, but when I start seeing this come out of, like, an Alaska tribal leader, I just shake my head. I'm like, you're not doing anything for your cause. You're making, I mean, all you're doing is you're delegitimizing yourself as a leader, frankly.
And it's fear-mongering. I'm sorry, this is fear-mongering. They are creating terror and fear for no reason. Right now, so I listen to a lot or look at a lot of kitchen information still. I still watch what's going on in the culinary world. And in the lower 48, the progressives are literally telling people. There's a lot of progressives in the kitchens, particularly in front of house, but some in the back of house also. They are literally telling everybody, make a plan so that when ICE shows up at your restaurant, because, you know, restaurants do hire a lot.
of illegals um that you've got a signal to tell you're illegal so they can run out and get away and you can you've got to slow down ice and and make them show you the warrants and why they're there and maybe even have cars parked down the street and around the corner that the illegals can jump into and drive away literally they're trying to get people to set up plans
Well, I've got to tell you, the feds have been super active. New York Post has an article of feds round up 50 Trendy Aguagua members at makeshift nightclub in Denver as nationwide ICE raids bust child rapists and suspected ISIS terrorists. This coming out of New York Post, federal agents rounded up dozens of members of Trendy Aguagua in an overnight raid.
on a makeshift nightclub in Denver after the vicious Venezuelan prison gang terrorized the city and the suburb of Aurora, Colorado. The DEA said agents in Colorado interrupted an invite-only party where dozens of the gangbaggers were cutting loose.
In Adams County, just outside Denver City limits, the bus netted cash, weapons, guns, and drugs, including pink cocaine. I've never even heard of this. A powerful narcotic that the gang has played a major role in distributing across the U.S. Toosie, or pink cocaine.
It sounds like they're making the cocaine for the progressives now. You can make your pink cocaine. Don't go with the white one. That's so racist. Use ours. Everything white is bad, Daryl. Don't you know this by now? I'm learning. I'm learning. The video released by DEA's Rocky Mountain Division showed a white bus full of busted gang members being escorted in the snowy roads by law enforcement vehicles.
The arrests ensnared around 50 gang members in all, making this the latest in the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds who pose potential threat to public safety. Well, you know, I was just watching on Fox News as this segment was going, and right now ICE is cracking down in Chicago, too. And, you know, the Chicago residents are going to be thrilled. And I saw...
Fat little Pritzker up there behind Brendan Johnson, the mayor of Chicago. I mean, they're all lamenting. Oh, Trump, Trump, Trump. Like, basically, they're going to resist. And I've got to be honest with you. I'm at the point right now where if politicians are harboring illegals, I think they should be arrested for obstruction of justice. If I were doing any of those things and it was not in one of their priority groups, I would be arrested.
I've got to be honest with you. If you are passing laws saying that we should harbor illegal aliens, if you are passing laws saying that you should be releasing illegals into the streets after they've been arrested and you know they have an illegal status, I think that is criminal. According to federal law right now, that's criminal. You can't harbor and have a safe haven for people that you know.
are not supposed to be in this country. And the fact of the matter is, until there's actual consequences for these mayors and these politicians that are forcing their employees to ignore federal law, like you have some communities in California right now that are actually saying we are not going to abide by the sanctuary law of California State. We are going to cooperate with the feds. I mean, you have some local communities that are pushing back against the lawlessness.
of Gavin Newsom and these ridiculous liberals. And I think that's exactly what needs to happen. At the end of the day, when we're ensnaring people that are terrorists, that are rapists, that are murderers, that are drug traffickers, why in the world your last stand is going to be to defend them and keep them in our country? You're choosing them over our American citizens? You're a dirtball.
I mean, I'm sorry, there has to be a point where there has to be consequences for your action. If you are knowingly passing laws that are in violation of the federal government's laws, especially when it comes to immigration, I'm sorry, but I think there has to be some level of accountability. And, you know, until that starts happening, I just have no, like, I have no sympathy for Brennan Johnson, the mayor of Chicago.
He's a complete dork. I mean, he's a doofus. I mean, this guy, I think he has a lower approval rating than Joe Biden. Like, I do not see him getting reelected in Chicago. Chicagoans are upset. They're mad. The word I really want to say, I don't want to say on the air, but they're furious. That's what they are. They are very upset because illegals are overrunning their city. Chicago's always...
For a long time has been a violent place. But the level of violence that you're seeing and the level of services that have been diverted to these illegals, Chicagoans who have historically voted Democrat are furious. And Brendan Johnson, my friend, I don't think he's getting reelected.
Well, so when you were saying they're diverting money to them, actually, from what I've been hearing from the communities there is they're wondering where this money is coming from for the illegals because it wasn't available for their own poor and homeless and all that stuff. It was like, yeah, no, they haven't had the money to give benefits to the residents of Chicago, and yet they've come up with tens of millions for these illegals. That's what I'm really hearing them complain about.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, you're going to see a lot more commentary about these ICE raids because they have been active. Look, ICE has been incredibly active. They have had more raids in the past week since Donald Trump has been inaugurated than they have in the past probably two years of Joe Biden's administration, probably longer than probably the whole administration. It has been unbelievable with the rapid rate in which they have been active.
seen Marines now on the southern border. Trump ordered Marines to go down there and assist Customs and Border Patrol in securing the border. I mean, look, they ain't messing around and they ain't wasting any time. And it is a thing of beauty to actually see leadership and strength. Imagine that. We're going to go ahead and take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Reach out to Amy now, 907-522-0650. That's 907-522-0650. It's Amy Demboski on NewsRadio 650, KENI. All right, welcome back. Current time, 637. Well, it is going to be an interesting week. The more tough, I would say the tougher confirmations are ahead of us this week. We have RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, and Kash Patel. The one I care about the most, honestly, is Kash Patel. And I've said this from the beginning, because without question, he is absolutely, positively qualified to run the FBI.
They are going to push back on him harder than anyone. Why? Because he knows where the bodies are buried. And he's uncovered, you know, multiple deep state antics, shall we say. So they are going to push back on him like nobody's business. RFK Jr. obviously is somebody that I think they're going to push back on as well. But as we're looking at, an article just popped up on Breitbart, and this doesn't surprise me at all.
Doctors' committee opposing RFK is Bill Gates-backed AstroTurf with fake names. A committee, said in quotes, widely cited in the media as opposing the nomination of RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services, turns out to be a Bill Gates-backed AstroTurf organization that accepts fake signatories. The Committee to Protect Healthcare, cited by NBC News and others, published an open letter declaring that doctors are appalled by
Donald Trump's reckless decision to appoint Kennedy thousands are said to have signed however there is no verification process for the signatories
The anti-Kennedy petition simply accepts any signatures from anyone. Others have tried the same experiment, including fitness influencer Jillian Michaels and provocateur Alex Jones. It goes on to say, the Committee to Protect Healthcare is a 501c4 organization, meaning that it does not have to reveal its donors. However, a related 501c3 charity, the Committee to Protect Healthcare Fund, does have to reveal their donors. And who is it funded by?
of course left of center 1630 fund and the hopewell fund the hopewell fund in turn hired the arabella advisors who daryl loves a leading national philanthropy service
to manage his project hosting and fiscal sponsorship services. So all liberal entities. And that shows you right there, if Arabella's behind them, run away. Daryl gets triggered the moment I say Arabella. Arabella's donors, they're people like Bill Gates, George Soros, and Zuckerberg. That's really who's behind it. That's just some of the chunky ones in there. There's a lot of others, and like I said, they are all rabid liberals. Rabid.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, you know, this fight that's about to key up is going to be one for the books. Hey, Daryl, do you remember last week, one of the days I sent you a Patel clip and we never got to it?
Do you still have it by chance? I can hunt it down. You know me. I don't throw anything away. You don't. It might have been Mondays. I think it was in the stash where I had like seven audio clips that day, and I just didn't get to Cash's. But, you know, we have a lot of examples as to why they are going to ignore Cash Patel. We'll come back to it because, you know, I just threw Daryl a curveball. But the reality is, you know,
We are going to have an issue because it is not – look, this is why we have these confirmation hearings. It is an opportunity to understand if the candidates are basically qualified for the position. But you also get a unique opportunity, and you get to see which Republicans are really part of the deep state. That's what you're going to see with Kash Patel. There is no reason.
No reason for anybody to vote against Kashmir Patel. Look, he's been a DOJ lawyer for a number of years. He was a defensive fraternity for a number of years before that. He's been on the intel committees. He exposed the whole, you know, Russia collusion, steel dossier hoax that it was really funded by Democrats and Hillary Clinton. The whole fusion GPS nonsense. He exposed the lying to the FISA court. He exposed all of that.
So if you see people come out against him, you have to ask yourself, what are they trying to hide?
Interesting. Well, you know, last week, of course, Lisa Murkowski voted against Hegsteth. I had been saying the whole time she was going to. And so did Collins. And so did Mitch McConnell, of course, those three. But J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. So Pete Hegsteth has been confirmed. So now when we're watching the leaderboard here, four of Trump's positions have now been confirmed. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director.
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, and Kristi Noem has been confirmed as the Department of Homeland Security Secretary. So those four so far have been confirmed. So there you go. I mean, it's happening. Just a couple of fun things with that vote when they did the vote for, I forgot his name all of a sudden.
I don't know why I forget his name. But so when they got through the votes there, I was watching live on TV as they were doing it. And it was really interesting. One, our Lisa Murkowski, you know how generally if you're a Republican, you dress in red or, you know, have something red on you. If you're a Democrat, you dress in blue or something along them. Lisa was in this wonderful purple pantsuit. She was hanging with Susan.
sitting in one of the sets of chairs, literally secluded and off by themselves. Not secluded, because they were right in the middle of everything, but literally it was empty around them. And right before that, Lisa had sat there talking to a lot of blue-tied people. That was a couple of the things that I noticed as I was watching it. That it was just like, gee, she's hanging with the other side over there. Oh, she's by herself with her. And she's not even flying. Red and blue, what do those make?
purple look look let's be honest i mean lisa murkowski we all knew it like if it wasn't for disappointment lisa murkowski would never ever
fit what I expect of her. I mean, she's an undocumented Democrat, let's be honest. I mean, she pretends to be a Republican. She's not a Republican. She doesn't vote like a Republican. She votes consistently with the left. I mean, that's where she is. And you just have to know that. I mean, this is why I'm still very bitter about Frank Murkowski. Like, if not for Frank Murkowski, we wouldn't have Obamacare. Why? Because Lisa was a deciding vote, and she was a deciding vote to keep it.
So, you know, we can blame Mark Begich, too, because he was there. But when the repeal came out, Lisa Murkowski was the one who saved Obamacare.
I mean, you want to complain and lament about your cost of health care. I remember for years and years and years and years, I mean, my deductible was like $100. And, you know, I was able to actually afford my health care. And then, you know, over the years, then Obamacare came in, and it was one of the largest tax increases we've seen on the American population because that's effectively what it was. Totally decimated the health care, you know, affordability.
for insurance, I mean, it's unbelievable what it is. But, you know, there we have it. There we have it. All right, let's go ahead and I'll go to Jay before the break. I'm going to see if I can pick him up using my phone here. All right, good morning, Jay. Hey, good morning to you. So I just, I want everybody, like there's so much that's been going on lately and people are looking at what Trump is doing and a lot of them are like, oh my gosh, like this is incredible. I can't believe.
that he's the only person that would do some of these things, because it's such an obvious answer. It's such common sense. And I think that everyone needs to look at all of our quote-unquote Republican representatives in the statehouse, in local government, in the governor's office. So Dunleavy is a great example. Why is Dunleavy so obsessed with compromising with people who want to shut down
resource development in Alaska and import gas. That's insane. We didn't vote for somebody who's going to compromise with nuts like that. Why is Dunleavy trying to compromise with people who want to hack up little kids? Why is under Dunleavy's leadership, why has the number of health clinics in Alaska that are doing these procedures on children and giving them
these drugs that permanently modify them, it's irreversible. Okay, we're talking about like a 12-year-old girl going on a course of meds that inside of three weeks puts her into menopause. Why have those clinics exploded in growth under Dunleavy? Why is he funding it with Medicare? Why do you want to compromise with that, Dunleavy? Okay, so you either have convictions, you either have values, you either have a plan, or you don't.
And it's very clear right now. Is there specific legislation that you're talking about, Jay, when it comes to, like, let's talk about energy. I know there's been discussion, and I listened to Nat Hurst the other day on Mike Piccaro's show, and actually it was a great interview. So if people have missed it, I recommend you go back to Mike's show last week and listen to that interview. But there is a...
A real push here in South Central because natural gas has been ratcheted back. There's some that believe we can't get the new fields online or enough production online to fill a gap. And so they're talking about importing LNG as a stopgap until we can get more production online. Is that what you're talking about when it comes to negotiating, or is there a specific bill that I'm unaware of?
It's a lot bigger than a specific bill. So the reason why we have production issues in Alaska, with all the environmental regulations, the government puts a gun to the head of these companies, and they force them to go through years and years of expensive permitting process. And at any moment in time, they know that they'll just arbitrarily change the rules. Like, would you want to put a billion dollars into a project knowing that eight years down the line,
You may get a bad deal from some local nutcase bureaucrat. Here's the thing. Okay, you'll never hear this from your Republican representative. Okay, they didn't take pictures of this. But the Democrat caucus goes out front of the building and protests with all the psycho and viral groups that come. They wave signs that say keep the oil in the soil, like end resource development now. And our Democrat...
representatives, people in leadership positions. It's not just a random nut. Leadership positions, they go out there in front of the Capitol and they rally with those people and they wait at those times. How come your Republican representative is not taking pictures of that and telling you about it? How come they don't talk about it? How come their press person isn't publishing that and saying, look, there's a big difference between us and them. They don't want to talk about it because, well, it's impolite.
I think that's a good example. And I think, you know, when it comes down to it, you know, there's two schools of thoughts. One is sometimes with this legislation, I mean, look, almost the entire time that Dunleavy has been, I think the entire time actually Dunleavy has been governor, he has not had control of the House or the Senate.
it together right because the senate has been controlled consistently by a bipartisan coalition so basically democrats and the house we had for a little while but both times we did not have them both together so he's he has worked against a divided
legislature with a you know divided legislature for a long time so i mean the train of thought is two ways is it's look what happened in his first in his first legislative session he tried to come out swinging as hard as he could and what did they do they set his budget aside and they worked from walker's budget they totally sidelined him
So you can either be an obstructionist and say, I'm not going to work with him at all, or you can try to negotiate with him. And I think what I'm hearing you say is that you'd rather him not negotiate, come out harder. But what I'm saying is in his first session, I watched him do that, and it was completely unsuccessful. So what do you do next? Here's the thing about Don Levy. So there's plenty of things that you can point to the legislature past the buck and, you know, oh, well, I've got a great excuse. It's not my fault. It's their fault.
But here's the real truth about Don Levy. There are a lot of issues that are executive issues, many of them, okay? So when you're talking about something that particularly bothers me because it's so horrific that we allow this to happen, when the kids are being mutilated, the clinics that are growing, that stuff, that is an executive issue. He's not enforcing existing laws.
He's allowing this to happen. He's funding it with Medicaid money. He's looking the other way. Yeah, see, I have a problem with that. So what you're bringing up right now is something that I think, you know, if accurate, I think needs to absolutely be addressed. I think it's a great topic. So it's one we will definitely dive into. I'm way late on my break, though, so I've got to take a quick break. Jay, thank you for calling in and bringing that up. We will definitely recon that one. All right, we'll be right back.
Now back to the boss, Amy Demboski. Call 907-522-0650 and be a part of the show on News Radio 650, KENI. You know, Daryl, I always try to get to the hard issues because I think it's very easy to generalize. It's very easy to blame and to try to, you know, say, oh, this person isn't doing anything.
And I always try to figure out what is the issue? What ability does that person have to change things? And so as we're talking about this, Daryl and I were talking during the break about this whole issue about...
what Jay's talking about is effectively transgender surgeries on minors being expanded in Alaska, right? And so then my question goes to, if we're talking about Medicaid money, if we're talking about federal money that is flowing through the state, is there a state ability to hamper that service delivery, or is it just a federal pass-through that you really have no control over? So I was, for example,
at the senior center we get federal transit money through the municipality of anchorage and though marijuana is legal here in alaska
We are still required to drug test our drivers because, and marijuana is one of the things. If they partake in marijuana and they fail their drug test saying that they had marijuana in their system, they get fired. Because we're taking FTA money, Federal Transit Authority money, and that FTA money says, no, you have to follow the federal rules. So much like Medicaid.
If the money is passed through from the federal government, think about the administration that was just in office for the past four years. It was the Biden administration, right? And we know through much reporting, the Biden administration was very aggressive in expanding services for these. So then it makes me wonder, is it a federal pass-through? And does the governor even have the ability to...
hamper that i don't know the answer to that but that's why i say when we start having these conversations it's really easy to be an eastman to be honest it's very easy easy to say no no no we're just not gonna do this and i watched the governor in the first in the first session try to be super aggressive like he came out like like a freight train and he was going to cut this and cut that and cut this
And guess what? There's 60 legislators. And they just looked at him and said, thank you for submitting your budget. They set it aside, and they did their own thing. And I think he learned from that first session that, you know, yes, the governor does wield a lot of power.
But at the end of the day, you can't do anything extra unless you have enough legislators to support you. And what we'll see this session, I'm sure, is you'll see the governor using the minority because his veto pen is significant. So if he has enough in the minority in order to uphold his veto, then he'll be able to really get into the negotiation with the legislature. Because what do we know now? The legislature now is coming out significantly. Well, we told you they were going to do it.
Huge amounts of money they want to spend towards education. Huge amounts of money they want to go back into a defined benefit retirement plan. I mean, we're going to see massive spending. So the governor at this point has to use his veto pen and the power of negotiation to get anything positive he wants done, done. Because the Democrats have the votes. I mean, that's the reality. They have the votes in the House and in the Senate. So you're going to see every liberal piece of legislation come through. That's what's going to happen.
governor's gonna have to use his art of negotiation skills if he wants to get anything done i mean that's just a political reality so we can all lament that we don't like this or that and why isn't he being more aggressive but i mean at the end of the day you could be an eastman all day long get absolutely nothing done or
you could be a little bit more strategic. So I don't know what the answer is on this Medicaid thing, but it's a very interesting topic. So we'll definitely do some more research. All right, we're going to take a quick break. If you'd like to call in 522-0650.
The opinions expressed on this show are those of the host and not of iHeartMedia or its employees. Thank you for listening to NewsRadio 650 KENI. Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Welcome back to Hour 2 of the Amy Dabowski Show, broadcasting live and local every weekday morning from 6 to 8 a.m.
right here on 650 AM. You can stream us live if you're listening to us online at 650keni.iheart.com or you can download the iHeart Media app and you can catch us there as well as our podcast. You can find the podcast on the website, on Spotify, on the Amazon app. I mean, there's all kinds of places you can find us. So we appreciate everybody who listens, whether you're listening live or you're listening on repeat. You know, Daryl, it is so important to me that...
We actually have substantive conversations about things that actually are happening. But, you know, I'm going to say this quite clearly. And I don't, look, I really like Jay McDonald. I think he is over target on so many things. And I've watched his evolution go from Democrat to Republican. But I've also watched.
I've watched in certain races where he has propped up liberals and attacked the conservatives. And I think, you know, with somebody like Jay, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for, I think when he starts talking about an issue, I always want to dig into it because I'm like, well, what is he talking about? Because he usually has lots of good information and good things. But he is a political animal. Make no mistake about it.
When my friend Don Jones was running for assembly, he ran the campaign for Pat Higgins, or was it Pat Higgins? No, Pete Peterson. He ran the campaign for Pete Peterson against Don Jones.
So, again, I just think, has the evolution really come all our way? I think he's, especially when it comes to children issues, I mean, I truly believe he's come all the way. But I think he's one of these, like, really independents, you know, kind of in the middle. I don't know that he's really a conservative. I don't know. But when he brings up topics like this whole thing about the transgender stuff, like, I genuinely want to dig in and understand what is he talking about. But five minutes worth of research.
Reminds me what happened, right? So a state of Alaska had an absolutely no, we're not spending any Medicaid money on these trans-type services, right? Under gun leaving. That's where it was. And then what happened? Well, it took me literally five minutes in talking to Daryl, really, to sleuth it out. And here it is in front of me, being versus crumb. The state was sued. And the state lost. So here it is. This is coming from Lambda Legal. It says,
to subjecting them to discrimination, harassment, and abuse. Lambda Legal and the Northern Justice Project brought claims against Alaska categorical exclusions, arguing the ban violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, as well as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. So again, here we have lawfare. And let's be intellectually honest here. When we say transgender services are now being paid by Medicaid,
The governor clearly had in his, when he was governor, right, he was elected in 2018, he clearly had an explicit, yep, we're not using Medicaid money to pay for transgender services. He was sued over it and lost. So is it really his fault? Is it really his fault? Now, what has the Dunleavy administration done? The Dunleavy administration have added in there for trans services,
And these types of things, parental permissions for students to access medical clinics and services. So they've tried to add a layer of at least the parents will be involved. This is why I get, you see, I've got to be honest with you. And it's really funny because I can't even get the governor to come on the show. I can't. I've tried. I've tried. I've tried. But his little handlers will not let, look.
I get it. I get their Merrick supporters, some of them. And look, I'm a friendly, clearly. I worked for the governor. I liked the governor. I voted for the governor. I donated to the governor. I am clearly a Dunleavy supporter. I'm not hiding that whatsoever. But if he deserves to be criticized, I'm going to criticize him, right? And that's where it's at. I've tried to get the governor to come on the show, have been unsuccessful for two years now, even though I've tried.
I've been unsuccessful. But I have had a number of his commissioners on. You know, his Matthew director has called in many times. So I have a lot of friends in the administration that are willing to engage with us. And if the governor deserves to be criticized, I'll do it. Like, obviously, right now, I mean, I'm a little annoyed that he won't come on the show because literally everybody else will come on the show but him. So that annoys me. And I'm clearly saying that.
In this particular case, is it really the governor's fault that Medicaid funds are being spent on this service when he was sued over it and he defended not spending the money and he lost? You're right on there. I'm right there nodding my head with you. You guys can't see it out there. I'm literally right here nodding my head going, we have this problem with the courts doing this constantly to us. And then, like you said, then people turn around and throw it at him. Criticize, yeah.
And I'm like, what else do you want him to do? And that's why I said I love Jay McDonald, you know, but at the same time, it took us five minutes to figure this whole situation out because he brought it up. It was a new topic. And I'm like, okay, let's look into it. We look into it. In five minutes of looking, we realize, okay, this is what the situation is. Like, this isn't rocket science, right? But, again, my expectation is what?
My expectation is probably through the Trump administration, some of these requirements for spending categories probably get relieved from the federal level. And there you have it. But now you have this case on the books. And now how do you rectify this case where the state was sued over this issue? And how do you unwind it? I mean, I don't know the answer to that. That's why I'm asking. But I don't know. I just get to the point with some of these. You know, I look at it and I'm just like, are we just attacking the governor to attack the governor at this point?
Or are we truly, like, just unaware that this lawsuit happened? I'm a little skeptical. I'll be honest with you. I'm a little skeptical. You know, I don't know where to go. But you know what I'm not skeptical of is where Trump is going. Did you see the debate that was happening or the public back and forth that was happening over the weekend with Colombia? As in Colombia? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The country of Colombia. The country of Colombia.
So Trump has sent some repatriation flights back to some of these places, right? Mexico has said they're not going to take them back.
And Columbia's president came out, and he was coming out attacking Trump. And he was going to, he wasn't unhinged. He was on a rant, let's just tell you. He was on a rant, a rant this weekend. And he goes on and on how he's not going to do it, he's not going to do it. Well, then Trump says, fine. Well, I'm going to put tariffs on you. And, you know, before I think even Trump's coffee got cold,
The president of Colombia conceded, conceded to the point where he's even offered the presidential plane for deportation flights. I wonder how many planes he's got, because from what I saw, there's like a hundred and some thousand Colombians that need to be returned. Well, that's a lot of flights. That's a lot of flights. But the New York Post has an article. Everybody has articles about this. But Colombian president Petro quickly reversed course about accepting flights of deported migrants from the U.S. after the president.
Trump threatened emergency tariffs up to 50% on the South American country, refusing to cooperate. Petro not only acquiesced to Trump's demands, he even offered the official Colombian presidential plane to help shuttle migrants back to the country, calling it a response to the government's commitment to guarantee decent conditions.
The government of Colombia, under direction of President Gustav Petro, has arranged the presidential plane to facilitate the dignified return of the compatriots who are going to arrive in the country today in the morning coming from deportation flights. That's a quote from an official statement from the Colombian government. Boy, that didn't take long, did it?
Quick, fast, and in a hurry, they're like, what? No, oh, I mean, what, tariffs? Oh, it's weird how fast people react. They're like, you know, you can't use them tariffs. Nobody's going to listen to all. Oh, wait. Almost every time he's brought up the word tariff, immediately people have responded. You know, you're absolutely right. We're going to do what you said. Yeah, exactly. So you get to the point where it's like, man, I got whiplash as fast as this Colombian president changed his tune.
But look, and this is the challenge these other countries. Look, they have been crappy neighbors to us. They have not been our friends. They have been funneling criminals and drugs into our country over the past four years knowingly. They have expelled the worst of the worst from their country and sent them to our country to crap on our front stoop. I mean, let's be honest. This is just like, this is not neighborly. And so now when Trump steps up and says,
Okay, I'm sending all these criminals back to your country because we don't want your garbage. What's going to happen? It's going to make these politicians in their own country look weak, and it's going to make them look bad. So some of them got to put up a front, like, oh, you know, ain't doing it. Well, first of all, you're a crappy neighbor because you sent the worst of the worst to our country. We don't want them.
I would say they're not starting at a good point of negotiation with us because if that's how you're going to treat your friends, you ain't our friend. That's the reality. So now, you know, Trump's going to have, he's going to deal with a little bit of arm wrestling here with the Mexican president too, but this is going to happen. And let's just say they need us a whole lot more, I would suspect, than we need them. And so, look, Trump's going to flex the American muscle. Why?
because he needs to in order to put America first, in order to make America safe. We don't need millions and millions of other countries' criminals in our country. And that's why you see this strong arm. And I think a lot of what you're seeing with Trump and the tariffs, and you'll see people like AOC and others saying, oh, if we're going to tariff Colombian coffee, it's the consumer who pays it. No problem with that.
No problem with that. But you know what? It's going to break Columbia before it breaks your extra 50 cents in your cup of coffee. That's the reality. And guess what? Maybe we get our coffees from someplace else. Why don't we buy American coffee? There you go. I mean, people automatically say there's no American coffee. I'm sorry. Hawaii produces some of the most.
Oh, Kona coffee. Oh, man. I got some Kona coffee in my pantry right now. Great, great thing. Well, and that's my point. What you're going to see now is at the end of the day, when you see people trying to defend Colombia for their bad behavior, you have to sit back and say, okay, wait, in whose best interest is it to have Colombian gangbangers go back to Colombia? Is it in America's best interest?
Or if you're fighting against it, why are you advocating for Colombia's best interest? You know, I saw a quote from AOC earlier today, and that's what she was complaining about was Colombian coffee. And I'm thinking, really? That's where we're going? I mean, come on. Come on. But, man, this peeing contest between Trump and the Colombian president, the Colombian president did not come out of it looking very well.
Not at all. He tried. He stood up there first and put his toes out there and then realized. Tough guy. Tough guy. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. My bad. My bad. It's even worse that he offered his plane. I mean, he looks like a wolf. Well, he was scrambling. Because they'd already turned us away. We had to land in another country with those people. And he's just like, I'm so sorry. Here, kind of like the guy that says, I'm sorry, let me come and pick you up and drive you home.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right, let's go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to get into some more headlines of the day. Stay with us. You're listening to live, local, and always insightful Morning Drive Radio with Amy Demboski on NewsRadio 650 KENI. Get on the show now by calling 907-522-0650.
Welcome back. Current time, 722. Okay, so since I said it on the air, I might as well explain it. Oh, here it comes. So this is inside baseball. So you heard me lament a little bit, Daryl, about the governor not coming on the show. And, you know, frankly, it's at the point where, you know.
And it's just obvious. I reached out to Jeff Turner, his, you know, guy who's in charge of communications, and I requested it to come in. And back channel, I was getting the, oh, well, you know, we're just waiting. We're not really, we want to see this thing settle between you and Bronson before he comes on. I was getting a whole lot of excuses. But I see here's the thing, these people.
Don't remember. Like, I was deputy chief of staff for the governor. I know how this works. The governor doesn't do his own schedule. That's not how it works. All public requests, all requests for the governor go through his chief of staff. So Tyson Gallagher, who I actually thought I got along with really well, to be honest with you. But Tyson is his chief of staff.
And so all scheduling requests go through. So any time you want the governor on the show, you reach out to the governor's office, and they put in a scheduling request, and the chief of staff sits down with the scheduler, and they say yes or no, yes or no. I know this because I sat in those meetings, and I helped Tuckerman make those decisions with Tuckerman's chief of staff. So I know how the game is played. So the gatekeeper is really the chief of staff. And let's not forget. Let's not forget. Like, again.
I actually get along with Tyson, or I thought I did pretty well. But Tyson is America. He was one of the ones. I'm surprised he actually kept his job when he was deputy chief of staff because when he was deputy chief of staff during the COVID lockdowns, he was one of the ones that got busted for leg wrestling in the Capitol. Do you remember that?
They were having a little drinking party. Yep. And he got in trouble for that and whatever. But they kind of downplayed it. And now he's the chief of staff. But the other person in the governor's office that doesn't like me very much is Dave Steeren. I don't think he's much of an Amy fan. I think it's a polite love-hate relationship. I think he sometimes, like to my face, it's always, oh, hey, how you doing, Tim Boskey? But you can tell it's kind of like with a little bit of pain. And so.
There's gatekeepers in the governor's office that just are not Amy fans. I get that. I get it. It's okay. It's okay. But, you know, if you don't want to be on the biggest radio show out there, that's fine. You don't got to be. I appreciate the fact that there's other people on the governor's behalf.
that will call into the show and talk about the issues that are important to Alaskans. Because to me, I think it is important. And frankly, I love having the people that are doing the work. You know, we've had the Attorney General on. We've had the Department of Education Commissioner on. So I appreciate the people actually doing the work call in and we talk about the issues. But it is one of those things that, look, if you don't...
If you don't have the desire to come on, that's fine. That's fine. And it's the same with legislators. Those who don't want to come on, they're just missing the biggest audience there is in the morning. So that's cool. I mean, if you don't want to use it, that's fine.
Oh, my word. Oh, he's early. Should I pick him up early? Did he say? He was willing to come through. I know that, like I said, he just wasn't sure whether it was 25 or the other. And so I said, you know what? Why not just hang and listen to one of the greatest radio shows in the morning? That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's it. Okay, well, I haven't done the setup for that one, so I'm going to go to Randy first. We do have Randy with us this morning. Good morning, sir. Good morning. Great show.
discussions, and education. But let me give you a quick joke and then I'll sign off and listen again since we hadn't done today. What's the difference between a hippo and a zippo? Ooh, a hippo and a zippo. I know the answer to this one, but I'm not going to take your punchline for you. What is the difference between a hippo and a zippo? One slider.
I think you've got it. I love it. I love it. Well, I have to tell you, thank you for the levity this morning, Randy. I needed it. Oh, my word. Well, you know, as we were talking about the presidential efforts that are underway right now, Trump has let...
I don't think the guy sleeps ever because not only has he started repatriating foreigners to their country, so ICE is very active. The southern border is being reinforced as we speak. He's gotten four of his nominees confirmed so far. This week will be a big week. And I did want to play that.
You know, that Cash Patel clip, because I want to demonstrate. I've held this one for a little while. But Cash Patel was on Fox News, and they were talking about a lot of different things. And one of the big issues that nobody ever talks about is, like,
you know, sometimes corruption in government, right? So as he starts talking about, what they were talking about is the whole New York trial. And he was talking about Judge Mershon. And what we know, if you follow the records, is Judge Mershon's daughter made quite a bit of money, it appears, off of this trial. And so Kash Patel pipes up on Fox News, and this is what he says. I mean, this is so unprecedented. It's just amazing that he would say that.
It's shockingly unconstitutional, Trace. It's great to be with you. And I'm here to announce on your show a measure that I'm working with Congress that should be Congress's bread and butter. And I'm calling for the subpoenas to be issued to Judge Murchant's daughter's company, who made 15 plus million dollars from the illicit information pouring out of her father's courtroom. I want to know the bank records because money doesn't lie. I want to know how deep it is and how much of it went to the family and how much of it is going to the family after this false conviction. And then we need to investigate the evidence.
FEC actual violations that this judge and his family conducted because he should never have been overseeing this trial to begin with because of the illicit campaign money that was flowing through there and the unconstitutional due process violations are only the beginning. So America is calling for accountability of our judicial system and Congress is the only lever that has it. And I'm hoping for one or two brave members of Congress that I'm talking to to issue those subpoenas ASAP.
Okay, imagine that. Imagine that if we actually follow the money. Now think about this. The judge that was overseeing one of the trials of Donald Trump, and he's the one that was going to get Trump. Look, this whole case was nonsense, and I absolutely believe unappealed would be overturned.
his daughter's company making $15 million on it, wouldn't that seem to be a little suspect? I would think so. And what Kash Patel is talking about is Congress doing their due diligence and Congress having oversight of the judicial branch.
So he's not talking about as the FBI director going after, he's not doing that. He's saying, Congress, I understand the roles of government here. There's the administrative branch, there's the legislative branch, and there's the judiciary. And what he's saying is Congress has a responsibility.
to do their duty and ensure that laws are followed and they have subpoena powers, they should look into it. But this is exactly the type of reason why Kash Patel is going to get such heavy pushback when it comes to his confirmation hearings. Because, again, when you strike at the heart of D.C. power, which is money, right? Money, money, money, money, money. Money and power. When you strike at the heart of D.C. and you start following the money,
Mmm, the cockroaches will scatter. I'm telling you, that's why they're losing their mind over Kash Patel right now. This is just one more example of the kind of stuff that he looks into, and he's like, wait a second. He shows Congress this is what you should be doing. This is what you should be looking at. And he starts highlighting these things. It's going to make a lot of swamp creatures very uncomfortable in D.C. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, Representative Kevin McCabe is going to be joining us for a legislative update. Stay with us.
Amy Demboski, 6 to 8, mornings on News Radio 650, KENI. Call now, 907-522-0650. Welcome back. Current time is 736. Joining the show now, one of the good ones, Representative Kevin McCabe. He is down in Juneau.
As the legislative session has kicked off, well, he's on his way back maybe this weekend, but anyways, the session has kicked off. Representative McCain, good morning. Good morning, Amy. How are you? I am fantastic. How has your first week of legislative session gone? Yeah, well, it went pretty good, but I had to go home real quick. Apparently there are no...
An emergency dentist and a 24-7 dentist in Juneau means different than it does anywhere else. I couldn't get anybody to call me back, and I had to have some, well, I broke a bridge. Oh, yeah. So it's important to be able to talk, so I had to go home and have this bridge repaired, which was a huge pain in the butt. But it is what it is, and I'm back now. Good. Well, I've got to say, I know it's been busy.
kind of scrolling through social media the other day, and I saw a post by Representative Vance about education spending, and then I saw in Must Read Alaska, your op-ed came out talking about HB69, and I thought, oh, here it comes. So can you give us kind of a rundown on what you're hearing relating to education funding this year and kind of...
how much they want to spend, what they want to spend it on, how they're going to pay for it, that kind of stuff? Yeah, well, let's start with the very first one, which should be the biggest elephant in the room is who pays. How are you going to pay for $326.3 million increase this year, $501.3 million next year, and $645.7 million the year after that? So it's a significant...
significant amount of money, and I'm telling you, they're not even hiding it anymore. You know, a couple years ago they said, well, how come we always have to juxtapose education funding against the dividend? Well, now they don't even care. It's absolutely coming out of your dividend. There's no two ways about it. The governor's budget, as he sent it to us, has a big hole in it anyways with a full PFD.
and now we're going to put this on top of it, it's huge. So, you know, keep in mind here that we have the legislature, despite what you hear, has increased education funding 19 of the last 25 years. 19 of the last 25 years. It hasn't always been an inside-the-formula BSA increase. I get that. And really, an inside-the-formula BSA increase.
BSA increases is sort of a misnomer. It has oftentimes been a one-time increase. You know, they're going to put this in the budget, and it's going to be here with us not just for three years, but forever. And how do we do that? So I think Alaskans need to think really hard, and they need to think, you know, are we getting the return on investment?
That's what my piece said. You know, an investment in our children and in their education is always, always a fabulous idea, and Republicans have supported that always. I mean, last year we put the most number of money into education ever, $322 million. So Republicans, and that came from the Republican House. That came from the House majority last year.
We are not anti-education as we are being painted to be, and the education system, if it's in trouble, it is not necessarily the legislature that created that trouble. And I'm not quite sure how to get this across to parents, but you have got to find a way to investigate the finances of the business of your school district. What are they doing with the money?
You know, I happen to have two school districts in my house district, and, you know, there's one school in there with 10 people in it way up north, and they're spending $50,000 per child to send 10 students to school. Wow. How is that fair to the rest of the district? How is that fair to the kids in the other school that they're only spending?
you know, $15,000 on or $11,000, $12,000 on, whatever it is. So my point being is parents need to be involved. And we really need to ensure that we understand what the district's doing. School districts anymore are just like universities. They are big business. I mean, you're talking millions of dollars. School districts are big business. And it is not as transparent as it should be.
So some of my issues with the school districts are we need to have an open checkbook. We have full transparency. Average daily membership needs to be tracked throughout the school year, not just for a couple weeks in October, November. It's too open to manipulation in October, November to do that. So there are a bunch of changes that need to be made. But at the end of the day, I think this BSA is huge. huge BSA increase that is going to drain the dividend to zero is probably going to pass.
Well, this is unbelievable. When you look at it, the cost over three years, you're talking $1.47 billion increase. So I want to know if we're going to spend over $1.47 billion, what are we going to get in return? What kind of accountability is there for that type of investment? Have they released what type of metrics they're going to use to measure the success or accountability of all this money going out?
Well, that's the thing. You know, I've talked to many, many teachers. Of course, lots of them call me, and I have many friends and constituents that are teachers, and they're very concerned, mostly concerned, a lot of them, because a small, small, small percentage of the increases in the last several years have reached the classroom, a tiny percentage. And, you know, the school districts, they negotiate the contracts, the collective bargaining agreements with the NEA and with the teachers.
But you know who's not at that table? The legislature. We are not at the table for negotiating those contracts. So here we have a group of people, two groups of people, the school districts and the NEA negotiating a contract, and then they come to the legislature and say, well, we just negotiated this great contract. Anchorage NEA, the starting position is a 15% pay increase for teachers.
I'm not dumping on the teachers. The teachers are fabulous, and they deserve whatever they can get. Well, now they're coming to the legislature saying, now you have to help us pay for it. Right. And the other thing that we don't hear enough conversation about, I know in past legislative concessions I've heard legislators talk about it.
But, you know, funding first of these rural districts, you know, when they get 100% funding and then these local areas like Anchorage, 50% of your property taxes goes to the school district, you know, is that really equitable? Or if we look at administrative costs, you know, there's some places, how many school districts do we have in the state of Alaska? Quite a few. I think we could do some consolidation there too.
Sure, I agree. 53 school districts and all the school district administrators and all the staffers and everything that goes along with that. I totally get it. I think there's one island that has three different school districts on it down here in southeast. So that's frustrating. And in today's age, when you can do meetings and school district meetings and PTA meetings and all that, you can do it all by Zoom and all by phone.
I don't think 53 school districts is necessary. Maybe we need to divide it up along borough lines completely. The unorganized borough will absolutely be a problem, but we can figure out a way to do it. I just think we need to consolidate just like school districts are consolidating their schools. It's a frustrating problem, and just throwing a pile of money at it is not going to fix it.
I agree with you. Well, if folks haven't done it yet, I recommend you go to Best Street, Alaska. Under the columns section, Representative McCabe has a great article there that he's written to talk about this particular issue. It is going to be a big one, and the other one that we expect that they're going to pass is a return to defined benefit for the retirement system for public employees. And this is a system that is already in the red, and it's going to cost even more. So if through the education spending they basically drain the dividend,
they double down and go back to a defined benefit plan which I mean oh
The only way they're going to pay for that is if they start increasing taxes. That's the only other way they're going to do it. I'm very concerned about the spending. I do want to ask you about a different topic, though. I'm going to switch gears a little bit because it came up earlier in the show. Somebody made a comment about it, and it was about energy here in South Central. And we all know the debate is going to rage about what to do about potential gas in South Central, in Alaska. Should we import?
Or is it responsible to do an import as a stopgap? What conversations are starting to happen in Juneau relating to energy shortages that we might experience here in Alaska? Sure. Well, you know, my caucus has come out and said that we are not in favor of importing gas. You know, having said that, I suspect that the free market is going to take over. And if they have to import gas, they will do so. I mean, MEA told me.
I think going to diesel is going to triple the cost if they have to go to diesel. So they're actively looking for gas, as is NSTAR. Everybody is. But even that is going to have a cost. We're going to have to build out some sort of a, you know, regasification unit on shore somewhere, either McKiskey or Port McKenzie or somewhere. Or we're going to have to have a regasification ship parked somewhere.
and bring in the gas, but even then you have to build a pipeline from wherever the ship's going to be parked into the system, right? So lots of things need to happen. There are many folks that are concerned that our estimates of when Cook Inlet gas, the known reserves, are going to run out might be overly generous. It might not be 10, 8, 10 years. It might be 18 months to 2 years. I think there was a warning the other day, expect brownouts.
you know, within 18 months. So, yeah, it's something the legislature needs to look at. We need to stop dragging our feet. We tried to do it last year with royalty relief to incentivize more gas exploration in Cook Inlet and more drilling of wells in Cook Inlet. You know that, and I didn't know this until, you know, a year ago or so, the return.
One in 10 wells is what I'm trying to say. One in 10 wells is successful. So 10% of the wells drilled are actually successful. So that's a lot of effort when you consider they drill 15 to 20 wells a year. So, you know, we absolutely need to incentivize them. The Democrats last year put the screws to that bill and to that idea.
because they feel like we should be getting revenue for our gas. And I feel the same way, but we're not getting any revenue from it now while it's in the ground, so why don't we incentivize getting it out of the ground and get the revenue from it whenever the drilling company can have their upfront cost paid off. So give them an 8 or 10-year or 5-year, whatever it takes, royalty relief before we start charging them royalties.
That's my idea. Well, I think it's reasonable. Go ahead. Yeah. Well, we're struggling as well with the equipment. I mean, there's one jack-up rig, which is what they move around Cook Inlet to drill these wells. There's only one. And, in fact, if Hillcorp hadn't bought that, there would be zero. And there's not enough business up here to bring up a second one, apparently. So we're stuck with the one, and we need to figure out how best to do it.
Yeah, the legislature is going to have to get involved, I'm sure. How we do that will be interesting to see with the makeup of the House and the Senate.
Oh, no doubt. We will definitely keep in touch because we love hearing what's going on and kind of ideas of how maybe these things might be solved. You know, we are spectators in this sport at this moment, but I would remind people that you can always call your legislator and advocate for things that are important to you. And for me, energy security is at the top of the list, especially living in Alaska. So I appreciate the fact that you guys have been...
dogging this one, and we will keep abreast of it. Representative McCabe, thank you so much for calling in this morning. I hope you have a great week, sir. Yep, thanks, Amy. I appreciate it.
All right, safe travels, my friend. All right, that's Representative Kevin McCabe. He is on his way back down to Juneau for another action-packed week. We will keep you abreast of what is going on in Juneau, and there's a lot of other legislators that have reached out to me that want to get on the show, so this year we'll be very active talking to them directly. All right, we're going to go ahead and take a quick break. When we come back, we will take your calls, 522-0650.
Welcome back to live, local, and insightful Morning Drive Radio on News Radio 650 KENI. Well, I don't know, Daryl. New headline coming out of Breitbart. Support grows for idea of adding President Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore.
This is the greatest moment of my life, I think. The idea of carving President Donald Trump's likeness into South Dakota's Mount Rushmore is apparently picking up steam. Representative Anna Paulina Luna, she's a Republican from Florida, told the New York Post that she's introducing legislation to have the job done. Former Trump campaign manager.
Corey Lewandowski was the first to propose the move during a recent interview on the Benny Johnson show. In response, Representative Luna said she would suit file legislation on the matter. Social media users were quick to respond to Luna's message. One person writing, the Democrats would whine for years and years, end quote, do it. Like, I got to be honest with you. Do it. I love it. I love it. I can just right now, I can see the Sioux Nation literally going up.
in arms like barricading off the whole area to stop the workers and everything and they'll call it the battle of wounded ego
Oh, my gosh. The National Park Service webpage regarding the monument said, quote, Majestic figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln, surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota, tell the story of the birth, growth, development, and preservation of this country, end quote. Bring it on. Can you imagine Trump on Mount Rushmore, the big comb over? I think it would be sensational.
They've got to use his booking photo. That booking photo is the perfect one with that scowl looking out at you. Oh, that's awesome. Hey, I have to do a correction, too, because a friend texted me. You know, I was lamenting about some of the gatekeepers in the governor's office, the non-Amy fans. One of them, Dave Steeren, now is over at Ada. He's no longer at the governor's office. I still love Dave, but I love the fact that sometimes he loves to hate me.
I just don't care when people don't like me. To me, I just don't. Like, I find it entertaining. If I know I'm in your kitchen, like, dude, it gives me nothing but pleasure than to rearrange the dishes. Like, if I know I can do that and do it rent-free, like, live rent-free in your head, like, it's so much fun. It's so much fun for me. You know what else is fun for me? This show. So, thank you, everybody, for listening today. Stay tuned. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton are on deck.
Followed by Sean Hannity and, of course, the great Mike Piccaro and Crash are live and local from 4 to 6 p.m. this afternoon and every weekday afternoon. Daryl and I will be back with you bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. Until then, stay safe. God bless.