Executive order more like edict
So President Barack Obama has finally totally forgotten that he was elected president and not king. Worse yet, he uses the images of murdered children to justify his bending and now breaking down the tenets of our Constitution. The lines have been blurred between royal decree and executive order by Obama.
Can he tell me how his decrees would have stopped even one of the mass shootings? Probably not. However, working with Congress to enforce the laws on the books might have helped. That probably would not work for Obama, as his idea of compromise is to agree to do it his way and smile for the photo op it creates.
The bright spot in his decrees is the money he wants to put toward mental health, although this probably won't help because of privacy laws helped along by another president with royal aspirations.
I will be the first to back truly useful gun laws, but can we come together and figure out what will actually stop the violence? What has happened to "government by the people"?
— Maggie Spencer
Anchorage
Medred wrong on court ruling
In Craig Medred's Jan. 6 rant, he states the Alaska "Supreme Court decided the salmon resources belong not to the people of the 49th state, but to commercial fishermen who work in the 49th state — a significant number of whom don't even live here." Not so, Craig. The Supreme Court ruled the state's resources can't be allocated by initiative. And the initiative was sponsored mainly by the commercial sportfish guiding industry, "a significant number of whom don't even live here" — and Bob Penney, not by "the people of the 49th state."
— Gerald Brookman
Kenai
Dead murres are ripple effect of ocean acidification in Pacific
When are Americans going to wake up and see what is happening?
Thousands of birds showed up dead, practically overnight, on the beaches of Whittier. Scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they just don't know why. One quick search on the Internet for "murres dying" brings up multiple stories of how these poor birds are starving to death along the entire Pacific seaboard.
I am not a scientist, and I am extremely grateful for what scientists around the world are doing to show that climate change is happening. Anyone who denies it at this point is without reason, thanks to all the meticulous studies scientists have done for many years. But at this point, it is agonizing to sit and wait for how long it takes scientists to come up with proof for one particular event, when it is really quite obvious. This is not a local event, and if scientists want to understand it so well, they can prove it according to the scientific method, then they need to start looking with a much bigger magnifying glass.
Ocean acidification is real, and is a lot more dangerous to all of us than ISIS terrorists. The ocean is toxic. Fish are dying. All sea life is going to start dying off, and as the death of the murres shows, this is now affecting other species that live outside of the water. The birds are just the outward sign of what is happening below the surface. This is going to start having a bad impact on humans before long, when our own food supply starts to die off.
It's a new year and time for Americans to start facing reality. We need to change things fast, and we need to tell our congressmen how much we care about our future. Like how we need to stop putting so much carbon into the atmosphere, because the ocean is absorbing it. Develop renewable energy sources, and learn that if we don't take care of the earth, it's not going to take care of us. As the head of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Lisa Murkowski has an obligation to all Alaskans, and all Americans, to lead the way on this. And a really smart initial step would be to set up a carbon fee and dividend plan to start the transition that needs to happen. Put a price on all the damage that carbon producers cause, and you will incentivize society to find smarter energy sources.
Because to keep relying on fossil fuels is going to decimate the animal populations, and it's suicidal for humans.
— Sandy Henschel
Member, Citizens' Climate Lobby
Anchorage
Medred column on Inlet setnet decision is full of deception
Craig Medred is intellectually dishonest and deceptive in his arguments about Cook Inlet setnetting. He uses the emotionally charged word "bycatch" to describe the supposed "… bycatch waste of flounder by commercial setnetters."
As someone who worked as a setnet crew member one year in Cook Inlet (1986) and a permit owner in Bristol Bay for 13 years, I have thrown literally thousands of alive starry flounder back into the sea right after having picked them from gillnets. These small fish are caught by a barb near their head; I have never ever seen one gilled. They are very hardy fish and they are not very good to eat because their flesh is soft. Why anyone, including dipnetters, would want to keep them to eat is beyond me.
Medred also says "… commercial salmon fishermen in this state get 98 percent of the fish." What he does not say is that a big percentage of that 98 percent are pinks and chums that sportfishers do not target and do not want. As an Alaska sportfisherman since 1949, I can relate to that.
What we all should be concerned about is the real bycatch of king salmon on the high seas by the trawl fleet.
This summer, when I hopefully catch another king salmon on the Kenai River and throw it back, I will be assured that no commercial fisher ever "owned" it. Neither will the personal-use red salmon I also hope to catch.
Lastly, I would like to point out that the other side on this issue in the Inlet is not exactly poverty stricken. They had the money to fund an initiative drive among other things and they are also politically well connected.
— John Jensen
Anchorage
API lacks effective patient care
The commentary by Charles Wohlforth on Jan. 7 was basically a roundtable budget discussion by doctors and management at the state-run Alaska Psychiatric Institute. Any solution from the discussion will have a profound effect on psychiatric patients.
The discussion centered around which services to psychiatric patients would be reduced or eliminated. It is the psychiatric patients who are facing the hardships of state budget shortfalls. But patients are rarely given a seat at the table to discuss their own future.
No matter which peephole you look through, management of a psychiatric institution like API and patients on the bottom floor are not the same. It is hospital policies governing patient care that make a hospital capable of assisting in patient recovery. A 150-year-old psychiatric hospital on the East Coast can, and often is, run better than a 10-year-old psychiatric hospital or unit in Alaska.
From our seat at the table, API has never produced the patient policies that will make it a good hospital.
— Faith Myers and Dorrance Collins, Mental Health Advocates
Anchorage
ISIS must be paying Trump
I wonder if Mr. Trump and his birther conspiracy theory cronies will come clean and tell us exactly how much ISIS is paying him to help the terrorist group's recruiting campaign.
Back atcha, Donald.
— Geoff Kennedy
Anchorage
Republicans toe NRA's line
Jan. 5, 2016 will go down in history "as one of the saddest days in America." Rep. Don Young said this about Obama's executive action which is primarily meant to clarify and enforce existing gun laws. This would still allow for the 21 million background-checked gun purchases in 2014 alone. Other sad days in America include, but are hardly limited to: Every day of every war, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and every mass shooting. It's likely that every other day in American history is sadder than this day.
For those that keep re-electing him: Are you willing to openly agree with him that it is truly one of the saddest days in America or is he merely a blunt instrument of your personal politics whose embarrassing rants are conveniently ignored? At least, could a single Republican or NRA member in this state openly criticize this statement?
— Griff Steiner Jr.
Anchorage
Nothing has changed for setnets
Like sportfishing, commercial fishing is a privilege and not a right. Nothing the Alaska Supreme Court wrote in its opinion rejecting the initiative would ban Cook Inlet setnet fishing. The Alaska Board of Fisheries retains the same discretion it had before this opinion to allocate salmon among sport and commercial fishers, and within those user groups. In proper accord, it can even reduce the allocation to one or more of those user groups to zero.
Contrary to Craig Medred's rather outlandish opinion piece (ADN, Jan. 6), that is black-and-white law.
— Peter Van Tuyn
Anchorage
Trump calls the Clintons' bluff
Mary Sanchez' Jan. 4 commentary on Trump and the Clintons drips with liberal, feminist, pro-illegal immigrant, myopic, bovine scat.
She commends Bill with "whose powers of political legerdemain are legendary" and overlooks the legendary aspects of his powers that are not so complimentary. He baldfaced lied to the American people on TV. "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewensky;" his impeachment; the other controversial female relationships; the selection of Janet Reno for attorney general, perhaps the worst ever, who was responsible for the murder of 100 men women and children in Waco, Texas, and the killing at Ruby Ridge. I'm just getting started.
Ms. Clinton, not to be outdone by her husband, has been if not the worst, one of the worst secretaries of state in history. Sanchez conveniently overlooks the Clinton shortcomings while pointing out Trump's. But then the Clintons may be SOBs, but they're our SOBs, right?
Trump gives hope to a growing segment of the electorate that we're still a government of the people. If you want to blame Trump's popularity on someone, blame it on Obama who's not done with "change" yet.
— William Ahrens
Eagle River
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