Talk:Alaska political corruption probe

message: Hey this may be in dispute status is respect.  Well thanks for that. If you look at the start of this thread and the thread starter's statement from way back there in 2006, well it really does tell the untold (outside of talk page) story don't you think?
Definitely goes with the wiki spirit of   be bold craphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold crap, huh?  
Presuming you actually are, Isn't it great to be bold? 
I like the new stats available here.  Priestley jr's thread is rolling along easily averaging well over 500 hits a month ten years after the fact(s).  I wish there was a way to see stats all the way back (or is there?). 
Do you figure this article had a bazzilion hits yet? 2600:8803:B604:A500:48B:AD7C:CEAB:D211 (talk) 13:51, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

message: Since I never seem to know if anyone really pays attention to these pages once they're not flavor-of-the-month, I'll just explain the main change.  I'm attempting to remove the constant references to "R-Anchorage" and the like after every mention of every name, and for one simple reason.  This reads like someone is using the AP Style Manual to write Wikipedia articles.  Alaskan political related articles in general seem to suffer from this.RadioKAOS (talk) 01:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Re: changes

message: Undid vandalization (deletion removing mentions of implicated ex-state senator Ben Stevens) and undid deletion of previously unsourced info on fisheries business subpoenas, supplying cite. Activist (talk) 05:39, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Restored material referencing Ben Stevens

message: I can't tell if anyone is paying attention on this side, but two items need to be discussed before the article gets tagged for them:
* The article could use some updating.  Anderson, Kott and Weyhrauch continue to make headlines to this day over their roles.  Probably also several others, though the names don't immediately come to mind.
* The mention of Lisa Murkowski in the lead.  If the first sentence explains that Lisa was not involved, then how come she appears to be the near-exclusive focus of other editors' recent work on this article?  The lead keeps expanding with Lisa minutiae, while others who played actually significant roles in the affair are deliberately not named in the lead, apparently for the only reason that these individuals served in the state legislature rather than the U.S. Congress.RadioKAOS (talk) 04:37, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Weyhrauch made headlines over winning his Supreme Court case over the application of the "honest services" statute, at the same time similar decisions were made in the major cases of Jeff Skilling and Conrad Black. If you think that Frank Murkowski was the "dirtiest" politician, I suggest that you look up the seminal case of William A. Clark whose bribery over a century ago prompted passage and ratification of the 17th Amendment (which Joe Miller has opposed). Clark is of current note because of the high profile disputation of the will of his reclusive daughter Huguette Clark. Frank Murkowski was never prosecuted and his daughter Lisa, although appointed due to nepotism, was a state legislator at the time of her appointment. Furthermore she won reelection to her seat as a write in candidate despite being dumped by the Republican party and primary voters. Her only tenuous connection to the Alaska political corruption probe was through her Kenai land deal, later reversed, with Bob Perry, who was slightly involved with issues surrounding Ted Stevens Girdwood "chalet." Lisa Murkowski has never practiced in the "11th Circuit", which is situated entirely within Florida, Alabama and Georgia, but rather in the 9th. Talk pages are the appropriate venues for matters of opinion or conjecture, but Wikipedia articles are exclusively those of verifiable facts. Activist (talk) 17:32, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Two more items

message: I think that removing links and posts has to stop. People come here to gather facts about matters and it is chore enough to deal with keeping up with providing documentary evidence without some ideologue instantly deleting what you post because they asked for a source. Demanding sources and  realizing it is all out there, and some of it is even available should help people to learn to be careful what they wish for, and live with what they requested. You wanted sources I've got plenty of sources, but want more. The kind of information that people guard like it was gold [Duncan's phone bank records].  The Kind Attorney Generals lie about to avoid the appearance of corruption. Read 'em, and  weep, but don't delete.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.168.175.209 (talk) 06:50, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You have regularly responded to requests for source materials by providing useless URLs to home pages such as the AK Department of Law and PACER.  That would be like providing a wall calendar to "substantiate" your claim that something happened in that particular year. You're sending Wikipedia readers on snark hunts. I had hopes for you to finally understand the task involved in editing when you posted that 2007 Empire article regarding Ray Metcalf, but you quickly reverted. Wikipedia is not a venue for you to post your opinions. It is an encyclopedic presentation of actual facts. Materials posted by editors should refer to the actual article. You may have gotten gum on your shoe, but you can't post that to this or any other Wikipedia page, just because you imagine that there's a connection somehow. Save for the Metcalf piece, nothing you've posted has any actual relationship to the subject at hand. Conspiracy theories are not facts. Activist (talk) 08:17, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: No conspiracy theories, just a conflict of interest that went horribly wrong for the state as a whole. You really  should be seeking answers to  these questions at the links provided.  Department of law, Federal Court records, they aren't that hard to search except some people like omissions and deletions. I suggest start with the AG office, call up David Jones for yourself. Ask Bill Milks about suborning perjury. Ask your government, start there. Pacer you can just type in a party name, and it's reasonably priced to pull the doc. Now a Jim Duncan records request, on the other hand, it's pretty darn  spendy, excess  $12,000 just to pull a few damning  phone records. Too bad someone with money to burn didn't use it to burn Jim for campaigning out of the State Office Building. []  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.168.175.209 (talk) 09:00, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Citations and sources given to support claims, especially controversial ones, about living persons and actions attributed to them must clearly and specifically support contain (and not just infer) the claim made. You cannot point to a Web site's index page and say, "It's in there somewhere if you look for it." Unless and until you provide specific and reliable sources (and you, as the contributor of new information, have the responsibility to do so), the claims must be removed immediately per the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy -- and anyone who insists on repeatedly re-inserting them without sources is very likely to be blocked from editing. Dwpaul (talk) 22:47, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whining because the  the other party is involved with corruption, and  Bill Allen, and   Alaska's problems 

message: Public records of the Ninth Circuit  case #05-35694 show that in November 2005 a former state employee asked a 9th circuit three judge panel to mandate a Grand Jury to investigate a company, VECO, for peddling influence for passage of "leglslation that robs the permanent fund."  He had experienced workplace retaliation for reporting violations  of collective bargaining  contract, ethics laws (See ethics opinion 665-05-0160 ) and international treaty obligations  in the state's 'organized' workplace.  Even though  Assistant Attorney Generals William E. Milks, and David T. Jones and Kathryn Strausbaugh had documents in hand asking for empanelment of a Grand Jury, no information was passed between the Attorney General's office and the Legislature. 
 +
The FBI had set up in a Baranof hotel suite just three blocks away from the capitol building in Juneau. There they videotaped VECO's CEO Bill Allen, peeling off bills for legislators to stuff in their pockets. According to the Juneau Empire, Metcalfe said he had spoken with FBI agents about the case, but didn't know how the feds first got interested in Alaska."I think the jury is still out on what started this," said Metcalfe. Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho, the longest serving attorney general in the state's history over two administrations, said it looks like those state agencies responsible for ensuring ethical government failed to do their jobs, but it is too soon to tell for sure.  
−
The AFSCME Local 52 had been corrupted by an agreement  between newly appointed Business Manager and very recent former Commissioner of Administration Jim Duncan. Murkowski Administration's Attorney General found a creative way to eliminate the conflict of interest. In AG file 223-03-0342,https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4SCtEwUMwGBb3N5ZkxKNGhVSkE/edit?usp=sharing drafted by  Assistant Attorney General Lisa Kirsch, Jim Duncan agreed to take his job with the AFSCME Local 52, and  get his pay,  with a stipulation to not represent his members for a matter of years.  The Murkowski Administration's  advantage  was to have no grievances properly articulated or filed and management's unfettered ability to retaliate against whistleblowers. The disadvantage was they did not expect an ordinary technician to navigate the courts and ask for what became the only FBI raid of a state legislature in the history of the United States to this date. More recent AAG opinions suggest a need to review and revisit citing the previous conflicts of interest by former State employees like Jim Duncan's stating  "Alaska court may disagree with the advice we previously provided." 
 +
. Bill Allen lead Tony Knowles' transition team when he took office in 1994.  
On April 6, 2006, Chief Assistant Attorney General Dean Guanelli of Governor Frank Murkowski's Administration wrote a response letter  to activist Ray Metcalfe rejecting the idea that Bill Allen was peddling influence. Long before  Mr. Guanelli wrote the letter, the FBI had set up in a Baranof hotel suite just three blocks away from the capitol building in Juneau. There they videotaped VECO's CEO Bill Allen, peeling off bills for legislators to stuff in their pockets. According to the Juneau Empire, Metcalfe said he had spoken with FBI agents about the case, but didn't know how the feds first got interested in Alaska."I think the jury is still out on what started this," said Metcalfe. Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho, the longest serving attorney general in the state's history over two administrations, said it looks like those state agencies responsible for ensuring ethical government failed to do their jobs, but it is too soon to tell for sure. 
  −
VECO and their employees had been a large contributors to politics for some time, notably  to Tony Knowles' Governor's Fund, channeling hundreds of thousands  of dollars around scrutiny of  Alaska Public Offices Commission  and to the Knowles and other Democratic Campaigns through other channels. Bill Allen lead Tony Knowles' transition team when he took office in 1994. 
68.97.28.2 (talk) 02:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relevant Information and Sources Previous to 2008 

message: It would be very helpful if you specified the time frame of the probe in the lead - the date it began and the date it ended. Then, you need to ensure that the material in this article is limited to that time frame and/or directly related to the probe. The source information now in the article -- Kohring is running in the Oct. 1, 2013 municipal election for a seat on the Wasilla City Council -- has nothing to do with the probe and needs to be removed. The headings 2. Corrupt Bastards Club, 3 Raids on legislative offices, 4 Management of corruption investigation, and 5 Investigation widens all should be under a History section head and should be placed above the Figures of note table. Discussion of each individual should be place under The Figures of note heading. -- Jreferee (talk) 05:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the reference to Kohring's candidacy, which was in the referenced article about the unanimous 9th Circuit, en banc denial of his latest appeal. Kohring filed that appeal pro se, after his attorneys withdrew from their representation of him after his earlier loss decided by a three-judge panel in the 9th Circuit. His only recourse now is to let the matter drop or file an appeal with the Supreme Court. I can't imagine that any of the justices would feel that it was appropriate to consider the matter. The time frame of the probe is rather murky. Frank Prewitt admitted in his book regarding his role wearing a wire (for a payment of $200,000) on many of the defendants and Jerry Ward the latter of whom was inexplicably not indicted, including for witness tampering, that the FBI already had the goods on Prewitt and pressured him to cooperate in mid-2004. The initiation of the probe must have preceded that confrontation. There was no mention of the probe in the press until the August 2006 searches of legislators' district and state capitol offices. The probe apparently concluded either by August 4, 2010 with Eric Holder's decision not to pursue an indictment of Don Young despite the incriminating testimony of Bill Allen, or by the plea bargain of Young's Washington D.C. congressional staffer Mark Zachares, who was sentenced four months later.'Federal prosecutors drop Young case', Anchorage Daily News, 4 August 2010, Richard Mauer. Retrieved 30 September 2013. Kohring's conviction in the corruption probe is the major feature of tomorrow's City Council election. Activist (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding your request to delete materials not germane to the time frame of the probe, which lasted from 2004 through 2010 at least, I deleted the restored reference to Knowles and Allen in 1994 which has nothing to do with the subject of the article. I think the added material about Metcalf does fit within the time frame and is very germane to the subject of the article, so I left it intact. Activist (talk) 21:11, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I also deleted the Lisa Murkowski material, per guidelines you've cited. I can find no record that Murkowski was implicated in the probe in any fashion. In fact the Wikpedia text material I deleted states that she wasn't implicated. The link about the federal road to the property she purchased and returned in Kenai does not exist, per the TPM publisher's note. If the editor thinks it deserves mention, it belongs on Senator Murkowski's page. Activist (talk) 21:35, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It is important per BLP etc. to keep this article from being used to tie/connect politicians to the probe who are not one of the sixteen listed in the figures of note. For any politicians named in the article who are not one of the sixteen, please make sure that use of their name in the article helps place the probe in context and that the usage is verifiable against high-quality reliable sources. Also, you might want to consider revising the table to remove Donald Olson, Ben Stevens, Jerry Ward, and Don Young, who were not indicted, since having them in a list that includes criminals gives impression that they were accused of committing a crime. -- Jreferee (talk) 12:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Time frame

message: It seems post that had been here for months were suddenly deleted a month ago. 
The first response to the manufactured  'edit war' :
Uh, it takes a minimum of two users to edit war, so back at you. And they were providing a cite, so "unreferenced" doesn't seem exactly right either. 
[  ] 
, or whatever, but you are not exempted from the edit warring policy by just saying BLP, BLP! I have protected the page for a week to give you two a chance to work this out. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm more than a little puzzled as to who said what when in this section, but I have a concern about leaving "probe" out of the title as (someone) suggested above. Reducing the title to "Alaska political corruption" has the effect of making a political comment by asserting that corruption exists. While there may be reason to think so, this would seem to violate MOS:OPED.  At least the word "probe" conveys that it is something under investigation. Dwpaul (talk) 02:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Please sign your comments. It should be simple enough to type four tildes. Dwpaul (talk) 02:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Thank you.  And above you demonstrate that you completely lack any understanding of Wikipedia's core policy concerning WP:Neutral point of view, along with WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research (achieving a sort of reverse perverse trifecta), as well as WP:NOT#JOURNALISM and any number of other guidelines about what is and is not appropriate here. Dwpaul (talk) 02:32, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

text: Just curious. Which politician was that, when, and what did he or she do? Activist (talk) 07:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protection: High level of IP vandalism. Activist (talk) 21:55, 30 September 2013 (UTC) 

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