The day this issue hits the streets, February 4, conservative KFQD talker Dan Fagan is hosting a “town hall” meeting at the Sheraton which was supposed to feature panelists including gubernatorial contenders Ralph Samuels (a Republican) and Ethan Berkowitz (Democrat), as well as school district Superintendent Carol Comeau, Lieutenant Governor Craig Campbell, and a few others. Fagan’s subject, according to the website where you can buy tickets for $25 a pop, is “The Alaska Economy—Closed For Business.”

At least one panelist has backed out though; Berkowitz isn’t attending because the Sheraton is under a boycott from its UNITE HERE Local 878 hotel workers union. (As of press time the union hadn’t heard from Comeau; it seems she’d be unlikely to attend when her employees comprise the state’s largest union, NEA-Alaska.)

We have a suggestion for Dan: Next time you decide to have a town hall meeting about advancing the state’s economy, you should probably find an Alaska-owned venue for the meeting, like, say, the Captain Cook, which happens to be the only one of the “big three” hotels in town not under a union boycott. Details of former Governor Sarah Palin’s political action committee’s contributions and expenditures were released this week, and both the mainstream media and the blogosphere have had plenty of fun poring over SarahPAC’s financials. Our favorite revelation is that Joseph Russo and Rebecca A. Mansour, cofounders of the conservatives4palin blog, both quietly went to work for SarahPAC after Palin resigned the governorship (C4P acknowledged that for the first time last Sunday).

This has some anti-Palin bloggers convinced that the two are actually the authors of Palin’s infamous Facebook posts, which are suspiciously coherent compared to what comes out of Palin’s mouth in her Fox News appearances, and even in speeches she’s written herself (anyone remember “it is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future,” from her farewell speech?). Let’s just say we wouldn’t be surprised if Mansour and Russo were the Facebook ghostwriters…

bjk@anchoragepress.com