Stay classy, Alaska

It's natural for states to advocate for and support the industries and businesses that take up residence within it's borders. It's expected. But sometimes a state will go so far overboard in advocacy that you sometimes wonder if the industry and government have merged into one entity, leaving one only able to just sit back in awe at the shady, corrupt seediness of it all. Such is the case with the free range meth lab, political corruption testing ground, and petro-socialist state that is Alaska.

Not merely content to turn their state over to oil companies in exchange for cash, the Alaskan state legislature feels the need to turn their government into a functioning public relations arm for big oil and the lucrative "Fuck polar bears" industry.

Seeking to protect the oil industry, the Alaska state legislature has appropriated $1.5 million to fund an astroturf campaign to weaken the Endangered Species Act and put on a conference questioning the listing of polar bears as a threatened species.

Over the objections of some members who warned of "PR damage" to the state, a group of lawmakers late last week decided to move ahead with reviewing bids from public relations firms for the polar bear contract, the Anchorage Daily Newsreported.
...
The primary purposes of the conference will be to challenge the listing of polar bears and to determine the best ways to lessen the impacts of the Endangered Species Act for the oil and gas industries.

To do that, a Harris aide told the Anchorage Daily News, the PR firm will "initiate a grass-roots movement" to go to Congress and demand reforms to the law.

Hmm, a grass-roots movement to pretend polar bears are thriving, weaken the Endangered Species Act, and advocate for more oil and gas development of Alaska. You know, I think if there were any true grassroots support for any of those three ideas, they would have shown up by now. But nowadays, the only thing better than actual grassroots support is fake grassroots support. I don't know, maybe I underestimate this country's hatred for white bears.

In the "every cloud..." department, it seems that Rudy Giuliani's firm might win the bid to get the contract. I'm not sure how this meshes with his goal to suck every available nickel out of 9/11 for himself, but I'm sure Rudy will be on Fox News to tell us real soon.

Anyway, I would just like to congratulate Alaska for wasting $1.5 million of the state's money to shill for bad science, gutting environmental protections, and your corporate masters. I'd say you were wasting the taxpayers' money, but your entire budget is essentially oil kickbacks. So you're probably doing exactly what the oil companies would have done anyway with the money. Well done then. Expert governance. Fuck those bears.