Home To Roost

This week on Home to Roost : Washington makes Alaska spend more money so fewer people can get health insurance. The VA's inspector general reports on how Trump's "system shocks" affect veterans, while Pete Hegseth’s entourage gets a lesson in military discipline from a soldier who actually practices it. And we explore whether the Constitution allows states to conspire to commit democracy by electi...

This week, we follow the money from the Trump family’s crypto ventures all the way to a proposed North Slope LNG plant featuring Russian technology. Then, we look at Trump's demand that Alaska votes be transferred to his preferred Sullivan, and whether the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment protects the secrecy of ballots. In today's Alaska, it's a battle between secret billions and secret ballots.

This week on Home to Roost: DOJ reaches into Alaska’s Senate race. Apparently,  states’ rights end where Washington's preferred ballot begins. Trump finds more occasions to discuss men’s bodies than to mention high oil prices. It's a different kind of crude analysis. And we trace voting from shouting your choice aloud to party-printed tickets to the secret ballot—because Americans eventually decid...

This week, we review the rising cost of paperwork for SNAP recipients and the rising cost of aviation fuel. We then see what America's own Brutus predicted about the Supreme Court, and Rachel introduces a new quiz game: More or Less.  In short, more paperwork, more expensive fuel, more judicial power, but less money for Alaskans. 

This week on Home to Roost : Trump announced in Wasilla that Taiwan is ready to buy Alaska LNG, but Taiwan still remains only gas curious. A Republican accused his opponent of witchcraft. Does MAGA want to make Salem great again? And we discover how John Locke's Christian understanding of natural rights contradicts Christian nationalism—apparently, the troublesome part of “all men are created equa...

This week on Home to Roost , South Korea insists Alaska’s LNG pipeline must make financial sense before investing , while the Trump administration apparently believes federal money can be handed out in $500 and $90 installments without Congress’s permission. A GOP senator warns that your airline pilot might secretly be a furry. Does he secretly desire Rocky and Bullwinkle to fly his plane? And we...

South Korea is investing $54 billion in the Alaska gas line! Except, apparently, it isn’t. We follow the money—or, more accurately, look around for it. Meanwhile, bipartisan support for green energy shows signs of photosynthesis, we play another round of Public Policy Pursuit, and Thomas Paine declares, “In America, the law is king.” But did the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States dethrone the...

This week we do something a bit different. We present interviews with four Alaskans who describe how changes in federal policies have affected them or their organizations, whether for better or for worse. Specifically, we interviewed Alaskans involved with libraries, social work, foster care, and fish processing. We hope you find their stories insightful.

This week on Home to Roost: the Fed raises rates, Sutton’s Evan Jones Mine supplies fossils for a conversation about Alaska’s warmer future, and Trump’s remarks about blood and genetics put purported pedigrees on the agenda. Then we open some very old mail: Kendall v. United States (1838), a reminder that presidential supervision doesn’t erase duties Congress assigned the postmaster. Interest, anc...

This week on Home to Roost : Social Security approaches insolvency while Trump offers a $5,000 “dividend” financed more like a forced loan. Meanwhile, Alaska gets hammered by fuel prices, and Speaker Johnson’s vow not to “allow” Democrats to control Congress makes us wonder what the Constitution says about who ultimately decides elections.

This week on Home to Roost , we follow the federal government into some strange territory. Trump's DHS, not just the Postal Service, plans to review mail-in ballots, and the Ninth Circuit reminds the Administration that Congress defines spending. Meanwhile, President Trump publicly ponders an astronaut’s mustache, and the Pentagon briefly wonders if some service women need more testosterone. We al...

Trade wars, robot wars, and Blackbeard with broadband. Canadian tariffs come for Alaska, delayed federal ferry money finally docks, and AI agents discover cooperation—and even self-sacrifice. John and Rachel also ask whether cyberwar will revive an old constitutional idea: privateering. 

 Tariffs, trees, and Tina Peters. John and Rachel look at why Alaska parents are paying more for school supplies, what the Trump administration’s plan to scrap the Roadless Rule could mean for the Tongass and Chugach National Forests, and why using federal dollars to pressure Colorado into freeing convicted election official Tina Peters set a worrisome precedent for a state as dependent on Washing...

 In this episode,  Rachel wonders whether $272 million in federal Rural Health Transformation Program money might fail to fully land in Alaska, while John looks into the billions of dollars some Native corporations are getting in ICE contracts. We also see who has called Trump a mere temporary tenant of the White House, and we discuss what George Washington might have thought about our war with Ir...

This week, we review the substantial decline in Alaska's federal workforce and the planned increase in the U.S. icebreaker fleet. We also play "Who Said It?" and discuss President Washington's advice on constitutional prudence.

This week, John and Rachel review how the Department of Justice might be trying to butter up Alaska to improve the confirmation chances of Trump’s nominee for attorney general and how federal support for the Alaska gas line is going unclaimed. We continue our review on what George Washington had to say about the need of civic virtue to restrain the power of political parties, and we play "Who Said...

Join us this week as we look at the federal connection to increasing rates of congenital syphilis and taxes on hockey gear. We also play Who Said It and read what George Washington said about political parties in his Farewell Address.

This week, Rachel and John take a break from their usual format and bring you interviews with Alaskans attending the Mat-Su Pride festival. Listen to hear how changes in federal policies are affecting people in our community.

Join John and Rachel this week as they review how congressional resistance to Trump has saved Alaska’s Ocean Station Papa and how it might also improve Alaska’s housing supply. We also discuss how the Supreme Court’s lifting of limits on political party assistance to federal candidates will likely land in Alaska.

This week, in honor of July 4th, we focus on the meaning of our nation’s founding. We review news items from 1776, some quotes of the Founders, and consider why we celebrate July 4th, and not some other important day, as the birthdate of America.

This week we take a break from analyzing how the federal government effects Alaska in order to review some relevant American history, especially the Dred Scott decision, the problem of judicial supremacy, and the election shinannigans of 1876 and 1877.

This week we review Trump’s plan to require grants and scientific research to pass his political litmus tests, we discuss the dismantling of Ocean Station Papa, the most sophisticated deep sea monitoring system off Alaska’s coast, and we consider the Constitutional basis for federal funding of science.

Join us as we discuss how millions of dollars in federal coal subsidies could cost Alaskans billions in higher utility bills, and how the Trump administration is trying to stifle public workers. We also play “Who Said It?” and wonder what the American Founders would have thought of the expansion of ICE.

This week, we discuss new medicaid rules, new proposed mail-in ballot rules, and new threats to Alaska’s tourism industry. We also host two special guests for this week’s rendition of "Who Said It?'

This week we discuss rising inflation, delayed Department of Energy grant payments, and how political pressure on immigration judges recalls one of the grievances the Declaration of Independence stated against King George III. We also discuss fake money, fake monuments, and the real Ben Franklin.