Mary Peltola sure loves fish. The first sentence of her “story” on her website reads: “I’m a Yup’ik Alaska Native, salmon advocate, and Democrat.”

Fishing is a major part of Alaska’s economy, and at a time when species are dying off, fisheries are closing and coastal communities are left scrambling to get by, her “pro-fish” campaign connected with voters in November. The snow crab population is nearing total collapse, the red king crab has been in decline for decades, and sport salmon fishing on the state’s two largest rivers is kaput.

But there’s one fishing industry that has not suffered: trawling.

Trawlers drag massive nets along the sea bottom, after groundfish like pollock and yellowfin sole. But the nets don’t discriminate: They haul up millions of pounds of other species — and then, regardless of value, they dump them. In 2021, trawlers swept up more than half a million individual salmon from the Bering Sea. And while red king crab and snow crab fisheries have been shuttered this year, the trawl industry has still been permitted to discard up to 4.3 million individual snow crab and 32,000 red king crab, though they don’t always reach their cap.

The reasons for the catastrophic collapse of halibut, crab and salmon — sinking hundreds of millions of dollars from the state’s economy — are harshly debated, but there’s mounting evidence from government agencies that the trawling industry is causing greater damage to marine habitats than we’d thought. “For 30 years, this industry has been tossing over juvenile salmon, halibut and crab by the metric ton,” Peltola says. “At some point we have to imagine that that is not sustainable. That that catches up with us.”

Now a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, Peltola favors an overhaul of the 1976 law that governs how federal fisheries are managed. That could shift the balance of power between the trawl industry and the smaller commercial operators and subsistence fishermen in Alaska. “We’re looking at a multi-species collapse,” she says. “And it’s not just subsistence, but these smaller mom and pop fisheries. The commercial industry isn’t just these industrial players. It’s so many Alaskan families. It is part of our identity.”

Type Investigations fellow Adam Federman went to Alaska to learn more about the battle over the future of fishing — a conflict that places not just the livelihoods of Alaskans at stake, but also the ecology of an area that provides a huge amount of the seafood caught in the United States.

Read the story.

“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

Can you guess who said this about Sen. Ted Cruz? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**

This Town’s New Favorite Republican … With his resistance to low-brow culture warring, refusal to toe party lines and an accommodating team of media schedulers, John McCain all but invented a New Political Type: the Beltway media establishment’s favorite Republican. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich once occupied the spot. Now, writes Michael Schaffer in this week’s Capital City column, it seems to be Chris Sununu’s turn. The governor of New Hampshire is making all the right moves: hitting the talk shows, punching down at the wackadoo wing of the GOP, making paean to bipartisanship. But can a Republican beloved by the GOP’s favorite punching bag make it through a primary?

73 percent … of liberals say it’s sometimes OK to tell a white lie, compared to 60 percent of conservatives.

Every week, we add a question to the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll to see what the crosstabs yield. Got any suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

Forget Balloons. There’s a Real UFO Problem … Chinese spy balloons had us all craning our heads upward, but according to Ryan Graves, a former Navy fighter pilot and engineer, the sky is full of things far more worthy of our attention — things that inexplicably move at extreme speeds with no apparent source of propulsion, or hang motionless amid hurricane winds, or nearly collide with military aircraft. Next to that, who cares about a balloon? “Advanced objects demonstrating cutting-edge technology that we cannot explain are routinely flying over our military bases or entering restricted airspace,” Graves writes. “The American public must demand accountability. We need to understand what is in our skies — period.”

If you’re an aspiring conservative influencer, wannabe radio star, member of a top Republican’s entourage, or just a journalist like us, there to get the pulse on all things MAGA, you’ll want to be at CPAC, the annual confab for the grassroots GOP held just outside of Washington, D.C. Here’s what you’ll need to know to survive or stand out (from POLITICO’s Natalie Allison and Meridith McGraw):

- Need a breather from all the anti-woke speeches? Take a stroll around the exhibition hall and check out the right wing wares. Sundress with Donald Trump’s face? Giant “MAGA” cookie? Rhinestone evening bags in the shape of a gun? It’s all there.

- Radio row is where to go if you want to spot a Trump kid, member of Congress, or right wing media star. Just be careful about getting caught in the crowd of Steve Bannon fans while he leads them in a chant about taking down the Chinese Communist Party.

- You weren’t invited to the Trump speech pre-party hosted by MAGA Inc.? Just stop by Perry Johnson’s booth in the exhibit hall and ask to go to his VIP meet and greet. (Tip: compliment him on his Super Bowl ad that ran in Iowa.) Then you can still say you went to one of the 2024 candidates’ exclusive events.

- Make your own CPAC Bingo card and be sure to include: “Border wall,” “fake news,” “woke,” “Hunter’s laptop” and “the swamp.”

- To pass time while waiting for the next speaker you want to hear, play a little game of “Where’s Brick Suit?” He’s the man in the suit that looks like a wall of bricks. (See also: “Where’s Mike Lindell?” and “Where’s the Front Row Joes?”)

The small town of East Palestine, Ohio (2020 population: 4,739) jumped to center stage on February 3, when a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside of town. Here was a toxic problem well-suited for our toxic politics. Republican politicians wasted no time blaming Democrats for the derailment (even though the Trump administration had gutted railroad safety bills). Democrats were quick to return the favor (even though it was not clear that those particular railroad safety bills would have helped in this case).

Looking through old postcards of East Palestine on eBay, like this one from 1936, helps to paint a deeper picture — of a charming town that was thriving in the early and mid-20th century. There are baseball fields, an attractive public school, post office, and even a curious airship flying overhead, from the early days of flight (the Wright Brothers also came from Ohio). There are old root beer and ginger ale bottles made by Flay’s, a local soft drink company. There are other local products, locally made.

In short, it was a thriving small town, with cars and trucks pulled up next to downtown stores and crates piled on the sidewalk, ready for delivery. A warm message on the back conveys a greeting from parents to their child: “Hope you are feeling better / hope to see you home soon.”

That simple message still resonates in small towns, feeling distant from Washington, and a political conversation that all too quickly goes off the rails. (From historian Ted Widmer.)

**Who Dissed answer: That would be former House Speaker John Boehner, speaking at Stanford University in 2016.

[email protected]

Correction: An earlier version of this newsletter misstated the Crosstabs results. Fifty-three percent of liberals and 45 percent of conservatives do say it is OK to tell a white lie, but in the specific instance of protecting or helping someone else. When asked if it's ever OK to ask a white lie at all, the correct results are 73 percent for liberals and 60 percent for conservatives.