Gov. Michael Dunleavy gave a “won’t back down” message to Alaska Republicans in Fairbanks on Friday evening at Pike’s Landing. Woven into his talking points was full-throated support for President Donald Trump, and all that he has done for America — and Alaska. He counted off some of Trump’s accomplishments:
- 4 million jobs created since Trump’s election.
- More Americans employed than ever before.
- 400,000 manufacturing jobs created since Trump’s took office.
- Economic growth of 2.4 percent during the last quarter.
- Unemployment at a 49-year low.
- African-American unemployment lowest rate ever recorded.
- Hispanic American unemployment lowest ever recorded.
- Women’s unemployment rate is the lowest rate in 65 years.
- Youth unemployment rate lowest in 50 years.
- Veterans unemployment rate is lowest in 20 years.
- 3.9 million Americans lifted off of food stamps.
- Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain to oil leasing.
- Fighting for the people of King Cove.
- Easing off the “roadless rule” for the Tongass National Forest.
- Ensuring mining efforts are treated fairly by the EPA.
“It’s not the narrative the Left wants you to believe. The Left wants you to believe America is falling apart,” Dunleavy said. “But it’s not falling apart.”
“What we see in the headlines is: ‘President Trump is racist, sexist and should be impeached.’ So why are they saying these things? They’re saying it because he won the election and they lost. He won the election and they disagree with his policies,” Dunleavy said.
“They can’t win on their own arguments and they know it. So, they’re not going to give the president a fair shake. Trump wins, and they go wild because they will not accept an election.”
Trump has been the subject of frivolous lawsuits, and one attack after another since the day he took office. But Dunleavy said in the four times he has met with Trump, the president has always been nonchalant about the attacks and the never-ending quest for impeachment. As they chatted on Air Force One, Trump told Dunleavy that he doesn’t need the job of president — he certainly doesn’t need the $140,000 a year. He is simply doing it because of his love for America.
Dunleavy seemed to shrug off the relentless attacks from the media and the left that are aimed at him. It’s as if he’s taken a page from the Trump playbook and decided not to worry about playing nice with the media.
“Since taking office, I’ve been above the fold of the newspaper probably more than any other governor is state history. I should have bought stock in the newspaper,” Dunleavy joked, reminding people that just two years ago the Anchorage Daily News had declared bankruptcy.
He then went through the good things that are happening in Alaska, in spite of the oil prices that fell in 2014 and impacted Alaska dramatically:
- GDP grew 3.3 percent in the first quarter of 2019.
- Unemployment is at 6.2 percent, the lowest it has been in nine years.
- Personal income grew 4.1 percent in the first quarter of 2019, greater than Alaska’s 10-year average.
- Oil and gas employment is up over the prior year levels for several months in a row — for the first time in the past five years.
- Private investment on the North Slope is up and is projected to be $5.5 billion.
- Alaska had a record year for tourism with cruise ship passengers expected to increase by 16.5 percent next year.
- The governor launched an “Alaska is Open for Business” initiative to draw businesses to Alaska, including timber, mining, transportation, and logistics. Dunleavy said that in the coming week the team will have announcements of large investment projects at the Anchorage Airport. And he’s working on the rail line to Canada, which could bring hundreds of jobs across Alaska.
But as with President Trump, “the Left can’t talk about the positives that we have going on in Alaska. That’s because they lost the election and they are going to do everything they can to fight our agenda.”
The Republican agenda he described favors a smaller government footprint, more individual freedoms, less regulation, and more jobs.
Hence, the recall efforts.
“You might ask: Isn’t this recall about your vetoes?” Dunleavy asked the audience made up of Republicans from Bettles to Juneau. “No, it’s not. They started the recall efforts only three months after I took office. In January. This is simply about my agenda. They’re using the vetoes as the excuse.”
“These are the people whose ideology is to disrupt, trip and hamstring the agendas and principles that made America great,” Dunleavy said. “They must be stopped or they win. They know how to cooperate with each other. They know how to work together. They are out and united to change this country and state towards their agenda.
“You have to ask yourself — is the U.S. better under Donald Trump than it would’ve been under Hillary Clinton?
“You have to ask yourself — is Alaska better off with me than we would be under Mark Begich?”
The press and the pundits are trying to get Alaskans to question whether they made the right choice, Dunleavy told the audience of about 100 at Pike’s Landing in Fairbanks.
“Is unemployment down? Yes. Is investment up? Yes. Is there new development and excitement about the future of our country and our state? Yes,” he said.
“Then our agenda must be doing something right. And we must work together to forward this agenda.”
While all of this is true, the long-term impact will fade if Alaska schools teaching “basics” are optional while virtually all of Alaska’s 54 school districts are leftist training camps, dumbing down class after class and targeting the Permanent Fund for use in subsidizing weak Outside teachers on their Alaska Adventure.
These are the people trying to recall you, Governor, and So far they think they are a protected class …
You don’t have a clue do you?
Apparently more than you Mr. Forkner.
Too late….
Thank You Governor Dunleavy….God bees you, your whole family and your whole administration. Keep America Great.
We get it, Trump is great….yadda yadda yadda.
I have a great idea.
Get a full PFD to the people of Alaska by any means necessary.
A lot of us pulled out our pom-poms and worked hard to help get you elected on your PFD promise.
Watching what has been happening with the Alaska Republican Party over the last few years, most of us are simply too disgusted to even get involved anymore.
No disrespect intended, but I can assure you that lip service just ain’t gonna cut it next time around!
Let’s put the blame for another 50% PFD where it belongs. Not the governors desk, the Republicans in the legislature. Hell, they had a majority of seats in the house and still lost the leadership role to the Dems.
So, if you want to punish someone at the voting booth, look to your legislators, not the governor.
What lip service? For someone talking about pulling pom poms out you sure don’t understand government. Talk to your legislators and senate if you want a full PFD, engage with those who have been fighting since Walker, or even Parnell. You seem to be a expert on lip service. We have an awesome governor
Trump 2.0 in Alaska…love it. Completely ignore the overwhelmingly (and shamefully) biased DNC-run Fake News Media stenographers based in all the major news networks and sources. That cabal, along with the Hollywood vapidly ignorant, part-time activists, as well as the fantastically arrogant Silicon Valley big-leaguer elitists who believe more in shadow-banning and campus Brownshirts than in the 1st Amendment. The Deep State soft coup players who are consistently attempting to overturn a free and fair election are just another extension of the DNC whose tentacles reach far and wide. The globalists and their interlopers here in the US like George Soros and his Open Society Foundations (with their hundreds of front organizations) as well as the dark money flowing in from San Francisco-based Arabella Advisors have overstayed their visit as well. These and a myriad other thousands of reasons propel the Trump presidency and the Dunleavy governorship. This is not a nationalist movement. This is about what is right and about breaking the cold iron grip of an Establishmentariat that has been very comfortable for far too long believing that they are the ones in charge and not the very people who elected them to represent the views of the populace. This is about a massive foreign and domestic union-driven bloated government machine running over the American electorate, powered by the greed, animus and monstrously destructive habit to espouse scorched-earth policies that leave in their wake the unwashed masses who are too small and unimportant to matter. This is about the Mouse causing a disdainful Elephant, an enraged Jackass, and an overbearing global Octopus to, for one moment in time, feel the exact same exasperation, futility, frustration and fury that the Mouse has experienced for five generations or more. This is about…for once…the People having the last word.
TLP: White
Vote the Constitution of the United States not Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Carefully, weight probability of the trend to not vote.
https://t.co/AYs3wX61hF?ssr=true
Well said, Governor.
Right on!
Make America great again, thank you governor Dunleavy, but please leave ANWR alone. Alaska is already doing great. Let’s leave that land alone. Thank you
That oil’s not going to drill itself, Antoinette!
TLP: White Censor, edit, delete, its all ones and zeros (few understand). Unity does not have to speak of a left or a right. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs does that over the Constitution of the United States. Which 50 flags does that? The good does not out weight Alaskas avoidance, tolerance, and ostracism (1/3/59 baby boomer State) Yes, Ambassador Jose Manuel G. Romualdez and CET recommends sovereign soil in Alaska too. Alaska politics and its business systems (including justice) do not actuarially add up. Email to talk investments and intellectual property.
Please, Ambassador Jose Manuel G Romualdez Support the Constitution of the United States not mental illness. Creating with weathered materials spreads stress creating incremental failures prematurely leading to catastrophe. General management.
More Climate Change Propaganda…this comment represents the totality of the inanity of this movement, in my opinion. Nonsensical and irrelevant. We are a minute organism on a complex planetary system that cycles itself in the most remarkable way and recycles itself constantly, along every instant of its existence. Every system on this Earth has purpose, including the human organism, and to believe that we, as mere biological organic structures have the ability to alter its complex behemoth system is the height of arrogance and the diminishment of the Higher Authority that created it. Nice try, CET anonymous. Read “State of Fear” by Michael Crichton if you doubt that we are powerless to alter the Earth’s progression through natural cycles of its existence (especially its appendices). Just saying…
Med check time.
I rest my case…
TLP: White CET believes you misunderstand. Changing some natural cycle of the Earth isnt the problem. Doing it and fixing it not in line with the Constitution of the United States of America is not in Americans best interests. Using Maslows hierarchy of needs instead is what the rest of the World does. Whether a human believes humans have or have not changed a natural cycle of the Earth…if America loses what made it the unicorn in 1776 because of foolish plans by stooges (whether Agile BS or not) what was the point of our forehumans death and how does America move forward without know it isnt Constitutional? Humans havent been to another heavenly body since 12/14/72 and been burying garbage in the Earths pores for how long?
Perhaps some reading, its not fiction like your suggestion, apologies. Check FAR Part 3 and FAR Part 31 out. Long uphill road. And most of America has an opinion without proper education, training, and skill.
Ban the RINOs or the right is done. ??
They’re not RINO’s but worse. The elite and so called moderate Republicans are called “Trotskyites” by us the Constitutionalists. The Trotskyites have the same agenda as the lefties in this country, i.e. destruction of the constitution and culture of the United States.
Woah, woah, woah.
Analysis like this will get you a lifetime membership in API if you keep going.
FAR Part 3
So much for democracy.
For some reason Republicans of today think that jobs created outweigh the National Deficit (Which Trump is currently running at about $ 1 Trillion in the hole every year).
Most of this is do to run away Pentagon spending with $ Trillions missing in their very first audit.
At the current rate Trump’ budget is on track to double the National Debt that Obama left us with?
“Besides throwing aside any semblance of budget restraint by either political party, it will create $1 trillion plus budget deficits for as long as the eye can see….
Fiscal 2017: $665 billion (Trump’s first year of his Presidency)
Fiscal 2018: $779 billion (9 months of tax cuts being in effect)
Fiscal 2019: $896 billion
Fiscal 2020: $990 billion
Fiscal 2021: $1,092 billion
Fiscal 2022: $1,250 billion”
(According to Forbes)
Presidents (and for that matter governors), have remarkably little to do with economic data, at least in the short run. The economy and economic indicators are not some proxy on how a politician is doing. Yes, yes, the policy of a president or governor matters somewhat but there is no obvious direct link between electing candidate X and having an economic bonanza. Ask Herbert Hoover if you think that’s wrong.
What a governor can do is deal with government spending, which is what Governor Dunleavy has attempted to do with some impact. President Trump has pretty much ignored the need for fiscal discipline, an act of ignorance that will provide enormous difficulties down the trail.
TLP: White
Get a Constitution of the United States path headed the right direction and maybe the 49th flag won’t need a loan that’s close to a “Constitutional limit”. Then again avoidance, tolerance, and ostracism. #BecomeAnOfficial
Man, there is nothing more craptacular than a bunch of conservative gasbags coming over each other, repeatedly!
It’s what they do best!
Monkfelonious is that language penal code or Alaska public education?
Mmmm weavers on property taxes…
I wouldn’t call these conservatives by any stretch, at least not many of them. But I beg to differ. Watching you guys doing the same in the media and in Congress and everywhere around the world is so much more “craptacular.” In the oft used phrase of one of your less prolific commentators, Joe Geldhof, it’s “med check time” for the Dems. P.S. Not sorry in the very least that you’re triggered by a successful GOP and a successful Republican presidency. If you’re having such a bad day, perhaps you should troll a different site. I’m concerned for your health and it’s probably time that you took a break from these triggerable sites.
Typical republican couldnt tell the truth if his life depended on it while his followers lap up every word and have no clue about facts and truth. But you cant blame them Republicans are scared by education and intelligence
The liberal/democrats seem to be the ones lacking education and intelligence. Their motto is to cry foul over everything that doesn’t follow their perceived agenda. They continually condone violence and degradation of people who don’t agree with their perceived agenda. They would rather cause crisis and havoc than to try to come to a reasonable and moderate solution for any given problem, and they have a “my way or the highway attitude”. Instead of working to foster solutions in this country, their motto is to create as much conflict and harm as possible until they get their way, and their way will only lead to a socialistic country and downfall of our country. It is the younger generation that have no concept about what it is to work hard, foster unity, and work towards a common goal. They are over-privileged, self-indulged, and have no clue that they in fact live in the greatest country there is – thus the reason why everyone from other countries want to move here. They think they are deprived, well let them all move to Africa or some other down-trodden country and let them see what deprivation is all about. I gather then will swiftly realize that they are nothing more than ungrateful brats who don’t know a good thing when they have it.
Anne, while I agree 100% with your sentiments, I happen to feel that this is not the fault of the children, but of the deceitful Progressives in charge of the so-called “education.” There is nothing worse than disguising enlightenment with suppression of speech, thought, and deed. These Leftists don’t want an informed student body, they want a compliant, rigid and unthinking army of automatons who snap to attention every time the word “racist,” “Fascist,” “misogynist,” “homophobe,” or any other word du jour that fits their narrative. It’s not their fault that they have been indoctrinated since day one upon attending pre-school and being hammered day-in/day-out with a false never-ending bleating that the world is going to end in X amount of years and that the conservatives are going to stop you from killing your babies or studying witchcraft. Homeschooling is the only answer to today’s dilemma of the Right having to feed their precious children to the ravenous wolves on the Left. It’s a horrible and gory end to yet another government endeavor to appropriate a large sector of the public’s ability to live and prosper. Everything they touch crumbles to dust. We can only hope that our kids can be pulled from the ruins.
The Republican Party is hopelessly lukewarm! Their tolerance of RINOs in their midst causes me to vomit.
Isn’t Dunleavy supposed to be the governor for everyone, not just Republicans ?
I don’t think he even showed his face in Fairbanks, outside of his Support Group
Meeting at Pike’s Landing. In fact, they seemed to be the only people who even knew he was here. Sad. He could have stopped by our Farmers Market on Saturday morning to encourage our modest but mighty efforts towards growing our own food ! After all, maybe we should be thinking about what we can backhaul on the railroad to Alberta. The Tanana Valley has a LOT of agricultural potential and we would benefit from a rail link for many more reasons than petroleum products.
The very fact that Dunleavy is attempting to cut back the off-the-rails, out-of-control spending of this Alaska government and save the taxpayers pocket books should be enough evidence that he IS the governor for everyone. He wants expansion of energy research in the state…for everyone. He has hosted the president and vice president on multiple occasions…that’s something that rarely if ever has occurred with governors in Alaska’s past. He is attempting to get a constitutional full PFD paid out to the people who overwhelmingly support it…also for everyone. When the Left is chanting “Not My Governor” up in Juneau and asking in the same breath, “Isn’t he supposed to be the Governor for everyone?” I think the road should run both ways. All people will never get all issues resolved. That’s what you have local representatives for…so that they can fight on your behalf. Local issues are everywhere and they run the gamut. But to blame a guy who’s been in office about 9 months for all the ills in your neck of the woods is really not fair. I just saw an NBC News hit piece on the governor…2000 words of venom spit in his direction for cutting money to the homeless and now their bodies are being found after the snow thaws! Not joking…it was published day before yesterday. What they didn’t point out was that those “massive cuts” had not happened under Dunleavy, but under Walker. The bodies found after the thaw didn’t happen because of Dunleavy’s policies. The budget was only just approved, for crying out loud. But that doesn’t matter. NBC News had the duty of telling the rest of the Lower 48 that we up here in Alaska hate the homeless so much as Republicans and conservatives that we’d rather leave them in the snow to freeze to death than to actually house and feed them. It’s ludicrous. This governor is doing so much more, economically, than his predecessor…for everyone in the state…not just his buddies in the university or the country clubs in Juneau and Anchorage.
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