In his third State of the State Address, Gov. Mike Dunleavy will highlight the need to guarantee the PFD for future generations, Alaska’s ability to be self-reliant, energy independent, maximize every opportunity, and potential to be a sovereign within the United States.
His office released excerpts from the State of the State Address – as prepared for delivery. Dunleavy will be speaking from Anchorage and will be broadcast on Vimeo and on Facebook.
“As part of my Path Forward for Alaska, I’m asking that $5 billion, a portion of the [Permanent Fund] earnings of this past year, be put toward pulling Alaskans out of a crisis the likes of which this generation has never faced.”
“While we must continue to be an exporter of resources, we must also ensure that we have the capabilities to create and enhance new sectors of our economy to go it alone in the event of a future disaster.”
“…maximizing opportunity is about more than standing up new industries. If we’re to move Alaska forward, we must provide our children with the quality education they deserve.”
“I remain 100% committed to prosecuting the war on crime and supporting our frontline heroes. From our smallest villages to our largest cities, no Alaskan should be forced to live in fear.”
Tune into the State of the State address here or here.
For the second time since the Alaska State House of Representatives convened on Jan. 19, Republicans nominated Rep. Bart LeBon (R-Fairbanks) for Speaker Pro Tem, in an effort to organize the House and start conducting business. And for the second time, the Democrats voted no.
The nomination failed on a 20-20 vote along caucus lines. Republican Louise Stutes of Kodiak sided with the Democrats. all of whom voted against the nomination. Democrats did not put forward a nomination of their own.
Two years ago, when the House faced a similar impasse, House Republicans joined with their colleagues to elect Rep. Neal Foster, a Nome Democrat, as Speaker Pro Tem so that business could be conducted.
“We must take the first step to get government moving,” said Rep. Steve Thompson (R-Fairbanks). “This is about the people of Alaska. Playing games over a Speaker Pro Tem, who would simply conduct a limited floor session, shows little regard for the people’s business and good government.”
Rep. Cathy Tilton (R-Chugiak/MatSu) said, “It is disappointing that our colleagues remain unwilling to take the most basic step to move forward in order to allow the House to start working on the critical business Alaskans sent us here to do.”
“Since the election ended in November, the House has been steadily working towards organizing and addressing the challenges Alaska faces” LeBon said. “Our side has demonstrated that we are actively trying to offer solutions by putting up a name for Speaker Pro Tempore, while the other side continues to stall and delay. Alaskans deserve better.”
All 40 members were present on Thursday, unlike when the House met on Wednesday and only the Republicans showed up for the meeting.
The Thursday meeting was unusual in that it was the day after a regularly scheduled House meeting, but since Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer was leaving Juneau, the House needed to meet on Thursday to be in alignment with the “three day rule.” Lt. Gov. Meyer has been serving as the Speaker Pro Tem in the absence of an elected representative in that role.
Last time the House organized, in 2019, Le Bon was one of the seven Republicans who went over to the Democrats’ side and organized with them, winning a seat on House Finance as a freshman legislator. This year, they won’t accept him as a Speaker Pro Tem.
Some have dropped out, some new ones have filed, and some have switched seats they are filing for.
Here is the current list of those who are currently running for Anchorage municipal offices in the election that ends April 6.
The filing deadline is Friday, Jan. 29, at 5 pm. The withdrawal deadline is Feb. 2.
There are four ways to file — City Hall, Election Center, fax, email, so it’s very likely others will enter the races late Friday, and at the last possible minute:
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee gavel passed from Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia Wednesday, just in time for the hearing on the nomination of former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as the new Energy Secretary for the Biden Administration.
Because the Senate was still organizing under Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Murkowski gaveled in the meeting and conducted it as her final day as chair of the committee.
During the confirmation hearing, Granholm committed that DOE will prioritize investments in states that have lost traditional energy jobs.
“This is the most important question, honestly, because we know that this transition is happening. We cannot leave our people behind. In West Virginia, and in other fossil fuel states, there is an opportunity for us to specialize in the technologies that reduce carbon emissions, to make those technologies here, to put people to work here, and to look at other ways to diversify. These ‘place based’ solutions [will] be able to take advantage of expertise and comparative advantages of states and build on that to allow them to diversify inside and outside their main industries is a partnership that we could have through the Department of Energy,” Granholm said.
Sen. Murkowski attempted to explain to Granholm that Alaska will not be a manufacturing center, and that what the state does is bring resources to the other states, so they can manufacture. Alaska is a resource anchor for other states, she said.
Granholm replied that she understands the anxiety of Alaskans who may see their jobs go away, as she witnessed that when she was governor of Michigan.
“The experience that I had, I feel like I get this so much because the experience I had in Michigan seared by soul on behalf of worker who were feeling utter anxiety about ‘who is ever going to hire me?'” Granholm responded.
Watch the exchange here:
Also on Wednesday, John Kerry, who is the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, was asked what his message is to workers who are “seeing an end to their livelihoods” as a result of President Biden’s plan to crush the resource industry.
“What President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people to go to work to make the solar panels,” Kerry said.
“The president of the United States has expressed in every comment he has made about climate the need to grow the new jobs that pay better, that are cleaner,” Kerry said.
“What President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people to go to work to make the solar panels,” Kerry said.
Alaska House of Representative Republicans and one Independent reacted with dismay today to the news that the Biden Administration’s Department of the Interior has suspended land transfers to Alaska – including land transfers long promised to Alaska Native veterans of the Vietnam War.
Interior Department Order No. 3395 suspends authorizations for the department’s bureaus and offices to “grant rights of way, easements, or any conveyances of property or interests in property, including land sales or exchanges”. This may include federal allotments to Alaska under the Alaska Statehood Act and the Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906.
“I am very concerned that our new federal administration is delaying keeping its promises to some who served honorably,” said Rep. David Nelson(R – Anchorage, who serves as an officer in the Alaska Army National Guard). “If the new administration can drag its feet on its promises to veterans, it can do the same to our current servicemen and servicewomen.”
“I have heard of servicemembers who served at the time – some who received their allotment and some who have not – and I know how important land is to our cultural identity as Alaska Natives,” said Rep. Josiah Patkotak (N – Utqiaġvik). “In their service they have missed their rightful claim to land and that isn’t right. The time for resolving this is overdue and shouldn’t be delayed for any reason.”
“No one who serves in our armed forces honorably should be penalized for serving – but to our dismay, that’s exactly what we did to my Alaska Native comrades-in-arms in Vietnam,” said Rep. Laddie Shaw(R – Anchorage), a retired US Navy SEAL and Vietnam War veteran. “Whether for the Alaska Territorial Guard during World War II or Alaska Native servicemembers in the Vietnam War, the federal government has a pattern of giving short-shrift to the contributions of my Alaska Native brother and sister veterans. It’s time to break that pattern and acknowledge them for the heroes they all are.”
“For my entire career, I have fought for our veterans to get all of the benefits they so richly deserve” continued Rep. Shaw, who also previously served as Director of Veterans Affairs under Gov. Tony Knowles. “I’m glad to stand with my caucus as we continue to do so.”
Jerry Ward, of Alaska Native Veterans Council, said the BLM is still accepting applications, but the that Biden Administration has frozen the BLM land. Some have already filed for land on the BLM land, and that Sen. Dan Sullivan is working on the issue.
“It takes legislation to take away the rights of Vietnam-era veterans to apply for it, but this is an administrative action that does not supersede law,” he said.
Thirty Alaska Native veterans met last night in Anchorage to learn more about the problem, and half of them had already filed for their lands. Ward is advising the rest to file for “federal unallocated land.”
Biden can delay it, but he cannot stop it, unless Biden gets the law changed, Ward said. About 200 Alaska Native Vietnam veterans have still not selected their 160 acres.
The Anchorage NAACP is demanding Sen. President Peter Micciche remove Sen. Mike Shower as the chairman of the Senate State Affairs Committee.
The group says that Shower’s introduction of Senate Bill 39 is a “brazen assault on Alaskans’ voting rights.” The president of the group has also called it a manifestation of white supremacy.
“Anyone who would dismantle Alaskans’ voting rights doesn’t deserve to chair the committee overseeing election issues,” said Kevin McGee, President of the Anchorage NAACP. “Senator Micciche needs to replace Senator Shower with a member who supports the democratic process.”
SB 39 is similar to a voting security bill that Shower proposed two years ago, to ensure that voting by mail is less prone to election fraud. That bill died after not receiving committee hearings.
McGee says SB 39 is a “local manifestation of the national white supremacist attack on voting rights, which included the recent violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”
Shower said this morning that his bill was a starting point of a conversation that would lead to the final product, and he expects the bill to change as the Legislature gathers input. He objects to mass mailing of ballots to people who haven’t requested them, and he believes that Judge Dani Crosby compromised Alaska’s election security when she ruled that no witness signatures were required on absentee ballots. His bill would make ballot harvesting (the practice of scooping up ballots by a third party, as occurred with outside contractors during the 2020 election) illegal.
Excerpts from Sen. Rand Paul’s blistering speech on the Senate floor on Jan. 26, 2021:
This impeachment is nothing more than a partisan exercise designed to further divide the country.
Democrats claim to want to unify the country, but impeaching a former president, a private citizen, is the antithesis of unity.
Democrats brazenly appointing a pro-impeachment Democrat [Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy] to preside over the trial is not fair or impartial, and hardly encourages any kind of unity in our country.
No, “unity” is the opposite of this travesty we are about to witness.
If we are about to try to impeach a president, where is the Chief Justice? If the accused is no longer president, where is the constitutional power to impeach him? Private citizens don’t get impeached. Impeachment is for removal from office. And the accused here has already left office.
Hyper-partisan Democrats are about to drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history. Instead of doing the nation’s work, with their new majorities in the House, the Senate, and the executive branch, Democrats are wasting the nation’s time on a partisan vendetta against a man no longer in office.
It’s almost as if they have no ability to exist except in opposition to Donald Trump. Without him as their bogeyman, they might to legislate, and to actually convince Americans that their policy prescriptions are the right ones.
Democrats are about to do something no self-respecting Senator has stooped to: Democrats are insisting the election is actually not over, and so they insist on regurgitating the bitterness of the election. This acrimony they are about to unleash has never before been tried.
Why? Because calmer heads have typically prevailed in our history, and allowed public opinion to cast blame where blame is deserved.
This sham of impeachment will ostensibly ask whether the president incited the reprehensible behavior and violence of January 6 when he said, “I know everyone here will soon march to the Capitol to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
“Peacefully and patriotically.” Hardly words of violence. [Interjection: Not at all.]
But what of Democrat words? What of Democrat incitement to violence?
No Democrat will honestly ask whether [Senator] Bernie Sanders incited the shooter that nearly killed Steve Scalise and volunteer coach. The shooter nearly pulled off a massacre — I was there — because he fervently believed the false and inflammatory rhetoric spewed by Bernie and other Democrats, such as, “The Republican health care plan for the uninsured is that you die.”
“No Democrat will ask whether Maxine Waters incited violence when she told her supporters, and I quote, that “If you see a member of the Trump administration at a restaurant, at a department store, at a gas station, or any place, you create a crowd, and you push back on them.”
Is that not incitement?
My wife and I were pushed and surrounded and screamed at by this same type of mob that Maxine likes to inspire. It’s terrifying to have a swarm of people threatening to kill you, cursing at you and literally holding you hostage until police come to your rescue. That night we were assaulted by the crowd, I wasn’t sure if we would survive even with the police protection.
But no Democrat suggested impeaching Maxine for her violent rhetoric.
Here is the testimony of an attorney in Anchorage, Michael Schecter, who accuses Anchorage Assemblywoman Jamie Allard of being a disgrace to the uniform she wore as a soldier, and an apologist for Nazism. His testimony could not be heard on Tuesday night at the Assembly meeting because of the disruption in the room as he read his statement. Schecter is an attorney withAshburn & Mason, P.C., a law firm in Anchorage and was previously an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Alaska. Schecter has a law degree from Harvard University, and has served on the Alaska Bar Association Law Examiners Committee since 2019 and on the Third Judicial District Mediation Panel since 2017.
Schecter submitted his comments to the Assembly in writing:
Finally, in case you could not hear my comments over the pitiable display from the folks screaming in the audience, here they are.…
Thank you Chair Rivera. My name is Michael Schechter and I am an Anchorage citizen. Over this past weekend, a member of the Assembly used social media to abusively gaslight Anchorage citizens about Nazi symbology and ideology. Specifically, she defended “3rdReich” and “Fuhrer” license plates as innocent, non-hateful, and unrelated to Nazism. And she did so after being presented with evidence that there could not possibly be a reasonable non-Nazi justification. Either out of willful ignorance, hateful malice, or both, this member chose to make excuses rather than confront the reality of a nazi supporter in her own community. Nazism was a scourge upon this earth that killed 20 million people in Europe, including 6 million Jews, members of my family among them. Over 16 million Americans, including my grandfather, fought against fascism and Nazism in WWII and more than a million of them were killed or injured. Jamie Allard is a disgrace to their memory and a disgrace to the uniform she wore, as well as a disgrace to this Assembly and our City.
Unfortunately, that does not bring us to the end of Ms. Allard’s actions of the last few days. After getting negative feedback on her ignorant and baseless nazi apologism, Ms. Allard appears to have deleted individual comments and then her entire official assembly facebook page because she did not like what she was hearing from constituents. That itself is an anti-democratic act of political cowardice, surely worthy of our collective opprobrium.
At this point in history, there cannot be good faith dialogue with Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, or Nazi apologists. I urge every member of this Assembly and the Administration to ignore and reject all legislation advanced by Member Allard because upstanding Americans have no reason to engage with Nazis or their apologists. She should also be removed from any committee assignments for the same reason. I don’t request that lightly, but the Assembly must take steps to protect its legislative process and the citizens from someone who will act out of ignorance and malice. Similarly, this Assembly should not give voice to a member who gaslights constituents in order to make excuses for Nazis, nor should this Assembly let that member speak for all of you. Accordingly, the assembly should take immediate action to remove Ms. Allard as the Assembly’s liaison to the National League of Cities, the Chugiak-Eagle River Chamber of Commerce, and the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation.
This is surely not enough and I recognize that we may be saddled with Ms. Allard’s blight upon our city until her next election.
Thank you for your time and diligent service to Anchorage.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years you might have noticed a rather stark trend in America – there is no objective, unbiased news to be found amongst the mainstream media outlets.
There once was a time in this country when reporters and journalists asked tough questions and they were held accountable. They dug into a subject, researched it and attempted to present an unbiased collection of actual facts – then it was up to us to decide what to make of it.
Those days are long gone. Today the mainstream media – TV, radio, and print – have devolved to become little more than the dutiful propaganda bureau for the increasingly radical Left, who seem determined to dismantle all of our foundational institutions that haven‘t already been completely undermined.
We can’t even have a rational discussion anymore with some of our friends and family simply because they get their “facts” from a completely biased media machine that lies to them 24/7. It could well be argued that the greatest threat to America today – is the biased mainstream media.
Make no mistake – we are careening headlong into a one-party country with the media controlled entirely by the state. This has happened in Russia Germany and elsewhere, and a very cursory study of history tells us that it typically ends badly for the majority of the population.
But all of this you probably knew already. The question is: “What can be done about it”.
Well, there is actually a lot we can do. As it turns out, those media outlets – whether it’s the local paper, TV or radio news affiliate – all have rent to pay, and payroll to make. And guess how they pay for that? With ad revenue, subscriptions, marketing “clicks” on their websites and apps. We are literally underwriting their collective efforts to destroy the country.
So, we need to drive them out of business – right now. And here’s how.
1) Delete their apps from your phone (it’s not real news anyway so you won’t be missing much).
2) Cancel your subscriptions right now. That magazine with the pretty pictures and the relentless socialist propaganda editorials? Lose it. The “news”-paper that’s little more than advertisements and more socialist propaganda? Cancel it immediately.
3) If you own a business that advertises with those same media outlets – stop it. Tell them they can have your advertising money again when / if they start reporting real, unbiased news.
4) Do this right now – and reach out to your friends in every city and state and encourage them to do the same.
This is a struggle for the very soul of the country – and we’re losing. We must resist them in every way possible and cancelling their propaganda machine is a powerful step in the right direction.
For additional info visit: www.DefundTheMSM.org and send the link to all your friends. It’s on anti-social media as-well (but it’ll probably be “disappeared” once they figure out what we’re up to).
