By TOM ANDERSON, G. SCOTT CAMPBELL, TOM CLEMONS, JOHN MURPHY, AND JOHN TIDWELL, JR.

Susan Carney has served on the Alaska Supreme Court for just four years. But during that brief time, she has handed down two controversial rulings that should concern all Alaskans who care about our state’s shocking rates of sexual assault and domestic violence.

In both cases, Justice Carney was part of a narrow majority. The court was divided by a vote of 3 to 2.

This means that Susan Carney’s vote was decisive, and had a different justice occupied her seat, the outcome could have been different.

The first case involved a family in Utqiagvik (Barrow) who sued two police officers and the North Slope Borough, alleging that the police entered their home unlawfully. However, the officers had been sent to the home to investigate a potential domestic violence emergency.

The police dispatcher had received a phone call from a friend of the couple in question. The friend reported the couple were having a fight, and that the woman had suffered bruises and a cut on her head.

The trial court judge, Michael Jeffery, ruled in favor of the police and the North Slope Borough, arguing that the officers acted responsibly. But Justice Susan Carney, joined by two others, overturned the judge’s decision.

The best summary of the impact of Justice Carney’s ruling comes from the dissenting opinion of Justices Joel Bolger and Craig Stowers. They wrote:

“The court’s opinion complicates the police response to domestic violence situations by limiting a court’s consideration of a victim’s report conveyed to a police dispatcher. Ignoring this information endangers some of the most vulnerable victims: those whose pleas are silenced by threats or violence. The court offers no persuasive reason to restrict the use of this information when assessing whether the police have acted lawfully in responding to a domestic violence emergency.”

Yet this is not the only case where Justice Susan Carney seems tone-deaf to Alaska’s crisis of domestic violence and sexual assault. In John Doe vs. State of Alaska, Department of Public Safety (2019), Justice Carney joined an opinion declaring that Alaska’s public sex offender registry violated the constitutional rights of persons convicted of sex crimes.

The “John Doe” of this case was convicted in the state of Virginia of aggravated sexual battery. He later moved to Alaska. The Department of Public Safety determined that John Doe’s offense in Virginia had the same elements of first-degree sexual assault under Alaska law. This would carry a presumptive sentence of 20 to 30 years for a first-time offender, and probation supervision for 15 years. In other words, this was a very serious crime.

Nevertheless, Justice Carney and two other justices concluded that John Doe and all other sex offenders could be exempted from the public registry, provided the offender requests a hearing and proves, to the satisfaction of one judge, that “he does not pose a risk to the public sufficient to require continued registration.”

Alaskans should ponder these words carefully. The court majority just seized the power, in defiance of the provisions of the law, to exempt any sex offender from having to register. Are you entitled to know if a convicted child molester lives 100 feet away from where your children play? Justice Carney thinks the court is best equipped to make the decision about whether the risk to your children is “sufficient” to warrant registration of the offender. How will the all-wise judges, who don’t live in your neighborhood, decide what level of risk is acceptable to your family?

In this case, Justices Joel Bolger and Craig Stowers once again dissented, noting: “…most courts that have considered the question have agreed that sex offender registration is reasonably related to the legitimate state goal of protecting the public from sex offenders.”

Yes, most courts do—but not Alaska’s. Our court is different. It sides with criminals, and against the police and public safety. Susan Carney is not the only Supreme Court justice who hands down these dangerous rulings, but she’s the only one on the 2020 ballot. Alaskans should hold her accountable by voting no on her retention. 

Colonel Tom Anderson is a Alaska State Trooper (Retired) who earned the Lifetime Achievement Award for 50 years of Public Safety Service

G. Scott Campbell is a Alaska State Trooper (Retired) and former Director of Public Safety & Chief of Police for the North Slope Borough Police Department. He is a retired U.S. Marine.

Tom Clemons is the former Seward Chief of Police and former Alaska State Trooper.

Colonel John Murphy is a former U.S. Marshal, former director of the Alaska State Troopers and Navy veteran

SGT John Tidwell, Jr. is a 25 year veteran of the Alaska Department of Corrections – (Retired)

By DAN FAGAN

Suzanne LaFrance sits on the Anchorage Assembly. She leans hard-left and enabled disgraced former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and his unprecedented tyrannical assault on the city’s private sector.

Berkowitz, LaFrance, and several other power-drunk Assembly members left behind a wake of economic destruction with their unreasonable and punitive lockdown mandates.

The pain and hardship they caused are so deep and wide, they are difficult to measure.

Now, LaFrance wants to take her dismal record as an Assembly member and move on up to the Alaska Legislature. She’s running as a Democrat challenging James Kaufman, who beat the incumbent Jennifer Johnson in the Republican primary for District 28.    

LaFrance obviously can’t run on her record of economic carnage as an Assembly member, so she’s attempting to reinvent herself as a conservative. Big Labor is sending out a mailer featuring LaFrance sandwiched between Congressman Don Young and U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. The goal of the flyer is to trick the voter into believing LaFrance is ideologically aligned to the conservative Young and Sullivan. Nothing could be more untrue.

The flyer is an obvious attempt to deceive voters. LaFrance is playing her constituents for the fool.

Some may argue, “That’s politics. All politicians lie.” But do they?

If one were to encapsulate the strength and formidability of President Donald Trump, it would be this: He tells the truth.  

Trump may very well be the most straight-shooting man, next to honest Abe Lincoln and “I cannot tell a lie” George Washington, to ever hold the office of the presidency.

It’s true the media consistently labels Trump a liar. But most of what the media says is the opposite of what’s real and true.

LaFrance blatantly lying to voters about her political leanings may work in the short term, but it’s far from a solid play long term.

We know many Leftists like LaFrance don’t believe in the concept of truth or absolutes. You often hear people of her persuasion say things like speak “your” truth. But there is no “your” truth or “my” truth. There’s only the truth and it does not bend to anyone’s opinion or perspective.   

Renowned clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson writes a lot on the concept of telling the truth. In his book, “12 Rules for Life,” the 8^th rule is “always tell the truth or at least never lie.”

Peterson argues you have reality on your side when you tell the truth.  

“If reality is against you, you’re not going to win, you’re going to get flattened,” writes Peterson.  

Peterson’s philosophy can be summed up this way: Do what is meaningful, not what is expedient.

“Telling the truth is hard because you have to know the truth,” writes Peterson. “But you can know when you are lying. Lying makes you weak. You can feel it. You put yourself in disharmony with reality. If you act in truth, then the order you produce is good.”

Peterson points out no parent is ever pleased when they catch their children in a lie. He says “when you go into a situation, if you tell the truth as carefully as you can, then, whatever happens, is the best that could have happened in that situation no matter how it looks.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of truth. There is nothing more powerful,” writes Peterson. “I’m going to state what I think as clearly as I can and I’m going to live with the consequences no matter what they may be.”

We’ve learned a lot from Trump but nothing more important than freely and confidently speak your mind.

Unfortunately, for Leftists like LaFrance, telling the truth is not an option. LaFrance knows her radical ideology is not palatable with most voters. If she would run on what she wants to do as a legislator, she wouldn’t stand a chance of getting elected.  

Former Senate President Cathy Giessel understood this. It’s why four years ago she lied when she promised to work with Gov. Mike Dunleavy to provide a full Permanent Fund dividend check. Instead, she did the opposite. The lie that got her elected is also what caused voters to reject her four years later.

LaFrance’s blatant attempt to fool voters may work for her in the short term and fool enough voters into believing she’s a conservative. But when she runs again, she’ll have to bank on voters having a short memory.

In many ways, we should feel sorry for LaFrance and other lying politicians. Imagine knowing the only way to get where you want to go in life is to fool as many people as you can. That’s hardly a meaningful existence.

“Truth is like surgery. It hurts but it cures. A lie is like a pain killer. It gives instant relief but has side effects.” – Unknown philosopher.  

Dan Fagan hosts the number one rated morning drive radio show on Newsradio 650 KENI. He splits his time between Anchorage and New Orleans. 

By:  CRAIG E. CAMPBELL

We are one week away from the most significant election since the Civil War. The sides are clearly divided, with stark differences in their vision for our nation.  

If Donald Trump is re-elected, liberties will be protected. 

If Joe Biden wins, we take a radical turn towards socialism. Why? Because within a year, Biden will either retire due to his very obvious developing dementia or be impeached, elevating Kamala Harris, and her California hard-left vision for America, to the presidency.  Leftists achieve the goal they have been working towards these past four years.

Are we witnessing the first revolutionary coup d’état overthrow of a constitutionally elected government in the United States of America?  

No matter your political persuasion, these past four years should scare the hell out of you. No, I don’t mean the presidency of Donald Trump. Rather, I mean the outright subversion of our national democratic republic by those who seek to gain absolute power over every aspect of our lives. 

The path to self-destruction is both internal and external.  It’s the actions of five distinct players who are conspiring to destroy liberty, freedom, and diversity of thought in America.

The first and most dangerous conspirator is our own deep state federal government. The Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Intelligence community conspired to allow law enforcement agencies to pursue a false “Trump Russia Collusion” narrative to undermine and attempt to remove a duly elected president.  

The Obama Administration’s director of National Intelligence, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James Clapper, and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, conducted a subversive domestic spying campaign that collected information on Americans, some of which was later tied to their inquisition of President Trump.  

In 2016 CIA Director Brennan briefed President Obama on presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s plan to implicate the Trump campaign in a false Russia election interference scandal.  

Instead of ending Clinton’s illegal scheme, President Obama allowed his team to continue this unconstitutional attack on our election process to try and wrongfully tie it to the Trump campaign.  The public was never informed.

Clapper, when testifying before Congress, stated that the National Security Agency did not collect data on Americans.

He lied. The NSA collected communications on over 120 million Americans.  While publicly admitting “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting [or] conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election,” (National Review, May 7, 2020), Clapper never intervened to stop the bogus investigation of Trump.

Then we have the FBI, which used a fake dossier, never verified, to illegally obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court warrants to spy on a duly elected president and his team.  The highest, and formerly most respected, law enforcement agency in the nation used misinformation and lies to pursue a political objective of taking down the United States president.

The Justice Department appointed Robert Mueller as special prosecutor to investigate a knowingly false Russian collusion story.  It ended after two years with no findings, despite the Mueller Report being written by staff that was openly hostile to the president.  This was the Deep State, our supposed public servants, trying to get rid of President Trump.

Congress has also been an active player using false and discredited information in their relentless quest to remove Trump from office.  Unable to find any evidence of Russian collusion by the Trump Administration and with only a year to go before the 2020 election, Speaker of the House Pelosi turned her guns on another concocted allegation: Ukraine.

Allow me to recap that allegation: President Trump attempted to illegally coerce Ukraine into providing information about possible illegal actions of Joe Biden that might be damaging to his potential presidential campaign.  

This should not be confused with former Vice President Biden directly threatening to withhold a billion-dollar U.S. foreign assistance loan guarantee to Ukraine unless they fired the state prosecutor looking into illegal actions of Burisma, the company on which Joe Biden’s son was seated on the board of directors and paid as much as $85,000 per month.  

In rapid time, the Pelosi House of Representatives voted, along party lines, to impeach President Trump.  

Two participants in the conspiracy are now aligned; government bureaucrats aggressively trying to remove a sitting president with a trumped up Pelosi impeachment kangaroo court. 

They were supported by an unethical national media that broadcasts the bureaucracy’s lies, suppressing any evidence of truth, and trumping up false narratives against the president and conservatives.

The ethos of journalism is honesty, independence, and fairness.  Once respected as an independent voice, journalism has been corrupted by uber-liberal socialists no longer providing information for an informed citizenry, but rather, providing a forum used to push liberalism and progressive objectives. They are silencing opposing viewpoints. The media is the third conspiracy participant.

The mainstream national media; NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, the Anchorage Daily News, and a raft of others (excluding FOX, One America News, NewsMax, Breitbart, and Must Read Alaska) have spent four years trashing President Trump while being silent, or even worse, dishonestly reporting on potentially illegal and negative liberal activities of Leftists and Joe Biden. 

We were bombarded by their anti-Trump coverage and the prediction that the Mueller Report would end Trump’s presidency.  

When that failed, crickets.  There was no mea-culpa.

Media coverage has been 95 percent negative about President Trump.  For four years we were inundated with degrading and disgusting commentary about President Trump on a daily basis, but when actual evidence surfaced of potentially illegal acts and even possible illegal money laundering by former Vice President Biden and his son Hunter…in the words of the Simon and Garfunkel 1964 song, The Sound of Silence, “And no one dared
disturb the sound of silence.”  

Yet the economy boomed; dramatic manufacturing increases; historically low unemployment rates for Blacks, Hispanic, and women; a much improved Mexico – Canada trade deal signed; tax cuts for the working class; securing the historic Abraham Accord; restoring a crippled military; Al-Qaida virtually eliminated; Iranian commander General Soleimani terminated; energy independency for America; and for Alaska, ANWR opened.  

But from the main stream media…more crickets.  

Joining in as the fourth member of the conspiracy….social media.   FaceBook, Twitter, and Google actively suppress free speech of conservatives. While freely permitting lies and distortion of facts generated by the uber-left to populate their sites, they block, shut-down, or suspend conservatives voicing any wrongdoings about social democrats in an intentional effort to skew facts and influence voters to vote socialist.  

How about all those peaceful protests this past summer?  No violence from the left, only white supremacists trying to stop peace loving leftists from taking over America? If you believe that lie, I have some ocean-front property for sale in Arizona.

All this financed by the fifth conspirators, billionaires that want to retain control of America’s wealth and gain total political control of your life.  Donald Sussman, George Soros, Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, to name a few, funneled millions into advertisements and campaigns to trash President Trump.  

Hidden from view, their financial investment in anarchy, the political drive to the left, and restricting your right to free speech and gun ownership being just the beginning to their forming an impenetrable Bernie Sanders style socialist government. 

Conspiracies do not have to be coordinated. A conspiracy can be any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result. The combined actions of these five players, all aligned for the same general objective, working simultaneously, has created the greatest crisis this nation has faced since the Civil War.  

Nikita Khrushchev, a former Soviet premier, predicted the United States would fall to Communism without even firing a shot.  Here’s his quote:

 “You Americans are so gullible, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you will finally wake up and find that you already have Communism. We won’t have to fight you.”  

Looks to me like that is exactly what the socialist left is doing to America right now.

Next Tuesday, Nov. 3^rd, you have the opportunity to stop, or at least slow down, these conspirators’ efforts to destroy liberty and turn America into the next great failed socialistic state. 

It’s now up to you.  Don’t let Khrushchev’s prophecy become reality.

Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor.  He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation.  He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).

By CHARLIE AND BECKY HUGGINS

This September, our nation celebrated the 233^rd anniversary of the signing of our Constitution, the best and most consequential political document in human history.

Framed by our Founders, amended to enshrine our most cherished rights, further improved to expand liberty to all, following the bloodiest war in our history and in the 20^th Century, the Constitution has endured as our guide in this experiment in self-government. 

Now, Ballot Measure 2 – an initiative backed by Outside billionaires – would do away with some of the basic principles behind this great charter. 

The American conception of republican government is one where the people rule. We do not have kings or emperors. We elect our representatives and, when we are unhappy with how they govern, we can replace them.   

Currently, that process is simple and straightforward. Every Alaskan is entitled to one vote and has the right to exercise that vote for whomever they want.

If the billionaires from New York and California pushing Ballot Measure 2 have their way, however, Alaska’s “one person, one vote” model will come to an end. In its place, will be a complicated new scheme of ranking candidates. 

The winners under this new scheme will be the insiders – those with the most time, resources, and know-how to game the system. The losers will be everybody else. If you are not interested in playing along with their new game, and only prefer to vote for one candidate, then your ballot is at risk of being discarded entirely. 

Not satisfied with simply destroying an election system that has worked well since our nation’s founding, the initiative’s backers also inserted a provision into the measure to amend the First Amendment of the US Constitution to restrict political speech.

In other words, Ballot Measure 2 is more than a poorly written, 25-page scheme, backed entirely by Outside billionaires; it is also thoroughly un-American.

The US Supreme Court, deferring to the text and original meaning of the First Amendment, has historically defended political speech when either state governments or the federal government have made attempts to restrict it.

Backers of the initiative want to change all that. They believe we should give government the power to determine the quantity and quality of political speech allowable in this big, diverse country, and become more like the rest of the world where individual dissent can be crushed by those in power.  

America is exceptional in many ways, but in no small part for the strong protections we place on the freedom of speech and the way we understand our relationship with government. Government does not grant us our rights – our rights are ours by nature and we give government limited powers to exercise its duties, none of which include policing what we are permitted to say about politicians. 

Alaska is home to more veterans per capita than any other state in the Union, and Alaskans know the high price of freedom and understand that freedom is a fragile thing, that we must always be vigilant in its defense. If we fail to protect the hard-won rights we enjoy today – paid for with the toil, blood, and treasure of past generations – then past achievements will have been in vain. 

This November, as veterans and proud Alaskans and Americans, we are urging our fellow citizens to vote no on Ballot Measure 2. We must not give away our basic rights – to vote and to speak our minds about those in power. Those rights are not for sale. 

On this 233^rd anniversary of our US Constitution, let us reflect on the sacrifices that were made by those who came before us and all do our part to ensure this experiment in self-government lasts another 233 years. 

Charlie Huggins is a retired US Army Colonel, Army Ranger, and a former President of the Alaska Senate. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, and multiple Bronze Stars with Valor for his service in Vietnam. Becky Huggins was a US Army Major who piloted H-1 “Huey” helicopters. She is currently Principal of American Charter Academy public school in the Mat-Su Valley. Residents of Wasilla, they are the proud parents of three US Army Officers: Chad, Hallie, and Cody.