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.   

By LOREN LEMAN

I spent four years overseeing Alaska’s elections as lieutenant governor. During that time, as well as my earlier years as a legislator, I developed a resolute appreciation for how much our representative government depends on an election process that is simple, transparent, impartial and honest.

I have reviewed Ballot Measure 2—all 25 pages of it—and conclude that instead of what its proponents say, it is more complex, obscure, and unfair. Its length alone challenges describing all its shortcomings.

Ballot Measure 2 offers the seductive promise that it will “…take back power from dark money special interests and give it to regular Alaskans.” Yet the irony is that it instead protects the power of Outside special interest groups to spend dark money.

How so? Because it specifically exempts ballot measure groups from the rigorous disclosure requirements it would impose on groups that seek to affect the outcome of races for school board, assembly or council, State Legislature, and other offices.

The hypocrisy of this is stunning. To understand how it would work, consider the example of a small non-profit group in Alaska that seeks to spend a nominal amount of money, say $750, to support a school board candidate. This group will be subject to stringent rules requiring disclosure of all of its large donors ($2,000 or more). Yet it would allow powerful Lower 48 special interest groups to dump millions of dollars of “dark money” into ballot measure campaigns, with no similar disclosure requirements.

How is it fair to saddle small Alaska groups with demanding new rules, while Outside billionaires continue to secretly funnel their money to influence our elections?

In addition, Ballot Measure 2 won’t affect the vast sums of money spent by Outside groups in races for U.S. Senate and House in Alaska. Some voters might be tempted to vote yes, thinking it will bring a merciful end to the avalanche of political advertising we are enduring.

But it’s a false expectation. Most of the advertising right now is for campaigns for U.S. President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and Ballot Measures 1 and 2. All of this spending would be completely unfettered and unregulated by Ballot Measure 2. If it passes, it won’t take long for voters to experience “buyer’s remorse.”

Let’s also consider its other major provisions – the open “jungle primary” and “ranked choice voting.” Proponents say these changes will create a less partisan environment, which in turn will produce leaders who are more capable of solving Alaska’s difficult challenges. That’s a bold but false claim. We can look at other jurisdictions that have experimented with this.

California and Washington have primary elections similar to what Ballot Measure 2 proposes. Is the political environment in these states less toxic than Alaska? I don’t think so. Both states are besieged by rising homelessness, rampant traffic, unaffordable housing, civil unrest, and many other problems.

Where is the evidence that a “jungle primary” somehow produces a breed of political leaders that is wiser, kinder and more capable?

San Francisco has used ranked-choice voting for more than 15 years. Yet the city is plagued by problems its elected leaders seem unable or unwilling to solve.

Maine is using this for its U.S. Senate race this year. A headline in the October 2 Bangor Daily News tells how it’s working: “Maine’s US Senate race is the most negative one in the country.” Are they doing better than Alaska? The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

I do believe Alaska’s election system could be improved, but instead of this convoluted approach, we can apply practical, home-grown solutions that really work. Rather than shining light on the electoral process, Ballot Measure 2 makes voting more confusing and imports failed experiments from other states.

I urge Alaskans to vote no.

 Loren Leman served in the Alaska Legislature from 1989 through 2002 and as Lieutenant Governor from 2002 through 2006.

By CLAY KOPLIN

While it is somewhat unusual for an Alaska mayor to write an opinion piece, I have been consistent in sharing my views on fisheries, Cordova’s single largest economic driver. I’m always striving to represent the opinions and needs of my community, even in rare cases where they may diverge somewhat from my own.  

I point to such pieces as “Salmon for All” in support of a responsibly managed hatchery system.  I have repeated my common themes of the importance of access to fisheries resources to all user groups, of environmental protections of our ocean and coastal watersheds, of science-based management, and of providing adequate management funding resources to our Alaska Department of Fish and Game.  

This very week Cordova will experience the first live king crab crossing her docks in almost 40 years; a testament to collaborative work between Cordova fishermen, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and the governor’s fisheries advisors.

What I have not shared is my deep concerns over the existential threats to our oceans and way of life, but perhaps a few reminders are in order this week, and my opinions regarding these are my own based upon my observations. 

While Alaska is famous for fish politics, I have trusted Laine Welch and Fish Factor to be an objective, non-partisan source of important fisheries news and legislation for much of my 49 years as a coastal Alaskan. 

The Oct. 24 Cordova Times article entitled “Vote for Healthy Oceans and Thriving Coastal Communities” was a narrow, if not targeted, view of ocean threats.  

Laine’s column does a disservice to her readership by blatantly ignoring the largely bipartisan efforts to protect ecology and economy that misses many critical elements that she herself has brought to our attention in previous articles and radio programs. But we weren’t a week away from an election at those times.

So, a few reminders of some of the threats our oceans and fisheries face and what our Congressional delegation has done to address those threats. One of our clear and present ocean dangers is ocean trash, particularly plastics.  I was elated during Don Young’s September visit to Cordova when he shared one of his enthusiastic dreams of repurposing retired US Aircraft Carriers into front-loading salvagers of ocean waste for recycling on board. This would tackle the blob of trash the size of Texas riding our oceans.  

The “Save our Seas Act” or SOS legislation, was introduced by Senators Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Sullivan, and Alaska Republican, and signed by President Donald Trump as a bi-partisan effort to reauthorize NOAA’s marine debris program.

This year, Senator Sullivan again championed the Save our Seas 2.0 Act – the most comprehensive ocean debris cleanup to ever pass the Senate, and recently passed by the House.  

As for partisanship, Sullivan was ranked by the Lugar Center at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy as the 14^th most bipartisan Senator in the U.S. Senate. Sullivan voting with Trump 97 percent of the time is not an all-encompassing rating or ranking of the senator’s six-year voting record.   

Further, as a first term senator, Sullivan was ranked by Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science Alan Wiseman, as the 8^th most bipartisan Republican senator – right behind our own Senator Lisa Murkowski. And on the House side, our own Congressman Don Young is ranked as the first most bipartisan Republican representative.   

The threat of mining, perhaps none more so that Pebble, poses risks to critical Alaskan fisheries. It has been clear to me that Senator Sullivan supports the process – not a fast-tracked process that is politically expedient but rather a process that is fair, consistent, and transparent.  

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released their findings that the Pebble mine could not meet the high threshold to be permitted the Senator came out against Pebble stating that the process had run its course and he trusts the Corp’s findings.

His statement came out on Aug. 24 almost a full month before the “Pebble Tapes” were released. Senator Sullivan took a lot of flak for following the process – I commend him for his true leadership on that.   

Senator Sullivan has also been a champion for our Southeast communities fighting the issue of transboundary mine pollution. Sen. Sullivan, Sen. Murkowski, and delegations from other Canadian border states have worked together with the Canadian government to protect our waters, fisheries, and communities.  

As Laine’s article points out, the other Canadian concern is the pipelining of Russian/China halibut through trade paths, dodging tariffs into the US Markets to the detriment of Alaskan Fisheries. 

Is it any wonder that until these trade issues are resolved opportunities like cheaper Canadian pharmaceuticals might take a back shelf? Sullivan’s assistance on tariff protections included $250 million of exclusions for salmon-specific tariff lines, as the Trump Administration seeks to balance trade deficits with foreign competitors.  

The recent pandemic has introduced an even stronger market headwind than trade programs.  Thanks to our delegation, recent “Buy American” provisions in our school lunch programs further assist in balancing trade and improving the market prices for Alaskan fishermen. 

Russia and China, however, pose perhaps an even larger threat to Alaska fishermen, illegal global fishing.  The recent illegal Chinese take of chum salmon and Russian fleet interference with Aleutian chain fisheries are impacting our own waters.  

The bipartisan congressional efforts, supported by Senator Sullivan, to address illegal fishing and Coast Guard authorization for enforcement, is helping to address these threats.  

Speaking of the Coast Guard, in his six years in office, Senator Sullivan has secured over $400 million in funding to strengthen Alaska’s Coast Guard to protect our fisherman, fisheries and our waters. 

Finally, much closer to home during the pandemic season, Senator Sullivan worked directly with President Trump and Gov. Mike Dunleavy to emphasize the risks to our fishing industries and communities to provide the testing and resources to execute a successful season against stiff odds.  The chief medical officer for homeland security, Dr. Alexander Eastman, visited Cordova with Dr. Anne Zink and other State of Alaska health officials to offer their assistance and guidance (and learn from our own, effective measures in Cordova) for our first large salmon fishery in the State. We wanted to avoid outbreaks and protect our remote Alaskan communities with limited medical resources.  

I mark Cordova as a success, and from discussions with mayors and processors up and down the coast and in State calls, the rest of the state was successfully protected as well. 

These multiple threats are important for all Alaskans of any political affiliation, and it will be important for all of us to work together to confront them, and I know that Senator Sullivan has taken a bipartisan approach to do this.  

With over 94 percent of our nation’s seafood being imported and as one of our country’s top five trade imbalances now that we are energy secure, there is plenty of room for strong economic support for Alaskan fisheries right here in our gargantuan US consumer market.  We have been, and will continue to be, in this together.

I would encourage the press to remember this and to continue to focus on fish business rather than fish politics so that we can continue to trust their objectivity and perspective in the future.

Respectfully, Clay Koplin, Citizen, Cordova

Clay Koplin worked summer seasons as a cannery laborer and machinist while pursuing his electrical engineering degree, commercially long lined, and avidly participated in sports, subsistence, and personal use fisheries in the communities of Kenai, Kodiak, and Cordova. His career passion has been the transition of coastal Alaskan electricity to affordable, reliable, and renewably sourced systems to support the economies of fishing communities.