Pete Hegseth faces his first Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, before the Senate Armed Service Committee at 5:30 a.m. Alaska time.
He will make his case for becoming the Secretary of Defense in the Trump Administration in a committee that Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Marine veteran, serves on. Legacy media says the hearing will be “grueling.”
In advance of the hearing, at 9 a.m. Eastern time, a group of supportive Navy SEALs will meet at the Vietnam Memorial Wall and march to some of the war memorials around Washington, D.C., concluding their march near the U.S. Capitol, where they will hold a rally for Hegseth. Some 500 Navy SEALs are signed up to attend the event to support Hegseth, who is a combat veteran, author, public speaker, and Fox News contributor.
Pete Hegseth, who has met recently and separately with Sen. Dan Sullivan and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, was accused of sexual assault years ago in a case that is difficult to prove. The local prosecutors chose not to prosecute it due to flimsy evidence. Hegseth has also been accused of abusing alcohol. He says that was years ago and he is a different person now.
SEALS and other veterans will fill the room where the first confirmation hearing will take place.
Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi is the Republican Chairman of the committee and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island is the leading Democrat. The Democrats are expected to launch a full-scale assault on Hegseth over the sexual assault allegations, as well as his commitment to the Trump agenda, which they oppose.
Quietly at the New Year, Anchorage Mayor Suzanne France issued a letter of support for a proposed Native-operated gambling casino in Eagle River, on land owned by the Eklutna Native village. She wrote it on behalf of all of Anchorage.
LaFrance’s Jan. 3 letter to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs said it’s the municipality’s official position to support the gambling casino:
“The Municipality of Anchorage values and respects our government-to-government relationship with the Native Village of Eklutna.
“The Native Village of Eklutna’s goal to develop a gaming facility on its land is clearly within its right to facilitate self-sufficiency, self-determination, and economic development under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
“The Native Village of Eklutna has a long history of excellent stewardship of the land and water in the Municipality, including salmon streams, and the project’s Environmental Assessment reflects that, raising no significant concerns.
“The Environmental Assessment also shows the project will create shared economic benefits, including more than 450 jobs during construction that will add $45.8 million to our local economy. Once operating, the project will support 419 workers and generate $67.6 million in economic value. Positive economic spill-over effects would boost surrounding businesses, hotels, and workers.
“We’d like to formally share our support for the Native Village of Eklutna as it exercises its sovereignty and pursues economic development.”
The casino would be the first in Alaska and would open the door to casinos in places that don’t seem like “Indian Country,” such as small parcels of land in Juneau and Craig.
Residents of the Birchwood neighborhood near Peters Creek have filed a lawsuit to stop the casino that has already been given the OK by the National Indian Gaming Commission. They are concerned about traffic and other pressures on their residential neighborhood.
A diversity-equity-inclusion video from the Los Angeles Fire Department has surfaced, in which the deputy chief, an overweight woman, says if you need to be rescued, it’s your fault: You we’re “in the wrong place.”
Deputy Fire Chief Kristine Larson says the department priority is that residents in crisis are rescued by first responders that “look like” them.
“You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency—whether it’s a medical call or a fire call—that looks like you,” Larson says.
“It gives that person a little bit more ease, knowing that somebody might understand their situation better,” Larson continues. “‘Is she strong enough to do this,'” Larson asked, rhetorically answering criticism she has heard. “Or ‘You couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire.’ Which my response is, ‘He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.'”
This is insane
LA Assistant Fire Chief addresses the concern about whether she could carry a man out of a fire
“He got himself in the wrong place” being in the fire
WHAT?! Nobody *plans* to be in a fire. That’s why firemen exist!
In other failures of the Los Angeles emergency response, an official text message went out on Thursday to nearly all Los Angeles residents, telling them to evacuate immediately. The message was received by people in Long Beach to the south and Dodger Stadium neighborhood.
“This is an emergency message from the Los Angeles County Fire Department,” the notice read. “An EVACUATION WARNING has been issued in your area.”
The message was only intended for people near the Kenneth fire near Woodland Hills.
In a related breakthrough, the Kenneth fire is considered an arson incident and a homeless man has been taken into custody for intentionally starting the Kenneth fire.
Several legislators have gotten a jump start on filing bills that will affect the K-12 education system. The first batch includes subjects ranging from requiring CPR education to financial literacy.
Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson has filed SB 20, which mandates CPR education in public schools. Right now, this life-saving technique is only “encouraged” by state law to be in the education curriculum.
SB 20 also mandates training students in use of an automated external defibrillator.
Granted, this training is very helpful in certain circumstances, but doesn’t it interfere with teaching our kids how to read?
Here’s another piece of legislation that also would take up an immense amount of teaching time: Sen. Bill Wielechowski has introduced SB 22, “An Act establishing a financial literacy education program for public schools.”
It’s very difficult to get past the irony of the Alaska Legislature telling students how to manage their finances. Maybe the legislators should be the beta test for this curriculum.
Here are some of the required topics for the SB 22 curriculum:
Making a budget. I suggest Sens. Bert Stedman, Cathy Giessel, Lyman Hoffman and Loki Tobin could be the instructors.
Basic principles of retirement accounts. I recommend Sen. Giessel be required to take this class because she has filed a bill to bring back the defined benefits retirement system to Alaska state employees.
Types of savings and investments. I suggest all the legislators who reduce the PFD should be instructors.
Basic principles of money management, including spending. All members of the House and Senate Finance Committees should be required to enroll in this class.
Sen. Wielechowski’s bill requires this course be at least a one-half hour credit course. The State mandates 22.5 credits to graduate from high school with 15.5 credits dictated by the state. This bill would increase the state requirement to 16 credits.
Sen. Gary Stevens of Kodiak has introduced SB 23, an act requiring the teaching of civics and comparative government. Sen. Stevens has pushed this subject for many years.
Most of the subjects listed in the civics curriculum should already be taught in our K-12 schools. Here are some of the required subjects:
The founding history of the U.S., including documents. I guess that means the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
The principle of federalism.
Civil liberties and civil rights. Check out the Bill of Rights.
The Constitutions of the United States and Alaska.
Political parties, campaigns, and elections.
It would seem that most of these subjects are now taught in our K-12 schools. The state already requires that 4 credit hours be taken in American or world history, geography, economics, government/civics, or sociology.
This bill would also require students to pass a 100-question test made up of questions from the U.S. citizenship test. A 2018 survey found that only 36% of Americans could pass that test.
These are the initial bills filed by state legislators that impact K-12 education. We can expect bills to raise the Base Student Allocation by both senators and representatives.
We can also expect bills that increase the funding of student transportation which is outside the K-12 foundation funding formula.
More pre-filed bills will be released this week. Hopefully, someone will file a bill that requires accountability for increasing student achievement.
In early December of 2024, the Alaska Department of Health held a meeting with its partners to formulate Alaska’s Statewide Immunization Coalition’s Strategic Plan for 2026-2030.
The coalition consists of “healthcare providers, tribal and regional health organizations, public health experts, state and local health departments, educational institutions, industry and corporate partners, and community advocates united by a common goal: to increase immunization rates and reduce the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases across Alaska.”
In reviewing the updated plan, it looks like more of the same strategies with an increased focus on technology to track vaccine status and how to get the vaccine-hesitant to submit.
I was surprised that the draft plan is mostly completed, but with no metrics. What amazed me most was that much of the draft was done in a one-day strategy session before the mission, values, and vision were even defined.
My 43-year experience writing strategic plans in both the Air Force and the Veterans Administration informs me that one must define the vision, mission and principles first.
Without defining their vision, mission, and values, this committee was able to establish five priorities:
Build Trust
Vaccine Positive Environment for Clinical Staff
Equitable Access
Data Modernization
Increasing Immunization Rates
To build trust, the plan acknowledges there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy. The coalition plans to combat that by having community meetings, educating community leaders, conducting community listening sessions to understand vaccine concerns, and do more public service announcements on the ‘safety’ of vaccines.
I would have thought they might have focused on why people don’t trust the government and the medical profession. It is largely due to the Covid years, when mandates were pushed by agencies and officials who did not tell the whole truth.
Telling the truth would be a good place to start.
Even Dr. Anthony Fauci recognized these jab mandates “could increase vaccine hesitancy in the future,” according to Congressman Brad Wenstrup.
Nowhere in the strategic plan draft do I see they want to give any credence to the ongoing concerns people have about vaccines. But the state does want to track you. The state also wants the Department of Defense to provide vaccine information on military members and their families to add into the state ‘’database.”
To help clinicians get more children vaccinated, the plan states it will provide a list of resources to address vaccine hesitancy and “misformation.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be the source of these resources.
To reduce vaccine hesitancy for children, this plan recommends that clinicians do not ask the parent(s) if vaccine is desired. Instead, the clinicians are to assume the parents have already planned to have their children vaccinated.
In other words, don’t ask parents what they want to do about shots, just tell them these shots are needed today. As if that were the only choice.
An even more aggressive strategy is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It has developed a “Refusal to Vaccinate template.” The parent must sign that s/he is not going to vaccinate the child against one or more of the “vaccines recommended” and has read the side-effects that could occur to the unvaccinated child. This is capped off with a warning that death could occur for most of the listed diseases.
This is probably the ultimate use of fear—a parent signing a death warrant for their child.
Wouldn’t it be great if they did the same thing when telling you to vaccinate? Perhaps they could give you a form that delineates major side effects beyond a sore arm or fever or irritability.
Maybe the provider could recommend spacing the shots out over a few weeks instead of giving all at the same time. This might be better for the child’s immune system.
How about providing information to include giving a child seven vaccines on the same day may be deadly? Here is information from the December’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System data:
1) 3-mo-old boy in Illinois vaccinated on Dec. 26, 2024 with three doses of seven vaccines died that day. The day after Christmas.
2) 2-mo-old boy in South Carolina vaccinated Nov. 25, 2024 with one dose of six vaccines died a week later, on Dec. 1.
I suspect they don’t want to share that information because the data are inconvenient truths that vaccines do present risks to include death.
With informed consent, you can decide which risk is higher.
Especially troubling to me is the push for mRNA jabs found in Covid Vaccines and the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine will be soon available. It is also an mRNA jab. The Covid jab is recommended by CDC for children six month to four years is three shots—one at six months, one at eight months and then a booster.
Bear in mind to the best of my knowledge no child in Alaska has died from Covid.
In December of 2024, “elected officials, organizations — including the World Council for Health and Door to Freedom — and hundreds of doctors and researchers sent a letterto the heads of state of 10 European countries calling for a suspension of the “modified mRNA vaccines,” citing serious health concerns associated with the shots.”
And then there is the Hepatitis B vaccine. The CDC pushes for the first shot to be given at birth.
Why does an infant need a vaccine that protects it from a disease that is spread by risky behavior, semen and other body fluids? Is an infant really at risk in a home with none of the risky behaviors identified?
The CDC states that no one wants to take the risk that the mother is not telling the truth about drug use or other risky behaviors.
Until 1991, the CDC only recommended Hepatitis B vaccinations for those in a specific high risk group. Now every baby should be vaccinated to cover for the mothers who don’t want to tell you the truth.
Even more interesting is the United Kingdom’s stance on the chicken pox vaccine because of these facts. It does acknowledge it helps protect against chickenpox but only recommends it for “people in close contact with someone who has a higher risk of getting seriously ill from chicken pox.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in an interview with Real Clear Politics, also pointed out “the four companies that make vaccines in this country, Merck, Zinovy, Glaxo, and Pfizer, have paid over $35 billion dollars in criminal penalties over the past decade for lying to doctors, for falsifying science, for defrauding regulators.” So, buyer beware.
I am not an anti-vaxxer. However, I believe you should have the whole truth before submitting your child to the 72 vaccines recommended for children in their formative years.
Find a provider with whom you can have an honest discussion of the pros and cons to each vaccine so you can make an informed decision.
You need to be making the vaccine decisions for your child. Not the state nor the federal government.
Your child’s life may literally depend on that.
Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance/Alaskans 4 Personal Freedom.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists for the Village of Kwigillingok, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Biden ordered federal aid to supplement what he labeled the “Tribal Nation’s efforts in the areas affected by a severe storm and flooding from August 15 to August 18, 2024.”
Tribal nation?
Why Biden decided to call the village and federally recognized tribe, with a population of under 400, a “Tribal Nation,” is a matter of deliberate choice of symbolic words that have meaning to the tribal sovereignty movement. It’s a legal and political genuflection to an ideology of balkanization, with no particular legal consequence. It’s just politics influenced by people like Sec. of Interior Deb Haaland.
Kwig, which is 100% English speaking and nearly 99% Native, is among the 574 federally recognized tribes. The official list is here. It doesn’t appear to have a strong history, first showing up on a national census in 1920. It may have been a seasonal fishing or hunting camp set up right in the middle of a flood plain.
At an elevation of three feet above sea level, Kwig is located in a marshy area on the western shore of the Kuskokwim Bay near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River, 77 miles southwest of Bethel and 388 miles west of Anchorage. The flood plain and has seen an increase in erosion and flooding in recent years, flooding which appears to now be an annual occurrence. The Kuskokwim River, as with other rivers, changes course through time.
Its population was historically a preliterate group of hunters and fishers who moved around with the food supply. But a nation it was not.
According to the Department of Agriculture, “Tribal Nations are recognized as sovereign nations and that have inherent power to govern all matters involving tribal members and issues in Indian Country. In the United States there are 573 federally recognized Indian Nations (also called Tribes, Nations, Pueblos, Native Villages, Communities, and Pueblos) as well as a number of Tribal Nations recognized by states within the United States.”
The Department of Agriculture separates “nations” from “tribes” in its description. Biden lumps them as one.
Through the disaster order, federal funding is now available to the Village of Kwigillingok and unnamed private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storm and flooding, that took place in August.
Other communities in the region experience the same regular flooding in this era of warmer climate.
In October, for example, a storm rolled in and flooded parts of Kotzebue, Shishmaref, and Nome, leading Gov. Mike Dunleavy to declare a state disaster in Kotzebue on Oct. 21.
The federal government is in the process of moving the village of Newtok to a new site called Mertarvik, nine miles away, due to erosion, flooding, and what climate change activists point to as a result of manmade climate change. Newtok, population 324, is moving at a cost of $100 million. Newtok is seen as a test case for how succesful the government can be in moving villages away from flood zones.
A 2024 report by University of Alaska Fairbanks graduate student Richard Buzard found that 22% of structures in 46 of 55 analyzed coastal communities are in flood plains.
Few Alaskans had heard of the Glenfarne Group until it emerged last week as the company whose name was kept (unsuccessfully) under wraps by the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation during a Jan. 6 press conference. AGDC is a publicly owned agency tasked with building a gasline from the North Slope to Nikiski in order to develop another taxable export product for the state.
Who is this company that has stepped up to work with AGDC to finally get the gasline up and running?
The Glenfarne Group, started in 2011 by Australian Brendan Duval, is somewhat of a corporate conglomerate, working in several energy and capital-raising directions, including oil and gas, hydropower, and wind farms. But at its core, it raises money for big projects in energy. Based at 292 Madison Ave. in the heart of Manhattan, New York, it has offices around the world.
Although not a household name like ConocoPhillips or Exxon, Glenfarne is not a small player in the energy sector. It’s just a different type of player.
The company owns the Texas LNG project through Glenfarne Energy Transition, which has a “heads of agreement” for a long-term supply of liquified natural gas from a proposed facility at the Port of Brownsville, Texas. The Glenfare Energy Transition subsidiary is the same subset of Glenfarne that has the heads of agreement for the Alaska LNG project with AGDC.
Glenfarne subsidiaries also include:
EnfraGen, a developer, owner and operator of specialized renewable solar, hydro and grid stability assets across Latin American investment-grade countries. The firm is jointly controlled by Glenfarne Group and global private markets investment manager Partners Group founded in 1996 that has invested more than $221 billion (US) in private markets. EnfraGen has the Guanacaste Wind Farm in Costa Rica, and the Dos Mares Hydro Complex in Panama, which involves three run-of-river downstream hydro plants. It has two solar plants in Panama, and other energy properties as far south as Chile.
Alder Midstream, which is focused on building, owning and operating global energy infrastructure assets across the energy value chain. Magnolia LNG and Texas LNG are part of this business Glenfarne business line.
Glenfarne Energy Transition “provides critical solutions to lower the world’s carbon footprint, Through its strategic operations in Latin America and Southeast Asia addressing the ‘here and now’ of the global energy transition through its LNG, grid stability, and renewable power businesses.”
Glenfarne Energy Transition is owner and developer of the8.8 million ton per year Magnolia LNG project in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Prime Energia is a wholly owned subsidiary of Glenfarne Asset Company, LLC, a vehicle established by Glenfarne Group that is working in Colombia.
Glenfarne Merger Corp. was a “blank check company” incorporated as a Delaware corporation and registered with the Security and Exchange Commission “for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization, recapitalization or other similar business combination with one or more businesses.” CEO Duval was the owner of more than 50% of the stock of the company that popped up and delisted from the NASDAQ in 2022.
The now-shuttered corporation was a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). A SPAC raises capital through an initial public offering and then acquires or merges with a private company, that then becomes a public company without having to do its own initial public offering. It’s a new-fangled business workaround.
Harvard Business Review describes it this way: “A SPAC is a publicly traded corporation with a two year life span formed with the sole purpose of effecting a merger or “combination” with a privately held business to enable it to go public. SPACs raise money largely from public equity investors and have the potential to derisk and shorten the IPO process for their target companies, often offering them better terms than a traditional IPO would.”
It’s apparent that Glenfarne has the bonafides and business sophistication to complete the Alaska LNG project. It owns projects in Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile, and is part of ventures across the globe.
In 2024, AGDC President Frank Richards told the Legislature that AGDC was engaging potential developers and investors to fund the front-end engineering and development and commercial and legal contracts to move to final investment decisions.
As part of this process, Goldman Sachs was screening possible investors to ensure they have access to capital.
Richards said in his slide deck last year that the “Primary challenge is to build a coalition of investors that combined have the capital and capability to move the entire project forward.”
That universe of potential investors is limited due to the relative size and complexity of the project, but at least the Alaska LNG project already has its federal permits. Some companies showed interest, met with AGDC, analyzed the project, and took a pass, but Glenfarne took the bait.
Glenfarne now must raise the $44 billion or more needed to build a carbon-capture plant on the North Slope, an LNG export facility in Nikiski, and an 800-mile gas pipeline with off-takes along the way to supply natural gas to Southcentral Alaska.
Where will the needed capital come from? Another two-year SPAC?
It’s a global investment opportunity and it will involve billionaires looking for return on investment.
In other projects Glenfarne has been part of, China has factored as a partner, but not always directly.
According to energy writer Jason Powers, who publishes a Substack newsletter focusing on big energy and pharmaceutical deals, Hunter Biden factors into this world of LNG, and not only with the Burisma project in Ukraine, where he served on the board while his father was vice president:
“As we have noted (here, here, here), Hunter [Biden]’s game involves U.S. LNG projects: Texas LNG and Magnolia LNG. These projects are still very hot – and moving forward under Glenfarne Energy Transition’s ownership. Both LNG projects were key CEFC’s targets –through their associate JaiQi Bao’s emailsto Hunter – and both were acquired out of New York City-based entities, located just blocks from Glenfarne’s HQ on Madison Avenue (see below).”
Glenfarne has also had a partnership with Gunvor, a company that, according to Powers, has ties to the Russian oligarchy:
“Gunvor has an interesting history. Gunvor Group was co-founded by Russian Oligarch, Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko,who allegedly sold his entire ownership in March 2014 due to his being placed on the U.S. sanctions list due to Ukraine-Russia confrontation. Tellingly, in terms of later targeting, Gunvor settled a $661,000,00 criminal fine with Biden’s DOJ on Friday, March 1, 2024, tied to committing fraud through bribery and money laundering through the usual locations, including: Panama, Caymans and Singapore (FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Veltri noted),” Powers wrote.
Gunvor controls 60% of the volume transiting through Estonia, and 41% of that transit via the port of Primorsk, Leningrad, according to Wikipedia. It’s the second-largest port on the Baltic. It is the fourth-largest oil trader in the world.
In March, 2024, Texas LNG (Glenfarne), announced signed a Heads of Agreement with Gunvor Group through its subsidiary Gunvor Singapore Pte Ltd for a 20-year LNG FOB (free on board) sale and purchase agreement of LNG from Texas LNG.
“Gunvor’s overseas offices conveniently overlaps with a host of usual suspects tied to Hunter Biden’s CEFC-related emails – Noble Group, Trescorp Alliance, Natixis, HSBC, Starr Companies – located within a lunchtime stroll in downtown Singapore,” Powers wrote.
In his recent Kindle book on Hunter Biden’s dealmaking, “The Hunter Biden Dossier,” Powers wrote, “It is one’s analysis that Hunter & his CCP-connected associates have acquired a substantial percentage of 2 LNG projects: Magnolia and Texas LNG. This acquisition is guised yet again behind an LLC (limited liability corporation) and SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) with the added twist of being held as a Sponsor ownership.”
Starting in February 2023, researchers like Powers stumbled upon connections in reviewing emails sent between Xiaopeng “Rick” Niu and JiaQi Bao to Hunter Biden.
“In these emails, the above LNG projects, their preferred financier (Natixis), tied back to a shared physical address 399 Park Avenue, Floor 2, New York City, New York where Rick worked (at Starr Insurance) and Magnolia LNG was held by First Wall Street Capital. Other intriguing connections involved the highest levels of the intelligence apparatus of the United States of America; and yet again, a Ukrainian geopolitical angle arose tied to LNG exports and Titanium mining,” according to Powers.
“Project White Light was the name given to the 240-page, 3-phase master BRI (belt and road initiative) agenda assigned to Xiaopeng “Rick” Niu, for consultation and business preparation, in emails. Niu was contacting CEFC (China Energy Fund Committee) top director in China and regularly emailing with Hunter’s key partners (Tony Bobulinski, Rob Walker, James Gilliar, Jim Biden) in the Spring of 2017. But it was in the Fall of 2017, after Hunter and Jim (and cutting out Walker, Gilliar, Bobulinski) received over $5 million from CEFC to set up Hudson West’s operations in New York that this Project began in earnest, for China, at least,” Powers wrote.
“Enter JiaQi ‘Jackie’ Bao (CEFC), the seductive Chinese secretary for Hunter, to provide Chinese translation of all U.S. energy assets in presentation form and to recommend which projects enticed CEFC (& the CCP’s) appetites the most. Even with project disruption tied to the arrest of Patrick Ho in November 2017, Jackie was undeterred. By January 2018, she provided the investing financier – Natixis – that happened to be used by EnfraGen Capital and Glenfarne Group. Glenfarne is the company that acquired the rights to Magnolia and Texas LNG. As it turns out, Hunter knew Texas LNG’s owner personally in Third Point Management CEO Dan Loeb, a billionaire, and emailed Third Point personnel from 2010-2016,” Powers revealed.
“Hunter’s involvement in CEFC seems to have ended in March 2018 with a final $1,000,000 deposit to his Wells Fargo account and “wrap-up emails” from China Jackie. But in March 2019, just days before his laptop was taken to a repair shop, both China Jackie and SlickRick contacted Hunter Biden out of blue to encourage that Joe run for the presidency,” Powers continues.
“The story of how Hunter Biden (and/or his CCP-connected buddies) potentially acquired a stake in two export LNG projects lay inside this intelligence briefing,” he wrote.
While this was happening in 2017, Alaska briefly became part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, when Gov. Bill Walker signed an agreement to have China and its communist-owned entities finance and build the Alaska LNG project. Walker and AGDC, under his close direction, nearly handed the entire project over to the communists.
One month after China President Xi Jinping met in Anchorage with Gov. Walker, the first China Belt and Road Forum was held in Beijing in May of 2017, attended by over 100 countries. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterreslauded the Belt and Road Initiative’s “immense potential,'” praised it for having “sustainable development as the overarching objective,” and pledged the “United Nations system stands ready to travel this road with you,'” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Right after Gov. Mike Dunleavy was sworn in as governor in 2018, that agreement was cancelled by Dunleavy and the project was once again in search of a free-market financing and development partner. Meanwhile, China has expanded its Belt and Road Initiative to all corners of the world.
China’s first Belt and Road Initiative Forum participants. Photo credit: China Global Television Network.
Soon, 139 countries were formally affiliated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Since then, the Belt and Road Initiative, a movement toward China’s global dominance, has extended its reach to nearly every corner of the globe.
What does China now have to do with Alaska LNG?
America is still the big holy grail for the Chinese, who have become wise to the fact that they can’t participate directly in US LNG projects. Their experience in Alaska with Gov. Walker gave them a lot of information about public perception and political realities.
Yet China as a country and its Chinese billionaires had access to LNG through Hunter Biden and associates in the years that started while Joe Biden was vice president and up until he became president in 2020.
In January 2024, China was home to the most billionaires in the world — 814, surpassing the United States, according to the Hurun Global Rich List. Companies looking for big investors always have to consider China.
Whether Glenfarne or its subsidiaries have direct or indirect China investment ties is not clear, since it is a private equity firm whose investors are difficult to track due to how these companies are heavily layered with institutional and private investors, blind trusts, and the magic of the SPAC pop-ups.
But Jason Powers, whose particular interest is actually the Hunter Biden connections, believes there are, according to several of his slides in his recent documentary on Hunter Biden and LNG. Here are just two of them:
Whiteboard by Jason Powers showing that a subsidiary of Glenfarne received a permit to export gas to China.
For instance, while President Joe Biden was shutting down petroleum projects around the country, Magnolia, the Louisiana subsidiary of Glenfarne, was getting a federal permit from the Biden Administration to export LNG to non-free trade countries. China is such a country. The project is still under development.
Jason Powers pulls more of the threads of this complex weave of international private equity and energy investment players in his explanatory documentary on Rumble. It is over two hours long but has an explanation of how the financing of these international deals involve everything from China to the Bidens to the fentanyl drug trade:
Thousands of customers in Anchorage are still without power on Monday morning, after a windstorm blew through the region over the weekend, crashing trees into power lines, flipping small planes on tarmacs, and peeling off shingles of roofs.
Schools are closed in Anchorage today, due to the power situation and the slippery roads. Chugach Electric Association crews are working to restore power.
The Chugach Power Outage map as of 6 a.m.:
Screenshot
At 5:55 a.m., Chugach Electric Association gave an update:
“Currently there are about 5,200 customers without power. Crews continued to tackle outages overnight and more crews will be available again this morning after coming off of rest.
“We have most customers back in Cooper Landing except for those requiring 3-phase power. One phase is unavailable due to wire crossing over water. Crews will re-evaluate with daylight.
“Crews are still working on restoration in Indian and Hope.
“We recognize some members have been without power for many hours. Our crews will continue to work as safely and quickly as they can until all are restored.”
On Sunday, at least a dozen jets, including commercial flights and freighters, were diverted to the Fairbanks International Airport.
Early Sunday morning, the roof of a pedestrian overpass on the Seward Highway was blown off and debris was scattered across both north and southbound lanes.
A Kentucky judge on Thursday struck down the Title IX interpretation by President Joe Biden that was forcing schools to treat boys as girls and girls as boys, if the students identified as a different sex.
The ruling by the Department of Education, released last April, also required teachers to use wrong pronouns when addressing or referring to these students, who are called transgenders. Schools that refused to allow boys into girls bathrooms and locker rooms would be subject to federal financial penalties.
Biden lumped sexual orientation in with actual sexual characteristics in his new interpretation of Title IX, which was legislation designed to protect girls and young women from discrimination in athletics.
Federal District Judge Judge Danny Reeves’s ruling applies nationwide. Already, the Biden interpretation of gender had been put on hold, as nearly half the states — all run by Republican governors — are suing over it.
“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” the ruling says.
In late December, Biden quietly scrapped the new rules.
Rep. Jamie Allard of Eagle River has led the effort in the Alaska House of Representatives to clarify the rules and protect girls from having boys unfairly compete on their teams or in they leagues, but her bill wasn’t advanced in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
The district court ruling applies nationwide and to every part of the Biden Title IX rule, meaning the rule is completely invalidated, and the U.S. Department of Education is unable to enforce it—anywhere, Alliance Defending Freedom said.
“This is a colossal win for women and girls across the country,” said ADF CEO, President, and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner. “The Biden administration’s radical attempt to redefine sex not only tossed fairness, safety, and privacy for female students out the window, it also threatened free speech and parental rights. With this ruling, the federal court in Kentucky rejected the entire Biden rule and the administration’s illegal actions. We are thankful for the leadership of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and other state attorneys general who challenged this blatant overreach alongside our courageous clients. This ruling provides enormous relief for students across the country, including our client who has already suffered harassment by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team. The U.S. Supreme Court can further protect girls like our client by granting casesbrought by the ACLU against West Virginia and Idaho laws that protect women’s sports.”
ADF attorneys joined several states, women’s groups, athletic associations, and school boards in obtaining five injunctions that halted enforcement of the rule change in some jurisdictions as the lawsuits proceed.
Along with ADF, the states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, Indiana, and West Virginia sued in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, which ruled the Biden administration rule change exceeded authority and was “arbitrary and capricious agency action.”
