Gov. Mike Dunleavy was with the Trump transition team in Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s home in Florida. He was with a group in a press conference led by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who told reporters that if California Gov. Gavin Newsom was a Republican, he would be “nailed to the wall” over that state’s response to wildfires.
Dunleavy was with a group of Republican governors invited by Trump to meet with him before he takes office on Jan. 20.
Dining with Trump on Thursday were 22 of the 27 Republican governors, who engaged with him in a discussion of how to drive forward the America First agenda. A few could not attend due to the massive snowstorm impacting their states.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte told reporters “It’s been a long period without cooperation from Washington, so, we’re looking forward to the new administration coming in. We have a lot of business to get done on behalf of our states. We’re just pleased to be here to meet with the president.”
On Wednesday, Trump held a meeting Republican senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, which included Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan. Sen. Lisa Murkowski did not attend that meeting.
Sullivan, however, was able to bring up Alaska issues with Trump during the meeting.
In the video above, Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters gathered outside, “If Newsom was a Republican, you guys would go try to — you would have him nailed to the wall for what they are doing over there. I know, we’ve dealt with it. We just assume in Florida, anytime something happens, it’s going to be politicized by the media. So you guys sitting in judgment of Donald Trump, I mean, excuse me, I think your track record of politicizing these things is very, very bad.”
“What I’m telling you is you guys are trying to make an issue of it when I have watched from this seat — in fact, when I got elected governor, I was meeting with some other Republican governors and what they would say is, ‘Hey, if you have a natural disaster, just know media is coming at you, they’re going to do it,’” DeSantis said. “It’s not the same. That mayor of L.A., if that were a Republican mayor, I can only imagine what that would do. I mean, you know fires are a high risk and you try to go to Africa or wherever she was, to go on some type of voyage? You should have been there preparing and doing that. And yet I don’t see a lot of heat being directed in that thing.”
The Laken Riley Act, legislation designed to prevent crimes committed by illegal aliens, cleared a critical hurdle in the Senate with an 84-9 vote on its first procedural test of the new legislative year.
The legislation, introduced by Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama and Congressman Mike Collins of Georgia, has suddenly gained significant Democrat support, with 33 Senate Democrats joining all present Republicans to move it forward. The Senate is now controlled by Republicans, who are moving their legislation, some of it for a second time. Only nine Democrats voted against advancing the legislation.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a co-sponsor of the bill, expressed his gratitude for the quick progress on the bill, which he described as a vital step toward restoring accountability in immigration enforcement. Sen. Lisa Murkowski did not vote on the bill.
A similar bill had passed in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, with the support of Alaska Congressman Nick Begich III.
Named in honor of 22-year-old Laken Riley, who was killed by a criminal illegal immigrant last year, the legislation mandates that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft, burglary, larceny, or shoplifting. The bill stipulates that these individuals remain in detention until they are deported to prevent them from reoffending.
Additionally, the act grants states the authority to pursue civil actions against federal officials who fail to enforce immigration laws or violate statutory obligations.
Sen. Sullivan attributed the rise in crime and drug trafficking, including fentanyl distribution, to what he called a “complete dereliction of duty” by the Biden Administration. He stated that the border policies implemented over the last four years have exacerbated national security, health, and humanitarian crises.
“The consequences of the largest invasion of illegal aliens in American history – which began four years ago – are a tragedy and represent a complete dereliction of duty by President Biden,” Sullivan said. “The Biden administration’s border policies, which included deliberate orders to ignore federal law, have created a national security, health, humanitarian, and crime crisis of epic proportions. Laken Riley should still be alive today. So should thousands more Americans who have lost their lives as a result of these reckless and dangerous policies. Alaskans have certainly felt the impacts of the record amounts of drugs, particularly fentanyl, and cartel members coming across the border and reaching our state thousands of miles away. The Laken Riley Act is an attempt to make America safer and restore accountability to the people in charge of carrying out America’s immigration laws.”
The bill’s progress marks a shift from the previous Congress, where similar legislation passed the House but was blocked in the Senate. With Republicans now holding the Senate majority, the bill has gained momentum, reflecting a growing bipartisan consensus on immigration enforcement now that Sen. Chuck Schumer is not in control and Biden is just 10 days away from being a former president.
Last week, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast of Florida introduced legislation to shield Israeli officials from the lawless and illegitimate attacks of the “International Criminal Court.”
Israel is currently at war with Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization.
The “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act” (H.R. 23) would impose sanctions on any International Criminal Court officials who seek to go after U.S. citizens or her allies, including Israel.
The legislation passed the House on a bipartisan basis last Congress with the support of 42 Democrats. The bill never moved in the Democrat-controlled Senate. President Joe Biden supports the ICC.
The ICC is an illegitimate court that represents a massive threat to US sovereignty, Roy said. The Trump administration was right to impose sanctions on the associates of the ICC if they dare go after US citizens, servicemembers, or her allies; Biden’s decision to reverse that policy was weak, embarrassing, and wrong, he said.
Congressman Nick Begich III said he supports the bill.
“The U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) nor party to the Rome Statute. Therefore, the ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or its citizens,” Begich said. “Protecting the sovereignty of our nation and our citizens requires that we stand up to organizations like the ICC, make clear that we do not recognize their authority, and will not cede those rights uniquely protected under the United States Constitution. That is why I am proud to support the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act.”
Rep. Roy said the ICC is engaged in a “shameful lawfare campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu for doing his duty to protect his fellow citizens from Hamas in the wake of the barbaric October 7th attacks. But let’s be clear, this isn’t just about Israel, this is about ensuring that our nation’s sovereignty is protected, as well as the American servicemembers. If we do not check this rogue, leftist ‘court’ now, we can rest assured that our military leadership and troops will be the next targets of its political attacks.”
Roy continued, “While I have full confidence that President Trump will stand for Israel with the strength and moral clarity that Biden has sorely lacked, this bill will ensure that no future administration after him will be able to give the ICC a free pass to attack our allies like this.”
Mast said the bill sends a clear message to the International Criminal Court: “We may not recognize you, but you sure as hell will recognize what happens when you target America or its allies. The ICC’s attempt to obstruct Israel’s right to defend itself has only prolonged the war and prevented the release of American hostages by boosting Hamas’ morale.”
The legacy media narrative is that Alaska Native groups approve of President Joe Biden’s pretend leases in the 1002 area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The second lease sale for oil and gas tracts mandated by Congress in the 2017 Tax Act received no bids at all, while the first one only received scant interest. The bids were just not viable, with the Deep State working against oil and gas.
But Natives who live in the farthest northern reaches of the state are unhappy about the Biden Administration’s fake-lease strategy and the comments made by the Department of Interior after the second lease failed to get any interest.
“The lack of interest from oil companies in development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reflects what we and they have known all along – there are some places too special and sacred to put at risk with oil and gas drilling. This proposal was misguided in 2017, and it’s misguided now,” said Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis, who came from the environmental industry’s National Wildlife Federation before joining the Biden Administration.“The BLM has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”
That was insulting to people who actually live in the region.
“Today, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announcedthat the Bureau of Land Management received no bids in the congressionally-mandated oil and gas lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s (ANWR) Coastal Plain. DOI’s comments are deeply insulting to our region given that they undermine the will of Kaktovik, the only community within ANWR’s 19-million-acre expanse,” said Nagruk Harcharek, president of Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat.
Harcharek said the lack of interest by bidders is a byproduct of years of inconsistent policy moves by the Biden Administration regarding indigenous North Slope Iñupiaq lands, intended to stymie economic development in the region.
“The Biden administration’s approach to ANWR has been defined by its efforts to exclude Indigenous voices from Kaktovik, the only community within ANWR, from the policymaking process while elevating outside groups and voices who have no connection to our lands and people. Our community has a right to shape our shared economic future, and we will continue to fight against the Biden administration’s attempts to make us environmental refugees in our homelands,” Harcharek said.
“North Slope communities want to advance Iñupiaq self-determination through durable, collaborative policy making. These communities were dissatisfied with the Biden administration’s decision to initiate and finalize an unnecessary supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) that did not reflect the majority consensus of local and regional elected officials, while also minimizing development opportunities contrary to the spirit of the law,” he continued.
The result exemplifies the federal government’s deeply flawed policy approach to this issue, creating industry uncertainty during the ANWR lease sales process. It’s a deliberate federal approach, he said, “and it is shameful that the Biden administration would seek to use our economic security as a political football.”
Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat serves the eight communities of Alaska’s North Slope Borough – the northernmost municipality in the United States, across a remote 95,000 square miles from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean. It faces the Chukchi Sea and the Beaufort Sea.
Th State of Alaska is suing over the bad-faith actions of the federal government in its actions in the 1002 area.
“Interior’s continued and irrational opposition under the Biden Administration to responsible energy development in the Arctic continues America on a path of energy dependence instead of utilizing the vast resources we have available,” Dunleavy said. “These resources not only help our energy independence as a nation but also grow the Alaska economy and put more money in the Alaska Permanent Fund for future generations,” said Gov. Mike Dunleavy. He said he is hoping for a brighter future for Alaska with Donald Trump returning as president.
Charles Lampe, who is Kaktovik Iñupiat Corporation’s president, said Kaktovik wasn’t even included in the discussion. It is the only community within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
“As the only community that exists within ANWR, Kaktovik should have been included at the policymaking table throughout this policymaking process,” said Lampe. “There’s a reason that the people of Kaktovik voted over 75% in favor of the Trump-Vance political ticket. This current administration keeps adding insult to injury with their flawed processes, falsely claiming to work with those who this will most affect.”
The oil and gas lease tracts put forward by the Biden Administration were part of a “disingenuous move designed to meet the minimum legal requirements outlined by Congress while undermining any economic potential in our region—a bad faith effort that jeopardizes the economic and cultural future of our communities for political gain,” the Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat said when the second bid tracts were revealed in December.
The gasline company that the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation is in negotiations with to build the AK-LNG project was revealed this week to be the Glenfarne Group. The news came on Tuesday from the Alaska Landmine, a news and opinion organization that announced it on X. It has been confirmed by sources in the Governor’s Office.
At the end of a press availability on Jan. 6 with Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the AGDC President Frank Richards said the state-owned agency has entered into a framework agreement with a qualified energy producing company for Alaska LNG, a proposed gasline from the North Slope, which will include a Nikiski export facility, a pipeline, and carbon capture components. A formal agreement is expected to be announced soon. But Richards didn’t say who the company was, at the time. That news leaked out the next day.
“I don’t understand why people treat these things as so secretive. It always comes out anyway. It’s pretty loose when a deal of this nature gets broken by the Landmine,” said Jeff Landfield, publisher.
But it’s early, and it’s all a stage-gated process, where each party meets certain goals before moving forward, in order to de-risk the project for all parties at the table. The gas itself is owned by the oil companies with leases on the North Slope, and for many years has been very useful right where it is, reinjected into the drained underground oil geologic caverns to force out more oil for the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
“The terms of the framework agreement are being negotiated or have been negotiated; the next step is for both parties to create a legally binding development agreement that will move the project forward,” Richards explained.
Glenfarne Group is a global company based in New York City and Houston, Texas and is a developer, owner, operator, and industrial manager of energy and infrastructure assets, like the one that Alaska has been trying to get out off of the drawing boards for decades.
Glenfarne, founded in 2011 by Australian Brendan Duval, also owns companies in South and Central America. In 2022, Glenfarne Asset Company, LLC acquired Termonorte Colombia S.A.S. (the “Plant” or “Termonorte”), a power plant located near the port of Santa Marta in Colombia.
“The acquisition reinforces Glenfarne’s commitment to providing grid stability to Colombia and the entire Latin American region,” the company said. Read more about Glenfarne at its website.
The group appears to have raised $4 billion for the $44 billion Alaska LNG project, which would bring North Slope gas to tidewater at Nikiski, where it could be exported to Asian markets. Offtakes would allow gas to be delivered to communities on the Railbelt, from Fairbanks to the Kenai Peninsula.
“There is nothing more permanent than a temporary sales tax.” – Anon
It’s tax season and Alaskans are starting to prepare for the April 15 federal tax deadline.
The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday night delayed a public vote on whether to enact the Assembly’s proposed 3% “temporary” sales tax. It won’t be on the April 1 ballot.
Rather than drive fed-up residents to the polls right when people are calculating their federal tax returns, a time when liberal candidates favored by the Assembly majority might be rejected by voters, the Assembly will instead have a special election for the sales tax, at a date to be determined. Likely, it will come at a time when the public is distracted by fishing or holidays and won’t send in their ballots. Anchorage conducts all of its elections by mail.
With fewer people paying attention, the Assembly can assure a low turnout, which means that the municipal employees and unions will make up the majority of the voters, while the rest of Anchorage sits it out on a salmon stream somewhere in Alaska.
Special elections like this are designed for a certain outcome. City workers and their unions will want that sales tax to go through, because government workers always want more resources to have more government programs.
The Assembly is looking for revenues it can get outside of the tax cap, which it is now up against. Recently, it increased tariffs at the Port of Alaska — outside the tax cap. Most bonds on the municipal ballots have a caveat that all future costs related to a project, such as operation and maintenance, will also be outside the tax cap. The alcohol tax is outside the tax cap. The list of taxes the city leaders and voters have passed outside the cap is extensive.
Proponents have promised it will reduce property taxes, but they are challenged by a public that has little faith in government promised being kept.
The sales tax proposal by Assembly members Randy Sulte and Felix Rivera might generate $180 million annually, but would have significant administrative costs and mean additional revenue staff. The sponsors say the sales tax would be temporary.
Sales taxes never end up being temporary.
For example, Minnesota passed a temporary sales tax that was later temporarily increased to 6% in 1982, and was made permanent the next year. Another temporary increase to 6.5% in 1991 is still on the books today — 33 years of temporary sales tax that not only didn’t go away, but has crept higher.
The special election is estimated to cost taxpayers $200,000.
The resolution to delay the election passed 7-5, with Scott Myers, Mark Littlefield, Karen Bronga, George Martinez, and chairman Chris Constant voting against it, and Meg Zaletel, Felix Rivera, Daniel Holland, Randy Sulte, Kameron Perez-Verdia, Anna Brawley, and Zac Johnson voting in favor.
After the election of Donald Trump as president, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is the Democrat leader in the failed never-Trump movement, immediately convened a special session to ask for $25 million to fight the Trump Administration.
Newsom has made a name for himself as the head of the resistance against Trump and although many thought he should replace Joe Biden this year as president, his political hands were tied. He has been a strong possibility to run for president in 2028.
Newsom said in November he needed the money to protect “California values,” which include being a sanctuary state for illegal immigrants and the child gender mutilation industry.
Newsom is now battling to preserve his political future, but he has not been helped by the slow federal government.
It wasn’t until late Wednesday that the Biden Administration announced it would send additional firefighting personnel and capabilities to California to assist in battling the series of out-of-control wildfires. When those assets will arrive is uncertain, but wind-driven fire weather is expected to remain until Friday in Southern California, where the footprint of the fires are small, but are many and are in urban areas that now look like war zones.
Newsom is being blamed for focusing on the wrong things, and not being ready for the fires, which have destroyed hundreds of homes and killed five people in the past week.
“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Donald Trump wroteon Truth Social, the social media platform he started after the old Twitter management kicked him off of that platform.
Newsom says Trump mischaracterizes the complex water system in California. But as the leader of the anti-Trump movement, he and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass appear to be ineffective leaders and are fighting battles on two fronts: The disaster response and the political fallout for them both.
“Fire is spreading rapidly for 3 days — ZERO CONTAINMENT. Nobody has ever seen such failed numbers before! Gross incompetence by Gavin Newscum and Karen Bass….And Biden’s FEMA has no money — all wasted on the Green New Scam! L.A. is a total wipeout!!!” Trump posted on Thursday morning on Truth Social.
The left-leaning Los Angeles Times categorizes that as false, but in fact, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 authorized the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Recovery and Emergency Actto provide financial assistance for costs associated with low-carbon construction materials and net-zero energy projects. FEMA’s 2022-2026 Strategic Plan includes “whole of community in climate resilience” and encourages states to build climate-resilient communities. This is a vast expansion of the original Stafford Act, signed into law in 1988 and designed to provide a framework for the federal government to offer financial assistance to state and local governments when dealing with major disasters. It allows the president to declare emergencies and major disasters and to provide federal aid in situations like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, fires, and other natural events, essentially supplementing state and local efforts to save lives and protect property.
Hundreds if not thousands of structures have burned and over 100,000 Los Angeles residents have been ordered to evacuate while their neighborhoods burn out of control. Opportunistic looters have snuck into the burned-out wealthier neighborhoods to take advantage of the evacuation, and only two have been arrested for looting.
With entire communities in the Los Angeles County area burned to the ground, Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom have just watched as their political futures were also torched by the city and state governments’ inability to prioritize what is the first role of government: To protect citizens.
It’s a cautionary tale for the leaders in Anchorage, where hillside residents face some of the same conditions, with dry weather and high winds combining at times to create wildfire conditions. While the mayor and Assembly of the city focus on equity and diversity, crime has spun out of control in the city and never discuss hardening the hillside surrounding Anchorage against fires, which are increasingly started in homeless encampments that migrate from one greenbelt to another.
Just as in Pacific Palisades, the canyon neighborhood that burned in greater Los Angeles, many areas of the hillside in Anchorage have winding and narrow roads with limited access and no fire hydrants. The mayor and the Assembly of Anchorage, meanwhile, have made it their priority to remove the dam on the Eklutna River that serves as a reservoir for Anchorage’s water supply.
By KENNETH SCHRUPP | THE CENTER SQUARE and MUST READ ALASKA
Hundreds of fire hydrants were stolen from the ground for scrap metal in advance of the blazes raging across Los Angeles, highlighting the local government’s challenges in maintaining basic order and infrastructure.
“These fire hydrant thefts are yet another sign of how crime is out of control in Los Angeles County,” said Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman to The Center Square before his November election. “Thieves know they’ll face little or no consequences if they are caught, so they’re willing to risk the public’s safety for a small profit.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has been away on a taxpayer-funded trip to Africa as a member of a Biden administration delegation, recently cut the fire department’s budget by $17.6 million.
Upon her arrival back in the United States, Sky News asked Bass whether she regrets cutting the fire department’s budget, and if she feels she owes citizens an apology for being absent as the city burned.
Bass ignored the questions, her eyes glued to the ground as she proceeded through the airport.
Days before Bass left for Ghana, the National Weather Service’s Los Angeles Bureau warned of “extreme fire weather conditions.”
The day before fires broke out, Bass shared a NWS warning, suggesting she may have been aware of the fire before her departure.
“There is an expected destructive and potentially life-threatening windstorm starting Tuesday morning through Wednesday afternoon,” said Bass. “Stay safe LA!”
On Wednesday, fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades lost their water pressure entirely. All water storage tanks in the area were dry. Water reservoir projects promised by the state government for years have not been built.
As of Wednesday evening the fires are zero percent contained.
Stay up with the Los Angeles Fire Department reports and maps at this link.
In Alaska, Begich said, firearms are a fundamental way of life.
“The right to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities does not fade away as you cross an imaginary line. That’s why I am proud to be an original co-sponsor of H.R. 38, and I encourage my colleagues in the House to support this important piece of legislation.”
Congressman Richard Hudson of North Carolina led over 120 of his colleagues in introducing H.R. 38. The legislation would provide nationwide reciprocity for concealed carry license holders and for residents of constitutional carry states.
Hudson introduced the bill in previous years. In December 2017, the bill passed the House with bipartisan support, yet it was not taken up in the Senate.
Rep. Hudson has repeatedly said he would continue to pursue the legislation, again in 2023, and again not being taken up in the Senate.
Then-Rep. Mary Peltola, who was voted out of office in November, chose not to co-sponsor the 2023 attempt to pass the bill and it is doubtful President Joe Biden would have signed it.
President Donald Trump, however, has committed to signing national concealed carry reciprocity legislation into law.
The bill has support of the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America.
“Congress has the opportunity to deliver the greatest legislative victory for the gun rights movement in a century, and President Trump has already voiced his support,” said Aidan Johnston, Gun Owners of America Director of Federal Affairs.“With all 50 states now issuing concealed carry permits, 49 states allowing nonresident carry, and 29 states with permitless or Constitutional Carry, it is simply common sense for Congress to ensure that each state’s concealed carry license is valid in every other state. We thank President Trump for his leadership on this issue and urge Congress to swiftly send Rep. Hudson’s Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act to the President’s desk to be signed.”
“On behalf of the USCCA’s more than 850,000 members nationwide, we applaud Congressman Hudson’s continued leadership in defending the rights of responsibly-armed Americans,” said Tim Schmidt, President and Co-Founder of U.S. Concealed Carry Association. “Our Constitutional rights do not end at state lines. This legislation is critical to ensuring law-abiding gun owners’ fundamental right to defend themselves and their loved ones regardless of geography or location. The USCCA remains committed to seeing H.R. 38, the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, one of the most consequential reforms for gun owners nationwide, signed into law.”
National Shooting Sports Foundation Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence Keane said, “This legislation eliminates the confusing patchwork of laws surrounding concealed carry permits that vary from state-to-state, particularly with regard to states where laws make unwitting criminals out of legal permit holders for a simple mistake of a wrong traffic turn. It safeguards a state’s right to determine their own laws while protecting the Second Amendment rights of all Americans. We thank Rep. Hudson for his leadership on behalf of America’s hunters and recreational shooters.”
