US Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska is taking a lead role in efforts to curb the influence of hostile foreign regimes on American higher education. The legislation he introduced earlier in the Senate, known as the Securing Academia from Foreign Entanglements (SAFE) Act, received new momentum today with companion legislation introduced in the US House by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.).
The SAFE Act targets financial entanglements between American universities and foreign countries of concern, prohibiting institutions of higher education from accepting gifts or entering into contracts with those nations. It also mandates greater transparency by requiring universities to disclose all financial ties to “covered nations” to the Department of Education, the FBI, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Sullivan has repeatedly raised alarms about how adversarial nations, notably China, use financial leverage to infiltrate American academic institutions, influence curricula, and compromise research integrity. His legislation aims to close longstanding loopholes in the Higher Education Act of 1965 that have allowed foreign funding to go largely unmonitored.
“Our universities are places of innovation, freedom, and thought leadership,” Sullivan said when introducing the Senate version. “They should never serve as entry points for adversaries seeking to exploit our openness.”
The bill specifically amends current federal law to ban universities from accepting funds or forming agreements with governments deemed a national security threat. It further empowers federal agencies to track and assess foreign influence through mandatory reporting of contracts and donations, actions that have previously gone underreported.
The House introduction by Steube strengthens the bill’s chances of moving forward in the 118th Congress. It comes amid growing bipartisan concern over China’s use of Confucius Institutes and other foreign-backed academic partnerships that critics say pose risks to both free expression and national security. University of Alaska Anchorage had a Confucius Institute established in 2008 in partnership with China’s Northeast Normal University, which focused on Chinese language and cultural education.
If enacted, the SAFE Act would tighten federal oversight over the financial pipelines between foreign governments and US universities.
Sullivan has been a vocal proponent of decoupling American institutions from foreign influence, and the SAFE Act is the latest example of his focus on safeguarding critical sectors — from academia to infrastructure — from external threats.
Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor hasn’t officially declared his candidacy for governor, but his actions tell a different story.
On Monday night, Taylor held yet another gathering — this time in a private Wasilla hangar — with no broad public invitation, no official campaign sponsoring it, no host organization listed, no disclaimer made — and RSVP required via a phone number with no name attached.
It’s unclear what role the State of Alaska played in the event, but Taylor used his official title and his family assures us this was not a campaign event.
Yet it wasn’t just an appearance at a conference or symposium. Taylor was the main event at this meet-and-greet. And his topic wasn’t just law and order. Alaska’s top lawman was talking about oil and gas, including the Alaska LNG project. He was talking about Alaska’s economic future. He was talking about things Republican candidates talk about.
AG Taylor has being doing more appearances this year, and the pace of public talks are out of character for both Taylor and for his attorney general predecessors, who generally have kept a low profile.
AG Treg Taylor at the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce, where he was the featured speaker July 9, 2025.
The events appear to be strategic pre-campaign opportunities intended to raise Taylor’ profile’s name ID among the donor class. As an attorney and Alaska’s top law officer, Taylor knows just how far he can go legally without breaking the law, but his actions give the appearance of someone laying the groundwork for a campaign, and doing so while holding a sworn office.
A little digging revealed that the RSVP phone number for the Wasilla event traces back to a now-dissolved company, Precision Exploration, linked in Dun & Bradstreet to Dmitry Kudryn, who has a fraud conviction on his record. Must Read Alaska found the press release from the Department of Justice describing his conviction, and writer Craig Medred wrote about Kudryn in this expansive column in 2019:
The sentencing announcement from the US Department of Justice supports what writer Medred described:
Must Read Alaska also found Dmitry Kudryn is a major donor to Republican candidates. In 2022 he donated $10,000 to Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s reelection campaign, and he has donated at least $2,500 to Wasilla Sen. Rob Yundt’s campaigns. His political donation record goes back years. His federal contributions to the Donald Trump campaign are impressive:
Screenshot
Thus, Dmitry Kudryn is likely political donor for upcoming statewide elections.
More documentation is below about now-dissolved Precision Exploration.
Screenshot Dun & Bradstreet
Vitaly Kudryn, who is the only name listed in the state records for Precision Exploration, is Dmitry’s brother and doesn’t appear to have any of the troubling court records that Dmitry has. The brothers are Ukrainian-Americans also associated with other businesses in Alaska, such as Crave LLC, which sold electronic accessories, iPhone/iPad cords, external charging batteries, decorative iPhone cases and other related items. That company is currently out of compliance at the Department of Commerce, according to state records.
But the main question remains: Since Monday’s event is one in a series of profile-building events Taylor has had in recent weeks, is AG Taylor running a stealth campaign already, without declaring that he is a candidate for governor?
Other Republicans who are declared candidates include Sen. Shelley Hughes, former Sen. Click Bishop, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, political activist Bernadette Wilson, Mat-Su Borough Mayor Edna DeVries, Dr. Matt Heilala, and former Angoon City Council member James Parkin. All are Republican. In addition, Commissioner of Revenue Adam Crum’s last day is Aug. 8, and he is expected to announce for governor shortly thereafter.
In 1891, Calvin Coolidge began a four-semester philosophy course taught by Charles E. Garman which all Amherst students were required to take. The ethics class portion had a positive impact on his life. He later wrote in his autobiography,
“In ethics he taught us that there is a standard of righteousness. That might does not make right, that the end does not justify the means and that expediency as a working principle is bound to fail.”
Almost one 135 years later, how do we, as Alaskans, now measure that standard? Have we internalized the appeal of righteousness only to negotiate this appraisal with power, reward and convenience?
If we can judge the weight of our principles against a majority opposing our standard, when do we quit and stop being persistent?
My answer is “Never!”
Today, by the ill-tempered actions of Alaska’s legislature, principles are replaced with vague vaporous slogans, reminding us that the best way to catch politicians in a lie is to watch their lips move or just read their social media posts.
This is an indictment of political cowardice masked as pragmatism. When State Senator James Kaufman posts on his Facebook page, “we took some good first steps”, we as voters must be reminded that leadership without principle is ultimately betrayal.
Instead of insisting on meaningful reform, Kaufman claims “My vote today was a restatement of my commitment to improving education in Alaska” legitimizing that the Alaska Legislature is not concerned about achieving improvements, just prolonging the true agony of poor education outcomes for Alaska’s progeny.
Our law-making body betrays ethical governance and ignores the way those outcomes are pursued. The real improvements come from eliminating all components of Alaska’s education system which do not teach Alaska’s children and strengthening those that do…parent, student, teachers and performance outcomes.
The legislature’s habit of embracing shortcuts, backroom bargains, and survival-based compromises may yield fleeting political wins, hollow praise, and instant gratification, primarily for those employed within Alaska’s education bureaucracy, including some of these elected members. But the irony is inescapable: claiming to improve education while replicating the same failed results of the past decades will only further erode public trust, undermine institutional integrity, and sacrifice lasting outcomes for superficial progress.
Expediency in Alaska politics is the rule and never the exemption.
He continues with a profoundly simple aspiration for our current generation, “The only hope of perfecting human relationship is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give.”
Coolidge understood that the pursuit of a more perfect society is not found in isolation, but in association through relationships built on service, not self-interest. Human relationships are never perfect, but their improvement rests not in the concentration of authority, especially in the hands of those detached from the people they govern.
Too often, that authority is exercised by individuals with little real knowledge or lived experience yet cloaked in institutional power. Their governance feigns compassion but masks a deeper aim, albeit in some cases, unconscious and incompetent, to oppress through policy while enriching influence and entrenching themselves. We witness this now in epidemic proportions.
In contrast, the law of service, the willingness to give more than one seeks to receive, is the only foundation capable of strengthening human connection and building lasting civic trust. It is here, in this ethic of giving, that true reform is born, not in power held, but in service rendered. A lesson perennially avoided by Alaska’s legislature and its current members.
Coolidge’s observation sits comfortably alongside Lincoln’s call for “the better angels of our nature,” or Christ’s teaching that “he who would be greatest among you must be the servant of all.”
It’s more than a moral ideal. Alaska urgently needs to rediscover the tenets of American governance rooted in limited government, individual liberty, civic virtue, and popular sovereignty. Those ideals have quietly slipped from the political landscape. They’re not occasional exceptions, they are the foundation.
He counters with, “Yet people are entitled to the rewards of their industry. What they earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But the possession of property carries the obligation to use it in a larger service. For a man not to recognize the truth, not to be obedient to the law, not to render allegiance to the State, is for him to be at war with his own nature, to commit suicide.”
Through our continued learning and pursuit of a stable, productive life, we understand that true entitlements are earned, not handed over to those trapped in collective apathy and denial. Instead, they are to be shared in the spirit of purpose, knowing that the gifts we cultivate in ourselves can help give rise to other productive lives.
We are not a democracy. We are a republic. Nowhere is “republic” found in our state constitution, but it is embodied in its principles, representative democracy, checks and balances, and limited government.
Coolidge calls for a balanced civic ethic where we all take on the responsibility to contribute, uphold truth and serve the republic. When these are rejected, it doesn’t just damage our state’s integrity but sabotages our humanity from continually improving.
He concludes, “That is why ‘the wages of sin is death.’ Unless we live rationally we perish, physically, mentally, spiritually.”
The reward of wrongdoing is more than a physical death, it is a spiritual departure from the brilliance of the Gift of God. Romans 6:23 bears the importance of the profound impact of the karma enunciated in all spiritual endeavors as does every other faith on this planet.
It’s a moral warning: When individuals, and society, abandon rational, virtuous living, they collapse. It’s both deeply personal and broadly political. It suggests that ethical decline isn’t just wrong. It’s failure.
Alaska Airlines is charting new international territory with a striking new livery design.
The Seattle-based carrier on Tuesday announced two new transatlantic routes launching in 2026, with nonstop service from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport and Reykjavik’s Keflavik Airport. The airline is rapidly expanding its global reach following its 2024 acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines. It had also purchased Virgin America in 2016.
Both European routes are set to launch in the spring with daily, year-round service planned for London, which is one of the most sought-after destinations for American travelers and a key hub for Alaska’s Oneworld alliance partners.
As part of the announcement, Alaska Airlines revealed a new design for the aircraft that will serve these long-haul flights, retiring the iconic image of the Alaska Inuit Native man that has adorned the airline’s tailfins for decades.
The new look, reserved for the airline’s Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet, replaces the human portrait with flowing swashes of blue and green intended to evoke the aurora borealis.
The rebrand is described by the airline as a tribute to the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, with the aurora motif symbolizing connectivity and global reach. The “Alaska” wordmark remains prominent near the front of the aircraft in navy blue.
The Dreamliner jets, set to enter service in the coming year, represent Alaska’s first foray into twin-aisle aircraft, a move necessary to support intercontinental service. The carrier has historically focused on domestic and short-haul international flights, primarily within North America.
The announcement is part of a broader post-merger strategy that aims to turn Alaska into a formidable player in international travel markets, particularly for West Coast flyers seeking more direct connections overseas.
Flights to Reykjavik and London will be available for booking later this year, the airline said.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., issued a set of subpoenas Tuesday to several high-profile former officials that includes former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, as part of the panel’s ongoing investigation into the federal government’s handling of sex trafficking laws and the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was a former associate of former Anchorage Daily News owner Alice Rogoff.
Others subpoenaed were issued to former US Attorneys General Loretta Lynch, Eric Holder, Merrick Garland, William Barr, Jeff Sessions, and Alberto Gonzales, and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
The move is an escalation in the House-led probe into what Comer has described as “decades of institutional failures” in the investigation and prosecution of Epstein and his network. The committee is specifically scrutinizing the use of non-prosecution agreements, the handling of plea deals, and the role of federal officials in decisions related to Epstein and Maxwell’s cases.
In a letter to former President Clinton, Comer cited his past ties to Epstein, referencing flight logs showing Clinton aboard Epstein’s private jet in the early 2000s. Comer also pointed to an unearthed photograph showing Clinton receiving a massage from a woman who has since identified herself as one of Epstein’s trafficking victims.
The letter further alleges Clinton may have intervened to suppress reporting on Epstein. “It has also been claimed that you pressured Vanity Fair not to publish sex trafficking allegations against your ‘good friend’ Mr. Epstein,” Comer wrote. The committee is also seeking clarification on conflicting reports about whether Clinton ever visited Epstein’s private island.
Chairman Comer’s letter to Hillary Clinton raises questions about her proximity to Ghislaine Maxwell and notes that Maxwell’s nephew worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and was later hired at the State Department when Clinton served as Secretary of State.
Comer says the purpose of the subpoenas is to “inform legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations.”
The subpoenas arrive just ahead of highly anticipated testimony from Ghislaine Maxwell, which had been scheduled for Aug. 11. That appearance has been postponed pending the outcome of Maxwell’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The House inquiry adds to mounting pressure on the Department of Justice to declassify files related to Epstein, including records believed to detail his associates and clients. Critics have long accused the federal government of stonewalling the release of those documents — including surveillance videos and visitor logs — since Epstein’s death in federal custody in 2019.
Chairman Comer has not indicated whether additional subpoenas may follow or if public hearings will be scheduled.
All individuals named in the subpoenas have been given until later this month to respond.
The Municipality of Anchorage is preparing to break ground on what some are calling a step forward in transitional housing, and what others, with a wink, are already calling “The Crampground.”
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, in partnership with the Anchorage Community Development Authority, announced this week that Visser Construction has been tapped to design and build 24 “microunits” on city-owned land near the Elmore Permit Center. This is the approximate location where former Mayor Dave Bronson attempted to construction a homeless navigation center, to connect homeless people with services appropriate to their needs.
The pilot project, formally known as the “Microunits for Recovery Residences,” aims to offer temporary housing for individuals transitioning out of homelessness and into substance misuse recovery. The 24 units, about 96 square feet each, will cost $1.7 million and will be paid for by the public treasury from opioid settlement funds. It’s a two-year pilot, with the possibility of relocating or scrapping the units if the program is not successful.
These shoebox chateaus are a cornerstone of Mayor LaFrance’s Homelessness and Health Strategy. They’ll come equipped with utility hookups and supporting infrastructure, with doors expected to open to residents by Oct. 15.
But the 24 units will fall short of meeting the needs of the approximately 3,000 who are roaming Anchorage streets without a certain place to lay their heads.
“The proposals we received demonstrated creativity, expertise, and a shared commitment to advancing housing solutions for our community,” said Mike Robbins, Executive Director of ACDA, who hinted that this is just the beginning of a wider vision. The final contract with Visser Construction is pending approval at ACDA’s August board meeting.
Mayor LaFrance, who has bought into the “housing first” philosophy, said the microunits are designed as “a vital bridge to stability,” offering low-cost, low-barrier shelter for people looking to get back on their feet. “This pilot project exemplifies Anchorage’s commitment to finding innovative solutions for homelessness and the substance use epidemic,” she said.
Still, in places like Seattle, where such crawl-in closets have been tried in village settings, there’s been a lot of resistance, and the villages quickly have become shantytowns filled with social problems, crime, and overdosed residents.
Midtown Assembly Member Felix Rivera, who helped spearhead the idea through a now-disbanded Complex Behavioral Health Community Task Force, said the project reflects the kind of creative thinking Anchorage needs. “I’m excited to see these kinds of partnerships come together and for Midtown to play a key role, as it has for years, towards finding creative solutions to address our community’s challenges.”
The city plans to select a site operator through a competitive process in the coming weeks.
The idea of microunits in Anchorage isn’t new. The In Our Backyard project, launched by a local church in 2024, paved the way.
At 69 years old, John Kersbergen lives a humble and quiet life in Alaska, driving Uber part time in Anchorage. But 50 years ago, the former Navy boatswain’s mate was in the middle of one of the most chaotic, heartbreaking, and heroic moments in American military history: the fall of Saigon.
He was just 17.
John Kersbergen just after completing boot camp.
In April 1975, as the Vietnam War reached its devastating end, Kersbergen was stationed aboard the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier home-ported in Yokasuka, Japan, that would become central to one of the largest helicopter evacuations in history — Operation Frequent Wind. He had grown up rough: dropped out of school, ran away from home, and fell in with a bad crowd. His father, a Navy veteran himself, delivered a hard truth: “Son, you’re either going to find yourself in jail or dead.” So Kersbergen enlisted.
Too young for the Marines or Army, the Navy took him in. He finished boot camp in 1973, and by 1974 he was aboard the Midway, working as a refueler in Japan, handling JP-5 jet fuel with a smell so toxic it clung to him no matter how often he showered. It left his skin raw and may have contributed to the neuropathy and prostate problems he developed later in life — although the VA acknowledged he was exposed to Agent Orange.
He remembers the mission orders as if it were yesterday. “We were in the Sea of Japan, heading home to Yokasuka, when the captain came over the loudspeaker and said we were being rerouted to the Gulf of Tonkin, with a stop in the Philippines first,” he recalled. “We had to offload all the fighter jets — F-4 Phantoms, F-14s Tomcats, A-6 Intruders, and A-7 Corsairs — and bring in helicopters, Hueys, H-47s, Chinooks, and Cobras. He couldn’t tell us the mission until we got there.”
The mission was clear soon enough: evacuate American personnel and Vietnamese allies as Saigon fell.
One of Kersbergen’s battle stations was what’s called Sponson Watch. With high-powered binoculars and plugged into the ship’s tower communications, he stood watch in full battle gear, including a breathing apparatus strapped to his chest in case of a chemical attack. His job: monitor the skies and the embassy, report any helicopters shot down, and help coordinate rescue efforts for survivors in the water.
But nothing could prepare him for what he saw through those lenses.
A CIA officer helps evacuees up a ladder onto an Air America Bell 204/205 helicopter on April 29, 1975. This is what John Kersbergen was assigned to monitor from the USS Midway. Photo by Hubert van Es.
“I would pan over to the streets of Saigon, and there were women and children being hacked to death with machetes and shot in the back of the head,” he said, his voice heavy. “More people were slaughtered during the evacuation than in the whole 11-year war. The Viet Cong hated the South Vietnamese even more than us — they saw them as traitors.”
He wiped away tears in real time, helpless as the horror unfolded before him and knowing there was nothing he could do to help them. “The Viet Cong were like locusts going through a corn field.”
The helicopters came in constant waves, picking evacuees off the embassy rooftop and ferrying them to the Midway. Kersbergen and his shipmates helped rig a makeshift Jacob’s Ladder out of cargo nets and pallets, lowering it over the ship’s edge to rescue women and children climbing from fishing boats that were pulling alongside the carrier, overflowing with desperate refugees.
Between monitoring the skies and hauling people out of the water, the young sailor moved through the ship’s crowded hangar bay, tiptoeing between the bodies of crying children and terrified families.
Then came the “bird dog.”
A small, fixed-wing aircraft approached the Midway. — a two-seater O-1 Bird Dog piloted by a South Vietnamese officer carrying his wife and five children, including a baby. The plane had no arresting hook, no way to stop on a carrier deck. As it approached under enemy fire, the pilot dropped notes onto the deck — tied with rocks and fastened with rubber bands explaining his situation and asking permission to land. The first two notes blew over the deck but the third note made it. The pilot was requesting that room be made on the deck for him to land.
The Midway’s crew assembled a makeshift crash net at the catapults at the end of the flight deck, where jets are usually launched into the air. They pushed helicopters into the ocean to make room. The captain aimed the ship into the wind. Everyone on the deck held their breath. The plane touched down, bounced — once — and somehow came to a stop. Everyone present broke into cheering.
Out stepped the Vietnamese pilot. Then his wife with babe in arms. Then one child after another, seven people in total.
“We gave them cookies and candy and treated them like rock stars,” Kersbergen recalled. “After all the people we couldn’t save, here was one whole family we did save. That was everything.”
The aircraft they escaped in is now on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.
But even after the evacuation, the trauma lingered. “The guilt I’ve carried for all the people we had to leave behind,” Kersbergen said. “Telling them we’d come back and knowing we never did — it was too dangerous. Knowing they were probably slaughtered.”
Then, nearly five decades later, came a moment of grace.
While driving for Uber in Anchorage, Kersbergen picked up a quiet Asian man at the airport. As they drove, the man noticed Kersbergen’s USS Midway cap.
“Did you serve on the Midway?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Kersbergen replied.
“Were you there in April of 1975?”
Again, yes.
The man paused. “I want to thank you,” he said. “My grandmother was one of the evacuees.”
Kersbergen, stunned, asked: “Did she come from the top or below?” — a reference to whether she’d arrived by helicopter or from the boats, climbing up that cargo net.
“Below,” the man answered.
That was all Kersbergen needed to hear.
At that moment, he realized he may have been one of the members of the team who helped save the man’s grandmother, a teenage girl at the time, the only member of her family to survive. The rest — her parents, siblings, aunts, uncles — were slaughtered by the Viet Cong. She had told her story countless times to her grandchildren in California so they would understand the price of their freedom.
“She told me never to take this country for granted,” the man said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”
Both men broke down in tears.
“For years, I had wondered if I made a difference,” Kersbergen said. “And in that moment, I knew. I did. I helped save a life.”
Fifty years later, the memories still haunt him of the chaotic evacuation of Saigon. But now, thanks to one simple Uber ride, John Kersbergen knows he also left Vietnam with something else—hope.
“Life begins at conception! Legal protection for the unborn, from Conception until natural death’ Democrats are the party of death! Only a madman would vote Democrat!”
We have heard this for a long time, and from many apparent pro-lifers, who are seemingly just fine with IVF, beginning with Donald Trump and JD Vance. These might include untold numbers of married couples who march against surgical abortion, even while they themselves contracept with low estrogen pills, which sometimes functions as a micro-abortion drug.
Many, upon learning that contraception not only diminishes the value of the preborn, but aborts them, have writhed in angst and sorrow on what they thought was merely preventing conception — only to discover that it often creates the destruction of a conceived human being made “in the image and likeness of God” — one of their own children.
Then we have the dishonest American Medical Association, that bastion of medical gravitas, which has redefined “conception” to mean “implantation”. This was done several decades ago in order to assuage the emotions of pro-life mothers who used Low E pills, distributed by Planned Parenthood as a “safer” alternative to regular pills, and also IUDs — intra-uterine devices — that used copper wires to create a hostile environment for conceived children, attempting to implant themselves in their mother’s womb.
All this was promoted in the 1950s and 60s by Planned P as a way to supposedly strengthen families: fewer children would mean quality children. And women would be free to enter the workforce! And leave their children to day care facilities. Something that Marxists had being doing for decades.
Satire: And, as we all know, divorce rates have dropped, children have become more secure, women are more revered than ever before, and men continue to have an equal hand in the guidance of the children.
Yet the news is currently good: The Trump Administration is dropping its support for federal funding of IVF. Aside from the fact that the idea of federal funding for IVF is utterly unconstitutional, it is also evil. It makes a mockery of the claim that, “Life begins at conception.” It mocks God, the Lord and giver of life, while pretending to be on His side. It gives fodder to the culture of death that accuses pro-lifers that they are selective about their own supposed beliefs.
It is not unreasonable to assume that this exposed inconsistency is a result of prayer on the part of prolifers, who love both Trump and the unborn, and wish for him to come into line with Divine Will. We all knew that Donald Trump was a flawed human being. He has a lot of company, along with the rest of us. How he and JD Vance learn the truth is irrelevant. The bottom line is, we all have gone that route — and repented.
Let us pray that Trump and Vance see this as a benign correction from God, and admit it. We will not win this fight unless and until we admit that contraception cheapens human life, that it sets the table for massive human extermination, and that we need to humble ourselves before God as we endeavor to bring our government — and nation — to the Truth, despite the failure of both Protestant and Catholic preaching.
The Catholic Church has not changed its teaching, but has abdicated preaching this truth among most of its bishops and priests. Now, evangelicals are awakening to how they have been deceived, and recognized that 100 years ago, their teaching mirrored what the official Catholic teaching has never wavered from. It is time that a new evangelization arises, that will unite Christan denominations:
Not only is surgical and chemical abortion wrong, but also … micro-abortion! Sleepers: awake! Preach the unpopular truth, which Christ never hesitated. Lose some, but gain even more.
And save your own souls in the process!
Bob Bird is former chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.
When it comes to commercial fishing in Alaska, the vessel name Bad Intentions turned out to be more than a catchy moniker — it was allegedly a mission statement.
A federal grand jury has indicted five experienced Southeast Alaska fishermen in a sweeping conspiracy to illegally harvest thousands of pounds of halibut, in violation of the Lacey Act. One of the boats at the center of the scheme? The F/V Bad Intentions.
Jonathan Pavlik, 43, of Yakutat, is accused of masterminding the operation, allegedly conspiring with Vincent Jacobson, 51, and Kyle Dierick, 36, both of Yakutat; Michael Babic, 42, of Cordova; and Timothy Ross, 58, of Washington. The indictment alleges the fishermen coordinated illegal halibut harvests near Yakutat from 2019 through 2023.
According to court documents, Pavlik and the others routinely broke federal law by reporting that halibut had been legally caught under their Individual Fishing Quota permits, even when some of them weren’t even aboard the fishing vessel during harvests, a requirement under federal regulations. In total, over 10,700 pounds of halibut were allegedly harvested and falsely reported.
The indictment goes on to detail a particularly brazen episode between August and October 2023, when more than 9,600 pounds of halibut harvested aboard the Bad Intentions were allegedly offloaded onto another vessel, the F/V New Era, and then falsely reported and sold.
Pavlik faces four counts of conspiracy, five counts of unlawful sale, and five counts of false labeling under the Lacey Act. His alleged co-conspirators — Jacobson, Dierick, Babic, and Ross — are each charged with one count of conspiracy.
If convicted, the defendants face up to five years in federal prison for each count and fines up to $250,000.
The case was investigated by NOAA’s Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement, Alaska Division, with assistance from the Alaska Wildlife Troopers. It is being prosecuted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska.
Initial court appearances are scheduled over the next two weeks before US Magistrate Judge Matthew M. Scoble in Anchorage.
In Alaska’s high-stakes fisheries, the rules are strict and the penalties are steep. If prosecutors win their case, the road to jail may be paved with Bad Intentions.
