Election integrity hawks — myself among them— have spilled gallons of ink since 2020 exposing ballot drop boxes, “Zuckbucks,” and voting machine vulnerabilities, and conservatives are all the better prepared to face the 2024 election for those efforts. But there’s a massive front in this fight we can’t afford to overlook because we’re losing: voter registration.
If getting out the vote (GOTV) is the key to winning elections, registering voters is the key to effective GOTV. But doing it at scale takes money and coordination, something Republican strategists and donors have almost totally ignored.
As it stands, the left is more than a decade ahead in that race.
Beginning around 2008, “progressive” operatives discovered they could weaponize 501(c)(3) charities — the same part of the tax code as your local church or The Salvation Army — to identify and register tens of millions of new Democrat voters across the country purely by using demographics. Take it from the far-left Brennan Center, which birthed this scheme: To build a permanent Democrat majority, we must bring “millions of new voters onto the rolls through a modernized registration system — starting in 2010.”
A secret strategy memofrom 2015 asks mega-donors to fund “large-scale, multi-year voter registration programs” focused on “underrepresented” groups to “fundamentally reshape the electorate in as many as 13 states” — by 2020.
One legislator was making the case for deaf children’s needs in school. Another legislator was hearing things.
Rep. Jamie Allard was giving the House Finance Committee reasons to vote in favor of her bill to provide more support for children who are deaf and hard of hearing. She said that those children should not be discriminated against in funding and programs. Allard wears a hearing aid, and has a hearing disability exacerbated by military service.
This was Allard’s second presentation in front of Finance, which is usually limited to closing comments. Instead, it was an interrogation session by the opposition Democrats, including Rep. Andy Josephson and Rep. Sara Hannan, who were trying to kill the bill.
While Allard had used the word “discrimination,” Rep. Hannan took issue with Allard, accused Allard of calling her a “bigot,” and said Allard was impugning the motives of the Democrats who were grilling her. Hannan misquoted Allard, but Allard quickly corrected the record.
“I never said ‘bigot,'” Allard responded, as an at-ease was called by Rep. Will Stapp, who asked everyone to “take about 30 seconds.” Allard had been badgered by the Democrats on the committee in an apparent attempt to bait her.
When the room came back to the record, Allard repeated that she had never called anyone a bigot, which is factual, according to the Gavel Alaska recording.
Watch Allard’s argument for her bill and then the response from Hannan in taking umbrage at the testimony:
House Bill 111 establishes that children who are deaf or hard of hearing have the right to an individualized education program that identifies their primary language, considers their prognosis for hearing loss, provides instruction in their primary language, provides assistive devices and services, and provides appropriate and timely assessments in their primary language.
The bill has cosponsors from both sides of the aisles: Rep. Cliff Groh, Andrew Gray, Kevin McCabe, Sarah Vance, Stanley Wright, Rebecca Himschoot, Jesse Sumner, Ashley Carrick, George Rauscher, Ashley Carrick, George Rauscer, and Bryce Edgmon.
But some House Democrats don’t want the bill to make it to the floor of the House and are trying to kill it in the Finance Committee.
On the Senate side, Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, a Democrat from Anchorage, is carrying the companion legislation.
After a successful convention with Alaska Republicans, congressional candidate Nick Begich changed clothes and headed to the airport, destination: Kodiak.
From there, Vertigo Air transported Begich to the Uyak Bay area, where he had a tag to hunt Kodiak brown bear. He was accompanied by friend Pat McCollum of Wasilla, husband of Mat-Su School Board member Kathy McCollum.
The next day, Begich bagged a Kodiak bear, taking the shot at about 100 yards. One shot took the bear down instantly, hitting right at the shoulder.
Nick Begich and the Kodiak brown bear taken this week in a successful hunt.
After having the hide and skull checked by Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel, who removed a tooth and hair samples for a long-term study, the bear was “sealed” legally and upon returning to Anchorage, Begich took the hide and skull to famed taxidermist Dan Williams in the Mat-Su Valley.
Begich said he used a Kimber Montana .300 Win. Mag., using Nosler 190-grain, AccuBond long-range, trophy-grade ammunition.
He then returned to the campaign trail, preparing for an event at Bell’s Nursery on Tuesday evening in Anchorage.
A Kodiak brown bear hunt is often a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and for many hunters represents the pinnacle of the sport.
“I’m proud to live in a state with such abundant wildlife resources. It’s critical that we maintain our hunting opportunities in the years ahead through proper game management, conservation, and maintaining access to public lands. Alaska truly is The Great Land!” Begich wrote on his Facebook feed.
It happens rarely in Alaska, but on April 20, a land spout tornado was spotted at the 3,500-foot level near Wolverine Peak in Chugach State Park.
Photographs by Geremy Clarion were distributed by the National Weather Service Anchorage and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, which verified the atmospheric event. It may be the fifth recorded tornado since statehood, according to some reports.
The World Meteorological Atlas says that snownados are “very rare”, particularly in lowland areas, but are occasionally seen in mountains, which are subject to more complex wind patterns. In Alaska’s vast mountainous landscape and small population, a brief tornado would not be easy to spot, much less capture by camera lens.
A snownado occurred in the Shetland Islands of Scotland last year and was captured on video, seen at The Weather Channel.
From the frequency of the attacks, one would think President Joe Biden has a personal vendetta against Alaska. In reality, he’s just trying to do anything he can to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for another four years. Even if that means continuing to harm the people of my state.
As Earth Day approached, Biden took three substantial actions in the two weeks prior — all targeting Alaska’s resource base. Recent polling shows young, climate-obsessed voters between 18-29 abandoning the president in droves, with the gap between he and President Trump down to 13 points, from a 30-point advantage at this time in 2020.
Those voters’ collective shrills have railed against the very few Biden decisions to allow traditional energy projects to move forward, including the Willow oil and gas development in Alaska. Something had to be done to help bring them back, so Team Biden went into action.
To begin with, in a game of “pass-the-buck,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected an appeal from the Pebble Mine’s developers April 15, deciding instead that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2023 veto of the project’s clean water permit was an action they couldn’t overturn.
Pebble is a copper, gold, molybdenum and rhenium asset that is housed completely on Alaskan land. It would bring up to 1,000 full-time jobs to an area of the state that seasonally has unemployment numbers averaging more than 10%. The economics of the mine – worth $350-500 billion in 2008 dollars and market conditions – could approach $1 trillion with today’s increased mineral prices. It has been fought for nearly two decades by environmental organizations, who will now see how the legal battle over Pebble will play out in federal court.
Then, the Department of Interior announced April 19 that it was making permanent the September 2023 temporary ban on all types of development for over 13 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), an Indiana-sized part of Alaska’s North Slope, and the home to many of its more recent oil and gas finds.
Even before that announcement, Alaska’s bipartisan Congressional delegation, the Iñupiat Alaska Natives who live across the North Slope and the Alaska Legislature had tried to make their case for removing the protections. Nonetheless, with the decision, the vocal minority opposing NPR-A development won, and Alaskans lost.
That’s a whole lot of canceling for Alaska, especially when you consider much of it is for the components Biden needs for his green transition.
Doubling up on bad news for Alaska, the Interior Department administratively reversed course on a previously-approved 211-mile road to Alaska’s Ambler Access Project, showing they are simply anti-production.
Why else kill access to the Ambler Mining District, a federally authorized area known for decades to hold massive amounts of copper and other minerals needed to”go green?” Talk about a cancel culture.
From the day Biden assumed office, Alaska’s resource industry has been a key target of the his administration, with over 60 administrative and executive orders, or one action less than every three weeks in his term.
The actions have shuttered congressionally-approved projects from Alaska’s North Slope to its Southeast panhandle. They’ve put thousands of existing Alaskan jobs at risk, with thousands more potential ones placed in limbo. In fact, the only thing Joe Biden will mine in Alaska is feeble credibility with his green friends.
Between the NPR-A opportunities, Pebble and Ambler’s proposed projects, well over 5,000 jobs are now lost to Joe Biden’s pandering. But an equal number of climate-centric voters could have been even more disillusioned with the president during a key stretch of his reelection campaign, and right now, they’re more important than jobs, revenues and energy security.
Too bad the president would rather win an election than do what is right for Alaska and America.
Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs and fights back against economy-killing and family-destroying environmental extremism. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @PTFAlaska.This column first appeared in The Daily Caller.
The DC-54 aircraft that crashed on Tuesday seven miles from the Fairbanks International Airport was a Douglas 54-D Skymaster, owned and operated by Alaska Air Fuel, and operating as a bulk fuel cargo plane.
The plane was en route to Kobuk with 3,200 gallons of heating fuel when a wing caught fire and the engine exploded midair, shortly after takeoff. The pilots attempted to return to the airport when the plane crashed and an explosive fire consumed the wreckage and fuel along the banks of the Tanana River, which is still frozen.
Both occupants — pilot and co-pilot — are presumed dead. The names of the souls onboard have not been released; their remains will be sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office for identification.
The tail number of the plane is N3054V. The aircraft is known to have had Pratt and Whitney R-2000 engines.
The plane crash is seen in a video that was posted online by a farmer at Rosie Creek Farm, who had a security camera mounted in such a way that it that caught the event.
Security camera shows cargo plane crash near Fairbanks, Alaska, killing both pilots pic.twitter.com/8mWUEXd6ws
Listen to the Fairbanks International Airport control tower audio of the takeoff communications and then hear the pilots and air controllers respond as the disaster unfolds at this link, where at minute 1:12, a voice can be heard saying, “Tell ’em I love ’em, man, tell ’em I love ’em.”
The National Transportation Safety Board will release a preliminary report 30 days after the accident, and a final report within one to two years.
When I last wrote about Huna Totem Corporation’s cruise ship dock projectin November, over four years had passed since the Juneau subport property on which the project was to be located was purchased by Norwegian Cruise Lines. Over 15 months had passed since Huna Totem Corporation took over the project, now named Aak’w Landing. Numerous studies, public meetings and permitting steps have transpired in the interim.
Now, as Aak’ Landing final approval inches closer to the finish line, the Juneau Assembly seems reluctant to commit its support and the naysayers have gotten more shrill.
After spending millions of dollars and years in the process, how much longer will the sponsors of the project be required to wait?
In August 2023, the Juneau Planning Commission authorized a conditional use permit for the dock project as well as approving a permit for the uplands improvements.
Shortly thereafter, Juneau resident Karla Hart appealed the Planning Commission decision citing inadequate public outreach and incomplete study and analysis. The Assembly agreed to accept the appeal and hired a hearing officer to adjudicate the case. More delay ensued when Hart objected to the appointment of the hearing officer who was eventually replaced.
Hart, a long-time anti-cruise activist, has made news before. In 2021, she filed a ballot petition that would have banned large cruise ships from coming to Juneau. The action would have resulted in, according to some estimates, a 74% decrease in cruise passengers and an annual loss of $162 million to Juneau businesses.
The petition failed to garner enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
But Hart hasn’t given up. She recently filed another petition to ban large cruise ships from Juneau on Saturdays and the 4th of July. But, not to worry because, as her group held a rally in Marine Park in early April to “greet” the first cruise ship of the season, Hart was quoted in the Juneau Empireas saying, “We’re not against anything…”
A decision on Hart’s appeal could be forthcoming during a scheduled Assembly meeting and executive session on April 29.
The recent welcome news that the US Coast Guard will homeport an icebreaker in Juneau has complicated the process in some people’s minds. Even though the icebreaker’s arrival is years away and faces additional planning and funding issues, it has been raised as another excuse for activists to justify delaying dock approval.
However, it appears that Coast Guard and cruise ship activities are compatible, and that the adjacent NOAA dock provides more than enough room for the proposed icebreaker.
So, the process grinds on as city officials seem hesitant to give the project the priority it deserves.
Most significantly, the Assembly has continued to drag its feet on a decision to approve a lease of the city-owned tidelands that Huna Totem will need for the project.
The Assembly recently added another layer of bureaucracy to the process by realigning internal municipal responsibilities to allow supervision over cruise docks to the tourism director. Nevertheless, in removing the responsibility for reviewing the tidelands lease from the Docks and Harbors department, where it traditionally has resided, the Assembly now has the direct obligation to expedite the process. Any conditions the Assembly considers necessary can be included in the tidelands lease. There’s no reason to delay further deliberation and a decision on the lease.
The importance of this project cannot be overstated. The community’s aging and declining population signal problems ahead. Juneau’s cost of living is still a deterrent to would-be job hunters. Plummeting student populations have forced the Juneau School District to close schools and trim expenses.
To reverse these negative trends, Juneau’s economy must grow to spread the tax burden more widely and provide more jobs for young working families.
While homeporting an icebreaker in Juneau will help, it won’t be nearly enough. Juneau needs the potential economic stimulus and tax revenues the $150 million private investment the Aak’w Landing project will bring to the community.
The irony is that the Aak’w Landing dock will actually help mitigate downtown congestion and reduce ship emissions, all with no increase in the number of large ships now visiting Juneau.
Isn’t that what the anti-cruise crusaders want?
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
In this episode of the Must Read Alaska Show, host John Quick welcomes Jubilee Underwood, a dedicated Matanuska-Susitna Valley resident and school board president, as she shares her journey from local advocacy to political candidacy.
Underwood discusses her successful efforts to end mask mandates for children just two months after joining the school board and reveals her motivations for running for the state House of Representatives. She offers invaluable advice for anyone considering a entering the arena of public service, emphasizing her interest in establishing term limits and representing community values.
“It really was the most comfortable and fun interview I’ve done so far,” Underwood said after the show. “It was like talking to a friend, just like a living room coffee chat.”
Tune in to hear how Underwood champions conservative values, fiscal responsibility, and the voice of the people in her pursuit to enhance the economic health and prosperity of Wasilla, Alaska, and beyond.
Whether you’re a local resident or interested in grassroots political movements, this episode provides a firsthand look at effective community leadership and the power of civic engagement.
To celebrate Earth Day, Rep. Mary Peltola touted Alaska getting $125 million out of a $7 billion grant package from the federal government for solar energy development. It was an infinitesimal win in a sea of losses handed to her and Alaska from the Biden Administration.
“Investing in energy projects across the board–solar, wind, hydro and more–lowers utility bills for Alaska families and creates new jobs!” said Peltola. “I’m proud to have advocated for this funding and to be able to bring it home to our Alaska.”
The amount Alaska is getting is 1.78% of the entire solar federal grant award, which will be used to put solar panels on low-income government-subsidized housing and to add solar capabilities to villages for spring, summer, and fall seasons, when the sun is available to them.
That comes down to a benefit of about $170 in federal grants per Alaskan, but the project is going to Alaskans who, by and large, do not pay taxes. The money is going to rural Alaska and government housing projects, but coming out of the pockets who work and pay federal taxes.
The solar grants were announced just a few days after the Biden Administration took final action to shut down 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, and after Joe Biden also announced his administration will not allow a right-of-way through federal land to access state mining claims near Ambler.
If this was the show “Let’s Make A Deal,” then Alaskans would the proud owner of a toaster instead of a new Camaro.
The Ambler Mining District is an area rich in the minerals needed to make clean energy products such as solar panels.
The mine construction alone would have provided 2,777 direct jobs and $286 million in wages annually, with another 2,034 indirect jobs with $108 million in wages annually. Once operating, the mine would provide 495 direct jobs with $72 million in wages annually and another 3,434 indirect jobs with $228 million in wages annually.
The right-of-way construction would have provide 360 direct jobs and 81 jobs for road operations for the operations and maintenance of the road.
The solar panel project that Peltola is heralding will provide tens of jobs and most of them out of state.
The panels will be constructed out of state, shipped to the state and installed by experts from out of state or from Anchorage. Maintenance on these rural projects will be provided by out-of-state or Anchorage-based contractors, but will depend on villages having the funds to repair the panels, should they malfunction.
Most solar panels have warranties for 25 years. The average break even point for solar panel energy savings occurs six to 10 years after installation in urban areas.
At the end of their lifespan, which sometimes comes after a hailstorm destroys them, solar panels can be recycled at glass recycling facilities, where their glass and metal frames can be recycled. On March 15, thousands of solar panels in Texas were destroyed in a hailstorm.
But in rural Alaska, shipping glass panels back to Anchorage for recycling is another cost that will be a factor within just a few years. The disposal of the associated batteries will be another matter in rural Alaska.
Sunlight is a seasonal commodity in Alaska. Anchorage has an average annual solar radiation value of 3.65 kilowatt hours per square meter per day. The month with the highest historical solar radition values in Anchorage is June with an average of 6.21 kWh/m2/day, followed by May at 6.16 kWh/m2/day and July at 5.68 kWh/m2/day.
