Chugach Electric Association is having an electric vehicle show during its annual membership appreciation day, where attendees can see a Ford F150-Lightning, a Tesla, an Audi E-Tron and more.
But Chugach Electric Association doesn’t want you to say anything snarky about the car show. The co-op closed the comment section on Facebook. It “limited” who can comment on the announcement.
The event, along with the final results of the Chugach Electric Board Association elections, take place Friday, May 17, from 3-6 p.m. at Changeling Alaska, 6689 Changepoint Drive, in Anchorage.
The Alaska House minority caucus melted down on Saturday, causing chaos in the House Chambers. House Minority leader Calvin Schrage threatened the House Speaker on the floor of the House and some Democrats refused to vote.
After Rep. Zack Fields talked over House Speaker Cathy Tilton repeatedly and some Democrats refused to vote at all on an amendment to House Bill 183, which is a bill to protect girls and women, Rep. Schrage stood up and told Speaker Tilton that if she proceeded with her ruling on a procedural vote, there would be consequences for her for years to come.
That is a threat of implied action that could be seen as personal, political, or both; it clearly contained an “if, then” clause in the statement of threat.
The Democrats in the House don’t want HB 183 to pass, because they seek to protect boys and men who want to compete against women and girls in public schools and universities in Alaska.
The threat came up during the “Chess Amendment,” a delay-tactic amendment that would be one of over 100 to be offered by Democrats. The amendment says that chess tournaments are exempted from HB 183.
Do a deeper dive into this bill with this earlier story:
President Joe Biden flew into Seattle for a series of campaign fundraisers on Friday evening, with campaign fundraising events continuing on Saturday. Greeting the president at Sea-Tac airport were the state’s top Democrat politicians, including Gov. Gov. Jay Inslee, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell, and King County Executive Dow Constantine.
“Inslee got the first handshake as Biden made his way down the line, but Biden may have spent the most time saying hello to Constantine’s young daughter, Sabrina,” wrote the Seattle Times, which evidently thought the attention was notable enough to carry it in the second paragraph of its story.
The Biden Victory Fund sent invitations for an event, with amounts starting at $500 and going up to $25,000. The downtown area near the Westin Hotel has been blocked off, and a temporary flight restriction for the region by the Federal Aviation Administration is in effect until 6 pm Pacific Time on Saturday.
Traffic has been impacted by the president’s motorcade, which was made up of over 100 vehicles. The Post Millennial reports that not a single vehicle was electric.
Biden was introduced by Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday at the Lotte Hotel and said he will be remembered for his work on climate change. Biden said twice that Inslee will have a place in his administration; Inslee is not running for reelection in Washington State.
“When we win, he ain’t staying in Washington state,” Biden said during his speech. “I’m not joking. Jay, there’s no place to hide.”
If Biden wins, it will be without the voters in the UW Liberated Zone, where protesters are occupying the University of Washington and protesting Biden policies in the Israel war on terror.
On Saturday, a pro-Hamas rally will take place in downtown Seattle near WestLake Park, and more demonstrations, which involve Antifa, are expected at the university.
On Sunday, visitors to downtown Seattle can expect a pro-Israel “United for Israel” prayer gathering and a march that may go through the middle of the UW pro-Hamas group. The University of Washington has asked the Hamas group to vacate the campus, where Frontlines reporter Jonathan Choe was attacked last week.
Choe reported that “Students leaving the Charlie Kirk event in Seattle were greeted by a mob of Antifa lunatics who flooded the Quad. They carried weapons and started numerous fights.”
“It will be like the Super Bowl for far-left activists. National media coming into Seattle for this on Mother’s Day. Absolutely insane,” Choe reported.
More scenes of violence at the University of Washington Tuesday evening. Students leaving the Charlie Kirk event in Seattle were greeted by a mob of Antifa lunatics who flooded the Quad. They carried weapons and started numerous fights. How much longer will @UW President @amcauce… pic.twitter.com/cP8c5CtewN
BREAKING: FRONTLINES reporter @choeshow and his security were attacked by members of ANTIFA near the anti-Israel encampment at the University of Washington.
Cops were called to the scene and are now investigating.
We are less than six months away from the presidential election, which means that certain members of the news media will soon appoint themselves the arbiters of truth. They’ll do this even though so many got things wrong over the last half a decade (about Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign, about COVID-19 and about Hunter Biden’s laptop, to name a few).
It appears, however, that some journalists aren’t as concerned about the actual truth as they are about what they desire to be true based on their own leftist views. And some will take orders directly from President Biden as they plan their coverage.
That’s all bad news as we look ahead to Election Day, and the signs are there.
The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz, one of the cringiest journalists on social media, joined former CNN host Don Lemon on his online show, and let’s say you wouldn’t even want to take travel advice from her.
Mr. Lemon noted that members of “marginalized groups” who would likely be persecuted in the Gaza Strip are nonetheless demonstrating on American college campuses in support of the Palestinians who live in Gaza.
“Taylor, how do you reconcile the way marginalized groups — many of the people in these marginalized groups, they are fighting for Palestine, for the Palestinians, for what’s happening in Gaza. But yet, in Gaza, they would not have any freedom,” Mr. Lemon prompted.
This drew a scornful laugh from Ms. Lorenz.
“They don’t have freedoms in Texas and Florida,” she said, slandering two conservative states without evidence to support her claim. “Does that mean we should carpet bomb Texas?”
“Taylor, I’m a member of the LGBTQ community. If I go to Texas, they’re not going to throw me off a roof,” Mr. Lemon replied.
If even leftist Don Lemon thinks you’re too far out on a limb, maybe you shouldn’t be masquerading as a truth-seeking journalist.
In New York magazine’s Intelligencer, there was a revealing anecdote about the Daily Beast’s new chief creative and content officer, Joanna Coles. A friend had told her that Barron Trump, the former president’s youngest son, plans to attend New York University after high school.
She ordered her staff to confirm it with other sources, but they could not. Undaunted, Ms. Coles forged ahead and directed that an article making that claim be published anyway — without a byline.
“Let’s hope it’s true,” she said.
In these two examples, we have one reporter expressing opinions based on facts she merely wishes were true and a news executive whose journalistic code requires her only to hope that a story is accurate.
Is there any chance that these journalists will dedicate themselves to factual precision above their own biases and beliefs? Don’t bet on it.
No doubt, though, some reporters have been planning to be objective, and it was to them that President Biden was speaking when he addressed this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Mr. Biden told the assembled media that he expected them to skewer former President Donald Trump in their coverage between now and November.
“I’m sincerely not asking you to take sides,” he said before asking them to do so. “Move past the horse-race numbers and the gotcha moments and the distractions, the sideshows that have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics and focus on what’s actually at stake. I think, in your hearts, you know what’s at stake.”
It didn’t take long for the media to obey.
The very next day, George Stephanopoulos told his Sunday morning audience on ABC’s “This Week” that the “scale of abnormality” of the 2024 campaign is “staggering.”
This former adviser to former President Bill Clinton, who now regards himself as a trusted journalist, listed the lawfare cases being pursued against Mr. Trump by Democratic prosecutors and declared it a crisis of a kind unseen since the Civil War.
“It’s all too easy to fall into reflexive habits, to treat this as a normal campaign,” he said, telegraphing that he will indeed regard one candidate as good and the other one as evil, just as Mr. Bideninstructed.
A hopelessly unfair media is a serious problem, but at least we can appreciate their brazenness. While they don’t usually show awareness of their biases, their unshakable confidence in their own righteousness is a warning sign for the rest of us.
Remember, as a whole, the news media rank about as low as halitosis in public opinion polls. And if their recent blatherings are any indication, they’re about to find out just how much worse their reputation can get.
A black bear scaling the fence at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage was caught in the act by a passerby with a video camera, who posted the evidence on social media of the trespassing bear scaling the fence and then tightrope walking on the barbed wire. Check it out:
According to the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations in Canada, no human remains have been discovered at the site of an alleged “mass grave” at the Indian Residential School in Kamloops in British Columbia.
Kamloops is about a 14-hour car drive southeast from Hyder, its closest community to Alaska.
On May 27, 2021, the Tkʼemlúps te Secwepemc First Nation claimed they had discovered the “heartbreaking truth” regarding the Catholic-run residential school after a ground-penetrating radar allegedly uncovered a mass grave of 215 children.
Department spokesperson Carolane Gratton stated in the report that the department had allocated the $7.9 million to uncovering the bodies, and confirmed that no progress had been made.
Both Gratton and the First Nation tribe have declined to disclose how the funds were spent.
“The discovery of 215 children’s graves at the Kamloops Residential School site in 2021 prompted an international outcry. However, no remains have been recovered since then. In response, the government lowered the Peace Tower flag for 161 days, allocated $3.1 million for a national Residential Schools Student Death Register, and earmarked $238.8 million for a Residential Schools Missing Children Community Support Fund, expiring in 2025,” the Western Standardreported.
In an op-ed published in The Federalist on May 10, John Daniel Davidson described the situation as “a hoax” and “a modern-day libel against Christians” that resulted in the widespread destruction of historic Catholic churches across Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says, however, that “What happened decades ago isn’t part of our history, it is an irrefutable part of our present.”
Similarly last year, after extensive excavation, no evidence of human remains were found on the grounds of a Manitoba residential school for Indians that had been run by Catholic nuns.
In the second regular session of the 33rd Alaska Legislature, 14 bills and just as many resolutions have passed both House and Senate, as of Friday.
May 15 marks the 121st day of the session, when the 60 legislators must cease work or call a special session. Special sessions may be called by the governor or by the Legislature and are limited to 30 calendar days.
The House and Senate will meet in separate sessions on Saturday to consider a handful of legislation, including the House continuing to consider HB 183, the bill that makes it clear that women’s athletic competitions are limited to women, not men, in Alaska public high schools and state-funded colleges. Read more about that bill here:
Here are the bills and resolutions that have been voted on by both bodies so far, including veto override votes. Aside from committee bills or bills from the governor, the bills total eight from Republicans and eight from Democrats:
Early in the session, the joint Senate and House did not approve a number of executive orders relating to the dismantling of a number of boards and commissions:
America’s attention to Arctic security has intensified in recent years. Our force structure has grown deliberately, a word that usually means “on purpose.” For this Alaskan, particularly when Russia and China practice war games with live ammunition in Alaska’s fishing grounds, “deliberate” can also mean “slowly,” or “not fast enough.”
More intensive U.S. security “deliberation” might best be directed now toward Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, too.
In geopolitics, the Antarctic has been quiet to date, or at least less competitive. A great circle air route over the South Pole has less traffic, and southern shipping has less strategic significance to world markets or military logistics. The Antarctic treaty system bans military activity and mineral exploitation on the Southern Continent. Environmental and science cooperation has been stronger at times in the South than in the North polar region.
But great power competition knows no bounds. Russia abandoned international law by invading Ukraine. China, an ally of Russia, has refused to renounce violence in its goal of “reunification” with Taiwan. Both nations have put trust in treaties – and trade deals – at serious risk. Reminiscent of the Cold War, we must wake again to counter superpower “positioning” in far reaching places, from the Moon to the Antarctic.
Now, experts such as General Chuck Jacoby – who earned his Arctic credentials as chief of U.S. Army Alaska, NORAD and the U.S. Northern Command – are warning that the power struggles playing out in the Arctic today could be a preview of what is to come in Antarctica. The time has clearly come to view polar security through an Antarctic lens as well.
To suggest the Antarctic could be a battle zone may sound a bit fantastic. The continent has been demilitarized for over 65 years by a treaty which has also put territorial grabs off limits. But in a 2021 joint essay with the Air Force Academy’s Ryan Burke that was published by West Point’s Modern War Institute, the two caution that “Antarctica faces many of the same realities (and capability gaps) as the Arctic, only delayed by ten to fifteen years” and that “well-intended international agreements rarely stand up against the realities of evolving technology, interests and opportunity.”
Some observers believe that China and Russia may be counting on the Antarctic Treaty System to fall apart or even actively working towards its demise. Apparent collaboration by the two countries to block new conservation areas under the Treaty may help set up a 2048 repeal of its ban on mining and energy production. That could set off global competition for natural resources in and around the continent.
Chinese concerns are often voiced about America’s growing alliance with Australia. Down under, China’s recent construction in Antarctica has caused fear that a dual use spying facility on now exists on Antarctica with potential threats to the security of America and its allies.
Against the backdrop of these challenges, the United States has, unfortunately, been reducing its Antarctic presence. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has had to curtail its Antarctic research programs, with over half of the 131 projects and activities funded for 2023-24 austral summer cancelled due to budget, housing, and logistical problems. We should support robust polar research programs at both ends of the world.
Some U.S. security footwork happening now in the Arctic could pay off in the Antarctic. New U.S. Coast Guard Polar Class heavy icebreakers on order will work both North and South. Army Paratroopers from Alaska who train making winter jumps far above the Arctic Circle also run joint maneuvers with our southern allies, like Australia and Chile. To counter Arctic cold, dark and distance, DoD has hired more ice pilots for Navy Arctic-capable submarines (not all U.S. subs can surface through the ice). An Army Cold Regions Test Center near Delta Junction, Alaska helps military procurers ensure that equipment and weapons work well in extreme cold. DoD’s Ted Stevens Arctic Security Studies Center, and Homeland Security’s Arctic Domain Awareness Center (ADAC), are helping the U.S. fill response gaps with useful innovations for security at both ends of the earth.
There’s more to be done. Antarctica is barely mentioned, if at all, in our services’ strategic plans. While military aircraft and Coast Guard icebreakers support U.S. logistics for Antarctic research now, it doesn’t hurt to build DoD familiarity in the region with more support, too.
When it comes to Arctic security, I try never to cry wolf. But missile technology is changing, and once fringes of the world now shape the defense realities of the world. For too long we have been playing catch up in the Arctic. Defense preparation for the Southern Ocean, compliant with Antarctic treaties, will help us deter war – and maintain surer footing in both polar regions.
Mead Treadwell served as lieutenant governor of Alaska 2010-2014, and a commissioner of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, 2001-2010, chair under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, 2006-2010, during the last International Polar Year, which brought greater science cooperation to both the Arctic and Antarctic.
This article was originally published by RealClearDefense and made available via RealClearWire.
Legislation to “cut off federal aid for grown adults who are breaking our laws, spewing antisemitism, and openly embracing terrorists” has been proposed by a North Carolina senator and eight other Republicans.
The No HAMAS Act – as the acronym is played in No Higher education Assistance for Mobs of Antisemitic and terrorist Sympathizing Students – would revoke federal student financial assistance for students who are convicted of trespassing, rioting, or damaging property while protesting at a higher education institution. Students convicted would lose their eligibility for any federal grant, loan, or work assistance.
Mobs of pro-Hamas students have flagrantly violated the law, destroyed campus property, and resorted to violence against fellow students and law enforcement,” said U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who led introduction of the proposal with eight other Republican senators. “Hardworking taxpayers shouldn’t have to keep paying for the college tuition of convicted lawbreakers. The No Hamas Act is commonsense legislation that will cut off federal aid for grown adults who are breaking our laws, spewing antisemitism, and openly embracing terrorists.”
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona appeared Tuesday for the lower chamber’s Education and Workforce Committee. He was asked point-blank by U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chairwoman of the panel, if the Biden administration’s program shifting repayment of college loans from students to taxpayers should include taxpayers paying off those students who are antisemitic and stopping Jewish students from going to class.
Cardona gave neither yes or no for an answer. He said students breaking the law and disrupting the educational environment should be held accountable; said his department is committed to campus safety; and said he condemns hate and violence on campus. Foxx never got a yes on three attempts.
In North Carolina, the famed Polk Place quad at UNC Chapel Hill was the scene of the American flag being lowered and replaced with the flag of Palestine. Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts, a security detail and some fraternity brothers were instrumental in Old Glory’s return atop the pole. UNC Charlotte and Wake Forest are also on the Campus Safety Magazine list.
Other Republican senators with Tillis on Senate Resolution 4302 were Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Steve Daines of Montana, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.
“In Joe Biden’s America, hardworking taxpayers are forced to aid Hamas-sympathizing students who blatantly violate the law by trespassing and destroying campus property,” Blackburn said.
Chapel Hill native Keith Siegel, whose family was hosted by U.S. Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., at the State of the Union last month, is among the Americans being held hostage by Hamas.
Separate legislation filed by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., would prevent any college or university student convicted of any offense while protesting at a higher education institution from having their federal student loans forgiven, cancelled, waived or modified.
