The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday night postponed again the renaming of the Port of Alaska as the Don Young Port of Anchorage.
The reason given this time was that the matter was improperly advertised online under the “events” category, rather than under the “public meeting” category.
“Practically speaking, the public hearing wasn’t properly noticed, therefore, it effectively didn’t happen,” Assembly Chairman Christopher Constant said.
It was over 18 months ago that the mayor has proposed naming the port after the late congressman, who served in Congress for 49 years. Mayor Dave Bronson proposed the name change on March 22, 2022, just after Young’s death. It was one of the last things that Congressman Young had asked of Bronson before he died.
But it had to go through the naming panel process, and the Anchorage Assembly then delayed the matter, since the Assembly is a highly partisan body made up of mostly Democrats and Don Young was a Republican.
The matter now will go back to the city’s four-member naming panel and start the process over again, which gives time for the Assembly to inject more politically correct naming into the process, with a new naming panel it just created just in time. The naming panel will focus on indigenous names, rather than naming things after people.
The port opened as the “Port of Anchorage” in 1961 to support regional economic development. In 2017, the Anchorage Assembly renamed “Port of Alaska” to remind people that is is the port for most of the populated area of Alaska.
Fairbanks, if you believe Anchorage is on the right track with its runaway taxes, increasing homelessness, and radical leftist policies, then vote for the leftist candidates this Oct. 3. They will bring this nirvana that is devouring and destroying Anchorage.
Many people in the Fairbanks area tend to stay home and ignore local elections. This is not an option for you this time around, as the leftists are planning to push their agenda on you.
There is a lot at stake this time and if you value lower property taxes, a more competitive procurement process, private property rights, and schools with an academic focus, you should get to the polls on Oct. 3.
The budget process is a complicated one that takes experience to know where the fat can be cut.
There are some bright spots on the ballot: During their time on the borough Assembly, Tammie Wilson and Jimi Cash have worked diligently to reduce the cost of government, and Aaron Gibson voted similarly when he was on the Fairbanks City Council.
In contrast, the left-leaning candidates supported by the Putting Alaskans First Committee (AFL-CIO) have no governmental experience and they would have a steep learning curve in the budget process. Here are the APOC reports on the Left candidates funded by Putting Alaskans First Committee:
Note that the NEA-PACE teachers’ union and the Alaska State Employees Association are the funders of the left-leaning candidates.
During the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce debate, it became clear that these left-leaning candidates did not understand basic budget elements. That can and typically does have terrible consequences for taxpayers.
Wilson, Cash, and Aaron Gibson will vote to limit the powers of the borough. Wilson and Cash voted to withdraw the borough from the Alaska Municipal League, an organization that promotes big-government policies and that costs the borough thousands of dollars in annual membership dues.
In addition, Wilson, Gibson, and Cash voted down the “Climate Action Plan,” in order to limit the growth of government. The original Climate Action plan had the borough joining the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, a United Nations entity that would have cost the borough more than six times more than membership fees in the Alaska Municipal League.
ICLEI’s agenda would require infringements on private property rights and would put the agenda of the international entities ahead of property owners in the borough.
Wilson, Cash, and Gibson will ensure school funding is focused on academic subjects. In the supplemental funding for schools, Wilson and Cash made it clear to school board members that academics should be the primary focus.
In contrast, the Planned Parenthood-funded left leaning candidates have indicated they would fully fund an educational program that focused on a social agenda not supported by most property owners.
Because the borough Assembly funds the school district, Planned Parenthood has pumped substantial dollars into borough assembly candidates who will support their radical school board candidates — Tim Doran, Bobby Burgess, and Meredith Maple, all school board candidates endorsed by Planned Parenthood.
Tammie Wilson’s opponent, Liz-Reeves Ramos says, “I would hope to be able to fund our school district more.” She doesn’t say it, but reading between the lines, it means more money for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), social justice, or gender identity issues.
Wilson says, “We had one of the lowest budgets ever this last year, even with a six and a half percent increase in wages but by doing efficiencies.”
Conservative Aaron Gibson wants to take care of deferred maintenance and pay off the borough’s debt.
His opponent Scott Crass says he wants quality services to include, “The maintenance of our wonderful borough facilities like our parks and our pools.”
Jimi Cash said his top issue has always been property taxes. He is saddened by people losing their homes because they cannot pay their property taxes.
Cash’s liberal opponent Nick LaJiness has three core pillars — education, jobs, and animal welfare. He says, “I embrace a profound commitment to the well-being and safeguarding of our cherished animals.” He wants to “guarantee the provision of care, compassion and the utmost respect that our furry companions rightfully deserve.”
It has taken three election cycles to get a one-vote conservative majority in the Assembly. Fairbanks, if you value lower property taxes, property rights, and schools with an academic focus, you need to go to the polls.
The conservative candidates are Tammie Wilson, Jimi Cash, and Aaron Gibson for Borough Assembly.
Or if you like the leftist candidates, Crass, LaJiness and Reeves-Ramos, then just move to Anchorage, where you can witness the results.
It is disheartening to watch the political spectacle of “Get Trump at any cost “going on in this country right now. His opponents, mostly Democrats, have weaponized the Department of Justice, pressured state governments to file charges, impeached him on frivolous issues, and attacked his businesses with boycotts by putting pressure on organizations to not use his facilities, such as golf courses.
Their goal is to destroy Donald Trump so he can’t win the presidency again. That is obvious, but is that all they hope to accomplish?
There is a cabal of professional politicians, major donors, high-paid government employees, government contractors, mainstream media, and political families who all work toward the same goal, to gain power so they can enrich themselves and each other at government expense.
When Donald Trump moved into the White House, he didn’t play along because he wasn’t part of the cabal and didn’t need their help or money. So, he took them on. Even Republicans like Sen. Mitch McConnell didn’t want him there because their sweetheart deal was at risk. The problem was, however, they were afraid to attack him due to his large and passionate base of average Americans.
If you look closely, you will see that many members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, come into office with a moderate net worth, but soon become millionaires on a $174,000/year salary? Is there any other group of people with that kind of financial success?
Businesspeople, such as Trump, don’t govern like political people. They see a problem and find the best way to fix it. Political people see a problem and find ways to exploit it politically and to enrich themselves and their friends. You know: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
A big issue Trump had in this regard was he took over a federal government with a bloated staff of long-term, overpaid employees. If he fired the entrenched bureaucrats, who would he hire to run all those government agencies? We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people we need for essential government services. It is tough to run an organization when the employees don’t want you there.
It seems the ultimate goal is to warn non-political class people against running for president. The message is, if you get elected, they will destroy you politically, personally, and financially, and they’ll do the same to your family and associates. How do we get good, honest people to run for president if they have to deal with these kinds of attacks on their reputation, finances, and family?
So, it appears the goal is not just to get Trump, but to protect the cabal, allowing them to continue to enrich themselves with our tax dollars. I am not sure how we fix this if we don’t get out and vote for the right people, and then back them up when they get elected.
I worry that our government and our way of life are at risk. The government agencies we relied on such as the FBI, the DOJ and public health departments seem to have been politically compromised by the cabal. It appears our politicians are becoming a ruling class rather than public servants. This puts us on the path to becoming a banana republic.
We need to reelect Donald Trump or somebody like him to restore our government to be “of the people and for the people.”
We do that by being politically active. To quote Plato, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors,” or in our case, ruled by the cabal.
Artificial intelligence is taking the world by storm. New AI applications are announced daily. Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and many companies tout plans for artificial intelligence capabilities. But the AI revolution is bad news for global efforts to achieve net-zero emissions.
The AI revolution is based on high-performance AI chips, which are capable of revolutionary levels of computer processing power and capable of sorting through vast amounts of stored data.
Multiple AI chips reside on each of dozens of boards, housed in endless racks of servers, which are sited in warehouse-sized AI data centers. While the rack of a conventional server of a data center draws roughly seven kilowatts of electricity, an AI server rack can useup to 50 kilowatts of power.
Spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of 44% over the next six years. Total data center power requirements will increase by at least a factor of six and maybe by as much as 10 times by 2029. Greenhouse gas emissions from AI data centers will increase by similar amount.
The International Energy Agency estimates that data centers account for 1-1.5 percent of world electricity use and are responsible for about one percent of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions.
But the rapid growth of AI infrastructure, coupled with a jump in electricity consumption as power-hungry AI server racks replace conventional server racks, will cause carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from data centers to skyrocket. Artificial intelligence will become a major contributor to global CO2 emissions by 2030, contrary to Net Zero goals.
Proponents define Net Zero as a zero balance between the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from human industrial processes and the amount removed from the atmosphere. They claim that Net Zero must be attained by 2050 to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5oC above the background temperature level of the 1800s. Wind turbines, solar panels, heat pumps, biofuels, hydrogen fuel, and carbon dioxide capture and storage are all promoted as vehicles to get to Net Zero.
But virtually nothing that our modern society does is “zero emissions.” If you build a house, sizeable greenhouse gases are emitted by cutting down trees for producing lumber, mining materials and manufacturing wire and components for electricity, producing plastic or copper for pipes, manufacturing drywall, roofing, brick, glass, concrete, and many other materials.
Manufacturing of household furnishings, such as furniture, appliances, and computers, also emits large quantities of CO2. Transportation of all these materials emits greenhouse gases. Even a grass hut isn’t Net Zero. CO2 is released when you cut down grass and wood to build the hut.
Net Zero is fundamentally a zero-growth ideology. The United Nations, the International Energy Agency, and green leaders call for an eight percent reduction in world energy consumption by 2050. But energy consumption increased 47 percent from 2000 to 2021. They call for a 40 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. But global CO2 emissions increased by 44 percent from 2000 to 2021. The AI revolution and other programs for societal development run contrary to the zero-growth plans of Net Zero.
Today, about 700 million people do not have access to electricity. Another two billion people suffer from daily electrical power blackouts. If your home in the United States has an air conditioner, you consume triple the electricity that is used by people in one-third of Earth’s population. Net Zero demands for a global reduction in energy use run counter to history and common sense.
Far away from artificial intelligence, the residents of developing nations lack many things that we take for granted in wealthy nations. People in the US and Europe enjoy at least one vehicle for every two residents, comparedto fewer than four vehicles per 100 people in India and Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, where daily temperatures often exceed 86oF (30oC), only one in sixteen people has air conditioning. Forty percent of these people don’t even own a fan. As another example, residents in wealthy countries use about 20 times as much plastic as residents in undeveloped countries. The people of developing nations will choose economic growth over the no-growth policies of Net Zero.
Driven by the expansion of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the need for economic growth in developing countries, there is zero chance that Net Zero will be achieved by 2050. Energy consumption and CO2 emissions will continue to rise for decades to come.
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and the author of the new bestselling bookGreen Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. This column first appeared in theDaily Caller.
The trip to Michigan was like a visit to In-N-Out Burger, a drive-by as President Joe Biden flew to California to campaign for reelection.
Biden flew on Air Force One to Detroit and, after carefully descending the stairs of his Boeing 747, spent just 12 minutes at the picket line of the United Auto Workers strike. They are asking for a 40% wage increase and a 32-hour work week.
Biden spoke for 87 seconds, took some photos, and then went back to his motorcade and sped to the airport, where he carefully walked up the short stairs installed for his aged abilities, and jetted to California for fundraisers with Hollywood celebrities.
It was a “Dark Brandon” move, showing the fighting, edgy and slightly sinister side of Biden. Dark Brandon is a term the Biden Administration coined a year ago to describe Biden’s alter ego.
Biden was stealing the thunder from former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, who has plans to attend a rally with the strikers in the auto industry, long planned for the same time as the Republican debate on Wednesday evening.
Biden fist-bumped strikers for the cameras and told the crowd, “You deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits,” joining the list of elected officials who choose to put their thumbs on the scale of worker-management disputes in an age of spiraling inflation and worker shortages.
Biden has called himself the most “pro-union president” in history, and indeed, this is the largest strike to ever get the explicit support of an elected president.
But the people of Instagram were not particularly impressed with his PR push in Detroit. They pointed out his policies killing the oil industry and propping up electric vehicles, and how high the cost of living is in America under Bidenomics.
The three factories the UAW has targeted for strikes are the ones that are most profitable for the American auto industry: General Motors’ plant in Wentzville, Mo., makes Chevy Colorado and the GMC Savana. Ford Motors’ plant in Wayne, Mich., makes Ford Rangers and Ford Broncos, and the Stellantis mothership in Toledo, Ohio, makes Jeep Wranglers and Jeep Gladiators. The strike did not call attention to the money-losers — the electric vehicles that are being made but are not being sold.
The supply of EVs in stock has swelled nearly 350% this year, according to Axios. The surplus is now more than 92,000, representing a three months’ worth of EVs sitting gathering dust as their batteries drain. It’s nearly twice the industry average for traditional cars. An average EV costs more than $64,000.
“What do all these vehicles have in common?” asked the Washington Examiner in an editorial that called attention to the strike’s focus on the profitable traditional vehicles. “Unlike electric vehicles that lose money, these vehicles are among the Big Three’s most profitable products. They are also exactly the type of vehicle President Joe Biden wants to eliminate by 2032, when his new regulations mandate that two-thirds of all cars sold in the United States must be EVs.”
EVs have fewer parts than gasoline models, which means fewer jobs for auto workers. And all the manufacturers for things like mufflers, catalytic converters, and fuel injectors will have to close, the newspaper pointed out.
Vice President Kamala Harris said that auto workers’ fears over a shift to electric vehicles is a “perspective that some people have [that] is grounded in a very old, false choice.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, running for president, told CNBC, “American autoworkers know that Joe Biden has chosen Beijing over Detroit and that is a key factor driving the UAW strike.” Former President Donald Trump called it a “PR stunt.”
Biden, however, was not on the picket line so much to support the workers as he was to get the UAW endorsement — well worth an hour of his time, and hundreds of thousands of gallons of jet fuel. According to GoBankingRates.com, during the Obama Administration, which ended in January of 2017, it cost over $206,000 per hour to fly the president on Air Force One. For the hour and a half trip from Washington, D.C. to Detroit, the cost of the flight alone for Biden was well over a quarter million dollars — just for the Detroit leg of his trip, a campaign junket paid for by U.S. taxpayers.
The State of Alaska will try to minimize impacts to Alaskans in the event of a federal government funding gap, said Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday. The federal government runs out of spending authority on Saturday at midnight, if Congress and the president are not able to resolve their spending differences.
Dunleavy instructed state departments to evaluate federal programs administered by the state and review potential impacts to Alaskans.
Dunleavy said he is committed to continuing essential government services funded by the federal government and administered by the State where it has the authority to do so. Alaska would seek reimbursement following a shutdown.
The longest previous federal shutdown was 34 days. When there was a shutdown during President Trump’s Administration, Trump took steps to keep programs going important to Alaska. During the Obama Administration, there were no such allowances for the state, and Obama even shut down hunting on federal lands during hunting season because the president closed parks and access to federal lands.
The State of Alaska is prepared to continue state-administered federally funded programs for that 34-day length of time. If a federal government shutdown were to continue beyond that timeframe, the State will reevaluate the situation if necessary, and prioritize programs that most directly impact the life, health, and safety of Alaskans, Dunleavy said.
The State of Alaska administers many programs on behalf of the federal government. Federal programs that are mandatory by law, authorized outside of the annual appropriations process and have existing carry-forward funds, or classified by the federal administration as “excepted” due to life, health and safety implications would continue to operate during a shutdown.
These categories include programs such as Medicaid and federal air traffic control. Further guidance from the federal government on program impacts is expected in the coming days.
Although the federal government is not required by law to reimburse states for expenses incurred during a federal government shutdown, reimbursement has occurred following every previous shutdown.
Approximately 4,700 state executive branch positions are at least partially federally funded. Employees in these positions would see no disruption in their pay and will continue to report to work.
A small number of federal employees work within state departments. Their status would be determined by the guidance from the federal agency that employs them.
The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development has developed a FAQ specifically to address Unemployment Insurance questions associated with the potential government furlough for federal employees.
Kelly Tshibaka will be launching a nationally focused podcast show called, ”STAND,” that she says will be “where courage is contagious and cowardice comes to die.”
Tshibaka is a former government watchdog and former candidate for U.S. Senate, having run against Sen. Lisa Murkowski. The show is co-hosted by her husband, Niki Tshibaka, a former Department of Justice civil rights attorney and Alaska government executive.
STAND will feature inspiring guests to equip and empower the audience to boldly stand up to life’s challenges, one episode at a time.
Through discussions with guests like presidential candidate Larry Elder; former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell; former Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker; social media influencer Alex Bruesewitz; former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker; Oakland NAACP member Seneca Scott; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s niece, Dr. Alveda King; and Alaskan leaders and influencers, STAND will explore fresh perspectives and meaningful solutions to encourage the audience to take a stand that will make a difference, she said.
STAND will go live in November, broadcast on podcast platforms and Youtube (@TheStandShow).
It also will be aired on TV and radio stations across Alaska at 5pm on Thursdays, including KVNT 1020 AM, 92.5 FM, 104.5 FM, KCFT channel 35 (Anchorage & Mat-Su), KCFT via GCI Yukon 19 (KPB, Valdez, Anchorage, Mat-Su), KJNP channel 4 and Dish Network 4 in Fairbanks, North Pole, Eielson AFB, and surrounding areas.
Earlier this year, Kelly Tshibaka also formed a nonprofit education group, Preserve Democracy, to help spread the word about the downside of ranked choice voting.
The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general from mostly Democrat-run states today sued Amazon.com, alleging that the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.
This action comes on the same time the Alaska delegation announced that Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan oppose the merger of grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons. Rep. Mary Peltola was early in her opposition to the merger, which could effect Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger, and Safeway/Carrs, owned by Albertsons.
Surprisingly, Washington state is also run by Democrats but is the corporate home of Amazon, and did not join in the lawsuit.
Amazon is used heavily by Alaskans and is expanding its corporate footprint in the state, where cargo comes through the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
The company will be opening its first sorting facility in Anchorage in 2024, to be housed in a now-vacant Midtown warehouse that was once used by Sears, a once mighty company that declared bankruptcy in 2018 and reorganized into a small, 12-store company.
The FTC and its state partners say Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.
The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging.
By stifling competition on price, product selection, quality, and by preventing its current or future rivals from attracting a critical mass of shoppers and sellers, Amazon ensures that no current or future rival can threaten its dominance. Amazon’s far-reaching schemes impact hundreds of billions of dollars in retail sales every year, touch hundreds of thousands of products sold by businesses big and small and affect over a hundred million shoppers.
“Our complaint lays out how Amazon has used a set of punitive and coercive tactics to unlawfully maintain its monopolies,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “The complaint sets forth detailed allegations noting how Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself while raising prices and degrading service for the tens of millions of American families who shop on its platform and the hundreds of thousands of businesses that rely on Amazon to reach them. Today’s lawsuit seeks to hold Amazon to account for these monopolistic practices and restore the lost promise of free and fair competition.”
“We’re bringing this case because Amazon’s illegal conduct has stifled competition across a huge swath of the online economy. Amazon is a monopolist that uses its power to hike prices on American shoppers and charge sky-high fees on hundreds of thousands of online sellers,” said John Newman, Deputy Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition. “Seldom in the history of U.S. antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people.”
The FTC and states allege Amazon’s anticompetitive conduct occurs in two markets—the online superstore market that serves shoppers and the market for online marketplace services purchased by sellers. These tactics include:
Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible.
Conditioning sellers’ ability to obtain “Prime” eligibility for their products—a virtual necessity for doing business on Amazon—on sellers using Amazon’s costly fulfillment service, which has made it substantially more expensive for sellers on Amazon to also offer their products on other platforms. This unlawful coercion has in turn limited competitors’ ability to effectively compete against Amazon.
Amazon’s illegal, exclusionary conduct makes it impossible for competitors to gain a foothold, the litigants say. With its amassed power across both the online superstore market and online marketplace services market, Amazon extracts enormous monopoly rents from everyone within its reach. This includes:
Degrading the customer experience by replacing relevant, organic search results with paid advertisements—and deliberately increasing junk ads that worsen search quality and frustrate both shoppers seeking products and sellers who are promised a return on their advertising purchase.
Biasing Amazon’s search results to preference Amazon’s own products over ones that Amazon knows are of better quality.
Charging costly fees on the hundreds of thousands of sellers that currently have no choice but to rely on Amazon to stay in business. These fees range from a monthly fee sellers must pay for each item sold, to advertising fees that have become virtually necessary for sellers to do business. Combined, all of these fees force many sellers to pay close to 50% of their total revenues to Amazon. These fees harm not only sellers but also shoppers, who pay increased prices for thousands of products sold on or off Amazon.
The FTC, along with its state partners, are seeking a permanent injunction in federal court that would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and pry loose Amazon’s monopolistic control to restore competition.
Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin joined the Commission’s lawsuit.
The Commission vote to authorize staff to file for a permanent injunction and other equitable relief in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington was 3-0.
It may be one of the worst dating profiles ever: Failed bank robber.
Anchorage resident Tyler Ching, 34, was arrested Sept. 22 in connection with two robberies at a credit union and bank in Anchorage.
On Sept. 19, authorities allege that Ching entered the Global Credit Union located on Industry Way. Ching menacingly approached two patrons in conversation with a bank teller, and brandished what appeared to be a gun. He demanded the teller fill a bag with cash.
Making his escape, he took about $2,320 with him. The next day, he repeated the pattern at the Wells Fargo Bank on Jewel Lake Road, making off with $2,820.
Meanwhile, the FBI put a photo out of the suspect and someone in the community recognized him from the Tinder dating app. He was also identified by an employee of the Anchorage Police Department, who knew a mutual acquaintance.
Ching, a registered voter with the Green Party of Alaska, according to the Division of Elections, worked at a coffee shop not far from the Wells Fargo branch. He faces two counts of bank robbery and could serve up to 20 years in prison for each count.
Ching was arrested in Cooper Landing and is lodged at the Anchorage Correctional Complex
