Sunday, August 16, 2026
Home Blog Page 544

Chaos? Ballot battles, impeachment inquiry, indictments disrupt election cycle

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
18
Chaos? Ballot battles, impeachment inquiry, indictments disrupt election cycle

By CASEY HARPER | THE CENTER SQUARE

The Republican primary’s Iowa caucuses are scheduled for Jan. 15, the first chance for voters to determine who they want to represent their party in November’s presidential election.

Iowa’s January caucuses are a regular tradition for a presidential primary season that – this time around – has been unusually enshrouded in indictments, impeachment inquiries and lawsuits heading into election year.

While the Iowa caucuses provide an opportunity for former President Donald Trump’s Republican challengers to fight for a surprise victory and start a fresh wave of momentum, it appears unlikely they’ll succeed.

According to polling aggregation from FiveThirtyEight, Trump far outpaces his rivals with 50% support in Iowa as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis trails in second with 18.4% support.

National polling, including in The Center Square Voters’ Voice poll, shows Trump has more support than all of his Republican challengers combined with somewhere in the neighborhood of 62% support.

Trump fares well against President Joe Biden as well. A Morning Consult poll conducted on behalf of Bloomberg News released earlier this month shows Trump leading Biden in seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The smallest of those leads is 3 points, with some leads reaching 5 and 6 percentage points, far more than the margin of error for most polls.

Front of mind for those voters is what has been an Achilles heel for Biden: the roughly 20% increase in the price of goods and services in the U.S. since he took office.

“Three in 5 swing-state voters said the cost of everyday goods is most important to their votes next year when specifically thinking about economic issues, higher than any other concern tested,” Morning Consult said. “Over the past three months, the shares of voters in each of the seven states who said they see prices as increasing has declined even as most still see inflation as rising.”

A poll from Monmouth University released earlier this month put Biden’s approval rating at 34%, the lowest figure from Monmouth since Biden took office.

The election, though, is 10 months away and has a slew of impeachment hearings for Biden and legal challenges for Trump.

Biden faces mounting evidence that his family members and their business associates engaged in more than $20 million in overseas business selling the “Biden brand” to entities in China, Ukraine, Russia and more. House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, who is helping lead the impeachment inquiry into the president, has released bank records and witness testimony as well as copies of checks made out to the president.

Comer also has issued a flurry of subpoenas that could turn up more evidence. Hunter Biden refused to appear for one of those subpoenas, and as a result Comer announced he would begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Hunter.

Trump has his own legal challenges, facing nearly 100 indictments across several states. He has nearly two dozen court dates scheduled for the first three months of 2024 alone. It remains unclear, though, if any significant rulings will come down before November or if Trump’s team can succeed in delaying the various proceedings past election day.

Meanwhile, Trump faces a legal effort to oust him from the ballot in multiple states by his political opponents, who argue his connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol is tantamount to inciting an insurrection and as a result, disqualifying. The ouster attempts cite a section of the Fourteenth Amendment written to block Confederate leaders from holding office after the U.S. Civil War without a supermajority in the U.S. House and Senate.

 Colorado State Supreme Court heard that argument and ruled against Trump, but the Michigan State Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump in the case. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has also now decided to boot Trump from the ballot, which has a good chance of receiving consideration before the U.S. Supreme Court along with the battles in other states.

Trump has blasted this effort, calling it election interference. He also touted his lead over Biden in the several swing states on Truth Social.

The Colorado Republican Party appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If that court rules in favor of Trump, it will likely put an end to the effort nationwide. However, if the justices rule against Trump, efforts in states around the country would likely arise to remove Trump from the ballot and throw both the primary and certainly the general election into chaos. In Colorado in particular, Trump will not appear on the ballot if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against him or refuses to hear the case. For now, Trump is set to appear on the March 5 Republican primary ballot unless the Supreme Court changes that with a decision before then.

Bob Bird: Recon and the 14th Amendment

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
40
Bob Bird: Recon and the 14th Amendment

By BOB BIRD

Most amateur history buffs ignore what happened after the misnamed “American Civil War”. Churchill said, “War is rattling good history, but peace makes poor reading.” 

So, when an occupied peace was imposed upon the South, Americans look upon the era of 1865-77 as a time to “Go West, young man”, of cattle drives, Indian wars, and gunslingers in lawless mining towns.

If we give any thought to what was happening in the South, we like to think that freed slaves were dancing joyously, the Ku Klux Klan was being tamed by northern occupation troops, railroads and cities were being rebuilt — and oh, yes, there was some corruption going on down there, too.

​The honest politicians in Congress, meaning those that disdained bribes, were the most ruthless and brutal. They were called Radical Republicans, and they imitated the French Jacobins in their desire to humiliate and crush Southern culture, and anyone else who got in their way. Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, William Seward, Ben Wade, Salmon Chase, Henry Davis and Edwin Stanton led the way.

​Sumner considered the seceded and defeated states as having committed suicide, and could only be readmitted on conditions laid out by Congress. Although Radicals were only a minority, they utterly controlled it by bullying and patronage.

Stevens was even worse, arguing that the South should be treated as conquered foreign territory, under military law with suspension of civilian rights.

​Both got their way.

​Why should this be important now? Because under these conditions, the 14th Amendment was passed, whose implications are even now rearing its ugly head.

It is the 14th that brought us Roe v. Wade, homosexual “rights”, feminism, the erasure of freedom of religion, speech, and press, CRT, transgenderism, and the entire lot of contemporary nonsense that passes as supposedly thoughtful political discourse.

​And if you haven’t noticed, is now being used as an attempt to keep Donald Trump off the ballot. Supposed constitutional “scholars” have decided that Donald Trump is disqualified from ever running for president, despite the fact he has never been charged or convicted of encouraging a rebellion, and has twice defeated impeachments.

​This brings hypocrisy to even higher levels we never dreamed of a few years ago.

​But let’s go right to the bottom line: the 14th Amendment was illegally approved and violated Article V of the Constitution, which lays out how an amendment is to be passed. No constitutional scholar, even those who are trying to defend Trump, wants to discuss this because it is a bridge too far for them. The media would pounce on them with the usual tripe of being a conspiracy theorist, racist or zany. That’s because they cannot even look up the easily discovered truth of what U.S. presidents, senators, congressmen, individual legislatures and media outlets had to say, even as late as the 1960s.

​The Deep State dog-pile on Trump should be seen as an opportunity not only to salvage our voting rights, but as a way to fundamentally correct the errors that have gone on for too long, and have morphed into an evil that not even the Radical Republicans would have desired. It is easy to see how the 14th is a deeply ingrained cancerous tumor into the body politic and has metastasized into a wanton killer of freedom, then and now.

​A blatant self-contradiction existed when the 14th was allegedly passed. You need 2/3 of both the House and Senate to send an amendment to the state legislatures. But the south was not permitted to seat its elected officials in late 1865, which met the presidential conditions, formulated by Lincoln and implemented by Johnson, for readmission into the union. 

This violated not only how an amendment should be passed, but also another vitally important clause of Article V, which reads: “And that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

Thus, they were not in the union at all until the Radical Republicans permitted them. With such an overwhelming majority controlled by the Radicals, the 14th passed muster in both chambers, after much debate in committee and on the floor about its implications.

​But it still needed to pass ¾ of the state legislatures. So — now the South was to be jolly-well considered as in the union, as a condition for re-entry! And so eventually, through an increase of occupation troops, corrupt southern “scalawag” politicians and rigged elections, together with a resignation of many people, led to the passage of the southern legislatures.

​Are Puerto Rico, or Guam or the Virgin Islands in the union today? Of course not, because they are not states, but territories or a commonwealth. Anyone trying to get an amendment passed today, and wanting to include their approval, would be horse-laughed out of the room — yet that is exactly how the 14th was passed.

​Even some northern states, watching this travesty, considered repealing their approval. Some constitutional “scholars”, even today, say that a state cannot do that. They obviously have completely ignored the 10th amendment. It’s a commonly held bad habit since the day it was approved — which followed the guidelines set down in Article V, by the way, unlike the 14th.

​“You can’t have it both ways!” is a familiar complaint used a thousand times a day in our individual lives. But yes, you can, actually, if you are powerful enough to force your will upon your victims.

​The Dobbs decision reversed only one of the evils of the 14th, the mass murder of our future generations, done in the name of “privacy” found in the “penumbra” (partial shadow) and “emanations” (gaseous fumes) of a spuriously approvedconstitutional amendment. The latest constitutional crisis (we’ve been in one since the beginning) should be seen as an opportunity to stop merely pruning branches, but to go to the root of our problems.

The Deep State is not finished. As Donald Trump has said countless times, “They are not after me, they are after you. I only got in their way.”

Bob Bird is chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.

Bob Bird: Tribute to an unselfish man, Kenai’s Dan Gensel

Commerce clause: New California law mandates sizes of pig pens in other states

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
29
Commerce clause: New California law mandates sizes of pig pens in other states

By KEVIN BESSLER | THE CENTER SQUARE

A new law going into effect in California Jan. 1 that mandates space requirements for pigs, cows and chickens has some livestock farmers on edge.  

Proposition 12 prohibits sales in California of pork, veal and eggs from livestock whose confinement doesn’t meet certain minimum space rules. Those rules mandate hog pens to be large enough for an animal to turn around.

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, ruling 5-4 that “while the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list.”

“The Supreme Court decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, affirming the constitutionality of Proposition 12, a law setting standards for the sale of certain animal products in California, was the greatest legal victory in animal protection history,” said Bernard Unti, senior principal strategist with the Humane Society of the United States.

The National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation contend the requirements violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause because California represents less than one-sixth of domestic demand and sources most of its pork from other states.

In the face of Prop 12, producers are finding themselves at a difficult crossroads. They can either comply with a law they say could risk the health and safety of their livestock, or they’ll lose out on market access in California.

Tasha Bunting, Illinois Farm Bureau director of Commodity Programs and Food Systems, said the law would be a big burden on farmers in Illinois and other large pork-producing states such as Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and North Carolina.  

“This is an added cost that will limit the number of sows that they are able to house,” Bunting told The Center Square. “Also, if they are trying to redesign barns, those added costs would definitely be challenging for our producers right now.”  

The Illinois Pork Producers Association estimates it will cost $3,500 per sow to upgrade infrastructure to become Prop 12 compliant, a cost they warn would be passed onto the consumer. 

Other opponents argue that group housing would result in worse health outcomes for sows because there would be more fighting and biting between the animals. 

In addition to Prop 12 in California, 14 states have passed similar legislation addressing farm animal containment. 

Some are calling on the U.S. Congress to enact national legislation on farm animal welfare issues within the next five years to pre-empt differing state laws, and set national standards for the well-being of many agricultural animals, including dairy cows, cattle and chickens.

“One area dictating how farmers produce the products that they raise in another part of the country and that can cause a lot of concern over a patchwork of different regulations that our farmers have to adhere to,” Bunting said.

California law mandating gender-neutral toy aisles goes into effect Jan. 1

Known and suspected terrorists are probing the U.S. northern border at record pace

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
10
Known and suspected terrorists are probing the U.S. northern border at record pace

By BETH BLANKLEY | THE CENTER SQUARE

An Iranian with terrorist ties was caught after illegally entering the U.S. near Niagara Falls, New York, as a record number of known, suspected terrorists (KSTs) were apprehended in the first three months of fiscal 2024 at the northern border.

After the Iranian was apprehended, agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations-Buffalo office removed him on Dec. 21.

The Iranian national first attempted to enter the U.S. on Oct. 10 by presenting himself to American immigration authorities at the Rainbow Bridge Pedestrian Walkway in Niagara Falls, New York. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers denied him entry and returned him to the Canada Border Services Agency the same day.

Two days later, on Oct. 12, he illegally entered the U.S. in another area attempting to bypass agents stationed at the Whirlpool Bridge Port of Entry in Niagara Falls, New York. He illegally entered outside of the port of entry, “without being admitted or paroled by a designated immigration official,” ICE said, but he was apprehended.

The Iranian national is also a permanent resident of Canada, identified as a national security priority who was wanted by Canadian authorities on assault charges, ICE said.

On Nov. 8, ICE ERO Buffalo agents served him with an expedited removal order and on Dec. 21, agents removed him to Canada.

“The strong law enforcement partnership between ERO Buffalo and Canadian law enforcement authorities is imperative to increasing national security and preventing dangerous individuals from fleeing justice,” ICE ERO Buffalo Field Office Director Thomas Brophy said. “The Canadian resident’s return to Canada to face charges is due to the dedicated officers on both sides of the border, working in tandem, to provide public safety for our communities.”

The announcement came as CBP Office of Field Operations agents apprehended a record 45 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) at northern border ports of entry since Oct. 1, the beginning of fiscal 2024, according to CBP data. Border Patrol agents apprehended one KST between ports of entry over the same time period. By contrast, 34 KSTs were apprehended at the southwest border over the same time period (30 between ports of entry and four at them).

So far, in the first three months of fiscal 2024, 80 KSTs have been apprehended at both borders, with the majority, 46, at the northern border.

The numbers are on track to exceed those apprehended in fiscal 2023 of 736. The majority, 487, or 66%, were apprehended at the northern border.

The total of 736 is the greatest number of KSTs apprehended in recorded U.S. history.

The Terrorist Screening Dataset is the federal database that contains sensitive information on terrorist identities, CBP said. It originated as a consolidated terrorist watchlist “to house information on known or suspected terrorists but evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”

By comparison, OFO and Border Patrol agents combined apprehended a total of 478 KSTs in fiscal 2022, 173 in fiscal 2021, 199 in fiscal 2020, 541 in fiscal 2019, 357 in fiscal 2018, and 353 in fiscal 2017.

USA Boxing’s new rule allows transgenders to fight women

Suzanne Downing
-
21
USA Boxing’s new rule allows transgenders to fight women

Women boxers had better hang onto their mouth guards. Starting Monday USA Boxing will allow biological men who have completed castration and chemical enhancements to look like women to get into the ring and compete in the women’s amateur division.

The new rule applies to those transgenders over the age of 18, according to the policy.

Women’s athletics champion Riley Gaines said grave harm to women may be the result. Gaines became a vocal advocate for women after losing a medal to trans swimmer Lia Thomas while competing in college.

“USA boxing @USABoxing to allow men who merely say they are women to fight against women. Mark my words, it will take a woman getting killed before these misogynistic fools wake up,” she wrote.

Tim Barto: Riley Gaines rocks it in Alaska in support of keeping girls’ sports for girls

Former world champion Ebanie Bridges is unequivocally opposed to the decision:

“This is wrong on so many levels. I will never agree to this… it’s bad enough having trans women breaking records in other sports like track and field, swimming and power lifting but it’s a bit different to them breaking our skulls in combat sports where the aim is to HURT YOU not just break a record…however I think it’s wrong in ALL SPORT… I have nothing against trans but can’t be skewing the line in sport…. You don’t see reference or debates for transmen in sport… cos it’s not a threat,” Bridges wrote on social media in response to USA Boxing’s new rule.

Former super middleweight champion Carl Frochtold the New York Post, “It should never happen on anybody’s watch. It’s a man, basically, beating up a woman. Don’t care if they’ve transgendered into a woman, and they now think they’re a woman, and they’re taking drugs to lower their testosterone intake. They’re stronger, they’re more powerful. Not all of them, you get some masculine women, that’s fine. If you get some feminine men, that’s fine.”

Anchorage-based USA Powerlifting ordered to allow trans-women to compete in Minnesota meets

Alexander Dolitsky: Israel and United States are close friends

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
25
Alexander Dolitsky: Israel and United States are close friends

By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY

I would like to provide a factual data related to Israeli/Arab/Palestinian coexistence in the Middle East, and the United States’ historic role and relationship with Israel.

Since Israel’s creation in 1948, the United States has been an ardent supporter of the Jewish state, providing large quantities of economic and military assistance and extensive diplomatic and political support to Israel.

Even today, Israel remains the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid for military and security purposes (about $3.3 billion annually). There are several reasons why the United States has been so closely identified with Israel.

Alexander Dolitsky: Israel, Gaza and the historic, religious, ethnic issues of global terrorism

First, because of the atrocities visited upon the Jewish people by the Nazis during World War II, there has been widespread sympathy in the United States to the need for a Jewish state — a homeland where Jewish people can live without fear of domestic persecution by the repressive and anti-Semitic government.

Second, U.S. sympathy for Israel has been strengthened over the years by six major Arab/Palestinian–Israeli wars, namely: 1948-1949 (Israel’s War of Independence and the Palestinian “Nakba”/displacement), 1956 (Suez Crisis), 1967 (Six-Day War), 1973 (Yom Kippur War), 1982 (Lebanon War), 2006 (Second Lebanon War) and most recently the October 7, 2023, Gaza/Hamas terrorist attack. All these heinous wars were initiated by Arab nations.

During 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars, Arab forces were supplied and supported by the former Soviet Union during the Cold War; and during the last three wars of 1982, 2006 and 2023, Arab/Lebanon/Palestinian forces were supplied by Iran and, perhaps, other Arab nations. Therefore, Israel was often seen in the United States as an American ally in the Cold War; and today Israel is an American ally in the war against global terrorism.

Third, despite disagreements and Israel’s frequent willingness to pursue its own policies independent of the U.S. preferences, Israel has been a U.S. ally in the Middle East. Israel also frequently points out that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. The U.S.–Israeli relationship is strengthened because of this and because of the common Judeo-Christian values.

Fourth, the American Jewish community (about 6 million American citizens in the United States, or 2.2–2.4 percent of the U.S. population) has often been an extremely vocal supporter of Israel. This adds to the already-strong support within the United States for Israel by the majority of population.

Alexander Dolitsky: Israel, homeland of the Jewish people for over 3,500 years

This, of course, does not mean that the United States and Israel see eye-to-eye on all foreign affair issues. They do not. For example, when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank during the 1967 Arab–Israeli war, the United States refused to recognize Israel’s occupation as legitimate and proper.

As a result of this disagreement with the United States, all Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and the joint Israeli–Palestinian Erez Industrial Zone were dismantled; and 9,000 Israelis, most living in Gush Katif, were forcibly evicted by the Israel’s authority. On Sept. 12, 2005, the Israeli cabinet formally declared an end to Israeli military occupation of the Gaza Strip.

Similarly, the United States and Israel have had major disagreements over Israel’s policy of encouraging Israel citizens and new Jewish immigrants to Israel to move to and settle in the occupied West Bank. The United States has also on occasion objected to Israel’s treatment of its Palestinian and Arab peoples, who were not at that time considered citizens by Israel. Today, however, nearly two million ethnic Arabs enjoy equal rights, political participation and representation in Israel.

Despite these disagreements, the maintenance of a free and independent Israel remains a primary U.S. interest in the Middle East. Virtually everyone agrees that the United States and Israel are close friends, if not formal allies. Indeed, friends support each other’s interests and well-being.

Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.

Alexander Dolitsky: Understanding anti-Semitism and anti-Semites in America

Alexander Dolitsky: Understanding anti-Semitism and anti-Semites in America

A few more of Dolitsky’s past MRAK columns:

Read: Russian Old Believers in Alaska live lives reflecting bygone centuries

Read: Russian saying: Beat your friends so your enemies fear you

Read: Neo-Marxism and utopian Socialism in America

Read: Old believers preserving faith in the New World

Read: Duke Ellington and the effects of Cold War in Soviet Union on intellectual curiosity

Read: United we stand, divided we fall with race, ethnicity in America

Read: For American schools to succeed, they need this ingredient

Read: Nationalism in America, Alaska, around the world

Read: The case of the ‘delicious salad’

Read: White privilege is a troubling perspective

Read: Beware of activists who manipulate history for their own agenda

Read: Alaska Day remembrance of Russian transfer

Read: American leftism is true picture of true hypocrisy

Read: History does not repeat itself

Read: The only Ford Mustang in Kiev

Read: What is greed? Depends on the generation

Rick Whitbeck: Why Dubai’s COP28 should be called ‘Council Of The Pointless’

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
-
15
Rick Whitbeck: Why Dubai’s COP28 should be called ‘Council Of The Pointless’

By RICK WHITBECK | POWER THE FUTURE

Unless you’re a climate warrior or an energy wonk, you probably weren’t aware of the recent 28th edition of the “Council of the Parties,” better known as COP28, held this year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Don’t be surprised if you weren’t one of over 84,000 delegates – more than double the previous record – who got an invite. It’s probably because you are not a raging hypocrite. COP28 attendees spent the better part of two weeks in deep discussion over the “existential threat” of a so-called “climate crisis,” and how the world needs to respond before it is too late to save the planet from imminent doom.

When you add to the expansive delegate count the thousands more non-delegate support staff, media, climate-warrior groupies, and casual onlookers, the ultimate outcome is that over 100,000 people – who all claim to love Mother Earth more than anything – felt the need to inundate Dubai rather than jump on Zoom sessions or conference calls to discuss how to save the planet. Remember, Zoom is good enough for kids locked out of schools, but not good enough for climate junkets.

Delegates spent two weeks in Dubai staying in 5-star resorts, feasting on gourmet meals, drinking top-shelf alcohol, being driven around in stretch limousines, “laboring” in air-conditioned conference facilities, and engaging in unknown debauchery when not working to rid the earth of traditional energy solutions, like coal, oil, and natural gas.

When not engaged in extracurricular activities, COP28’s delegates created a bunch of work-product to justify their junket.

First on the menu, pun intended, was an effort to cancel meat. Keep in mind, they just want to cancel your holiday meal, not their own. Then, the delegations pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward helping developing nations impacted by the “crisis.” Forget that these dollars will never be used to help those nations grow their GDPs nor their energy independence; instead, the World Bank will administer the money to the ruling class in those countries. What could possibly go wrong giving more money and power to the elite?   

The most celebrated output from COP28 was a final agreement calling for the “beginning of the end” of all fossil fuel development. This “global stockade” – signed by delegations representing more than 200 countries is, according to the United Nations, the vehicle by which “[p]arties take actions towards…the phase-down of unabated coal power, phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, and other measures that drive the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner…”

Let’s take this in for a minute: 84,000 delegates spent two weeks living in luxury, and their takeaway was that fossil fuels – which, between coal, natural gas, and oil power over 80% of the world today – are the enemy of the planet?

News flash: none of the climate hypocrites, COP28 delegates, would be meeting in Dubai in the first place without fossil fuels. None of them – not a single one – made it there, stayed there, communicated to their home countries, families or each other while there, enjoyed their lavish lifestyle while there or made it home from there without direct or byproduct use of fossil fuels.

So, the next time you hear about the good work being done at the COP events – and make no mistake, we’ll see COP29, COP 39, COP49, and so on – remember that they are giant parties designed to bring powerful, wealthy ideologues together to rage against the very products that have made their powerful, wealthy lives possible.

COP should stand for the “Council of the Pointless.”

Rick Whitbeck is the Alaska State Director for Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs.  This column first appeared at the DailyWire.com.

Biden’s Justice Department drops campaign finance charges against Sam Bankman-Fried

Suzanne Downing
-
56
Biden’s Justice Department drops campaign finance charges against Sam Bankman-Fried

Democrat politicians of America are popping the champagne bottles this weekend. In a stealth move before the three-day New Year’s weekend, the Department of Justice quietly said it is dropping campaign finance prosecution of crypto-kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried.

To pursue the charges would have ensnared untold numbers of Democrat politicians and the Democratic Party itself. Now, the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars into Democrat causes and campaigns by one of the largest political donors this side of George Soros may never be known.

Bankman-Fried poured millions of dollars into almost exclusively Democrat political coffers, including the Alaska Democratic Party, which got the Bankman-Fried funds through a pass-through from the Democratic National Committee. The $9,750 slipped to the Alaska Democrats helped the party fight Alaska Republicans candidates so that Democrat Mary Peltola could rise to become Alaska’s lone U.S. representative.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski also was the beneficiary of some of the funds, but she donated the equivalent amount from her campaign to a family-associated nonprofit when the discovery about the Bankman-Fried criminal enterprise came to light.

In dropping the charges, the Biden Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan that evidence at another trial would duplicate the first trial and the FTX crypto victims would not benefit from restitution orders if sentencing in the first case is delayed. Bankman-Fried will be sentenced March 28 for defrauding his cryptocurrency customers and investors out of more than $10 billion.

Bankman-Fried donated $100 million during the 2022 midterm elections, including millions into dark money groups with his FTX crypto-customers’ funds.

Some of the groups were linked to Senate leaders including Sen. Chuck Schumer and Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Bankman-Fried was convicted in early November of seven counts, including wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and conspiracy.

RIP, FTX: Democrat Ponzi scheme whose founder conned billions and gave millions to leftist candidates like Peltola

Ohio’s GOP governor vetoes state ban on gender-bending drugs for kids

Suzanne Downing
-
15
Ohio’s GOP governor vetoes state ban on gender-bending drugs for kids

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed a bill that would have banned gender-distorting medical care for minors.


“This bill would impact a very small number of Ohio’s children. But for those children who face gender dysphoria, the consequences of this bill could not be more profound. Ultimately I believe this is about protecting human life,” Gov. DeWine said at a Friday press event. “Many parents have told me that their child would not have survived, would be dead today, if they had not received the treatment they received from one of Ohio’s children’s hospitals. These are gut-wrenching decisions that should be made by parents and should be informed by teams of doctors who are advising them. Were I to sign House Bill 68, or were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the most, the parents.”

The bill would have also created single-sex athletic teams, an effort to protect girls from unfair competition by boys who believe they are girls and who compete as girls against real girls.

Republicans hold a supermajority in the legislature and could override the veto.

1...543544545...1,812Page 544 of 1,812

About us

Must Read Alaska is news of people, politics, policy, culture, and happenings in Alaska.

Contact
4021 West Hill Road,
Homer, AK 99603

Op-Ed/Article:
[email protected]

Subscription: [email protected]

The latest

Opinion: Alaska’s School Choice Future Is on the Ballot

AK Voices 0
By Leigh Sloan Alaska families face a real and growing...

Opinion: Supporting Access to Healthcare Does Not Mean Supporting Abortion, and Why I Believe Rep. Mike Prax Did the Right Thing

AK Voices 0
By April Smith As a pro-life Alaskan who has dedicated my...

Opinion: Prayer and Voting Guide for Fairbanks Conservatives

AK Voices 0
By Jon and Ruth Ewig Pray for our election. That...

© Must Read Alaska