A report from NewsNation.com says that just three days before a Chinese spy balloon appeared over the U.S., and before four other unidentified objects were intercepted in North America, an unidentified flying object was seen over the Arctic Circle, with fighter jets being sent to take the object down. It was a different UFO than the one shot down north of Prudhoe Bay on Feb. 10.
Ross Coulthart, reporting for NewsNation, raises question whether the country has been given the full story about the series of UFOs, also sometimes referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.
Some incidents were reported publicly, including the well-known one involving the giant Chinese spy balloon that floated across the entire continent and was finally shot down by U.S. fighter jets while over the Atlantic Ocean east of South Carolina.
But evidently the Feb. 10 Arctic UFO was not the only one in the neighborhood in February.
“Three days before a Chinese spy balloon appeared over the U.S., an unidentified object was seen over the Arctic Circle, with fighter jets being sent to take the object down, sources told NewsNation,” the reporter wrote.
“The defense and intelligence sources said eight or nine unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) were detected over the Arctic Circle, and fighter jets were sent up in an unsuccessful attempt to intercept them,” the report said.
Jeff Bezos, the titan of e-commerce and one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet, says he is moving from Seattle to Florida.
He explains it is to be closer to his aging parents, but let’s face it — a guy like Bezos can hop on his private jet and fly south to Miami anytime he has a need or desire to get out of the hellscape that Seattle has become.
The truth is, Washington state policies are driving businesses and billionaires out of Seattle’s urban core. Bezos won’t be the last to leave.
Billionaires are not the only ones unhappy with Seattle. Last week, the Seattle Times reported that 21% of Seattle young adults have been medicated for depression and anxiety.
In another recent survey, Seattle ranked No. 1 for the blues, with the percentage of adults having feelings of depression ranging from 41% to 48%. It’s the nation’s saddest city, and that’s saying a lot, considering Portland, Oregon’s collective melancholy just down Interstate 5.
How did this happen, in a metropolis that seems to have everything? The Emerald City has exciting high-tech jobs, a great food scene, an arts community, boating, skiing, the great outdoors right out the back door, distinct neighborhoods and universities galore. It has the sixth-highest wages of any major city in America, right up there with Boston and San Francisco.
It also has a socialist-leaning government.
Seattle Council member Kshama Sawant calls for rent strikes and writes that “in addition to rent control, we also need to tax the rich, and big businesses like Amazon to fund a massive expansion of social housing (publicly- owned, permanently-affordable homes) and to fully fund homeless services.”
Bezos is not immune to socialist, anti-free-market policies, even though he lives in the distinctly elite neighborhood of Medina, along the eastern shores of Lake Washington. It’s a quiet enclave where Bill Gates has his primary residence, and where blocks of high-tech billionaires have made their homes.
Medina is a world away from the decaying downtown of Seattle, ruled by junkies and criminals. In Medina, every car that enters the neighborhood has its license plate recorded by camera. That license plate goes into a database and police are alerted if a ne’er-do-well enters the land of the did-quite-wells. The sign into Media reads, “You Are Entering a 24 Hour Video Surveillance Area.”
Nobody goes down Evergreen Point Road in Medina without being recorded by multiple cameras.
Meanwhile, across the bridge in Seattle, workers who take trains and buses to work are inhaling air that has been doused by meth and fentanyl. According to a recent university study, 100% of mass transit has detectable levels of meth.
Over the past month, one man was shot and another knifed on the metro train known as the Link. Now, security guards board at every stop and rotate through the cars, ensuring that passengers are safe, but also establishing that mass transit in Seattle needs so many guards that it’s hemorrhaging public funds. Fares will never keep up with that kind of overhead.
In the 30 years since Bezos founded Amazon in his Seattle garage, the city has collapsed under the weight of increasingly socialistic leadership that prioritizes equity over safety. Even Amazon as a company can’t take it – it is moving 2,000 employees from downtown to Bellevue, across Lake Washington.
Then there’s the tax burden in King County and Washington state in general.
Bezos and his vast wealth are targets of a new wealth tax that the Washington Supreme Court just upheld, which takes 7% from every sale of financial assets such as stocks and bonds, applying to those who have profits of more than $250,000.
After years of legal challenges, the “eat the rich” tax on the wealthy is happening. There is no doubt Bezos, with a net worth of $161 billion, took a cold, hard look at the realities of Washington state tax law. He stands to save billions over the coming decades in state taxes by using this one, simple trick: Becoming a visitor in Washington State, rather than a resident.
Washington will net about $849 million from this new tax in the first year alone. Surely Bezos has accountants who can find a tax loophole or two, but at some point, the government skimming operation takes its toll, and the rich do have choices.
Defenders of the wealth tax say it is not an income tax at all, but an “excise tax.”
It’s a tax on those who earn a living through buying and selling of assets, which is the way many wealthy people do, indeed, make a living.
Bezos’ motivation is not that much different from Donald Trump’s, when he pulled up stakes from New York and became a Florida resident in 2019 for a better tax climate and year-round golf.
Alan Greenspan was spot on when he said, “Whatever you tax, you get less of.” If you tax billionaires, you’ll have fewer of them to kick around during the next tax cycle. Washington State will be learning this lesson the hard way.
Suzanne Downing is the founder, past president, and current managing editor of Must Read Alaska.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a gun rights case involving bump stocks — attachments to semiautomatic rifles — during this term, which started last week and typically runs through early summer, which will be in the middle of the next general election.
The case is Garland v. Cargill, and what is being challenged is a regulation that was made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) in response to a mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas in 2017. Alaska’s Rep. Mike Cronk was at that music festival, and saved his friend’s life by plugging the man’s bullet holes with his fingers and flagging down an ambulance. Fifty-nine people died in that shooting, including a man who died in Cronk’s arms on the way to the hospital. Another 500 were injured.
The assailant at the Route 91 Harvest Festival had used semi-automatic rifles equipped with bump-stock devices. The subsequent ATF rule required owners of bump stocks to either destroy them or deliver them to an ATF office, or be charged with a federal crime.
Earlier, both the Fifth and Sixths Courts of Appeals had struct down the regulation because the regulation said that the bump stock made the weapon into a machine gun, and the definitions were fuzzy. Federal laws pertaining to guns do not clearly refer to bump stocks, and so the regulation was overreaching the law. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia came to a different conclusion and said that the regulation was correct in saying that the bump stock creates a machine gun.
The Biden Administration challenged the Fifth and Sixth courts ruling and the bump stock owners in D.C. sought their own redress at the Supreme Court. Twenty-five attorneys general, including Alaska’s AG Treg Taylor, filed a lawsuit to stop the new regulation, which affects thousands of Alaskans.
The deadline for registering bump stocks and pistol-braced firearms was May 31, but only a fraction of Americans have apparently complied, according to data mined from the ATF.
The Parkland, Fla. school shooting of 2018 will also be a side topic at the Supreme Court this year. The case, National Rifle Association v. Vullo, challenges the New York Department of Financial Services after its superintendent advised banks and other financial companies doing business in New York to sever their relationships with any gun-rights groups, such as the NRA, and threatened companies by warning of “reputational risk,” a dog whistle to them that she had the power to punish them through the authority of her office if they did not comply. This was a case of government coercion.
The NRA took those statements by then-Superintendent Maria Vullo to court, asserting that the group’s First Amendment rights were being violated by her veiled threats.
A decision by a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York went against the NRA, which appealed to the Supreme Court for a final answer on whether Vullo was using her power to leverage companies. The appeals court said “government officials have a right — indeed, a duty — to address issues of public concern,” and that Vullo was only attempting to persuade, not intimidate. That’s not how the NRA sees it, however. To gun-rights advocates, it sounded like coercion.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative advocacy organization, filed a request to submit an amicus curiae brief in the NRA case, but the court denied that motion, while at the same time allowing the case to join the justices’ calendar.
Daylight Savings Time takes a break at the stroke of 2 am on Sunday, and clocks will get set back an hour, which will make mornings seem a bit lighter, and you’ll feel like you were able to sleep in. But it will make afternoons seem suddenly dark — at least until the tilt of the earth takes Alaska into full winter mode. Within two weeks, mornings will be just as dark as they are now in much of Alaska.
The return to Alaska Standard Time happens Nov. 5 this year and it lasts until March 10. When we “spring forward” in March, it adds daylight to the afternoon again.
Under federal law, states are allowed to opt out of Daylight Saving Time and remain on Standard Time, but are not allowed to remain on Daylight Time. Alaska lawmakers occasionally have tried to maintain a time standard, but bills have failed to progress.
In 2021, Rep. Daniel Ortiz of Ketchikan introduced House Bill 31 to recognize daylight saving year-round if Congress makes the move by 2030.
In 2021, lawmakers in Congress once again proposed staying on Daylight Saving Time year-round with the Sunshine Protection Act. It was sponsored by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Florida Congressman Vern Buchanan. Rubio has long advocating that Congress “lock the clock” and filed legislation for the last four years to end the twice-annual changing of time.
“We Americans are about to suffer another ridiculous time change as we spring forward this weekend,” Rubio said in a video. “Switching in and out of Daylight Saving Time is outdated, and is only a source of annoyance and confusion.” He added it is time to “put all this stupidity behind us.”
Several states are proposing moving to Daylight Saving Time permanently, including:
In 2021, Alabama passed an act that would put the state on permanent Daylight Saving Time if the Sunshine Protection Act passes.
Arizona and Hawaii do not observe Daylight saving time. Arizona observes Mountain Standard Time all year.
The Navajo Nation in the northeastern Arizona observes Daylight Saving Time, putting it an hour off the rest of the state for at least part of the year.
In 2018, Florida was the first state to pass a resolution to observe Daylight Saving Time year-round, if federal law ever changes.
In 2021, Georgia passed a permanent Daylight Saving Time law, again pending changes in federal law.
Idaho has two time zones; the southern part of the state is in Mountain Time, and the panhandle in the north is in Pacific Time. In 2020, the Legislature and governor passed a law that says if Washington state makes Daylight Saving Time permanent, Northern Idaho will do so as well.
Oregon also has two time zones. A state law passed in 2019 would keep Oregon on Daylight Saving Time if Congress ever acts. But Malheur County in Eastern Oregon is on Mountain Time, and would be the only part of the state not moving to DST.
Washington state approved the change to permanent Daylight Savings Time in 2019, pending on congressional action.
Wyoming’s legislature decided 2020 to move to Daylight Saving Time, if approved by Congress — and also if nearby states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah also made the move.
Fewer than 40 percent of the countries in the world switch times and not all countries that do change their clocks do so on the same day. Those who live farthest from the Equator feel the change the most while those living close to the Equator might not notice much change at all.
Democrats around the country, including Alaska, are changing the rules of elections to their advantage, according to a new report.
“Across the country, they are introducing legislation to implement ranked-choice voting, which would completely change how votes are counted. While there are plenty of reasons to oppose ranked-choice voting, the best argument against it is its track record,” says a new report in the Foundation for Government Accountability.
Thousands of ballots are thrown in the trash to produce the majority vote required for ranked-choice voting, the report says.
“This means that when voters in ranked-choice voting jurisdictions leave their polling station, they cannot be sure if their vote will be counted or end up in the dump with last week’s dinner,” the authors write.
Ranked-choice voting is a leftist strategy to tip results, and it’s led to voter disenfranchisement, trashed ballots, and confusion. While there are plenty of reasons to oppose ranked-choice voting, the best argument against it is its own track record, the foundation reports.
“Currently, both Alaska and Maine use ranked-choice voting for some statewide elections.Both states have witnessed ranked-choice voting result in sending a Democrat to Congress when voters’ preference was to send a Republican to represent them.Now, a growing number of local jurisdictions are using ranked-choice voting to elect candidates, and the process is being pushed by Democrats and the Left nationwide,” the report says.
Supporters of ranked-choice voting argue that the system guarantees that elected officials receive majority support from the electorate. But this is a false majority that only comes about after ballots are thrown out and discarded.
On Friday, a federal appeals court paused an Oct. 17 gag order placed against former President Donald Trump in his 2020 election case by district Judge Tanya Chutkan, who had forced Trump into silence regarding the court proceedings.
The appeals court also ordered that the trial be expedited, with oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 20.
“The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion for a stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion,” the appeals court wrote.
Chutkan’s gag order, issued at the request of Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith, had prevented Trump from making any criticism of Smith or his staff, or anyone associated with the court, including witnesses in the trial
Trump asked the appeals court Thursday to override Chutkan’s order, calling it a “sweeping, viewpoint-based prior restraint on the core political speech of a major Presidential candidate.”
Trump is supported by a majority of Republicans and, at this point, appears poised to become the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024.
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, this week led a letter with 12 of his Senate Republican colleagues to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, demanding the Biden administration press for a broader, more permanent framework of sanctions on Iran from the United Nations Security Council.
On Oct. 18, the UN’s sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs expired, and in October 2020, the UN’s conventional arms embargo against Iran expired, both of which are delayed consequences of the Obama administration’s disastrous Iran nuclear deal.
“[Iran’s] systemic support of terror merits broader, permanent treatment by the UN Security Council,” the senators wrote. “If the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China wish to demonstrate their opposition to the UN Charter’s call to advance peace and security, it would provide important clarity to other nations suffering from Iranian terror threats of their true allegiances.”
Iran is the new chair of a United Nations human rights forum, which has prompted protest from human rights activist who have said that Tehran’s record of oppression, torture, and executions make it a poor fit.
It has concerning alliances with Russia, and is using proxy forces to attack the United States and Israel.
“A new UNSC resolution should target the same activity the UN permanently sanctioned prior to the 2015 enactment of Resolution 2231, including…involvement in Iran’s enrichment, reprocessing, and heavy water production; assistance with its ballistic missile testing, development, and launches; transfer of nuclear and missile technology to Iran; transfer of conventional weapons, rockets, and drones to and from Iran. It should also add a multilateral prohibition on the import of Iranian oil, petroleum products, metals, or investment in its energy sector, essentially multi-lateralizing the objective of American secondary sanctions in these areas.”
The senators argued that Iran’s material support for terrorist organizations—especially after the recent Hamas massacre in Israel—poses a significant threat to the world and merits strong sanctions, just like Iran’s nuclear program.
The letter from the senatorsis signed by Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Katie Boyd Britt (R-Ala.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), John Thune (R-S.D.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)
The chaotic turn of events around the globe in the past weeks has shown that history repeats itself.
Fifty years ago when the Yom Kippur War raged in the Middle East, Americans felt the pinch as oil-rich countries blocked U.S. imports of their crude in response to U.S. support of Israel. Now, the atrocious tragedies committed by barbaric Hamas terrorists are again causing chaos and strife in the Middle East.
Because of planning in the 1970s and under the right leadership today, this conflict shouldn’t spark concerns about gas prices for Americans as we learned our lesson a half-century ago and created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Unfortunately, President Biden disregarded these lessons to score cheap political points at the expense of the American consumer and our national security.
The week of January 20, 2021, when President Biden was sworn into office the national average for a gallon of gas was just under $2.40. That means a family with a minivan could easily fill up their tank for under $50.
Then Biden’s anti-energy independence agenda kicked in. He made it clear that he wanted to “end fossil fuel” during his campaign and got right to work on day one to implement his devastating plan. He ended the Keystone XL Pipeline, proposed tax increases on oil and gas companies and pushed policies that benefited “green” energy and Chinese companies over reliable American energy.
By the time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February of 2022, Biden’s policies had already pushed the national weekly average to $3.53. Biden – desperate to hide his failed policies – quickly blamed the high cost of gas on the invasion, despite the fact that under a year of his policies prices had already increased by more than a dollar per gallon.
With the Russian invasion pushing prices even higher in an election year, Biden decided to act.
No, he didn’t reverse his anti-American energy policies – that would have been the right long-term solution. Instead, he traded in our safety net of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to save a few votes. In spite of the SPR gimmick, prices are still averaging around $3.53, so filling up that minivan now costs close to $70 – and our country’s safety.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a national security asset. When full, it prevents the U.S. from being subject to global crises that could limit the availability of crude oil or the whims of our adversaries who may wish to punish us by withholding exports.
The idea was supported by multiple presidential administrations like Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in the middle of the 20th century, but it wasn’t until OPEC’s oil embargo of 1973-74 that the need was greatly recognized. President Gerald Ford eventually signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act into law in December 1975.
Nearly 50 years after its creation the SPR is at its lowest level since 1984. And it couldn’t come at a more perilous time in our world.
Establishing the SPR was a way for us to safeguard against OPEC’s impulses and to reduce our dependence on foreign countries should there be a global conflict – but here we are again facing a crisis in the Middle East.
Now would be a good time to have a robust Strategic Petroleum Reserve on which to rely.
The right thing to do – after two years of fruitlessly doing the wrong thing – would be to replenish the SPR, and fast. But the Biden administration has abandoned this responsibility. The whole intention was to have SPR as a backstop, but President Biden threw that away for a political gimmick.
Last October, the White House announced that it would implement a “first-of-its-kind rule” establishing a system of fixed-rate price contracts for replenishing the SPR. Per the administration’s policy, they intend to purchase “crude oil for the SPR when prices are at or below about $67 to $72 per barrel.” The administration’s logic was that the Department of Energy should get a preferred rate when buying for the SPR, well below what the public market was bearing.
This untested fixed-price bid system imposed by the White House has allowed the administration to ignore its responsibility to resupply the SPR to the detriment of the U.S.’ economic and national security.
In January of this year, the DOE rejected bids from several producers to refill the SPR because the market rate for crude oil at the time was well above the administration’s arbitrary fixed price. And again in mid-October, the DOE announced they would not refill the SPR at a competitive level, instead wanting to pay $79 a barrel when the current market price is about $86 a barrel.
The misaligned economics of this system is straightforward – if producers get a better rate in the market than what DOE is prepared to pay, the SPR will remain at record lows – making our nation less safe and prepared.
I’ve offered legislation – the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Replenishment Act – in this Congress and the last that would correct this issue. The House also passed a similar amendment I introduced that was included in H.R. 1 – the Lower Energy Costs Act. It would require DOE to use index-based pricing when accepting bids for the SPR. This method will ensure that DOE accepts bids at the market rate for crude oil rather than Biden’s price-fixing scheme. Unfortunately, the Democrat-led Senate has yet to take action on the bill.
Our world is less safe today than in January 2021, and we are less prepared to withstand foreign adversaries using oil as leverage. Biden should have never put our national defense in jeopardy just to try and eke out a few more midterm votes. Now that it’s depleted, his administration should really be working to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – back to where it was on January 20, 2021, when a full SPR provided us with extra protection and a full tank of gas was $20 bucks cheaper.
Ron Estes, one of only a handful of engineers in Congress, worked in the aerospace, energy and manufacturing sectors before representing Kansas’ 4th Congressional District since 2017. He is a fifth-generation Kansan, former state treasurer, and serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means, Budget Committee, and Education and the Workforce Committee.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
Twelve U.S. House Democrats and nearly all Republicans approved an aid package for Israel, which passed the House in a 226-196 vote.
But not Alaska’s Rep. Mary Peltola, who voted no on the package that give military aid to the embattled ally, which is fighting Hamas radicals after the Palestinian government attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing over 1,400 Israelis, and butchering, raping, torturing, and kidnapping Jews.
“It’s imperative that the U.S. sends a message to the world that threats made against Israel and the Jewish people will be met with strong opposition,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on X/Twitter.
The funding for Israel’s defense would come from money that is set aside for the Internal Revenue Service, which was greatly expanded last year in the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that has done little to control inflation.
The Senate, run by Democrats, is expected to kill the legislation or at least roll it into a funding package that includes money for Ukraine. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill “a joke. The Senate will not be considering this deeply flawed proposal.”
President Joe Biden said he will veto the House bill if it ever reached his desk because it is “bad for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for our own national security.” Biden supports the Democrats’ approach to include Ukraine and Israel in a $106 billion aid bill, while the House Republicans want those aid packages separated out.
“Despite enduring a brutal terrorist attack and the potential for an erupting regional or even global war beginning in the Middle East, Mary Peltola has now officially voted against supporting our longtime partner and ally, Israel,” wrote congressional candidate Nick Begich, a Republican. “Allied relationships are more than friendships, they are enduring bonds between nations. Our allied relationships represent commitments that we have made and must honor if we expect those commitments to be honored in return. Israel and the United States work together on multiple fronts, from intelligence to counter-terrorism to numerous private sector technology partnerships, and more.”
