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Biden slaps at GOP in his reelection launch; RNC launches counter attack

Suzanne Downing
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Biden slaps at GOP in his reelection launch; RNC launches counter attack

President Joe Biden launched his reelection bid on Tuesday, saying that his first term was about fighting for democracy, and accusing “MAGA extremists” of “lining up to take on those bedrock freedoms.”

His prepared video roll for social media was clipped together with imagery of an America in which he and Vice President Kamala Harris are good and that features Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former President Donald Trump, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as bad for the country.

At the same time, the Republican National Committee released a video that uses artificial intelligence and powerful video to darkly imagine what another four years would be like under the “weakest president” America has ever had.

The election is in November of 2024. Already announced Republicans are former President Donald Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, talk show host and author Larry Elder, former Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Democrat candidates include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and New Age spiritualist Marianne Williamson.

Biden is 80 and by the time he would finish his second term, he would be about 86, as he was born in November of 1942.

His dementia is evident and he slurs his way through his speeches. He has held few press conferences, and is carefully scripted for every occasion. He has given only 54 press interviews, the fewest since Ronald Reagan was in office. Biden’s predecessor gave 202 during his first two years, and Barack Obama gave 275 interviews.

Even the New York Times has taken note of Biden’s lack of accountability: “But as Mr. Biden prepares to announce his bid for a second term as soon as Tuesday, he is accelerating the demise of traditions that have underpinned the relationship with the news media for decades. The president’s strategy of keeping the press at arm’s length is a bet that he can sidestep those traditions in a new media environment. And it is public evidence that Mr. Biden’s political strategists want to protect him from the unscripted exchanges that have often resulted in missteps and criticism.”

An example of what the Biden campaign would like to downplay was evident on Monday. At a White House event for Teacher of the Year on Monday, the clearly feeble president was led by First Lady Jill Biden out of the White House and to the Rose Garden by the hand, as she visibly tugged him along like a child. Once he took the podium, he slurred through his speech, reading from a massive screen set up behind the teachers who had gathered.

Notably, Biden’s campaign launch video shows Vice President Kamala Harris twice, indicating that he intends to keep her as his running mate.

The launch video positions Biden as the defender of democracy and avoids the uncomfortable topic of his economic policies that have led to hardship for so many Americans.

In addition to his radical social agenda that has begun to erase the biological definition of male and female and that has taken aim at the family unit by saying that children belong to the government, Biden has crippled the nation’s economy by increasing federal spending by $10 trillion.

Since he took office, he increased debt projections by $6 trillion over 10 years. National debt is now nearly $32 trillion. His executive orders alone have increased spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years. His inflation-driving economic policies have increased the Congressional Budget Office’s projection of interest payments on the debt by $3.6 trillion over those 10 years.

In fact, Americans now make 3.6% less a week than they did before Biden took office, and inflation has jumped to 15%. Workers, through inflation eating away at their incomes, have lost the equivalent of $7,400 worth of income in two years.

Under his proposed budget for FY 2023, spending is $73 trillion, or 23.4% of gross domestic product, the highest sustained level in American history. Taxes will be $58 trillion, or nearly 19% of gross domestic product, also the highest sustained level in history. Deficits would be $14.4 trillion, or 4.7% of GDP, the highest sustained level in history.

Biden’s current budget has the debt growing by $16 trillion over 10 years, or $50,000 for every American. By 2032, that debt would be $135,000 per citizen.

Under CBO’s current projections, the gross federal debt would increase from $31.7 trillion today (123 percent of GDP) to $52 trillion (132 percent of GDP) in 2033. The CBO’s most recent projections have the debt growing to $154 trillion by 2053, which would equal more than $1 million per American household ($540,000 after adjusting for inflation) — more than four times current median household net worth.

Under Biden’s budget, however, defense spending would fall to the lowest level as a percent of GDP since before World War II.

Supreme Court rejects oil companies’ attempt to move climate change lawsuits out of local courts

Suzanne Downing
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19
Supreme Court rejects oil companies’ attempt to move climate change lawsuits out of local courts

Municipal lawsuits against oil companies filed in state courts will now remain in those courts, as the US Supreme Court rejected attempts by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, and other companies to move the lawsuits to federal courts.

This decision means that cities seeking to hold energy companies accountable for the harms caused by burning hydrocarbons will continue their legal battles in state courts, which are generally seen as more aligned with such claims.

There are numerous climate change lawsuits pending in state courts across the country, and the Biden Administration supports keeping them at the state level, as state courts are typically considered more liberal than federal courts on climate-related issues, and President Biden wants to see more pain inflicted on oil companies, but not pain associated with the White House.

For several years, oil companies have been facing over two dozen climate change lawsuits at various levels of the US court system, seeking damages related to climate change impacts. Many of these lawsuits allege that the oil companies were aware of the dangers of fossil fuels and engaged in fraud and created a public nuisance. Resolving these claims in federal courts has been challenging, according to observers.

In the recent Supreme Court decision, Justice Brett Kavanaugh was the only justice who favored moving a lawsuit filed in Boulder, Colo., to a federal court. Other cases are pending in states such as Maryland, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and California.

The court’s ruling did not indicate how the Supremes would decide the merits of the cases.

Peninsula-Clarion, like Juneau Empire, shrinks to two print days a week next month

Suzanne Downing
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Peninsula-Clarion, like Juneau Empire, shrinks to two print days a week next month

The Kenai Peninsula-Clarion is reducing its print editions to two days a week, starting May 3.

The Clarion is owned by Sound Publishing, the same news company that owns the Juneau Empire, which is also moving to a twice-a-week print edition. The newspapers will be focusing more on their online news offerings, as the printed word becomes more expensive to produce and distribute, and as more readers adapt to a 24-hour digital news cycle.

The economics of printing just two days a week are uncertain at best. The fewer the people who subscribe to newsprint editions and the fewer the copies that are printed, the more expensive it becomes maintain staff to print the small number of copies and distribute those papers, as subscribers become spread out and paper deliverers can not make enough money to make it worth doing a route. Eventually, newspapers will shut their presses down altogether. In Juneau and in Kenai, the newspapers will be printed in the Seattle area, and flown up to Alaska, adding weather and flight delays to the mix that may make it increasingly an impractical option.

Some newspapers have not chosen to experiment with this bridge to the future, but to make the leap altogether. For example, on Feb. 26, The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times and Mobile’s Press-Register stopped printing altogether, and moved online.

Juneau Empire going digital, will print just two editions a week

Biden to parents: Your children are not your children; they belong to the government

Suzanne Downing
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Biden to parents: Your children are not your children; they belong to the government

In April of 2022, President Joe Biden told American parents that they don’t have authority over their own children. In a speech last year at the Teachers of the Year celebration, he said, “They’re all our children. And the reason you’re the teachers of the year is because you recognize that. They’re not somebody else’s children. They’re like yours when they’re in the classroom,” he said.

Today, Biden stayed on message: “There is no such thing as someone else’s child. No such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children,” Biden said as he honored the 2023 teacher of the year in the White House Rose Garden.

Those words stung conservatives, who have witnessed government take control of their children by increments. In Washington state, lawmakers just passed a bill that will allow shelters and the government to essentially kidnap children from their parents if their parents don’t approve of gender transition procedures.

Alaska’s Nick Begich was not impressed by the president’s words. The former congressional candidate said on Facebook, “Today Joe Biden said the quiet part out loud. ‘There’s no such thing as someone else’s child. Our nation’s children are all our children.’ Let’s be clear: children are the responsibility of parents. Children are NOT property of the state.”

He then went on to point out Congresswoman Mary Peltola’s record:

“Of course, Mary Peltola proudly OPPOSED the Parents Bill of Rights Act which passed the Republican House just a few weeks ago. Her position in opposition to the basic rights of parents is neither pro family nor pro freedom,” Begich wrote on Facebook.

Peltola votes against parents in ‘Parents Bill of Rights’

Departure lounge: FAA facing leadership vacuum as interim chief Billy Nolen announces his exit

Suzanne Downing
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Departure lounge: FAA facing leadership vacuum as interim chief Billy Nolen announces his exit

The Federal Aviation Administration’s interim administrator Billy Nolen is leaving this summer, and President Joe Biden will have to act quickly to replace the key position. Biden’s first choice withdrew last month when it became clear that he was not going to get through confirmation.

Denver International Airport CEO Phillip Washington’s nomination stalled in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, because Republicans said he lacked aviation experience.

The Senate Commerce Committee is chaired by Washington State Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat. Ranking minority member is Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan also serves on the committee and was instrumental in sealing the fate of the nominee Washington.

Sen. Sullivan, during the confirmation hearing for Washington, told the nominee that his resume didn’t hold up to scrutiny for someone who is to be in charge of the safety of the nation’s airways.

Nolen made his announcement Friday in a memo to staff: “But now it is time for a new captain to guide the FAA. I told [Sec. of Transportation] Buttigieg and notified the White House that I will depart as a new nominee is named this summer.”

The FAA has faced a number of problems, including having its NOTAM computers shut down inexplicably in January, prompting the sudden halt of all flights. The computer system was damaged after a contractor deleted essential files, the FAA explained. More than 1,100 flights were canceled and 7,700 were delayed as a result.

Also of concern are the number of near-misses occurring at airports, where two or more aircraft are cleared for the same runway or taxiway at the same time. By March of 2023, there had been 613 runway incursion incidents in the six prior months according to the FAA.

The agency has been without a permanent leader since March of 2022, when Trump-appointed Administrator Steve Dickson left after serving less than half of his five-year term.

HB 174 reforms state investment policies to focus on financial goals over social-environmental goals

Suzanne Downing
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4
HB 174 reforms state investment policies to focus on financial goals over social-environmental goals

Rep. Kevin McCabe introduced HB 174, a bill to reform the way that state funds are managed in Alaska.

The bill seeks to ensure that fiduciaries of state funds prioritize the financial interests of the beneficiaries above all other considerations when investing public funds.

This means that investment decisions will be made solely on the basis of financial gain, rather than any external social, political, or ideological goals, his office said.

Recently a Biden Administration rule allows fiduciaries to pick and choose between financial or ideological goals, when managing other people’s money. This, without the consent of the people to whom they have a fiduciary duty, including hundreds of millions of Americans whose retirement funds are at risk.

Some of Alaska’ state funds are invested in what’s called ESG funds — environmental, social, governance funds. That includes the retirement funds and the Alaska Permanent Fund.

“This approach is perfectly in line with Alaska’s ongoing efforts to establish a comprehensive and sustainable long-term fiscal plan for the state, especially in light of the current economic challenges facing Alaska,” said McCabe. “This bill will set a new standard for investment management in Alaska, ensuring that the financial future of the state is secured for generations to come, and I am proud to introduce it.”  

By preserving these principles into law, Alaska would join a growing number of states that have introduced or enacted similar legislation, demonstrating a commitment to responsible investment management and fiscal responsibility.

“Through prioritizing financial gain over external considerations, board members of the Alaska Retirement Management Board and the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation Board will be prevented from taking any actions that seek to advance social, political, or ideological interests concerning investments entrusted to the board,” McCabe said.

The introduction of this bill marks a significant step forward in the pursuit of responsible investment management in Alaska, he added. “With its passage, citizens can continue to enjoy the many benefits of living in this great state, safe in the knowledge that their financial interests are being protected and prioritized above all else,” his press release explained.

Biden threatens to veto U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels

Suzanne Downing
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Biden threatens to veto U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels

President Biden issued a warning to Congress on Monday, expressing his intent to use his veto power for the third time. This time, he is prepared to veto legislation aimed at maintaining trade tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels. The Biden Administration had suspended those tariffs.

The president’s first veto was to halt Congress’s efforts to end environmental, social, and governance (ESG) preference policies for retirement funds. His second veto was against Congress’s attempt to block his expansion of the definition of federal government-controlled waterways.

President Biden has made it clear that solar imports from China, even if laundered through other countries, will not be subject to U.S. trade laws. The bill is scheduled for a vote in the House this week, after the House Ways and Means Committee approved the resolution last week.

The president’s budget office has emphasized that halting tariffs on China-produced solar panels is crucial to his green energy goals. The White House stated, “Passage of this joint resolution would undermine these efforts and create deep uncertainty for jobs and investments in the solar supply chain and the solar installation market. The Commerce rule provides a short-term bridge to ensure there is a thriving U.S. solar installation industry ready to purchase the solar products that will be made in these American factories once they are operational.”

But Biden is ignoring the inconvenient truth that the solar panels are being made by slaves. Last fall, Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General, expressing concerns about solar panels produced in China using slave labor.

China currently dominates global solar panel production, with 78% of solar cells produced in 2019 coming from China, a country considered by many Americans to be an adversary. A Gallup poll in March revealed that 50% of Americans view China as the nation’s greater enemy, with most of the rest (32%) naming Russia.

A 2021 report in The New York Times corroborates that solar products made for the U.S. market are indeed sourced from slave labor and human rights atrocities.

Are solar panels built by slaves in China? Evidence says yes, and Republicans in Congress want answers

Alaska Airlines pushing travelers toward digital tickets, and is removing self-serve ticket kiosks

Suzanne Downing
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36
Alaska Airlines pushing travelers toward digital tickets, and is removing self-serve ticket kiosks

The kiosks that heralded convenience and modern travel are being phased out by Alaska Airlines, because, well, they are old-fashioned.

The removal of the kiosks are part of a $2.5 billion plan to upgrade passenger technology in airport lobbies, starting with the larger airports. Alaska Airlines is nudging everyone to use the company’s app on smart phones, and speed up the check-in process at the airport.

The airline has a goal of getting passengers from the lobby to security in five minutes or less. To achieve this, Alaska Airlines encourages passengers to check-in and secure their boarding passes digitally before arriving at the airport using the Alaska Airlines app or other online methods, rather than printing out tickets. Many passengers are already doing this and kiosks may be more of a relic as the years go on.

“We realized the majority of our guests were doing most of the kiosk actions on their own phones and we could reduce the congestion in our airports. Alaska was the first airline to introduce kiosks more than 20 years ago, and we’ll be the first airline to remove them,” said Charu Jain, Alaska Airlines Senior Vice President of Innovation and Merchandising.

The check-in kiosks will be replaced with iPad stations, where passengers can pay for checked bags and print bag tags. The airline later intends to transition to a fully self-service experience for baggage drop-off. By the end of 2023, most of Alaska’s airports will have the new bag tag stations in place, the airline said.

By spring of 2024, the airline plans to introduce self-service bag drop-off stations, where passengers can scan their face, identification, and bags before placing their bags on a conveyor belt to be loaded onto the aircraft. Alaska Airlines will continue to have customer service associates available at the airports for assistance.

Alaska Airlines is also experimenting with electronic bag tags through a partnership with Amsterdam-based startup Bagtag.

Bagtag allows travelers to purchase reusable electronic tags and attach them at home, using their phone to connect them with the airline’s baggage system.

Linda Boyle: The Covid cult continues

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Linda Boyle: The Covid cult continues

By LINDA BOYLE, DM, MSN

The World Health Organization recently announced that healthy kids and teenagers probably don’t need to get a Covid-19 vaccination.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still states in its “vaccine” guidelines that children six months and older should get the jab, despite the updated WHO recommendation. This CDC recalcitrance is despite the increasing knowledge that there are adverse risks for children from getting the jab.  

World Health Organization no longer recommends Covid vaccine and booster for healthy kids and teens

After President Joe Biden announced in January that the pandemic will end on May 11, public service announcements are still being aired imploring Americans to get the jab for their health and the health of others. 

The craziness goes even further in a small private school in Ithaca, New York. This school kept all the Covid mandates in place after the end of New York’s mask mandate. Why? Because the teachers demanded it.  

New York Post: Covid alarmism was always a cult, zombie school rules prove

We know that masks don’t work and Covid is a near-zero risk for children. At this school, not only are the children still masked, but they are not even allowed to speak during lunch. They can remove their masks long enough to take a bite, but they are forbidden from communicating. The children have developed a sort of sign language to get by.

Mainstream media and the federal government have pushed this fear agenda for a long time. We had to wear masks, we had to be six feet apart, and family members couldn’t go to family dinners if they weren’t vaxed or boosted. Most disturbing of all, people were forced to die alone in hospitals.

In a January, 2022 Rasmussen Report, a majority of Democrats wanted to enforce restrictive policies and use punitive measures against anyone who dared not get the Covid-19 “vaccination.”  These measures included fining people who didn’t submit to the vax, locking them up in their homes, sending them to unvaccinated camps, and worst of all removing their children from these folks temporarily.  

Chris Talgo and the Heartland Institute commissioned this poll, which found that about half of likely voters oppose Biden’s vaccine mandates. These mandates appeared to be more about how to increase the federal government’s power than to stopping the spread of Covid.   

As Biden made the Covid shutdown activists happy, the government failed to evaluate what happened to people who religiously wore masks because either the government or their job mandated it.  

An article published just recently in the Journal of Public Health provided a systematic review and analysis of what happened to people who wore masks.  The research did not focus on why the masks were useless, instead it looked at what side-effects occurred.  

The results weren’t good for the mask zealots. The research review demonstrated “mask wearers had decreased blood oxygen, increased blood CO2, increased heart rates, higher blood pressure, more difficulty breathing, higher skin temperatures, and higher reports of headaches, acne, skin irritations, feeling overheated, voice disorders, and dizziness.”

It’s hard to believe in America, where we prize free speech and freedom of choice, we have had this horrendous response mostly due to the fear the federal government managed to induce in its citizens through the media. 

The researchers found even wearing masks in the short-term can cause long-term medical problems. They stated “Long Covid” may be the result of mask wearing—not recovering from Covid.  

Nearly 40% of main Long-Covid-19 symptoms overlap with mask-related complaints and symptoms.  These include fatigue, dyspnea, confusion, anxiety, depression, tachycardia, dizziness, and headache.

Dr. Meryl Nass, a true heroine of the alternative early treatment movement, had her medical license suspended in January of 2022.  She had to undergo a mental health evaluation and drug and alcohol evaluation for spreading “misinformation” about treatment for Covid.  She is still legally battling with the state of Maine to get her license back. 

Linda Boyle: CDC is not shooting straight on vaccine advice

What was Dr. Nass’ crime that caused such drastic actions?  At the start of the pandemic, she offered consultations to patients who were afraid they had Covid.  None of those patients complained about the care she gave them. 

But the letters to the board stated she was providing “misinformation.” 

Even as the truth comes out concerning the lies or manipulation the government used to gain power over us proves to be false, good people are still being persecuted for their beliefs. And we are still being held hostage.  

Public turns against group of doctors who are trying to prevent early treatment of Covid-19

Don’t worry. The government learned a lot from these last few years. It learned it can control every aspect of your life by making you fearful. And it learned how to effectively use the media to control what we hear and read.  No debate is allowed. 

We learned one basic thing: Fear is a powerful tool to control people.

It worked before. Will we let them do it to us again?

Linda Boyle, DM, MSN, is a member of the Alaska Covid Alliance.

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