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Pentagon says ‘sizable’ Chinese spy balloon went over Alaska and is now over Montana

Suzanne Downing
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Pentagon says ‘sizable’ Chinese spy balloon went over Alaska and is now over Montana

The United States Government says it is tracking a Chinese high-altitude surveillance balloon that is over the continental United States. The balloon is over Montana.

The balloon is traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground, the Pentagon said.

The path of the balloon took it over the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and through Northwest Canada. It would have to have crossed over mainland Alaska, with NOAA backward projections offering the idea that it cross into Alaska over the near the Nome or Kotzebue area, and went across Interior Alaska, before entering Canada air space.

“Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the U.S. government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information,” the Pentagon said.

The government considered shooting it down but was concerned the debris could hit people on the ground or damage property.

“We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area.  We had been looking at whether there was an option yesterday over some sparsely populated areas in Montana. But we just couldn’t buy down the risk enough to feel comfortable recommending shooting it down yesterday,” the senior Defense official said. “So, beyond that, though, I can’t really go into the dimensions. But there have been reports of pilots seeing this thing, even though it’s pretty high up in the sky. So, you know, it’s sizable.”

The Defense official said the balloon is clearly for surveillance and its flight path has carried it over “so clearly the intent of this balloon is for surveillance.  And so the current flight path does carry it over a number of sensitive sites.”

The military believes that whatever the surveillance payload is on this balloon, “it does not create significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.”

The department has taken preliminary mitigation steps and said that this is not the first time a spy balloon has crossed over the continental United States.

“It has happened a handful of other times over the past few years, to include before this administration,” the official said, adding that this time it is appearing “to hang out for a long period of time this time around, more persistent than in previous instances. So that would be one distinguishing factor.”

The military says it doesn’t pose a threat to aviation and it doesn’t posed much of a security threat. Because of that, taking the risk of downing the balloon and hurting people on the ground is not worth it. The risk of shooting down a China spy asset could prompt the People’s Republic of China to shoot down American aircraft in the South China Sea.

The transcript of the Pentagon briefing is at this link.

The War Zone — was a high altitude airship spotted in the South China Sea?


 

Federal court rules that local prohibitions on ‘conversion therapy’ are illegal, may affect 2020 Anchorage ordinance

Suzanne Downing
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Federal court rules that local prohibitions on ‘conversion therapy’ are illegal, may affect 2020 Anchorage ordinance

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a Tampa, Florida ordinance that prohibited licensed counselors from providing voluntary talk therapy to minors seeking help to reduce or eliminate their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity, is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. 

In Vazzo v. City of Tampa, Liberty Counsel represents marriage and family therapist Robert Vazzo and his minor clients, as well as the Christian ministry, New Hearts Outreach Tampa Bay. 

Thursday’s ruling is based on Liberty Counsel’s earlier victory in Otto v. City of Boca Raton in which the Eleventh Circuit previously ruled that similar bans preventing counselors from helping their clients in Palm Beach County and the City of Boca Raton were also unconstitutional viewpoint restrictions on speech under the First Amendment. 

The three-judge panel wrote, “We held this case in abeyance pending the issuance of the mandate in Otto v. City of Boca Raton. In Otto, we held that city and county ordinances banning sexual orientation change efforts (“SOCE”) were unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The City of Tampa’s SOCE ordinance here is substantively the same as the ordinances at issue in Otto. Accordingly, we are bound by our prior-panel precedent rule to affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the Plaintiffs-Appellees.”

Anchorage Assembly passed a similar ordinance in 2020, after getting technical assistance from the Trevor Project, a transgender grooming nonprofit in Washington, D.C. The Assembly ban appears to curb some speech regarding gay sexual behavior. No counselor or therapist in Anchorage has challenged the Anchorage ordinance, nor has the State of Alaska weighed in on the constitutionality of the ordinance.

Anchorage Assembly bans some therapeutic conversations about gender confusion, sexual preference
Document: Biden’s new nuclear waste expert helped craft Anchorage’s 2020 ban on gay ‘conversion therapy’

Alaska Attorney General, 19 others warn Walgreens, CVS, about reported plan to mail abortion pills

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Alaska Attorney General, 19 others warn Walgreens, CVS, about reported plan to mail abortion pills

By THE CENTER SQUARE

Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and 19 other attorneys general are warning Walgreens and CVS pharmacies that any plans to mail abortion-inducing pills is illegal and unsafe. Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor signed the letter.

“As the principal legal and law enforcement officers of our 20 states, we offer you these thoughts on the current legal landscape,” Bailey wrote.

In late January, the Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone to be used in a regimen with misoprostol “to end an intrauterine pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation.” The drugs must be dispensed or under the supervision of a certified prescriber or pharmacy and “may be dispensed in-person or by mail” according to the FDA website.

In late December, the Department of Justice published a 21-page memorandum for the U.S. Postal Service stating “no matter where the drugs are delivered, a variety of uses of mifepristone and misoprostol serve important medical purposes and are lawful under federal and state law.” The document said the USPS couldn’t assume the drugs can’t be mailed because “they are being sent into a jurisdiction that significantly restricts abortion.”

CVS and Walgreens recently announced they are seeking certification from the FDA to sell and mail the pills, according to multiple media reports.

“As Attorney General, it is my responsibility to enforce the laws as written, and that includes enforcing the very laws that protect Missouri’s women and unborn children,” Bailey said in a statement. “My office is doing everything in its power to inform these companies of the law, with the promise that we will use every tool at our disposal to uphold the law if broken.”

Missouri became the first state to end elective abortions when a “trigger law” was executed hours after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June. In addition to prohibiting doctors from performing abortions unless there is a medical emergency, Missouri law states “any person who knowingly performs or induces an abortion of an unborn child in violation of this subsection shall be guilty of a class B felony, as well as subject to suspension or revocation of his or her professional license by his or her professional licensing board.”

Bailey’s letter to the companies stated Missouri law prohibits “using the mail to send or receive abortion drugs.”

Bailey referred to research published by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSRH) stating medication abortions were 5.96 times as likely to result in a complication as first-trimester aspiration abortions. (When the Supreme Court ruled last June, ANSRH stated the decision contradicted scientific evidence and said it “stands against this decision as one that will have devastating consequences to people’s lives and their families.”)

“And finally,” Bailey wrote, “mail-order abortion pills also invite the horror of an increase in coerced abortions. When abortion drugs are mailed or consumed outside a regulated medical facility, the risk of coercion is much higher – indeed, guaranteed – because there is no oversight. Outside the regulated medical context, a person can obtain an abortion pill quite easily and then coerce a woman into taking it.”

The attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia signed Bailey’s letter.

Win Gruening: Education funding is complicated, political

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Win Gruening: Education funding is complicated, political

By WIN GRUENING

At a recent Alaska State Senate Education Committee hearing at the Capitol, there seemed to be general agreement that state school funding was lagging behind inflation and that long-term funding solutions should be explored.

Most Alaskans wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that.  If only it was that simple.

The Association of School Boards (ASB), a nonprofit representing 52 of the state’s 54 school districts, testified that massive budget gaps will force school closures, elimination of programs, class sizes to balloon, and exacerbate problems with teacher recruitment and retention.

The problem, says the ASB, is that the Base Student Allocation (BSA), the state’s method of parceling out funding to school districts, hasn’t been significantly increased since 2017,  With inflation, this has caused growing funding gaps. Maybe, but there was little discussion about other long-term underlying problems – poor financial planning, changing demographics, growth of alternative non-academic programs, and a lack of accountability.

The pandemic was also a factor impacting state school budgets.  But, in many cases, it was financially positive.  Over a half-billion dollars was spread across state school districts.  Even though districts were warned to treat payments as a one-time addition to budgets and not use them for permanent program commitments, it was difficult to track and, inevitably, massive shortfalls occurred when the money ran out.

Many school districts have delayed action on, or ignored, changing demographics that have contributed to lower student counts and resulting funding reductions. Fairbanks planned to close three elementary schools and eliminate 121 positions last year, largely because the district has lost 2,000 students. The Anchorage School District recommended closing six elementary schools after continuing to lose students and discovering a $68 million budget shortfall, but then backed off amid public outcries.

State demographers have noted that Alaska’s population has been aging and Anchorage and Fairbanks’ populations have notably shrunk over the past decade.  

The Juneau School District was grappling with a projected $3.2 million deficit this year but seemed puzzled what to do about it even after a school board sponsored economic report in February 2022 projected a decline of almost 1,200 students over the next ten years.  According to the report, “JSD enrollment declined in 14 of the last 17 years; the district now has 20 percent fewer students than in 2004. The enrollment decline has been driven by demographic factors – principally declining births”. 

In December, KTOO reported that, “The Juneau School District has more than a hundred fewer kindergarteners than expected this year, and birth rate data shows the trend is likely to continue.”

The estimated loss of 1,044 Juneau students from 2004-2021 would have accounted for millions of dollars in additional funding with the current state BSA foundation formula. 

School districts can do more to alleviate their budget woes by following through on school consolidations or alternative program reductions. Instead, educators are asking for a staggering $1,000-per-student jump in the BSA to maintain the status quo.  Depending on which projections you want to use, this would increase state funding anywhere from $257 million to more than $500 million after adjustments for student attendance. Currently, the BSA is $5,930 for each enrolled student.

Educators are also asking for a return to a defined-benefit retirement plan for teachers, a plan that could add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state budget. A similar plan was discontinued in 2006 due to fiscal constraints.

Underlying all of these fiscal concerns is the continuing poor academic performance of Alaskan students.  Alaska has placed at or near the bottom in standardized testing for years. We all know there are good teachers and administrators who genuinely care for kids and work hard in our schools.  But the system currently in place doesn’t reward them or allow them to excel.

Over time, reform efforts have seemed to focus more on social problems, more administrators, and experimental programs.  None have significantly increased student achievement. 

If we keep doing things the way they have always been done, we can’t expect anything to change. 

This presents a political problem for the education establishment that is fundamental to their endless demands for more funding. If the current conversation does not include changes to improve student achievement, why should Alaskans continue funding the status quo?

After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.

Reasons for ballot rejection: Signatures, postmarks

Win Gruening: Juneau muni elections outcome should give the Assembly pause about new City Hall

Win Gruening: Juneau muni elections outcome should give the Assembly pause about new City Hall

Win Gruening: School boards must learn to adapt to changing demographics

Dark money group weaponizes Demboski resignation letter, sends edited version to Anchorage voters

Suzanne Downing
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The dark money group known as the 907 Initiative, headed up by a former Anchorage Daily News reporter, has gone on an offensive against Mayor Dave Bronson again.

The group has a massive radio ad buy and is mailing out an edited version of former Municipal Manager Amy Demboski’s resignation letter, in which she makes numerous accusations about improper contracts being signed by the city.

The 907 Initiative says the letter was edited for brevity, but not editorialized. When Demboski quit, her attorney Scott Kendall sent her resignation letter to every member of the Anchorage Assembly in the attempt to do maximum damage to Mayor Dave Bronson. Thus, the letter is public record, although because it involves personnel, the mayor is not able to respond to Demboski’s allegations.

The public is not being told who funds the 907 Initiative. It describes itself as an “Alaska-based government watchdog organization working to increase public transparency for state and local government We work with individuals, organizations and grassroots coalitions to promote a greater quality of life and promote Alaskan values.”

Organizers listed on the group’s official listing with the Department of Commerce are Debra Call, who ran as a Democrat for lieutenant governor; Eleanor Andrews, a longtime Democrat activist and former state commissioner, and Stephanie Nichols, the vice president, Ethics & Compliance and Compliance Counsel at GCI.

Like the Alaska Center, the 907 Initiative is devoted to leftist candidates and causes. But unlike the Alaska Center, the group is not yet listed on the Internal Revenue Service’s publicly facing database. The IRS has a large backlog of work and the organization’s nonprofit status, officers, and address may not be known for many months.

Because of the reporting delays, the public will also not be able to learn who is funding this group for as much as two years. In the meantime, it will be able to operate freely through the next few election cycles, hiding the funders while campaigning under the guise of a transparency-seeking watchdog.

The 907 Initiative is also now funding the Alaska Current, a new leftist blog, as it incorporates political writer Matt Buxton, who has been underwritten by political operative Jim Lottsfeldt for many years at a website that launched in 2015. The Alaska Current is associated with the Ship Creek Group, a group founded by John Henry-Heckendorn, who came to Alaska to work in association with Lottsfeldt, and to manage the campaign of Democrat Andy Josephson.

Despite its mission of transparency, the 907 Initiative registered its website name using privacy blocks to prevent the public from learning who bought the names “907Initiative.org” and “907Initiative.com.”

The Alaska Public Media has gone along the 907 Initiative, calling it a “nonpartisan watchdog group.” Already the group has gotten involved in the 2022 election, filing a lawsuit with the Alaska Public Interest Research Group against the campaign of Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

The 907 Initiative’s executive director, Aubrey Wieber, who arrived in Alaska in 2019 as a reporter but quickly became an employee of Assemblyman Chris Constant, can be reached at [email protected].

Left-field attack on Mayor Bronson comes from new dark-money Democrat operative group

Downing: Magical thinking environmentalists want green toys but don’t want mining

Suzanne Downing
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By SUZANNE DOWNING

The permanent bureaucracy has done it again, driving another stake through the heart of the Pebble Project in southwestern Alaska, a project on land owned by the State of Alaska and set aside during Statehood for mining because it’s one of the largest copper and gold deposits in the world. 

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to not allow Pebble to finish the permitting process came days after a similar decision knocked the legs out from under the Twin Metals copper and nickel project in northeast Minnesota.

Pebble is the most misunderstood and unloved mine proposal in America. But the question has to be asked: Does mining have a future in the green-energy America envisioned by environmentalists, or will it be outsourced to places Americans don’t know about and don’t care about? In the greening of American energy, where in the world will we get the minerals needed to actually live the low-carbon dream? 

If the S&P Global’s 2022 report is correct, the demand for copper will double by 2035. Some hope America can recycle its way out of the looming copper shortage. That’s a fantasy; already, recycled copper supplies 34% of the U.S. market’s demand for refined copper. Under no scenario will America be able to recycle what the new electrified future craves, which is copper and more copper, according to Daniel Yergin, S&P Global’s vice chairman.

Unwilling to mine in a regulated and bonded environment of its own, the nation will have to look to other countries for copper, nickel, and the minerals critical to the life that policymakers are crafting for us. As China rebounds, it is on the verge of having an insatiable appetite for copper to provide tech toys for Americans.

Perhaps the world can rely on Chile, the world’s largest copper supplier. Chile has the two largest copper mines in the world, after all. 

Maybe not. Chile is fraught with protests, strikes, slowdowns, and stoppages, making one third of the world’s copper supply no sure bet, if things take a turn for the worse. 

There is plenty of history to concern us: Chile nationalized its copper mines under the Marxist government of Salvador Allende in the 1970s. Chileans spent the last two years writing a new constitution, but in the end, the final rewritten constitution was rejected by the plebiscite in September. 

Leaders from both parties are now back at the drawing table, but rewriting a constitution is a tricky undertaking that can go a number of directions, including revolution. 

How about Peru? The Andean nation that provides nearly 10% of the world’s copper production is in upheaval, with social unrest, violent protests, and mine takeovers threatening the country’s GDP. This No. 2 supplier of copper is going through a dangerous political patch; since December, 48 people have died in violent uprisings, the worst in 20 years. Fitch Ratings revised the outlook for Peru from stable to negative in October.

Maybe the world can get copper from China, coming in at supplier No. 3. The People’s Republic of China not only mines the copper it needs to manufacture goods, it’s the largest consumer of copper in the world, and imports what it needs to make the gizmos and gadgets that we want.

China produced 10.49 million tons in 2022, and imported another 23 million tons. In addition, China has the kind of issues about which Americans should have legitimate concerns: slave labor, human rights abuses, environmental standards, and the urge for global domination, to name a few.

Down the list we go. We could get copper from the Congo. Yeah … no. The child labor, the lack of health, safety and worker protections, and government corruption create cognitive dissonance for the environmental community and its bookends of Marxism and communism. No amount of magical thinking can erase the image of six-year-olds working in mines.

The safest place to mine copper is in the United States. It’s safer for the environment and it’s safer for people.

The Pebble Project is 100 miles from Bristol Bay, farther than the distance between Sacramento and San Francisco Bay. It is farther than the distance between New York and Pittsburgh or Chicago and Rockford. It’s twice the distance between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore.

Yet Pebble was cynically hijacked decades ago by the Left and made into the boogyman. Anti-Pebble activism has become a nonprofit money-raising racket.

The problem for never-Pebble people is that they want the green toys, but don’t want to acknowledge the mining needed to make those toys. 

Thus, America and the world face accelerating scarcity imposed by the legionnaires of the Left who are making the oldest metal known to man into a precious metal that, if this trend continues, even the U.S. Mint won’t be able to afford.

Suzanne Downing is the publisher of Must Read Alaska.

Yute Commuter Service probable cause report shows safety issues, lax procedures, decisions: NTSB

Guest Writer
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Yute Commuter Service probable cause report shows safety issues, lax procedures, decisions: NTSB

By COLLEEN MONDOR | AINONLINE

On Sept. 7, two-and-a-half years after the crash of a Yute Commuter Service single-engine Piper PA-32 near Tuntutuliak, Alaska, the National Transportation Safety Board released its probable cause finding on the five-fatality accident, citing a pilot’s decision to fly into potentially whiteout conditions.

But a lengthy investigation also pointed to systemic safety issues and lax procedures that enabled the decision-making.

The PA-32 departed under a special VFR on the morning of Feb. 6, 2020, for the village of Kipnuk, less than 100 miles from the company base in Bethel. It crashed about 30 minutes later, at approximately 11:10 a.m. local time.

Investigators determined the decision of the pilot, Tony Matthews, to continue VFR into “reduced visibility, including likely flat light and/or whiteout conditions,” was the probable cause. Matthews had 645 hours of total time; the Kipnuk flight was only his fourth revenue trip for the company.

As a contributory factor, the NTSB also found Yute’s operational control procedures were inadequate and “permitted” the pilot to depart below company minimums.

Aviation writer Colleen Mondor untangles the story at Aionline.com.

Revak jumps to Peltola team to become state director

Suzanne Downing
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Revak jumps to Peltola team to become state director

Former State Sen. Josh Revak, who ran for Congress last year as a Republican but didn’t place in the final four and ultimately dropped from the race, has been hired by Rep. Mary Peltola as her Alaska state director. He will be based in Anchorage but his position will allow him to travel widely across the state.

The news of his hire was first reported in the Must Read Alaska newsletter on Wednesday morning, where he was referred to as a “short list” candidate.

Revak is a former staff member for the late Congressman Don Young, and also worked as a member of the staff of Sen. Dan Sullivan.

“I am grateful to have Josh joining my team,” Peltola said in her news release.

Revak is a Republican, and Peltola is a Democrat. Revak was the choice of the lobbyist group in Washington, D.C. that had influence in Young’s office when he was alive. They backed Revak to fill Young’s seat, but voters had other ideas, even though Revak had the endorsement of Young’s widow, Ann Young.

Meanwhile, he had given up his seat in the Alaska Senate, where he served South Anchorage after being appointed to fill the seat left by the late Sen. Chris Birch.

But he has landed on his feet and will now be the point of contact for Peltola for Alaskans who are seeking assistance with federal agencies.

Another politico who is a registered Republican on the Peltola team is Alex Ortiz, chief of staff, who is from Ketchikan.

Revak to file for Congress to replace Don Young

Fail: Vote to make Permanent Fund dividend a 50-50 split with government and get it into Alaska constitution fails 10-9 in Senate; Sen. Revak casts pivotal vote

Port of Seattle, run by Democrats, brags on its political backdoor work killing the Pebble Project

Suzanne Downing
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Port of Seattle, run by Democrats, brags on its political backdoor work killing the Pebble Project

Unbeknownst to Alaskans, the Port of Seattle appears to have been taking a stand on the Pebble Project, a mining proposal in Southwest Alaska that was killed by the Biden Administration on Monday.

“The Port of Seattle celebrates the Biden administration, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell and the rest of the Washington Congressional delegation, for their sustained efforts to preserve the Bristol Bay watershed, which has resulted in today’s historic accomplishment,” said Port of Seattle Commissioner Fred Felleman, who was also recently appointed to the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. The board is an advisory panel to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“Since 2017 the Port has stood with the fishing industry to oppose mining and other development proposals that threaten this watershed which is essential to sustaining the world’s largest sockeye salmon runs and our fishing families,” the Port of Seattle wrote, acknowledging that Alaska’s commercial salmon fishing industry largely belongs to Seattle.

“Commercial fishing is a critical part of the cultural and economic fabric of our port, city, and region. Today’s decision provides significant safeguards for the future of this incredible ecosystem and the sustainable fisheries is supports. We are counting on our federal leaders to remain forever vigilant in standing against anything that would jeopardize today’s long-awaited achievement,” the port said.

The Port of Seattle, run by elected commissioners such as Felleman oversees the seaport and airport in Seattle, including one of the largest container terminals on the West Coast. The Port of Seattle has lease-paying tenants and also funds its operations on the backs of property owners in Seattle, who pay about $78 a year per King County homeowner for the port operations.

The Port of Seattle is not an apolitical organization. The vast majority of its employees are registered Democrats, according to Zippia, an online recruiting company. Zippia shows that, as with political affiliations, the overwhelming number of political donations from employees of the Port of Seattle went to Democrat candidates.

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