White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed concerns regarding President Joe Biden’s possible reelection bid.
In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon late Monday, Jean-Pierre responded to a question concerning Biden’s potential inability to run again in 2024.
“Does the President have the stamina, physically and mentally, do you think to continue on even after 2024?” Lemon asked.
“Don, you’re asking me this question? Oh my gosh, he’s the president of the United States,” Jean-Pierre replied. “That is not a question that we should be even asking.”
The comments come after a New York Timesarticle reporting Democrats’ hesitancy to endorse Biden, who is 79, for a 2024 run.
“That article that we’re talking about is hearsay,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s not what we care about; we care about how are we going to deliver for the American people, how are we going to make their lives better.”
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., declined to endorse Biden’s potential running in 2024 during a different CNN interview.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “We’ll take a look at it.”
Biden’s approval ratings also show Democrats’ wavering support of the President. His approval rating sits at 41%, according to Reuters.
Specifically, voters claim that inflation is the most pressing issue, according to a poll by Quinnipiac University, with 64% disapproving of his handling of the economy.
When asked by a reporter on Monday about the issue of inflation, Jean-Pierre responded, “we know families are concerned about inflation and the stock market. That is something that the president is – is really aware of. And so, look, we face global challenges. We’ve talked about this. This is – we’re not the only country dealing with what we’re seeing at the moment as it relates to inflation.”
Defending her previous statements on the matter, Jean-Pierre has come out saying that Biden does indeed plan to run in 2024 on her Twitter account.
“To be clear, as the president has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024,” she said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has accepted Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Corri Feige’s resignation.
Commissioner Feige has served Alaskans from the beginning of the administration, and is leaving to devote more time to her family, the governor said. Her last day with the administration is June 30.
“Commissioner Feige is a shining example of what public service can be. Her list of accomplishments during her three years at the helm of DNR was impactful to say the least,” Dunleavy said. “She guided Alaska’s resource development industries through a pandemic without placing their employees at risk, asserted Alaska’s rightful ownership over submerged lands and positioned the state to be more self-reliant and food secure. Her legacy will be with Alaska for many years to come.”
Dunleavy will appoint an interim commissioner by June 30.
Earlier this month, Education Commissioner Michael Johnson announced he was leaving at the end of June. He is taking a job out of state.
The Donald Trump era has brought countless examples in which Democrats, bureaucrats, and the establishment news media wove a sensational tale that turned out to be false.
There’s the Russia collusion caper that wasn’t, the 51 security experts who wrongly claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was misinformation, the Ukraine quid-pro-quo call that had neither a quid nor a quo, and the Moscow bounties on U.S. troops’ heads that never happened.
Now the Jan. 6 panel — led in part by the Russian collusion advocate Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. — has been called on the carpet for falsely suggesting a GOP lawmaker ran a reconnaissance mission inside the Capitol for Jan. 6 protesters the day before the riot.
Ironically, the man who blew that whistle is the new Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, who got his job on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s watch but handed Republicans vindication on an allegation they long claimed was a smear.
Manger wrote in a letter Monday to Congress, which Just the News obtained, that an exhaustive review of security footage found no evidence that Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia did anything other than give constituents a tour of some congressional office buildings.
In fact, the chief said, the congressman didn’t even enter the U.S. Capitol with the group.
“There is no evidence that Representative Loudermilk entered the U.S. Capitol with this group on January 5, 2021,” Manger wrote in a letter to Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Ill., the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee. “We train our officers on being alert for people conducting surveillance or reconnaissance, and we do not consider any of the activities we observed as suspicious.”
“All I can think of is this is a Soviet-style propaganda trial, like a show trial,” Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y., who spent time working in Communist Yugoslavia earlier in her career, told Just the News. “They put this tape together using propaganda, selected words and clauses cut and pasted to smear the people they want to smear and to get the outcome.”
“They put this tape together using propaganda, selected words and clauses cut and pasted to smear the people they want to smear and to get the outcome.”
– Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-N.Y.
Rep, Rodney Davis, the Illinois Republican who pressed Capitol Police to review the evidence and clear Loudermilk, said Democrats who besmirched his colleague’s name need to face accountability before the House Ethics Committee.
“The Democrats need to be ashamed of themselves,” Davis told the “Just the News, Not Noise” television show Monday night.
Former Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, who played a role unraveling the Russia collusion narrative, said Democrats have reached the political limits of the proverbial boy-cry-wolf tale, and it is time for their enablers in the mainstream media to push back. Some of the biggest names in media reported the Loudermilk allegations when they surfaced last month.
“I’m wondering how many of these political writers — The New York Times Washington Post, all these folks — are actually lining up to give the retractions,” Collins told Just the News. “…Let’s just be honest. They buy any narrative they can to impugn conservative congressmen, to malign Donald Trump, to make this event that they’re trying to pin basically on the conservative movement. And they’re willing to destroy lives, you know, really to do it without actually investigating, without reporting.”
The Loudermilk tale gives a case study on how an unsubstantiated claim spreads from one congressperson to the next, requiring weeks before officials knock it down with facts and evidence.
Or have you been swayed by the fear-mongering of the so-called “Defend our Constitution” group?
Have you been exposed to their arguments that a constitutional convention will be “dangerous and expensive?”
Let’s address their point of view, shall we?
They are telling us that a constitutional convention would draw in “an unprecedented amount of outside special interest groups and dark money to change Alaska’s laws to promote their own agendas, and make Alaska a guinea pig for national political agendas”. It is plainly displayed on their “Defend Our Constitution” website, www.defendakconstitution.com.
They also tell us it’s expensive, in fact, an unnecessary expense, of possibly $17 million.
I can’t help but wonder if Alaska voters will fall for this and other fear mongering exaggerations as we did with Ballot Measure 2 and the Bill Walker gubernatorial election. The consequences of the former have yet to be fully realized and the latter gave us Senate Bill 91, a total Alaska criminal law revision, through former state Senator John Coghill, who had to pass it before he read it, and Senate Bill 26 a percent of market value, or POMV, draw from the Earnings Reserve Account, which butchered the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Program.
But my argument is that our own Legislature cost us almost a quarter of a billion dollars in four years, and they have been relatively useless. A constitutional convention will be an opportunity for the citizens of Alaska to participate in an historic process to fix the things that are really wrong with our constitution, right the ship, and send a message to all political elite that we won’t stand for the status quo when it benefits so few.
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022, Alaskan voters will have the incredible opportunity to decide whether to approve a constitutional convention. Alaska’s political elite currently enjoy the benefits of government the way it is. The fear-mongering is just a smoke screen to hide this fact, create an artificial crisis and use their special interests and dark money to perpetuate it. Don’t buy it.
Here’s an example of how things can go wrong with our current constitution in place:
A day before the U.S. House of Representative special election voting ended, the Alaska Human Rights Commission (AHRC) got an Alaskan Superior Court judge to rule that the State of Alaska cannot certify this mail-in election because the Division of Elections did not provide an adequate way for blind people to vote privately in all areas of the state.
Fortunately, the Alaska Supreme Court overruled this opinion on the day voting ended, but still, I can’t help but wonder why a state agency couldn’t have gotten things settled prior to the cost of litigation and, more importantly, was the intention of this litigation aimed at adversely impacting the special election? Just another smoke screen hiding their real intentions?
For me, it marked another instance of state bureaucracy weaponization using a government agency to restrict its constituency. This was an action designed to upset our constitutional process as well as potentially deprive the Alaska voters of equal protection under the law.
Personally, I see the constitutional convention as an exciting opportunity for the constituency to come together as a state to decide what changes to the constitution are needed. I also think the attempt by a state agency, AHRC, to subvert the special election is another reason why a constitutional convention is timely and necessary.
When considering an Alaska constitutional convention, here are some things to think about:
One important distinction is its delegate membership composition. A constituent assembly, another name for a constitutional convention, signifies that the delegate composition is chosen from our Alaskan constituency and not necessarily from our legislature.
Our state constitution is the foundation of Alaska’s public policy. But what is public policy?
Because “public policy” is such a general term, both the Alaska Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court have avoided giving it any specific definition.
From my perspective, public policy is either top-down or bottom-up government.
In other words, does Alaska’s constitution promote public policy as government restricting its people? Or the people restricting their government?
When you think of a constituent assembly, do you agree that its main goal must be a thorough discussion on the strong constitutional protection of the principles of limited government and that these principles include the preservation of individual rights and the maintenance of strong legal constraints on our state government’s size and scope?
Given the past decades of state government operations, do you have faith in the people operating our government institutions?
Do you think Alaskans have lost faith in the constitutional mechanisms which maintain our government’s operations?
Does our state constitution conflict with our U.S. Constitution?
Does Alaska’s public policy encourage or restrict growth?
Did you know our state constitution was fashioned by a majority of FDR New Deal Democrats who wanted to construct a model utopian state during a time when the expansion of government control and power was the goal of the federal government?
How’d they do?
I can’t for the life of me understand why a constituent assembly is so dangerous, unnecessary, and expensive outside of disturbing the political elite’s self-interest and selfishness to maintain power and control over the wealth of our state, one of the greatest undeveloped natural resource development communities in the world.
If we as a state had from statehood educated our children in civics, our state constitution, and our US Constitution, would we be having these fears and doubts now? Unfortunately, having already deprived our children of a sound civics education, we find Alaska’s political elite now condescend and patronize Alaskans with yet another crisis.
It seems to me that a repetitive 10-year event with our citizenry educated in this manner would be something to look forward to.
Their sole intent is to continue to control the money and the power in this state through fear and artificially created crises.
“Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.” James Madison
A constitutional convention is necessary.
Michael Tavoliero is a realtor in Eagle River, is active in the Alaska Republican Party and chaired Eaglexit.
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135,712 votes are in (only 108,981 are counted) in the special primary for the congressional seat that is vacant. That means 80% of received ballots are counted, but more are still coming in and to be counted and announced Wednesday.
Festivals and appearances: Nick Begich, a leading candidate for Congress, was a the Kenai River Festival on Sunday, and then at a fundraiser for Tuckerman Babcock for Senate in Soldotna, talking to hundreds of Alaskans on the Kenai all day Sunday after a rocking Saturday in Palmer at Colony Days Parade. He was also on the Dan Fagan, Duane Bannock Show, and Mike Porcaro Show on Monday.
Sarah Palin, the top vote-getter for Congress in the primary, showed up at the School of Government on Monday night; the conservative social group in Palmer is organized and hosted by Mat-Su Mayor Edna DeVries, and Palin’s first appearance there was not to give a speech, but just to do a Q and A.Video on Must Read Alaska here.
When asked about why she endorsed Bill Walker and Democrat Byron Mallott for governor and lieutenant governor in 2014, (Minute 22:30) Palin said a lot of people wanted him to be governor and voted for him, and she didn’t know he was going to turn out the way he turned out. Walker is pro-abortion.
Palin also defended signing the economically destructive ACES oil tax legislation that killed oil production in Alaska for years after she left office.
At Minute 30, she claimed President Obama’s righthand man said he voted in Alaska and yet he doesn’t live here.
At Minute 32, she answered the accusation that she was a big spender.
Rejection slips: Rejected ballots from the special primary election are coming in significantly higher from areas where people had also, just two years prior, voted in favor of Ballot Measure 2, which brought Alaska the nightmare elections scenario now playing out:
House District 38 (Bethel) 17.99% ballots rejected
House District 39 (Nome) 15.38% ballots rejected
House District 40 (Kotzebue + Utqiagvik) 12.33% ballots rejected
House District 37 (Bristol Bay + Aleutians) 12.19% ballots rejected
House District 19 (Anchorage – Mountain View) 9.33% ballots rejected
The district with the least percentage of rejected ballots?
Fairbanks-Goldstream House District 4, the university area of Fairbanks, with less than 1% rejected ballots. The state average in this election for rejected ballots is a new record at 3.56%.
Signatures verified? It’s not that the signatures on the rejected ballots being tossed — the Division of Elections does not even verify signatures. Seriously. You can write in Mickey Mouse. So it’s something else:
Endorsements: John Sturgeon, outdoorsman and hunter who took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court and won — twice — endorsed Nick Begich for Congress. Patti and Art Mathias endorsed Sarah Palin for Congress.
Alaska voters chose Republicans: More than 60% of the vote for the Special Primary Election went to Republican candidates, with Democrat candidates getting less than 15% support, according to the nearly 109,000 votes that have been tabulated. The chart:
Kelly Tshibaka in Fairbanks: U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican, was in the Golden Heart City for the military appreciation ball, where Lisa was one of the speakers, along with General “Mad Dog” Mattis.
A comment made by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to gun-control advocate David Hogg has raised the red flag for candidate Kelly Tshibaka, who said that Murkowski changes her story on guns depending on the audience she is speaking with.
Ten Republicans have forged an agreement with Democrats to begin undermining the Second Amendment right to bear arms. The proposed legislation is in response to criminal attacks, such as the one in Uvalde, Texas, where a shooter killed numerous students in an elementary school, while law enforcement waited outside and refused aid.
While Murkowski is not one of the 10, she is on tape talking about gun control with one of the nation’s most strident gun-control activists, the Harvard student who went to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a mass shooting took place in 2018.
“You’re looking for some initial steps, I totally get that, and I think that in Congress, we owe some steps here,” Murkowski told Hogg. “OK?”
Murkowski continued, “We’ve got some work to do,” and described how a number of Alaskans were on their way to the nation’s capital to “engage.”
Hogg went on to talk about racism.
“We can’t say it’s so complicated we can’t do anything ,” Murkowski, said, describing gun violence as a multi-dimensional problem. “We haven’t been able to make any progress, we just say, ‘oh, it’s too hard’…”
Alaska Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka today issued the following statement about the tape of Murkowski and Hogg:
“It’s bad enough that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has blessed the negotiations with Democrats over which constitutional rights they can legislate away, but now our senior U.S. senator from Alaska is telling anti-gun activists that she’s open to their demands. Lawful ownership of firearms under the 2nd Amendment is central to our identity as Alaskans, as we use it to provide food for our families and for self-defense. We must address the root causes of violent attacks, such as mental health, rather than blaming inanimate objects. This can’t be understated: Leftists are coming for our guns and after more than 20 years in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski has pledged to help them.”
After many years, the Alaska Legislature has passed the “Alaska Reads Act,” which should improve reading outcomes for Alaska children. The passage of HB 114 was a classic example of the art of politics — bringing different views together in a compromise in which neither side gets everything it wanted.
This bill started as SB 111, which then morphed into HB 114. Once HB 114 was passed in the Senate by 19-0, it was sent back to the House with Senate amendments included.
Senator Rogr Holland amended HB 114 by adding the entire verbiage of the original SB 111 (Alaska Reads Act) into it. I don’t remember that ever happening on the Senate Floor before.
The final legislation included:
A breakout of the number of teachers holding administrative jobs and the number of total teachers.
The Base Student Allocation is increased by $30, to $5,960 per student.
Pre-K programs are authorized yet limited to $3 million annually. Lower performing districts get preference. Pre-K students are counted as one-half a full-time student in the funding formula.
Implementation of a reading program to identify students with reading difficulties, using a statewide screening tool three times per year. The intent is to get students reading at or above grade level by 3rd grade. Parents are required to be notified if a K-3 student has a reading deficiency. Districts are required to work with parents to help students improve their reading skills. In consultation with school staff, a parent/guardian has the final say regarding a student progressing to the next grade.
A report on the districts’ progress to implement reading intervention programs.
Districts are required to report on the number of K-3 students who did not progress to the next grade and the number of 3rd grade students who went to 4th grade. This information is to be posted on the Department of Education & Early Development website.
Pre-K teachers must be trained in the science of reading and reading essentials as approved by the board.
The Department is required to develop a reading program to support the lowest 25% of schools.
The Department is authorized six reading specialists to help those low performing districts improve.
Here is the progress of the legislation as it went through the bill process:
SB 111 was heard and passed in Senate Education and Judiciary Committees and then went to the floor where it passed by a vote of 15-0.
Support for the bill came from parents and educators throughout the State.
Superintendent Deena Bishop of the Anchorage School District supported SB 111 and stated, “I am here today to testify that SB 111 counts. It empowers our schools and teachers to ensure students are readers and thinkers in today’s global society—while at the same time providing accountability for the dollars spent on public education in Alaska.”.
Education Commissioner Michael Johnson emphasized that the Department’s #1 priority was, “To support all students to read at grade level by the end of third grade” as expressed in “Alaska’s Education Challenge.”
There was very little opposition to SB 111. Senators from both sides of the aisle supported the bill. It seems as if the only opposition was from the “Bush caucus,” which had a difficult time voicing its specific problems with the bill.
SB 111 then was sent to the House where its first hearing was in the Education Committee, co-chaired by Reps. Harriet Drummond (D, ANC) and Andi Story (D, JNU). In the past, Drummond has only championed education legislation that increased funding but with little accountability for results.
During the committee hearing, co-chairs Drummond and Story sent a memo to the Senate Education Committee stating they wanted the following changes to the bill:
Move more quickly to expand access to universal Pre-K by increasing funding from $3M to $5M annually.
Increase student funding in the BSA (by $223 year one and an additional $155 for the following year).
Add a return to the Defined Benefit retirement plan for teachers.
Remove from the bill the retention of students for not progressing in reading adequately
Include a new “Division of Cultural Education” in the Department of Education & Early Development.
But the Drummond/Story version of SB 111 did not pass out of the Education Committee, so it was virtually dead.
So, the original SB 111 died in the House.
Next, the Senate took up HB 114, Alaska Supplemental Education Loans, for discussion on the floor. That is when Senator Holland amended HB 114 by adding the entire verbiage of the original SB 111 (Alaska Reads Act) into it. This amended bill then passed the Senate by a vote of 19-0 and was sent to the House for a vote.
On the second to last day of the legislative session, House Majority Leader Chris Tuck moved and asked that the House concur in the Senate amendment and vote yes on Senate amended HB 114.
The final vote in the House was 21-19 in favor of HB 114. The vote was not along party lines and except for Rep. Patkotak, the Bush caucus voted no.
There are many who deserve kudos for this great effort to improve the literacy of Alaska students: Sens. Holland and Tom Begich, for shepherding the bill through the Senate. Sen. Begich defended the bill in the House Education Committee as well. Senate Majority Leader Shelley Hughes was also instrumental in coalescing support for the bill. House Majority Leader Tuck ensured the bill got a fair shake in the House. Reps. Mike Prax, Mike Cronk and Ron Gillham (House Ed Committee) informed their caucus on the bill’s merits.
Education Commissioner Johnson, who has supported efforts to improve reading skills for all Alaskan children and who strongly supported this Alaska Reads Act, also deserves credit.
And finally, Bob Griffin, Senior Education Research Fellow for the Alaska Policy Forum, was tireless in his efforts to provide the data and research to support this legislation.
In the next few years, we need to ensure that the specifics of this bill are implemented, and student reading progress is well documented.
While not perfect, the bill is a major step in the right direction.
David Boye is former executive director of Alaska Policy Forum and is Must Read Alaska’s education writer.
With a weather forecast “between seasick and dangerous” in the Strait of Juan de Fuca for the next two days, the non-motorized sailing and rowing Race to Alaska expedition teams will have a little more time to get from Port Townsend to Victoria. The “proving grounds,” which is the first section of the, race normally has a 24-hour deadline, but the race management has extended it by 24 hours.
The race, returning after two years of a Covid pandemic hiatus, starts Monday at 5 am Pacific Time. Racers will need to finish in Victoria no later than 5 pm on Wednesday in order to qualify for the next leg, from Victoria to Ketchikan, 710 miles.
“We’re back. 829 days since the world was cancelled by the murder sneeze, R2AK Central is shaking off the cobwebs and getting back in the saddle for a long delayed year of engineless hard charging to Alaska,” the organization wrote on Facebook on Sunday.
The boats used in the race are often fitted with both sails and oars for those times the wind dies down. Any boat will do, so long as it does not have a motor. The winner gets $10,000 and the second place finisher gets a set of steak knives.
Teams typically have fun names, such as “Fashionably Late,” or “High Sea Drifters,” and the organization has a saucy description of its return to the epic adventure-based race:
“Deep in R2AK’s command bunker we’re Rip Van Winkling our way out of forced hibernation. Our beards are a little longer, jumpsuits a little tighter than they were when we hung them up back in 2019. While R2AK Central is trying to remember where all the light switches are, both streets of Port Townsend are a sea of boat trailers, foul weather geared pedestrians, and R2AK t-shirted tourists and volunteers. The marinas and boat launches are bumper to bumper with pedal-driven and paddle-wheeled weirdo craft, the movie theater is filled with the R2AK documentary. This is definitely happening—three years and finally since the last one.”
This isn’t for everyone, the organization admits.
“It’s like the Iditarod, on a boat, with a chance of drowning, being run down by a freighter, or eaten by a grizzly bear. There are squalls, killer whales, tidal currents that run upwards of 20 miles an hour, and some of the most beautiful scenery on earth.”
R2AK is based on the “hardest kind of simplicity. You, a boat, a starting gun. $10,000 if you finish first, a set of steak knives if you’re second. Cathartic elation if you can simply complete the course. R2AK is a self-supported race with no supply drops and no safety net. Any boat without an engine can enter.”
A change in wind direction blew the smoke from several wildfires fires over the Alaska Range into Anchorage, the Mat-Su Valley, and Kenai.
Also, a lightning storm on June 6 started numerous fires in Southwest Alaska. Most of the fires are fairly small, but there are 50 wildfires burning and several are over 20,000 acres in a wide area from Lake Minchumina, to Mountain Village, to Dillingham. An interagency effort is underway to protect structures, mines, Native land allotments, and other values threatened by some of these large fires.
A change in wind direction bringing moisture and cooler air off of Bristol Bay may help to moderate some of the fire behavior in the coming days, but the vegetation is very dry and the fires continue to burn actively, the Alaska Wildland Fire Informationwebsite says. The southwest flow of air is also carrying the smoke from these fires.
Only three fires in the southwest are currently staffed, but aerial resources from Canada and the Lower 48 are in Alaska assisting and the first load of L48 fire crews arrived Sunday.
Sleetmute: The Aghaluk Mountain Fire (94,953 acres) is 10 miles southwest of Sleetmute along the Kuskokwim River. Firefighters from the DOF and the BLM Alaska Fire Service are on the ground in Sleetmute preparing to protect that community should the fire advance that fire in the coming days.
Medfra: he Submarine Creek Fire (17,920 acres) is 6 miles northwest of Medfra. On June 6th the fire burned through the Nixon Fork Mine, damaging the facility and mining infrastructure. Firefighters are working with the locals have secured the remaining infrastructure and are working to preparing to defend the Medfra community should the fire advance to the southeast.
St. Mary’s: The Alaska Type 2 Green Team is managing the East Fork Fire (121,831 acres) near St Mary’s, pictured above, and the Alaska Type 2 Black Team is being mobilized to help managing many of the fires between the Kuskokwim River and Dillingham.
DEC has issued air quality advisories for Southcentral and other regions, such as central, eastern, southwest, and western interior Alaska, for very unhealthy air quality through Tuesday afternoon.
The US National Weather Service Anchorage Alaska has been posting webcam images showing the smoke patterns as the winds push the towards Southcentral. Air quality has worsened Sunday evening.
