By AUSTIN PRESHKO / TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION
“Eva, dear, did your father teach you anything last night?”
My grandmother, Eva Hahn, received this question almost daily at school in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. While the question seems innocent enough at first glance, the teachers were actually fishing for proof that my great-grandfather, Jaroslav, was teaching his daughters “non-communist” ideas, such as the unabridged history of Czechoslovakia.
While my grandmother and her sister never turned their father in, eventually the communists found the “proof” that they needed against him – testimonies of neighbors and former coworkers. Jaroslav heard from friends that a warrant for his arrest was forthcoming, and that the outcome of the trial was already decided – guilty, with a sentence of six years in the uranium mines. This was a death sentence, as the average life expectancy in the uranium mines was just under five years. He escaped with his family soon after.
History may not repeat, but we can see patterns. No one is being rounded up and sent off to camps in the United States—but government (and social media) are demanding more and more strict adherence to approved ways of thinking.
Already, COVID-19 has justified massive increases in government power and reach. The recent vaccine mandate is a perfect example of this. For government officials at all levels, it was not enough to shut down the country, shatter the economy, wreck educations, and require masks everywhere. Now, the federal government is making an unconstitutional power grab by requiring businesses to force their employees to be vaccinated or consent to daily testing.
The most disturbing part is how it would be enforced: through employee reports. The Biden administration claims this is a good thing – OSHA won’t be kicking in doors and demanding vaccination papers; instead, it will simply respond to reports from employees. These employees will be protected and rewarded under the False Claims Act, which was designed to protect whistleblowers who reported fraud to the government.
Sound familiar?
While the communists did use secret police, surveillance, and wiretaps to weed out dissidents, they also relied on a vast network citizen-informants. This system encouraged false reports—you could report a supervisor, competitor, or even just a disliked neighbor with no repercussions. The “trials” were a foregone conclusion—anyone in the system was assumed guilty. There was no justice and no due process.
We’re assured no one will go to jail over the vaccine mandate, but it sets a dangerous precedent in the enforcement of regulations—asking Americans to spy and report on each other.
If a company is reported, OSHA can dig into private records to see if the mandate is being enforced. Imagine the potential for abuse there. By nature, a system that relies on reports like this is built entirely on the word of one person against another. Since there is no trial in this situation, there is no risk to the reporter if they issue a false report—they could submit a report out of spite.
The woke crowd in America already tears people down for the most minor of transgressions against political correctness. Enforcing a mandate with informants is sure to encourage false reports against those who engage in wrongthink.
The Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who spent almost 10 years in the Soviet gulags, said of the West, “There always is this fallacious belief: ‘It would not be the same here; here such things are impossible.’ Alas, all the evil of the 20th century is possible everywhere on earth.”
Fortunately, the vaccine mandate has been temporarily stayed due to the actions of Texas Public Policy Foundation’s own Center for the American Future. However, this is not permanent and could be undone at any moment. The threat that the vaccine mandate poses towards freedom is enormous—it must be stopped.
Editor’s note: In the above photo, Eva Hahn is in the center. To her left is Eva’s mother, Maria Riha, and to right is her grandmother, Maria Zezulkova.This column, used with permission, first appeared Nov. 17 at Texas Public Policy Foundation.
Alaska Congressman Don Young released the following statement in response to President Biden’s decision to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve:
“Across Alaska and the rest of our nation, hardworking American families are feeling the impacts of rising fuel prices. These costs touch every part of daily life. Whether it is increased heating expenses, more expensive groceries, or essential goods and services being out of reach, there is no doubt that oil prices and our dependence on OPEC are causing unnecessary stress on parents and their children. Today’s move by President Biden to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is historical, but not the kind of headline news that should be celebrated. Very frankly, we did not need to get to this point, and we are only here because the Administration has stifled American resource exploration and hamstrung our hardworking energy labor force at every turn. Congress created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a security strategy to protect our nation from oil shortages during natural and economic disasters. Let me be very clear: this is not a crisis necessitating a dip into our strategic oil reserves; rather, this is an emergency created purely by political malfeasance and broken promises. Anybody paying attention to this Administration’s energy policies is not surprised.
“There is no reason for President Biden to release the reserves when so much domestic energy is readily available. Alaska is home to rich oil reserves, which we can extract with far higher environmental standards than Russia, Venezuela, or any OPEC member country. The tiny sliver of land on ANWR’s Coastal Plain stands ready to both alleviate this oil crisis and prevent us from opening our oil reserves. In 1980, then-Senator Joe Biden voted for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which allowed for oil extraction on ANWR’s Coastal Plain in the first place. Unfortunately, President Biden refuses to remember his vote as Senator Biden, because this Administration has acted to stop extraction on the Coastal Plain, snuffing out the potential for well-paying jobs and Alaskan-driven energy independence. The Biden Administration has repeatedly blocked American energy projects under the guise of preventing carbon emissions. I hate to break it to them, but fossil fuels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve are still indeed carbon-emitting energy sources. Why then would we want to cut into our national safety net when we can get what American families truly need right from our own 49th state?
“This is a sad day for our country, and it should have never gotten to this point. Higher gas prices hurt families, threaten jobs, stifle our economic recovery, and only make us more beholden to foreign interests. I strongly oppose withdrawing from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, especially at a time where the holidays and the harshest winter nights are yet to come. This is reckless; we must ensure the reserve is fully stocked and ready for true emergencies. In the meantime, I call on President Biden to come visit Alaska’s North Slope with me. Meet with the hardworking men and women who keep our country moving and learn how they take care to balance energy exploration with the protection of our ecosystems. Alaska is a model for the nation, and I ask President Biden to allow us to do our part to lower gas prices and secure American energy independence.”
On November 19, 2021, Congressman Young sent a letter to President Biden and Energy Secretary Granholm expressing opposition to withdrawing from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Click here for the letter.
The White House announced Tuesday that it will release 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, as a way to try to flatten the curve of rising fuel prices.
The move may surprise Americans, who witnessed Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm laugh off a question about skyrocketing cost of fuel during a televised news interview on Nov. 5.
“[In] Sturgis, Michigan, it is $2.89 a gallon. I guess that’s better than in California,” Bloomberg Host Tom Keene said to Granholm during the interview, noting that gas prices had reached all-time highs. “What is the Granholm plan to increase oil production in America?”
“That is hilarious,” Granholm responded, throwing back her head and cackling with laughter on the Nov. 6 show. “Would that I had the magic wand on this. Oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC, and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning.”
When @TomKeene asks @SecGranholm the very pertinent question on whether America (and no OPEC+) needs to increase oil production. The response, amid laughing: “That’s hilarious” #OOTTpic.twitter.com/LToWUIxTb0
The cost in Sturgis, Michigan has since then risen to $3.19 a gallon. In Anchorage, drivers pay between $3.39 and $3.54 a gallon, while Californians are paying $4.70.
The Granholm laugh video, which went viral on social media, has cost the Biden White House enormously.
The president has a completely different message today. It’s now blaming the Covid-19 pandemic that it says forced an unprecedented global economic shutdown.
“As the world is re-opening from a near economic standstill, countries across the globe are grappling with the challenges that arise as consumer demand for goods outpaces supply,” the White House said in its statement, ignoring the fact that refining capacity is the real chokepoint in the supply-and-demand chain. A major refinery hasn’t been built in America in decades.
“But here in the United States, the economic recovery is stronger and faster than anywhere else in the world – according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the US is the only one of the major economies to have returned to pre-pandemic gross domestic product levels – in large part due to President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which funded and facilitated a nationwide vaccination program, provided resources to schools and small businesses to keep them open in the face of COVID waves and put money in the pockets of those hit hardest by the pandemic,” the White House said in a 95-word, run-on sentence.
In fact, 50 million barrels is barely a blip, compared to what is needed. The world goes through 100 million barrels a day.
Biden’s statement went on to explain how much more Americans have in disposable income this year — $100 a month — than last year, the president said, “even as COVID has continued to complicate the economic recovery around the world.”
And yet, the value of that dollar has shrunk due to Biden inflation. The consumer price index in Alaska, for example, is up 6.3 percent over last year.
Biden went on to say oil supply has not kept up with demand, but did not acknowledge his own actions in creating a supply problem by creating uncertainty for oil developers, producers, and financiers. On the first day of his administration, Biden attacked the energy sector by canceling the permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, and banned all oil leases on federal land.
In June, he drove a dagger through the leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and because the Biden Administration refused to ask for a court review of Federal Judge Sharon Gleason’s decision, the White House forced a new supplemental environmental review for the Willow Project in the National Petroleum Reserve Alaska, which will delay or kill the project.
Earlier this month, Russia and member nations of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced they would not increase their oil production, even after Biden implored them to help Americans out.
Today, the president said he is working with countries across the world to address the lack of supply:
“And, as a result of President Biden’s leadership and our diplomatic efforts, this release will be taken in parallel with other major energy consuming nations including China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom. This culminates weeks of consultations with countries around the world, and we are already seeing the effect of this work on oil prices. Over the last several weeks as reports of this work became public, oil prices are down nearly 10 percent.”
The Department of Energy will make available releases of 50 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in two ways:
32 million barrels will be an exchange over the next several months, releasing oil that will eventually return to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the years ahead. The exchange is a tool matched to today’s specific economic environment, where markets expect future oil prices to be lower than they are today, and helps provide relief to Americans immediately and bridge to that period of expected lower oil prices. The exchange also automatically provides for re-stocking of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over time to meet future needs.
18 million barrels will be an acceleration into the next several months of a sale of oil that Congress had previously authorized.
Oil analysts were unimpressed: “They are trying to put a bandaid on an arterial bleeding, it just doesn’t work. It’s the EPA, the permitting process, and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions related to permitting of refining capacity that will cause prices to stay high for long time,” said one analyst, who predicted that the effect from the release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would be short-lived, since the chokepoint is really at the refineries.
The president went on to blame the oil industry itself for not lowering the prices at the pump.
“There is mounting evidence that declines in oil prices are not translating into lower prices at the pump. Last week, the President asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine what is going on in oil and gas markets and to consider “whether illegal conduct is costing families at the pump,” the White House said.
The messaging from the White House may appear incoherent, considering that just three weeks ago in Glasgow, Scotland, Biden told the Global Climate Summit that the world must drastically reduce the use of petroleum in order to save a warming planet.
A fundraiser at the Petroleum Club for the reelection of Gov. Mike Dunleavy is set for Tuesday, Nov. 23, from 5:30-8 pm. Hosts are John Sturgeon, Bob Bell, Rick Rydell, and Larry Baker.
Dunleavy became governor in 2018 when he beat Mark Begich and Bill Walker in a race in which Walker dropped out in the last two weeks of the campaign, after his administration became disgraced.
Dunleavy is facing Bill Walker again in 2022, and also former legislator Les Gara, a Democrat.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is suggesting soy is a more economically efficient Thanksgiving meal option than turkey.
“A Thanksgiving dinner serving of poultry costs $1.42,” said a tweet about a Federal Reserve economic data blog post. “A soybean-based dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs 66 cents and provides almost twice as much protein,” it said, signaling that soy may even be superior to turkey, pound for pound.
The blog post, at this link, said that the average global price of poultry has been six times higher than the price of soybeans.
“As of the third quarter of 2021, a hearty Thanksgiving dinner serving of turkey costs $1.42. A tofurkey (soybean) dinner serving with the same amount of calories costs $0.66 and provides almost twice as much protein. Keep in mind that this plant-based meal would be almost 3 times larger by weight than the poultry-based meal and may either keep you at the dinner table longer or provide you with more leftovers. Of course, our calculations here don’t include the time value, energy costs, and additional ingredients required to cook the meals,” the blog noted.
Republican U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan introduced a bill Monday that would allow the Alaska Native communities in Haines, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, and Tenakee to form urban corporations and receive land under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
The bill would wrest Tongass National Forest land out of federal control and into the hands of newly formed Native corporations so it can be logged, mined, or developed economically.
This is essentially the same bill in that has been introduced in some form for 20 years, but Democrats typically won’t go along with it, since it would remove land from federal control.
ANCSA, signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1971, settled Alaska Native aboriginal claims with the largest land claims settlement in U.S. history, creating Native corporations to begin driving economic growth for Alaska’s indigenous people.
The five Southeast communities included in this bill were not included in ANCSA, which divided 44 million acres of land among more than 200 regional, village, and urban corporations to resolve land claims throughout Alaska. ANCSA was an essential step to being able to get the Trans Alaska Pipeline System completed, and the focus then was not on Southeast Alaska. ANCSA was prompted by the discovery of North America’s largest oil field in Prudhoe Bay in 1967, and geopolitical forces, led by an oil embargo from OPEC, that led to an oil shortage in the early 1970s. In order to get the oil out of Alaska and establish energy security, the pipeline had to go through what had been unresolved tribal territory.
ANCSA, passed by Congress with the help of U.S. Senators Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel and Congressman Nick Begich, declared “This act shall be regarded as an extinguishment of all previous aboriginal title.”
In exchange for some land, the Native corporations received $900 million and other lands.
Today those corporations are some of Alaska’s biggest economic engines and contribute wealth to Natives and non-Natives alike.
But there was part of the state that didn’t get included. The new legislation, the “Unrecognized Southeast Alaska Native Communities Recognition and Compensation Act,” aims to rectify that left-out portion of Alaska by amending ANCSA to provide each of the communities the opportunities it granted to other Native communities 50 years ago: the right to form an Alaska Native Urban Corporation and receive 23,040 acres, or one township, of federal land.
“The culture and heritage of Alaska Native peoples is intricately tied to the land on which they live. The unique regions they have inhabited for centuries are directly connected to their identity,” said Senator Murkowski. “Unfortunately, five communities were not afforded the same benefits under ANCSA – access to land – that were granted to others throughout Southeast. It is past time the federal government make good on its promises to each of the communities that were left out of this significant agreement. I’m proud to work with Senator Sullivan, Congressman Young, and local stakeholders to correct this decades-long wrongdoing and provide equity to these landless communities.”
“For years, Alaska Native residents in five southeast communities have been denied the land and opportunities afforded by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, a historic injustice that Congress has a duty to rectify. As we approach the 50th anniversary of the passage of ANCSA, I am hopeful my colleagues will recognize the federal laws and circumstances that uniquely impact Alaska and join Senator Murkowski and me in quickly advancing our legislation for the benefit of our constituents,” Sullivan said.
U.S. Congressman Don Young previously introduced similar legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The long-shot legislation is the result of extensive and ongoing outreach to people in Southeast Alaska. It identifies specific parcels of land to be conveyed to what would become new urban corporations in an area of the state that has been nearly locked down by the federal government to any economy other than fishing and tourism. The legislation also includes provisions to protect existing rights-of-way and many existing uses of those lands and to ensure that reasonable public access can continue.
In November 2020, Senators Murkowski and Sullivan and Congressman Young introduced their original landless legislation, upon which today’s newly introduced bill was built.
Following introduction, during an Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining (PLFM) legislative hearing, Senator Murkowski raised her bill, S. 4889, the ANCSA Fulfillment Act, a package which aimed to resolve a number of outstanding issues related to the landmark 1971 law, including authorizing the five landless communities in southeast Alaska to form urban corporations and receive lands. Senator Sullivan was a cosponsor of S. 4889.
I was raised in Baptist confinement; the “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it” variety.
There were three kinds of Baptists in the rural South; the Missionary Baptists, the Progressive Primitive Baptists, and the “Old Line” Primitive Baptists. The Missionary Baptists are the ones you might recognize; they had a nice church with a steeple in town and there were nice cars parked around the church on Sunday morning. They’re the ones you’d associate with the Southern Baptist Convention and what passes for mainstream Protestantism these days. I was brought up to think of them as snobs, though not so much as Methodists and Presbyterians, but they did have some pretty girls, so I went to church there from time to time. I’ll always have a warm spot for them for the night we beat a nearby rival, a rivalry so intense the game had to be played on a neutral field, in football for the first time in 28 years, and when the team and band buses arrived back in town in the middle of the night, somebody opened the church and played “Alma Mater” on the carillon for the whole town, whether they wanted to hear it or not.
I sprang from the more déclassé sector of Baptist dogma and I had a divided family. My Father’s side were “progressive” Primitive Baptists. My grandfather and grandmother were charter members of the church, and my grandfather and later my father were deacons. We gave the land for the parsonage to the church.
I was something of a disappointment.
My mother’s side were “Old Line” Primitive Baptists. Union Primitive Baptist church was out in the country and didn’t have running water or modern facilities. It didn’t have stained glass windows or art work on the walls. It didn’t have a piano or other musical instrument. My grandfather was a deacon and the singing leader and most of the singing was “call and repeat.” Most of you don’t know what that is, but most of you have heard Joan Baez’ version of “Amazing Grace” on “From Every Stage,” the only Christian song you can sing or play in polite company these days. She does a lot of it in “call and repeat,” in which she sings out the words of the next verse for the audience.
Other than at Union Church, I remember it most from field hands working in cotton and tobacco fields. Someone was the song leader, maybe the foreman, maybe a pastor among the group; he; always he, led the singing. Most of you have no idea what chopping cotton or cropping tobacco in the 100 degree Georgia heat is like, but singing Gospel songs as you did it seemed to help.
That was the state of the World 50 or 60 years ago. Two hundred years earlier, you could have a trial by water (or worse) to see if your beliefs adequately conformed to “community standards.” A couple of hundred years before that, you would be offered a choice of the hot fire if you could afford it, or the slow fire if you couldn’t, as your soul was tried by fire.
You have to really be a student of history to know about Arianism, Catharism, Nestorianism, Appolarianism, Gnosticism and all the other “isms” that could get you tortured, flayed, blinded, burned at the stake or boiled in oil for the first 1,500 years or so of Christianity’s development. Only some of the notorious Inquisition was about testing just which flavor of Christian you might be, though it got pretty tough in places, but if you were a Muslim or a Jew trying to “pass” as a Christian, your life might well be forfeit.
The Left never had a Council of Nicaea or a Stalin. Constantine had a convocation of Christian bishops in 325 AD who were tasked with setting out what it meant to be a Christian. They produced the Nicene Creed. The assembled bishops were mostly from the Eastern Empire. The great losers were the Arian Christians, but they remained a force in the church for centuries, albeit a persecuted force. The most evident result was that the creed defined heresy, and the church, particularly the Eastern church, set out to extirpate heresy.
There is a good argument that Byzantine losses to the Persians and later to the Muslims among the Jews and other Semitic residents of the empire were in large measure attributable to persecution by the Orthodox Church. As the Muslims became ascendant, many Orthodox but heretical Christians chose conversion or dhimmitude over Orthodox persecution.
Fast forward 1,500 years; communism was little more established in Europe in the mid-1800s than Christianity had been in the 300s, perhaps less so. Various cells, cadres, and communes had tried to establish socialist/communist/communal governments throughout Europe and even to some extent in the U.S. all through the 19thCentury.
You can trace most of the “isms” that bedeviled the U.S. in the 19th and early 20thCenturies to the Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. in 1848. Marx’ “Das Kapital” wasn’t far behind in 1867. By 1871 proto-communists established the Paris Commune and rejected the authority of the French Government. It only took a couple of months for the French Army to reject the authority of the Paris Commune, but revolutionary groups were here to stay.
World War One proved too much for the tottering Romanov Dynasty in Russia and it succumbed first to a social Democrat democracy and ultimately to the communist Bolsheviks, thus establishing the first communist national government, led first by Vladimir Lenin. Autocracy is the only form of government Russia had ever known, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was even more autocratic than the Romanovs, but different people got to be the autocrats. Anastasia screamed in vain!
The aborning U.S.S.R. faced a civil war with revanchist elements, the “White Russians,” and various schisms between factions inside the nominally communist ranks. Bolshevik means something like majority, but they were anything but; they were just loud and violent.
Lenin kept the unholy alliance together until his death in 1928. Among the many ideological schisms, the most consequential was that between Lenin and another Bolshevik, Leon Trotsky. To use today’s words, Lenin was a bureaucratic communist; his intent was to harness the bureaucratic power of the state to the Communist Party.
Trotsky believed in ongoing revolution; he was more anarchist than communist. Lenin’s successor, Stalin, was cut from different cloth and had nothing of Trotsky’s dissidence; he threw him out of the U.S.S.R. Then, when Trotsky, ensconced in Mexico, continued to try to influence events in the U.S.S.R., Stalin simply had someone put an ice axe through his skull.
That was the communist version of the Council of Nicaea; adhere to the ruling dogma or get an ice axe in your head. To be fair, the Christians weren’t any more gentle; burned at the stake or an ice axe in your head: you pick it.
Through World War II, American communists were doctrinaire Stalinists. After WWII, the U.S. rigorously suppressed doctrinaire communism. The net result, however, was not really the suppression of communism, but its dispersion. In the 1950s and 1960s we saw the rise of the New Left in the US. The epicenter was Chicago and a Trotsky disciple named Saul Alinsky. Chinese Maoism was a derivative of Trotskyism, and lots of American young people spent the 1960s with a copy of Mao’s “Little Red Book” in the pocket of their ragged Levis. It quietened a bit in the Reagan-Bush years, but returned in new bespoke clothes with Bill Clinton.
Bill and Hillary Clinton raised a fist and yelled “Vinceremos.” They meant to restart the revolution. Fortunately, it cost Bill the Congress and he tucked his communist tail between his legs and made nice with Newt Gingrich. Hillary, who wrote her master’s thesis about Saul Alinsky, remains resentful and tries to remain relevant. Bill seems to content himself with finding comfort with women who aren’t Hillary.
The Left did not rest after the Clinton retrenchment; they took your children, if you were foolish enough to send them to college. In scenes reminiscent of a Tom Jones concert in the 1970s, college girls were throwing their panties at the stage at Obama rallies in the ‘00s. Donald Trump was an unanticipated interlude that caused the Left a fit of apoplexy. I won’t discuss how the Left “defeated” him.
To bring this to today, the communists, excuse me, Democrats, control the Congress and the Presidency; they can do pretty much whatever they want subject to their ability to cow the courts. Their tool of manipulation is the Covid scamdemic. Covid has become a messianic religion. You either accept the gospel of St. Anthony Fauci and his ilk, or you are a heretic.
I don’t look or act like a sensitive new-age guy; the Karens don’t even have to know, they couldn’t tell anyway, whether I’m carrying Covid or not; one look at me without a mask and they bustle off in the opposite direction with a distraught look on their faces. They are genuinely afraid, and St. Anthony and the “Jab Inquisition” have done that. St. Anthony doesn’t have to be Slo Joe’s Torquemada, there are millions of Karens out there to do it for him.
We have some “doctor” screeching at the medical board about “misinformation.” Who gave her the power to determine what constitutes misinformation? She doesn’t work for Facebook, which reserves that right for itself.
This doctor and her soy boy disciples would like nothing more than putting the dissenting doctors, most of whom are more qualified than their accusers, to the stake; what better place than in front of Loussac Library, the leftists’ holy temple in Anchorage.
We have exceeded even a medieval level of ignorance and superstition; we’ve made it all the way back to the Dark Ages.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.
Sen. Dan Sullivan stopped by the Must Read Alaska office in Spenard to talk to Alaskans about the recent passage of the massive infrastructure bill, and the good it will do for Alaska over the next few years. Some of the high points from the interview are:
Perfect? No: Sullivan said the bill wasn’t perfect, but that it is going to put a lot of people to work in Alaska over the next five years on projects that are critical to moving the state forward. It is not the big social engineering bill that is called the Build Back Better Act, which was split off from the infrastructure bill so that the road, bridge, and broadband upgrades won’t be held up by what he termed as a socialist agenda that is in the BBBA.
Roads: The bill has $3.5 billion over five years for Alaska, a 34 percent increase over the previous highway bill. Much of the regular highway bill funding is incorporated into this legislation. Alaska will also receive part of the $110 billion over five years in supplemental funding for roads and bridges. The funds go to the state government, which decides which projects get worked on, and in what order.
Bridges: Alaska will get part of $40 billion over five years that is set aside for bridges; Alaska has 141 bridges that are structurally deficient.
Broadband: Sullivan emphasized the importance of broadband for giving parents and children choice in their education, making charter and homeschool education more available to those in rural areas. He also pointed to the $1.5 billion in flexible funding over five years, with Alaska having achieved priority for getting broadband to remote communities, before that money flows to cities like Chicago. Broadband is a key economic driver, he said, for a young state like Alaska.
Water and wastewater: The bill has $40 million to $60 million by 2026 for for safe drinking water, plus Sullivan was able to get $3.5 billion over five years for Indian Health Service sanitation facilities to help build out running water and flush toilets in rural Alaska.
Energy: The bill provides a loan guarantee up to $18 billion for the Alaska LNG project.
Streamlining Permits: The bill sets deadlines for completion of environmental reviews.
Ports and Harbors: The bill has $2.25 billion over five years for ports, including $250 million over five years for the construction of remote and subsistence harbor projects.
Sullivan, after the interview, dispelled some of the myths about the bill. It does not include Critical Race Theory, it doesn’t include gender identity politics, and it is different from the $3.5 trillion Built Back Better bill the Democrats are now trying to shove through Congress (the BBBA has passed the House).
Sullivan also talked about the increasing problem with the communist Chinese and their intent to invade and take over Taiwan. A Marine Reserve colonel, he said he is keeping a close eye on the developments and is concerned the Biden Administration will give over Taiwan to the Chinese.
Women in power asserted themselves this week on issues of words and wardrobe.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland on Friday ordered a ban of the word “squaw,” which is an Algonquin word that simply means “woman,” from all federal lands.
Haaland, as an agent of the federal government, declared “squaw” to be a derogatory term that was inappropriate to use to name geological features. There are more than 650 place names that use the word, such as Squaw Mountain, Squaw Valley, and Squaw Creek. She appointed a task force to find replacement names.
“Racist terms have no place in our vernacular or on our federal lands. Our nation’s lands and waters should be places to celebrate the outdoors and our shared cultural heritage — not to perpetuate the legacies of oppression,” Haaland said in a news release.
“The term has historically been used as an offensive ethnic, racial, and sexist slur, particularly for Indigenous women,” the news release said.
The newly created Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force will include representatives from federal land management agencies, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion experts from the federal agency. The order requires that the task force engage in Tribal consultation and consider public feedback on all proposed name changes.
Secretarial Order 3405 creates a Federal Advisory Committee to broadly solicit, review, and recommend changes to other derogatory geographic and federal land unit names. The Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names will include representation from Indian tribes, tribal and Native Hawaiian organizations, civil rights, anthropology, and history experts, and members of the general public. It will establish a process to solicit and assist with proposals to the secretary to change derogatory names, and will include engagement with tribes, state and local governments, and the public.
Some states have passed legislation prohibiting the use of the word “squaw” in place names, including Montana, Oregon, Maine, and Minnesota. Squaw Valley Ski Resort officially changed its name to Tahoe Palisades in September.
Meanwhile, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and two other women senators had a letter published in the New York Times on Nov. 20, in which they criticized the newspaper for focusing too much on the wardrobe of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat from Arizona who has some of the more flashy, form-fitting, and colorful attire in Congress. The letter was also signed by Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat senator from New Hampshire and Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine.
Vanessa Friedman, a writer for the New York Times, wrote a defense in 2017 about why writing about the wardrobe of powerful people is of interest. In her column, she wrote:
“Every garment — a tie, a dress, a pair of socks or shoes — is a communication device of varying power and clarity, and we choose how to use those tools to sway those looking at us. After all, since long before Queen Elizabeth I whitened her face and exaggerated her ruff to transform herself into a living myth, leaders have been using clothes to influence opinion. For all of us, what we choose to wear in the morning telegraphs a message about who we are; and for those in the public eye, this effect is simply multiplied a hundredfold (or more).
“Is it sillier to acknowledge the strategy behind appearance, or to pretend such influences don’t exist? It may be embarrassing to recognize that what someone wears can affect your judgment, but it does: leather leggings and sneakers can make a member of the establishment seem accessibly cool; a red tie taps into memories of Morning in America; rolled-up shirt sleeves indicate hard work. At the very least, wardrobe choices can subconsciously make you relate to public figures in a more personal way, which could then tempt you to give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to motivations and policy making — or they may alienate you entirely.
“Barack and Michelle Obama were masters of the sartorial statement, and a wave of politicians who have come since, including Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron and their wives, have learned from the Obamas’ example: strategically abandoning their ties on occasion; daring to wear “Star Wars” socks; promoting homegrown designers. Donald Trump, with his hair and his tan and his devotion to the overlong tie and boxy suit, uses his style to weave a different story. But, in the current White House, it is Melania whose clothes may be the most telling. Not because she is a woman, but because since the election she has rarely spoken, retreating to her penthouse in New York and emerging last week on the global stage in a series of strict, battle-ready outfits.
“It’s not that what she wears matters more than world peace or freedom of the press or trade policy or any piece of legislation — of course not. And The Times covers those issues with dedication. But one kind of analysis does not obviate the other, and can, in fact, elucidate it. We scour her wardrobe for clues as to who she is as a person and how she sees her role; where her values lie and how she will represent the country on the world stage. Where her husband’s (perhaps unstated) priorities lie. The vehicles may be superficial. But they are also broadly accessible, and that makes them powerful. And power is a subject I don’t think any of us would dismiss.
