Anchorage Activists Protest Against Boehner’s Fundraiser With Former ARP Chair Randy Ruedrich (+video)

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A group of Anchorage Tea Party activists protested GOP House Speaker John Boehner’s fundraiser with former Alaska Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich and other Alaska establishment politicos such as Commissioner Dan Sullivan.

The GOP event, held in a residential area, was carefully choreographed so that Boehner did not have to confront the protesters, many of whom were criticizing GOP support for Rubio’s amnesty bill:

Boehner Protest Amnesty2

Boehner Protest Amnesty3

Boehner Protest Amnesty

Some of the protesters pointed out that Boehner and the other state Republican officials were consorting with members of the self-described “Corrupt Bastards Club”:

Boehner Protest CBC

The activists also chanted an anti-amnesty message:

Shaking Down the Public at Alaska State Parks

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Photo Credit: Alaskan Dude

Photo Credit: Alaskan Dude

A couple of days ago, I decided to go fishing at Rocky Lake. I loaded up the float tube and had my wife drop me off at the local public access point, which happens to be a state park. I unloaded the float tube, told my wife I would call he for a ride home, and proceeded down to the lake.

A few yards into the park I was interrupted by a state park employee named Holly. She informed me I “still had to pay.” I informed her I had a constitutional right to access navigable water from the public domain and one does not pay to exercise ones rights. The discussion ensued.

Holly’s main point was the park belongs to the State of Alaska and she was charging the public for access to state property although she did mention that state and federal agencies are exempted from paying these fees.

My point was the park is public domain, it belongs to the people and while it is appropriate to charge for services rendered, citizens have a right enumerated by our state constitution to access the park. Since I was not utilizing any service, no fee could be charged.

In an attempt to give my point credibility , I informed Holly that the understanding of the issue I have, is from information I have reviewed while serving on the state Citizens Advisory Commission on Federal Area’s.

Holly while still disagreeing, took my name and phone number and said a park ranger will get back to me. She decided to allow me to continue to the lake. She ended our conversation with a sarcastic “have a nice day” knowing that she disturbed what would have otherwise been for me a pleasant time on the lake.

As I was out one the lake I began thinking about how she had turned away local kids away from the camp ground for not paying and how such a thing would have affected my childhood in Alaska.

I simply could not let the situation stand.

Returning home I proceed to research my position to ensure I did not overlook something . I did Not.

Article 8 of Alaska’s constitution has clearly established the citizen’s right to access public resources. Sections 2,3 ,6,14 and 15 all affirm this right. In fact section 14 explicitly states “Free access to the navigable or public waters of the State, as defined by the legislature, shall not be denied any citizen of the United States or resident of the State,” It does mention regulation for other purposes not applicable here since the the point of a park IS public access.

I looked at statute as well and found these applicable statutes:

AS 41.21.026 (12) (b) – “The department may not charge or collect a fee for an ordinary use of a park unit or the use of a rest room in a park unit.”

and a lawful concessionaire

AS 41.21.027 (6) – “recognizes and accommodates, at no cost, ordinary uses in a park unit…”

With this information in hand I trotted down to my State Representative, Mark Neuman’s office to register a complaint. Representative Neuman was attentive and effective. Within minutes had an answer to the specific question from the State Park supervisor she sent an email stating,

“In response to your request for information regarding fees charged at the Rocky Lake State Recreation Site, the following fees apply:

Daily use of designated parking areas with access to rest rooms – $5 per vehicle per day; Overnight camping – $15 per site per night There is no fee for use of the site that does not include any of the above.”

While it was nice to see the state park supervisor confirm what the constitution and statute enumerate, I still cannot help but think this same scenario of shaking down the public to access their public land plays out in camp grounds and parks across Alaska.

The right of the people to access resources in the public domain is as essential to our liberty as any other right. We must ensure our children and our state employees understand this right.

I hope you share with others this knowledge, that our lands belong to us and managers of that land are trustees, not exclusive owners of the resource.

Alaska Volcano Eruptions Get Worse: `We Can’t Explain’ Says Geologist (+video)

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volcanoAlaska volcano eruptions are entering a more powerful phase. After six weeks of Alaska volcano eruptions reaching five miles into the sky, covering nearby communities with ash and shutting down air flights, there looks to be no end.

Alaska volcano eruptions 2013 started in May at the Pavlof Volcano, which is located about 590 miles southwest of the major city Anchorage, in the Alaska Peninsula. The most powerful phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started with low-level rumblings.

According to scientists at the federal-state Alaska Volcano Observatory, the latest phase of Alaska volcano eruptions started late on Monday and continued through the night into Tuesday. The blasts emanate from the crater of a 8,261 foot volcano.

Tina Neal, an geologist at the observatory said, “For some reason we can’t explain, it picked up in intensity and vigor.”

In May, Alaska volcano eruptions sent a smaller ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air. The ash was visible for miles. Residents were worried that it would damage power generators.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sarah Palin: If Amnesty Bill Passes, Time to Abandon GOP

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite

Great job, GOP establishment. You’ve just abandoned the Reagan Democrats with this amnesty bill, and we needed them to “enlarge that tent” of which you so often speak. It’s depressing to consider that the House of Representatives is threatening to pass some version of this nonsensical bill in the coming weeks.

Once again, I’ll point out the obvious to you: it was the loss of working class voters in swing states that cost us the 2012 election, not the Hispanic vote. Legal immigrants respect the rule of law and can see how self-centered a politician must be to fill this amnesty bill with favors, earmarks, and crony capitalists’ pork, and call it good. You disrespect Hispanics with your assumption that they desire ignoring the rule of law.

Folks like me are barely hanging on to our enlistment papers in any political party – and it’s precisely because flip-flopping political actions like amnesty force us to ask how much more bull from both the elephants in the Republican Party and the jackasses in the Democrat Party we have to swallow before these political machines totally abandon the average commonsense hardworking American. Now we turn to watch the House. If they bless this new “bi-partisan” hyper-partisan devastating plan for amnesty, we’ll know that both private political parties have finally turned their backs on us. It will then be time to show our parties’ hierarchies what we think of being members of either one of these out-of-touch, arrogant, and dysfunctional political machines.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Supreme Court Ruling Keeps Alaska in Driver Seat to Define Marriage

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Photo Credit: dmcdevit

Photo Credit: dmcdevit

Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Prop 8, California’s successful citizen initiative that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman, highlights how important it is that Alaska was the first state in the nation in 1998 to define natural marriage in our own State Constitution.

Thank God we as citizens of Alaska ignored the advice of those who said we should wait for the Court to determine what this essential institution means.

Although you will hear from most media sources that DOMA was dismantled today, Justice Kennedy, acknowledges in his majority opinion the inherent right of individual states to define and regulate marriage as they see fit.

For most Americans, the big picture is more of what the Court did not do:

*It did not create a constitutional right to same-sex marriage as it did for abortion in 1973.

*It also did not declare same-sex marriage a civil right on the order of ethnicity or nationality.

The critical role of natural marriage is not diminished by these rulings today. The essential need for children to have both a married mother and father is not lessened by the opinions of five unelected black robes on the U.S. Supreme Court. The work of Alaska Family Action to strengthen marriage and families continues, as well.

Now more than ever, Alaskans must not stay silent on cherishing and promoting the truth of natural marriage. Whatever journalists, intellectuals and other elites may tell us, the only way to guarantee future political losses is to sit idly by.

We must step up and frame our message, strengthen our coalitions, devise strategies and bear witness to a culture looking for answers.

Though Alaska Family Action disagrees with aspects of the Court’s decision, we are grateful that the Court did not undermine the will of Alaska voters who defined marriage in our State Constitution.

In DOMA, we believe that the court erred in claiming that a state that has redefined marriage can force that definition on the federal government for purposes of federal marriage laws.

In Prop 8, the court has ensured that the state-by-state debate about marriage is allowed to continue. Truly the debate over marriage has just begun.

Marriage is more than just a personal promise, it serves a public purpose. It is society’s best guarantee of a limited government that stays out of family life. Social science data has proved this time and time again.

Alaska Family Action is committed to continuing to stand for marriage and to defeat any efforts to redefine this essential union.

Stay tuned and stay engaged.

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Thank you for your interest in the Alaska Family Action. We are an Alaska-based pro-family, public policy organization formed to provide a voice on social and cultural issues impacting Alaskan families. We are funded entirely by the generous contributions of individual Alaskans who believe in helping us to compete in the marketplace of ideas. By strengthening families in Alaska through informed citizenship, community involvement and improved public policy, the Alaska Family Action intends on being engaged in the important issues of our day on a long-term, ongoing basis. We look forward to serving you and ask you to join us financially, prayerfully and as an active volunteer partner.

Standing for families,

Jim Minnery

President

Alaska Family Action

Speaker John Boehner Headlining Alaskan Fundraiser with Randy Ruedrich and Commissioner Dan Sullivan in Anchorage

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is set to raise money in Alaska with the former chair of the Alaska GOP that Sarah Palin took on for corruption.

Politico reported on Thursday that Boehner will raise money in Alaska on July 2, and former Alaska GOP Chair Randy Ruedrich is listed on the invitation to the event.

According to Politico, Boehner will “headline a July 2 event at a private home in Anchorage to collect donations for the Boehner for Speaker joint fundraising committee, which benefits his campaign, PAC, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Ohio Republican Party.” The maximum donation allowed is $52,600.

Rep. Don Young (R-AK), who has faced numerous ethics charges in Congress, is also on the host committee for the event.

Ruedrich ultimately resigned “his job as a state oil and gas regulator” in 2003 after Palin joined Democrats to call his political fundraising a conflict of interest for drawing money from industries he regulated.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska, Other States No Longer Subject to Key Provisions of 1965 Voting Rights Act

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Photo Credit: Evan Vucci

Photo Credit: Evan Vucci

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states no longer can be judged by voting discrimination that went on decades ago, a decision that argues the country has fundamentally changed since the racially motivated laws of the civil rights era.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said the Voting Rights Act’s requirement that mainly Southern states must undergo special scrutiny before changing their voting laws is based on a 40-year-old formula that is no longer relevant to changing racial circumstances.

“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions. It cannot rely simply on the past,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority, which was comprised of the court’s conservative-leaning justices.

The four liberal-leaning justices dissented, arguing that racial discrimination in voting remains a real threat. The majority didn’t disagree with that, but the core of Chief Justice Roberts‘ opinion was that discrimination today looks markedly different from what it did decades ago, so the law must be changed to reflect that.

The Shelby County v. Holder ruling sparked an immediate debate about the status of race and discrimination in modern America.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska’s Delegation Selling Out Alaskan Workers … Again (+video)

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Photo Credit: Wonderlane

Photo Credit: Wonderlane

This past weekend, Byron York of the Washington Examiner reported that some questionable provisions were inserted into the amnesty bill “for Alaska.”

As we’ll discuss below, Mr. York might not have gotten the “for Alaska” right, but he certainly tagged the responsible parties: Alaska’s US Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich.

Mr. York notes that the amnesty bill was “rewritten … to pay a big favor to the state of Alaska and its two senators…” How? By allowing for “more low-wage guest [read “foreign”] workers” to come to Alaska and work in “Alaska seafood processing…”

Rather than going through the standard process where the Commission of the Bureau of Immigration and Labor Market Research relies upon a methodology to determine which occupations have shortages, the amnesty bill specifically designates “Alaska seafood processing” as a “shortage occupation” justifying the immediate importation of foreign workers. Apparently, no other state-based industry receives this type of special treatment under the bill.

So what are average Alaskans getting for their delegation’s hard work in creating this special provision for the state? Screwed, that’s what.

There’s no question that importing foreign workers into a state with significant unemployment is a travesty. What makes matters worse is that much of this seafood processing occurs in rural regions with high native populations. And Alaska’s native unemployment rate is reprehensible, pushing 20%.

So who are the sea food processors that asked for this subsidy? Many – but not all – are foreign to the state, ultimately competing for the same resource that average Alaskans depend on for their personal consumption.

So Mr. York might not understand who our delegation is working for when he suggests their specialized legislation is “for Alaska.” It’s certainly for somebody, but not for ordinary Alaskans.

[see Billy Kristol’s slam on the amnesty bill yesterday:]

Troopers, Mounties Square Off in Shooting Competition in Palmer This Weekend

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Troopers and Mounties(PALMER, Alaska) – Alaska State Troopers will try to defend last year’s win over the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on home turf at the 53rd Annual International Police Shooting Competition taking place at the Palmer Shooting Range this weekend. A team of Troopers has won the team honors the past two years in a row – winning in both Whitehorse, Yukon in 2012 and Fairbanks in 2011.

The contest, known as “The Shoot,” pits a team of Troopers against a team of Canadian RCMP counterparts. After a day of practicing, on Sunday they’ll shoot side by side using the Troopers’ standard issue pistol, a .40-caliber Glock, to go through an AST course of fire, then use the RCMP’s standard issue 9 mm Smith and Wesson to go through the RCMP’s course of fire. The competitors then switch weapons and each shooter must complete the other teams course of fire using their partner’s sidearm. This relates to a case years ago where the Mounties and Troopers were working together to track down a suspect near Hyder, a border community in Southeastern Alaska with a neighboring Canadian community just across the international line. Policy prevented the Trooper from using his service weapon in Canada when the trooper crossed the border. The Mounties had to provide him with one of their weapons to use during the apprehension.

While the event is built up around a shooting contest, the occasion is more about camaraderie between the Troopers and Mounties. Shortly after Alaska became a state in 1959, Inspector Joe Vachon, commanding officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, wanted to find a way for the Mounties and Troopers to get to know each other better on a personal basis as well as strengthen their working partnership. It is the longest standing international shooting competition in the world. Some of the Troopers competing this weekend have had to reach across the border and work with Mounties. The Shoot gives them an opportunity to establish and strengthen those long-standing relationships with the RCMP.

After the team portion on Sunday, members will compete individually in a tactical course that is separate from the overall team competition. Spouses also get a chance to compete in the Significant Other Shoot Off on Saturday. Visitors can watch the competition from designated areas at the range.

Schedule of Competition:

Saturday, June 22
09:00 – Team Practice at Palmer Range at end of S. Brooks Road off of Outer Springer Loop near Palmer
13:00 – Significant Other Shoot Off Competition at the Palmer Range

Sunday, June 23
08:00 – 53rd Shoot at Palmer Range
13:00 – Tactical Competition at the Palmer Range

Day of Prayer to be Held across Interior Alaska

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TCC Day of PrayerA resolution calling for a “Day of Prayer” as a time for prayer for the land, waterways, andimals, and people who use God’s creation on June 21st was passed in March of 2013 by the Tanana Chiefs Conference Full Board of Directors. The resolution introduced by the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich’in Tribal Government explains that the “decline of the king salmon stock has forced us (indigenous Alaskans) to abandon our traditional and spiritual lifestyle of gathering food.”

Tanana Chiefs Conference is encouraging communities across Alaska, including its 42 members, to participate in the upcoming “Day of Prayer” on June 21st, beginning at 12:00 P.M. The “Day of Prayer” is to gather people and communities who are concerned with the health of our resources and declining fish and wildlife throughout Alaska in one unified voice.

Tanana Chiefs Conference is dedicated to protecting traditional subsistence ways of life. This includes protecting our wildlife and fish resources, and understanding the current trends of decline we are seeing across the State.

Communities across the Interior are asked to organize their gatherings at the local level and submit photos to TCC’s newsletter, “The Council”.

For more information, contact Doreen Deaton, Communications Director, (907) 452-8251 Ext. 3570.
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About Tanana Chiefs Conference: TCC is a non-profit organization that works toward meeting the health and social service challenges for more than 10,000 Alaska Natives spread across a region of 235,000 square miles in Interior Alaska.