The House Rules Committee on Monday, June 18 will consider the Conservation and Economic Growth Act (H.R. 2578).  Among the provisions contained in the wilderness omnibus package is a controversial bill that would allow Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) most generous corporate supporter to clear cut old-growth trees in the Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.

The Southeast Alaska Native Land Entitlement Finalization and Jobs Act (H.R.1408) is one of 14 measures currently included in the bill. If passed, H.R.1408 will grant portions of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to Sealaska Corporation of Juneau, allowing them to chop down trees that started growing before the Revolutionary War. Unless an amendment it introduced before Friday, H.R.1408 will be included in the proposal when it goes to the House floor for a vote.

H.R. 1408 is bad news for Republicans and conservatives for several reasons.

For starters, as I have written elsewhere, the measure is clearly payback for Sealaska’s pivotal help during Murkowski’s write-in bid. Conservatives must decide whether we will reward Murkowski’s nefarious undermining of the Alaskan GOP and her secretive attempt to earmark in an allegedly post-earmark era.

Read more at RedState.com HERE.

Editors note:  Please contact the following Republicans on the Rules Committee:

Position	Name	State	Party
Chair	Dreier, David	CA	R
Vice Chair	Sessions, Pete	TX	R
Member	Foxx, Virginia	NC	R
Member	Bishop, Rob	UT	R
Member	Woodall, Rob	GA	R
Member	Nugent, Richard	FL	R
Member	Scott, Tim	SC	R
Member	Webster, Daniel	FL	R

With the Wisconsin recall election in the news, it is only fitting that we take a trip down memory lane.  Anyone remember those Democrat senators fleeing to Illinois to prevent a quorum so the the Senate couldn’t pass Governor Walker’s reforms?  Looks like the old guard in the Alaska GOP stole a page from their playbook.

With outgoing Chair Randy Ruedrich and other members of current GOP leadership publicly calling for delegates not to show up to the June 9^th re-convening of the 2012 Alaska Republican Convention, I’m left wondering if the demons Scott Walker just drove out of Wisconsin haven’t taken up residence in Alaska. Seems Ruedrich’s designs are eerily similar to the ill-fated Wisconsin Democrats. He hopes to prevent a quorum so the Convention is unable to take up consideration of the rules changes put forward by the Convention Rules Committee, one of which just happens to be the “legacy rule” that would relieve Ruedrich of his duties effective immediately.  No self-serving there.

Also at issue is a whole roster of resolutions passed by the various committees at the April convention, everything from censuring Senator Lisa Murkowski for her “dishonesty, duplicity . . . and extraordinary disloyalty” to a resolution urging Congress not to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and a resolution calling for the full repeal of Obamacare.

What is perhaps most egregious is the fact that the old guard is citing rumors of nefarious intent on behalf of Ron Paul supporters as a pretext, claiming that there is a move under way to suspend the rules and change out all the national delegates previously elected – presumably with Ron Paul supporters.  Supporters of Dr. Paul deny the claim.  But that notwithstanding, how credible could such a claim possibly be when less than half of the elected state delegates are Paul supporters, and it takes a two-thirds vote to suspend the rules?

I must admit the whole specter is somewhat embarrassing, but this isn’t the first time I’ve been ashamed of my party leadership.  It seems a pattern is taking shape, one that is not a little bit troubling, and one that will eventually split the Republican Party if some leaders don’t emerge who are willing to call out the bad players. We cannot afford to let a small group of  elitists tarnish the party brand any further.

When the sitting Party Chair and members of the Central Committee are openly attacking duly elected leaders in the press; when sitting members of the Central Committee are vowing to “burn down” the party; when opposition research is being conducted and deployed by upstanding “Republicans” against their own party officers; when rules are being disregarded; it’s time to say enough is enough.

From the outset of my involvement in Alaska politics, I’ve watched the elites refuse to accept the landslide election of Sarah Palin as governor over incumbent Frank Murkowski and favored challenger John Binkley; refuse to accept Joe Miller’s election as the party’s nominee for US Senate, despite the fact that he received more than ten thousand more votes than Lisa Murkowski did in her decisive 2004 primary election win; and now refuse to recognize duly elected delegates and officers of the party simply because their candidates didn’t win.

It took the same folks a year-and-a-half after the election of Sarah Palin as governor to even acknowledge her administration on the party website. They joined forces with the liberal Democrats to viciously attack the governor after her return from the 2008 Presidential race, and eventually helped to drive her from office.  They publicly engaged in malicious personal attacks on Joe Miller in 2010.  And now they seek to do the same to Chair-elect Russ Millette. There is only one crime all three of these Alaskans are guilty of: being duly elected Republicans.

The good book declares,“by their fruits you will know them.”  When folks break party rules with impunity while holding others to the “letter of the law,” you can be sure they have an hypocrisy problem.  When folks disregard the law when it isn’t in keeping with their desired ends, you can be sure they have an integrity problem. When folks have no regard for the truth, even for their own word, you can be certain they have a problem with the truth.  And when they refuse to accept the outcome of democratic elections, you can be sure that they don’t have the public’s best interest in mind. They are a law unto themselves.

The “Republicans” I speak of are reminiscent of petulant school children: selfish, divisive,  mean-spirited, slanderous, dishonest. If they don’t get their way, they just take their toys and go home. Let’s do the rank and file membership of the Alaska Republican Party a favor and show them the door.

It is time for Alaska Republicans to show the voting public that we don’t condone the rogue behavior of the ruling class. We don’t run when things get tough. Leave that to those other folks from Wisconsin. Real Republicans take responsibility, finish what they start, and don’t shy away from hard decisions.  I’ll be joining the real Republicans at the Anchorage Baptist Temple at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.  If you’re a delegate, I hope to see you there.

Matt Johnson is a delegate to the Republican State Convention from District 11

 

May 10, 2012.  The national media has recently reported on the significant leadership changes within the Alaska Republican Party as well as the vigorous protest of Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Wyoming’s Sen. John Barrasso at the ARP annual  convention.  Please join Party Chairman-elect Russ Millette and Joe Miller in a discussion about what happened at the convention, why it happened, and what it means for the future of Alaska.

Please join us tonight, May 10, 2012, at 5 p.m. Alaska Time/6 p.m. Pacific Time/9 p.m. Eastern Time for this informative event.  Participation is limited, so please sign in early.  There is no cost for participation but donations are welcome.

To join the meeting from your computer or mobile device, click or copy and paste this URL into your browser:

https://www.fuzemeeting.com/fuze/001c01f3/16490773

To join by telephone, please call:

Dial-in Number: +17759963560

When prompted enter the room number:

Room #: 926281 and press the # key.

To join by Skype: fuzemeeting

When prompted enter the room number:

Room #: 926281 and press the # key.

 

Announcements for Saturday afternoon’s “Celebrate America” rally at Kenai’s Leif Hansen Memorial Park did, indeed, specify 2012, though much of the proceedings would have been right at home in the 2010 election season, or even the 2008 presidential campaign.

Among the attendees were supporters of Texas Congressman and current presidential candidate Ron Paul, who also ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 against Sen. John McCain. Standing at the park’s frontage with the Kenai Spur Highway was another reference to the 2008 presidential election — a man bearing a homemade cardboard sign that read, “Where’s the real birth certificate?” and, “Obama is a fraud,” with a Washington, D.C., phone number for Rep. Don Young.

Presenters spoke of continuing the ongoing effort to return Alaska and the U.S. to the values of conservatism, rather than setting out any brand-new mission. The special guest speaker, Joe Miller, reiterated the message he’s been delivering since his 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate, in which he won the primary vote but lost in the general election to a write-in campaign for incumbent Lisa Murkowski.

The message bears repeating because the state and country are still facing the same problems, Miller said.  “This nation still is at a crossroad point, similar to what we saw in 2010,” he said. “… We’ve got to have people who are willing to tell the truth, and we aren’t seeing that at the national level. And even at the state level, the same sort of situation approaches — decreasing oil production and increasing expenditures.”  Miller warned that the practice of “kicking the debt can down the road,” on both the national and state level, is not sustainable.  Sometime in the near future, spending will need to be ratcheted back and tough decisions will have to be made, he said.  “It’s easy for the free money. That’s why politicians like it, because it’s the lazy approach. And that’s what we’ve dealt with for years and we’ve got to move to a different direction or else we’re going to end up with hard times,” Miller said.

In Alaska, he advocates for diversifying the economy as a way to soften the tough transition the state faces as both oil revenues and federal spending decline. “It’s obvious that this state needs to be active and very concerned about ensuring that we create an economy outside of those traditional sources,” he said. “… This state has got to be real about creating an economy, or we’re going to have a mass exodus of people going on. We’re not going to have jobs for our kids . . . ”

Read more from the Redoubt Reporter/Homer Tribune.

The special prosecutor who examined the botched prosecution of Ted Stevens said he found evidence of willful concealment of information from the late Alaska senator’s defense lawyers on at least three occasions, according to a lengthy investigation published today.

That evidence, special prosecutor Henry “Hank” Schuelke III said, would have aided Stevens’ defense of public corruption charges in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Two assistant U.S. attorneys, the report said, concealed information that went to the credibility of the government’s chief witness.

The report found that prosecutors in the Stevens case never conducted or supervised a comprehensive review of information that the government was obligated to provide to the Alaska senator’s defense attorneys.

The 525-page report digs into a host of issues, including discovery obligations and alleged mismanagement of the case. Supervisors decided the government would “have to play our cards close to the vest” in the prosecution, according to the report.

Schuelke, appointed by a Washington federal trial judge to investigate the Justice Department’s missteps, said that not only was the review for exculpatory information not supervised, “the prosecutors themselves were unsupervised.”

Read more at LegalTimes HERE.