Alaska State Budget Alamo

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Although Alaska is experiencing another painful trough in the oil price cycle, it is only temporary in nature and should not be used to permanently sandblast the shine off of Alaska. To go there would cause a rapid exodus of Alaska’s voluntary private sector causing a Detroit-style death spiral.

The responsibility for our hemorrhaging $3.8 Billion state deficit lies squarely on Juneau’s shoulders that has more than doubled the size of state government since 2006 under the ferry dust assumption that oil prices would remain boosted to their lofty heights and not cycle up and down as they always do with the ebb and flow of supply and demand.

Public unions, hundreds of 100% state funded non-profits, and various other government dependent groups have surrounded our state legislators in Juneau in a budget Alamo and have demanded they surrender to new taxes without making any meaningful cuts in state spending.

Only the free market sets the price for a barrel of oil. When prices go up, oil companies tend to drill more and hire more employees. Conversely, when oil prices plummet, they lay off excess employees and streamline their operations to ride out the low price cycle. The big three oil producers in Alaska have been doing just that. The public sector refuses to do so. Yet, cut we must- to near a pre-bubble 2006 spending level adjusted for population growth and inflation (around $4.1 Billion). Any politician can spend someone else’s money and get perpetually reelected, yet it’s in the streamlining of government in the face of staunch organized opposition where true leaders are born.

Elected leaders tend to forget that they were elected to serve the non-government sector, not the government sector. It’s the public sector that supports the private sector, not the other way around. We are a people with a government, not a government with a people.

Governor Bill Walker and Senator Lesil McGuire/ GCI have both sponsored plans to tax the private sector to pay for excess government rather than to cut back to a sustainable level. The biggest tax would be on your PFD check- Alaska’s way of providing a mineral rights dividend because our statehood compact restricts private ownership of mineral rights. For instance, the lion’s share of a $2000 PFD check could be hoovered up into state coffers leaving you with a paltry $300-500. Governor Walker has also proposed a plethora of other new creative taxes including a gasoline and a state income tax. His administration has evidently not researched the massive fleeing of labor and private investment capital that always results when a state drops an income tax on them- like dropping a wolf into a herd of caribou.

If we cut the Alaska state budget to sustainable amount ($4.5 Billion is this year’s target goal with some more cuts needed next year), we do not need to sandblast the shine of Alaska’s economy and punish Alaska’s poorest with a PFD tax. Governor Walker would not need to tax everything that drives, floats, or flies, nor hire a small army of tax collectors.

Tax and spend socialism is the dark utopian model of the past. Individual freedom and limited government are the sunrise of the future. Alaska’s state motto is, “North to the Future.” Will Alaska continue to march “North to the future” or will it backslide into the insatiable bureaucratic model that has collapsed many economies in the past? It’s all up to you- the grassroots voter and taxpayer. Join me in individually contacting your legislators to stand firm on the $4.5 Billion budget line with no new taxes or PFD raid. You can also sign this letter and email it to the legislators listed below.

The Juneau Alamo is under heavy siege by an army of public lobbyists. Your voice must penetrate that siege. Rest assured that if they falter now, we the voters will remember the budget Alamo. This fall’s election will be their San Jacinto.

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SB174 Could Save My Life: Supporting Campus Carry

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I’m a sophomore at the University of Alaska Anchorage and every time I step foot on my campus, I’m not as safe as I should be. Doorways are adorned with signs reaffirming this fact to a would-be mass shooter. Students, staff and faculty complying with UA policy are all sitting ducks. While a mass-shooter style event is unlikely, statistics show that the possibility of a young woman like myself being subjected to a physical or sexual assault while on my way to or from class is not unlikely and has in fact been the terrible reality for some.

The Alaska State Legislature shouldn’t need to waste their time reining in the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents who’ve acted beyond their authority. UA Regents have no business denying me my God-given right to defend myself. The outright ban on concealed carry by the BOR’s policy is entirely unconstitutional and that is why the Alaska State Legislature must act by passing SB174. Article I, sec. 19 of the Alaska State Constitution affirms that neither the State, nor any political subdivision of the State (aka the UA BOR), shall deny or infringe the individual right to keep and bear arms. The Board of Regents has acted in direct violation of Alaska’s State Constitution which makes their present policy unacceptable.

SB174 does nothing but change where a concealed firearm can be carried, it does not change the requirements for obtaining or owning said firearm. The argument that college students are incapable of safely handling a weapon on a college campus belies the fact that these same adults carry a weapon in equally crowded public spaces, without incident. This bill simply allows law-abiding and then policy abiding folks like myself the ability to defend ourselves at school just as we may in other public areas.

I often hear that the “allowance” of concealed carry would distract from the learning environment. I vehemently disagree. I couldn’t tell you the last time I noticed someone carrying a concealed weapon. That’s the whole point; it is concealed. It’s equally bogus to say that professors will be too afraid to give out an earned poor grade to a student due to the possibility that they are carrying a weapon. If anything, instructors should feel safer knowing that they are allowed the means to defend themselves.

I hate to repeat a cliché, but it’s true that “when seconds count, police are only minutes away”. The average shootout lasts approximately 3 to 10 seconds. How anyone could think that a shootout between an armed citizen and an armed assailant (who are only shooting at each other) is scarier or more threatening than a mass shooter executing defenseless victims at point-blank range by shooting them sometimes several times in the head (as occurred in the Virginia Tech Massacre), for minutes while waiting for police to arrive is beyond me.

Truly, my favorite argument against campus carry is that “the answer to bullets flying isn’t more bullets flying.” Yes, I am sure that’s why when police arrive on the scene of an active shooter event they don’t bring any guns whatsoever. They just “hug it out”, or employ some other equally ridiculous fantasy based solution.

Choosing to carry a gun in any situation is a personal choice that everyone must make for themselves. It includes accepting responsibility for the consequences of drawing your weapon. When faced with a threat to one’s life, students, just like every other person in most any context, absolutely have the right to defend themselves. The University of Alaska’s Board of Regents has over-stepped its bounds and needs to follow the law. Senator Pete Kelly is attempting to require them to do just that with SB174 and he has my continued support. There is no legitimate reason for a law abiding citizen to be prohibited from carrying a concealed firearm for self defense.

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‘We’re Going to Die’: Alaska Air Flight Diverted After Unruly Passenger Threatens Crew

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Alaska Airlines Flight 769 from Boston to San Diego took a scary turn Tuesday after a male passenger who was reportedly intoxicated “became disruptive” after the flight attendants would not let him drink on the plane.

The pilot was forced to divert the flight at Denver midway through its route, Fox 5 in San Diego reported.

Passenger Clair Conroy told NBC News that the man “was upset the flight attendants would not let him drink the nips [small bottles of alcohol] he brought” on the flight and became abusive as he began to threaten the flight’s crew members.

Yelling, “I’m not a terrorist” and, “We’re going to die” the crew tried to calm him down, KMGH-TV reported. He also threatened the crew members and passengers on board, saying that he was going to ”cut their throats” with a box cutter. (Read more from “‘We’re Going to Die’: Alaska Air Flight Diverted After Unruly Passenger Threatens Crew” HERE)

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Alaska Has a Bigger Problem Than Low Oil Prices

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As anyone who’s filled up their tank lately can attest, oil prices are down – way down. Inexpensive trips to the gas station may put a smile on the average driver’s face, but the ramifications are significant for economies dependent on oil. Few states are feeling this more acutely than Alaska. With oil prices and oil production in decline, the state lacks two-thirds of the revenue needed to cover this year’s $5.2 billion budget.

Unfortunately, Alaska Governor Bill Walker is proposing a quick-fix solution that could do long-term damage: the imposition of a state income tax. As analysis in An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of States shows, adopting an income tax spells disaster. Each and every state (there are eleven in total) that introduced the income tax since 1960 has experienced decline across a broad array of metrics. In terms of population, all eleven states have declined in comparison to the remaining 39 states (West Virginia is the unenviable “leader” of this pack, with a relative population decline of a full 50%). In terms of state gross domestic product, all eleven states also declined as a share of the remaining 39 states (Michigan took a particularly precipitous plunge, with a relative fall in gross state product of 57%).

As my Wealth of States co-authors and I write: “The lesson is pretty basic – if you don’t currently have an income tax, do not adopt one.” No place should understand this better than Alaska, which in 1980 eliminated the state income tax for individuals. Under Governor Walker’s proposed plan, which would turn the clock back on more than 35 years of economic progress . . . (Read more from “Alaska Has a Bigger Problem Than Low Oil Prices” HERE)

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Scientists Solve 50-Year-Old Mystery of Alaska Tsunami

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For 50 years, scientists struggled to understand what sparked a devastating tsunami that leveled a remote village in Alaska following the 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake.

But thanks to detailed seafloor images, they have solved the mystery. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey now believe a series of underwater landslides as deep as 1,150 feet were responsible for the massive waves that swept through the village of Chenega in Prince William Sound in 1964, destroying all but two buildings and killing 23 people.

Nine people died in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, from the 9.2 magnitude quake, the second largest in recorded history, according to the Associated Press. The earthquake caused a trans-ocean tsunami that brought waves to the Alaskan towns of at devastated Valdez, Seward and Whittier and down the West Coast. Four campers on a beach died at Newport, Oregon. A dozen died in the Northern California community of Crescent City.

“It is exciting to see the technology evolve so we can now get high-resolution images of the seafloor that we could not back then and to pinpoint the most likely source for the waves. After 50 years, this new work confirms our original inference that it was probably landslide-generated waves that devastated Chenega so many years ago, but we had no adequate submarine data to define either the size or location of the landslide sources,” USGS geologist emeritus George Plafker who, with colleague Larry Mayo, was one of the first responders and wrote some of the early geological field reports on surface effects of the Chenega waves in 1965, said in a statement. (Read more from “Scientists Solve 50-Year-Old Mystery of Alaska Tsunami” HERE)

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Most Dangerous States in the US in 2015 According to the FBI

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The annual list of the most dangerous states in the United States has been released by Law Street, according to a Reboot Illinois piece on Tuesday. The list is compiled via Law Street’s Crime Team’s methodology which uses the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s four major violent crime categories in creating a standard measure of violent crimes-per-100,000 people among all cities reporting its crime data to the FBI that have at least 100,000 persons in its borders. Those four major violent crime categories are: murder, aggravated assault, robbery, and incidents of forcible rape . . .

The Top 10 Most Dangerous States in the United States in 2015

1. Alaska

2. New Mexico

3. Nevada

4. Tennessee

5. Louisiana

6. South Carolina

7. Delaware

8. Maryland

9. Florida

10. Arkansas

(Read more from “Most Dangerous States in the US in 2015 According to the FBI” HERE)

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Fugitive Found in ‘Elaborate Tunnel System’ at Alaska Trailer Park

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Authorities arrested a fugitive convicted on drug and theft charges after finding him hiding this week in what they called an “elaborate tunnel system” dug underneath a trailer home in Alaska.

The tunnels narrowed as officers walked further in, forcing them to trudge through on their knees and then on their stomachs. Police in the city of Sitka say they eventually spotted Jeremy Beebe’s foot sticking out of another hidden entrance, catching him after an officer pulled back the skirting around the trailer.

Police Lt. Lance Ewers said Beebe, 42, had failed to report to the police department on Jan. 12 after he was sentenced to nearly two years in prison, the Sitka Sentinel reported. (Read more from “Fugitive Found in ‘Elaborate Tunnel System’ at Alaska Trailer Park” HERE)

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Stealth Influence in Governor’s Office Includes Carlyle Group, Rogoff

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A KTUU investigative report shows that Governor Bill Walker is not actually implementing a hiring freeze in his own office.

Instead, he’s using high-priced consultants in pricey no-bid contracts to convince lawmakers and the public about his plans for taxes and his “sovereign wealth fund.”

One of the most interesting aspects of the report reveals the involvement in the deep workings of the Governor’s Office by Alaska Dispatch Publisher Alice Rogoff, raising the question now being asked in the halls of the Capitol: Shouldn’t Rogoff be registered as a lobbyist, considering the ongoing, documented influence she has had over the Executive branch?

Rogoff has met with the governor dozens of times in the last year, and has communicated with him by email and text, according to our sources.

She is not registered as a lobbyist, although she has been pushing for Walker’s “sovereign wealth fund” and advancing her Arctic port project with her family’s Carlyle Group connections.

Carlyle is the No. 1 private equity company in the world. Rogoff’s husband, David Rubenstein, manages a portion of the Alaska Permanent Fund through Carlyle, which he co-founded.

The laws governing lobbyists are clear. Since Rogoff has substantial financial interest in the Permanent Fund through The Carlyle Group, and since she has inserted herself into the restructuring of the fund, she has a conflict of interest. However, because she purchased a newspaper, she may have found a loophole to exclude herself from having to register as a lobbyist because of the “newspaper” clause.

“This may be something the Legislature wants to take up, because the influence of one person who owns the major media in the state, and now appears to be working extremely closely with the governor on restructuring our state’s savings account challenges the very concept of transparency that our laws seek to protect,” said Suzanne Downing, communication director of the Alaska Republican Party.

“Transparency is not something Governor Walker has become very good at,” Downing said. “Will he get there — or will he continue to try to fool all the people, all the time?”

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Pastor Protection Act Deserves Support

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Identical Pastor Protection Acts introduced this legislative session by Soldotna Sen. Peter Micciche (SB120) and Healy Rep. Dave Talerico (HB236) would do the following three things generally covered by the First Amendment but not spelled out in statute:

Affirm the rights of clergy, rabbis and religious congregations to decline participation in same-sex marriages

Ensure that neither clergy nor religious congregations must provide services or accommodation for same-sex marriages

Protect clergy and religious congregations from any criminal or civil liability for refusing to perform or offer services or accommodations for same-sex marriages

A similar bill was signed into law last June in Texas, has passed the House in Florida and is moving toward Governor desks in Georgia, Tennessee and other states.

Why this bill? It specifies religious freedom rights implied, but not spelled out, in current statute. Today’s legal and cultural environment is absolutely different than in times past. Additional protections are justified and should be welcomed. Even Texas Equality, an LGBT advocacy group, supported the Pastor Protection Act in that state.

Is this bill necessary? Definitely. First Amendment Freedoms are under attack. LGBT advocates have been successful in framing their argument as discrimination. Religious freedom and sexual freedom are pitted against each other on many levels in today’s culture. This law levels the playing field to a certain degree.

Examples abound as to why this bill is justified:

Anchorage Assembly members recently forced a sexual orientation, gender identity, non-discrimination ordinance upon residents that prevents faith-based schools, churches and other religious organizations from making their own hiring decisions.

Officials in Idaho threatened to punish a senior citizen couple – both ordained pastors – if they declined to officiate same-sex ceremonies.

A proposed national Equality Act seeks to “authoritatively set the morals of a community.” This makes the state the arbitrator of morality, not a person’s conscience.

The ACLU recently decided to withdraw its support from religious freedom laws to support ‘same-sex’ marriage.

The Cincinnati City Council recently passed an ordinance banning mental health professionals (including pastors who are licensed) from counseling people experiencing unwanted, same-sex attraction. A pastor reports threats of fines of up to $73,000 per year for using Scripture to counsel youth.

In other countries, LGBT pressures reveal a disturbing erosion of freedom of speech, association, and religion.

A gay couple in the UK sued the Church of England to force the church to perform a same-sex wedding less than two weeks after England passed its gay ‘marriage’ bill.

Canadian Dawn Stefanowicz is one of six adult children of gay parents who filed an amicus brief with US Supreme Court prior to the Obergefell decision. She warns of the sharp decline in freedoms since same-sex marriage was federally mandated in Canada in 2005. Human Rights Commissions and Tribunals can prosecute against discriminatory “hate speech”- written or spoken. The government pays all the plaintiff’s legal fees, but does not reimburse the defendant even if found innocent.

SB120 and HB236 are both sensible measures needed now to keep Alaska pluralistic. Allowing everyone to live their lives consistent with their deeply held convictions is something we should all get behind.

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Magnitude-7.1 Earthquake in Alaska [+videos]

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The U.S. Geological survey reported a powerful earthquake – 162 miles (261 km) southwest of Anchorage, Alaska – which struck around 1:30 a.m. local time Sunday morning, January 24, 2016. It is being variously reported as a 7.1-magnitude and a 6.8-magnitude; USGS is saying 7.1 at this time. There were no immediate reports of injuries, although the quake did reportedly knock items off shelves and walls, and rattle nerves as you can see in the video below. A magnitude-4.3 aftershock struck about two hours later.

Ben Madrid posted this video to YouTube. He began recording about 20 seconds into the earthquake, until about 5 seconds after the peak magnitude, in Kenai Alaska.

The affected region of Alaska is located on what is called the ring of fire around the Pacific Ocean, and thus it is well known for earthquakes. USGS said the quake occurred as a result of the movement of great land plates, called tectonic plates, explaining:

In the region of the earthquake, the Pacific plate moves northwestward with respect to North America at a rate of [2.4 inches or] 60 mm/yr, and begins its decent into the mantle at the Alaska-Aleutian Trench almost [250 miles or] 400 km to the southeast of this earthquake …

(Read more from “Magnitude-7.1 Earthquake in Alaska” HERE)

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