Sarah Palin’s ‘AR-15 Makes a Great Gift’ Tweet Sends Social Media in Tizzy

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn KasterIn case you’re wondering, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has some gift-giving advice: Give them an AR-15.

In a tweet, she wrote: “Innovation found only in the USA! You know, an AR-15 makes a great gift — what more says, “I love you”? Eh, you …” and then she included a link to her new Sportsman Channel show, “Amazing America with Sarah Palin,” airing Thursdays at 8 p.m.

Predictably perhaps, social media took to trouncing her tweet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Climate Change: Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan’s Inconvenient Truth

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: usarmyalaskaJoe Miller today is calling on Republican challengers Dan Sullivan and Mead Treadwell to come clean with voters on their history of support for the man-made ‘global warming’ agenda.

“Clearly, both of my primary opponents have joined with climate change alarmists to push for top-down federal regulation,” Miller said. “It’s unclear how empowering the federal government to control even more of our economy, on the authority of dubious scientific claims, comports with free-market economics and Constitutional liberty. Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan have either had an election-induced conversion, or they’re conveniently side-stepping this issue that could have a profound impact on the lives of ordinary Alaskans.”

A recent study conducted by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks concluded that the average temperature in Alaska declined by 2.34 degrees between 2000-2010, and a Fox News story last fall cited a National Snow and Ice Data Center report that found a 60% increase in Arctic sea ice between 2012-2013.

During his time at the State Department, Mr. Sullivan gave numerous speeches and interviews addressing the so-called ‘climate change’ problem. In them, he unequivocally accepted the premise that climate change is man-caused and embraced numerous mitigation strategies: including a national goal of steep reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels, an aggressive regime to increase the use of economically non-viable bio-fuels, billions in grants for government research to develop new environmentally friendly technologies, and subsidies and tax breaks for unsustainable “green energy” projects.

Mr. Sullivan’s views can be summed up in the following excerpts taken from his speeches:

Our energy challenges and climate change challenges stem primarily from a common source—an over-reliance on hydrocarbons as the world’s primary form of energy.

On the climate issue . . . we want to underscore . . . the seriousness with which we take this initiative. It will be the beginning of a process by which we hope to work with the major economies to achieve . . . [our] greenhouse gas reduction goal.

Mr. Treadwell has also voiced support for a similar agenda, testifying before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2009:

In the global dialogue on climate change . . . Arctic research is warning us now that Arctic ‘feedbacks,’ already observed from the loss of sea ice, the release of stored carbon, and the acidification of the ocean are dramatically ‘raising the bar’ for the global climate mitigation strategy the world seeks to agree upon in Copenhagen later this year.

Mankind cannot build an effective regime to limit its own emissions without understanding emissions coming natural sources in the Arctic. The U.S. is committed, with other Arctic nations, to build a sustainable Arctic Observing Network, known as SAON. Further, because the Arctic region is one of the largest terrestrial storage zones of carbon on earth, research could help us find ways that the Arctic can be part of the global mitigation solution. Forest and fire management, carbon sequestration, development of new energy sources in the Arctic, and other products of research, including so called methods of ‘geoengineering,’ may ultimately add to an effective global mitigation strategy.

Research underway aims at using cleaner fuels and methods to avoid emissions of soot, black carbon which promotes Arctic warming.

Both Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan also supported Lisa Murkowski’s campaign against the Republican nominee in the state’s last US Senate election. Their support came after the senator had co-sponsored Cap and Trade legislation that, according to Fox News, would have cost the private economy as much as $1 trillion. She has also entertained a carbon tax, something for which Mr. Sullivan, ironically, has sharply criticized Democrat Senator Mark Begich during this election cycle.

Miller concluded, “It never ceases to amaze me how during election time everyone’s a champion of liberty. It is vitally important to weigh what candidates say against what they’ve actually done.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

Murdered Alaska Troopers Remembered in Memorial

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP / THE FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER

Photo Credit: AP / THE FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER

Law enforcement officers from as far away as Florida on Saturday mourned the loss of two Alaska state troopers killed earlier this month in a remote village while trying to make an arrest.

A memorial for Sgt. Scott Johnson and Trooper Gabe Rich began with a procession and a drum cadence at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.

Col. James Cockrell, head of the Alaska State Troopers, said Johnson and Rich touched many lives during their careers, and their deaths will strengthen the bonds between officers.

“This is a time to begin the healing process and come together as a community to provide strength to those who are still feeling the pain of their loss,” Cockrell said. “For in times like this, true Alaskans stand together.” The Anchorage Daily News said some 4,000 people attended the memorial.

A Fairbanks grand jury on Thursday indicted Nathanial “Satch” Kangas, 20, on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths May 1 of Johnson and Rich. The two were assigned to rural law enforcement in 23 remote communities and were occasionally featured on the National Geographic Channel show “Alaska State Troopers,” which shows officers patrolling the state’s wild terrain.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Freedom Fair and Convention

/0 Comments/in , /by

Because of all the corruption going on in the Republican Party and other facets of government, that led to the establishment of an official charter of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) here in Alaska. The Alaska Republican Assembly was recognized as an official certified charter in record time.

As President Ronald Reagan said, “The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.” Our mission is to release that dream.

An elemental requirement for freedom and success in life is a job, and so the Alaska Republican Assembly supports the mandate in the Alaska State Constitution to develop and use our natural resources.

The American dream rests on the opportunity to work hard in a profession or job that inspires us and enables us to pursue prosperity and freedom for ourselves and our families without government intrusion and over-regulation. The wisdom of President Reagan speaks again when he said, “We are a nation of freedom, living under God, believing all citizens must have the opportunity to grow, create wealth, and build a better life for those who follow. If we live up to those moral values, we can keep the American dream alive for our children and our grandchildren, and America will remain mankind’s best hope.”

The Alaska Republican Assembly is working to bring committed conservative men and women to leadership in the Republican party, to take back the Senate and the Presidency and promote the return of fiscal sanity, rule of law, and common sense. We support candidates who reflect the spirit of America’s core values in their beliefs and actions, and who will serve in uncompromising accord with those values. We want to unite conservative Americans, increase grassroots involvement, revitalize our party, and turn it into an electoral powerhouse that Americans can embrace once again.

It is with great anticipation that on May 24, 2014, the Alaska Republican Assembly will host the Alaska Freedom Fair & Convention at the Menard Center in Wasilla. Pastor Rafael Cruz, father of US Senator Ted Cruz, will be our keynote speaker. NFRA President Sharon Angle, Pacific NW NFRA Vice President Willes Lee, and Sheriff Richard Mack, author and motivational speaker, will join Pastor Cruz in leading the Convention.

Sharron Angle served as a Nevada State Assemblywoman and garnered 45% of the vote as the Republican Nominee when she ran for U.S. Senate challenging Majority Leader Harry Reid in 2010. Willes Lee has been a prominent conservative as a Hawaiian Republican, HRP chairman, and state candidate. Sheriff Richard Mack is a former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, and a two-time candidate for United States Congress.

We are especially honored to have Pastor Rafael Cruz join us at our Alaska Freedom Fair & Convention. Rafael Cruz is a powerful example of the American Dream. Born in Cuba, Rafael lived and suffered under a cruel, oppressive dictator. He began fighting Batista’s regime as a teenager and was imprisoned and tortured. In 1957 Rafael was able to leave Cuba and arrived in Texas with nothing but the clothes on his back and one hundred dollars hidden on his person. He got a job as a dishwasher, worked his way through the University of Texas, while learning English and later built a small business.

Rafael Cruz became active in conservative politics as a grassroots activist during the 1980 Presidential Campaign of Ronald Reagan. He is an ordained minister, sharing the word of God in churches and pastors conferences throughout the United States. His son, Ted Cruz, is a U.S. Senator from Texas. When Ted was a child growing up in Houston, Rafael would tell him, “When we faced oppression in Cuba, I had a place to flee to. If we lose our freedom here, where do we go?” It was because of his father’s inspiration that Ted Cruz ran and has become a champion for freedom in the US Senate.

Every person who values a self-governing society must participate in governance, or a small minority of professional politicians will govern—and may do so without reflecting the core values of the people. We the people—we the individuals—must get involved at the grassroots level now to stop the unprecedented loss of freedom and political corruption America is enduring.

Please feel free to pass it on to any individual, organization or business who believes in the concept of freedom, free enterprise, and liberty in all facets of life. Tickets are available online or at the door. Also you can find out more about the AKRA by visiting our website at https://www.alaskara.com.

AKRA-poster-web

Alaska GOP Passes Measures to Block Tea Party or Libertarian Takeover

/34 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

The Alaska Republican Party has taken measures to prevent a takeover by libertarian and Tea Party activists.

The new rules say a person has to be registered as a Republican for at least four years before seeking a top leadership position, and they require all candidates for the party’s statewide offices to be vetted by a special committee before they can run. The rules were adopted on Saturday, at the Alaska Republican Party’s biannual convention. Party Chair Peter Goldberg says the changes are a reaction to a coup staged by a group of Ron Paul supporters at the 2012 convention.

“Two years ago, people that were not Republicans were registering to become Republicans on the day of their district conventions and participating,” says Goldberg. “That’s really not appropriate.”

The insurgents elected a libertarian-leaning chair and vice chair, but the Alaska Republican Party’s old guard kicked them out of office last year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Read further background stories HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Miller Blasts Begich for Climate Change Deception

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Joe Miller today blasted Democrat Mark Begich for his full-on embrace this week of Barack Obama’s newly released Climate Change Assessment. Begich is calling for an end to scientific debate and for immediate action. 

“Mark Begich wants to have it both ways,” Miller said. “On the one hand, he uncritically accepts this administration’s alarmist conclusions and demands action. But on the other hand, he’s trying to distance himself from Obama’s proposed agenda, even to the point of disavowing ‘solutions’ he advocated for when it wasn’t election season.”

Mark Begich signed a 2010 letter to Harry Reid urging decisive action on climate change, stating, “We believe the scale of this challenge dictates the need for a comprehensive solution that includes making polluters pay through a price on greenhouse gas emissions.”

Apparently, our junior senator is unaware that there are good reasons to doubt the alarmists’ conclusions. For instance: 

•    A recent study conducted by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks concluded that the average temperature in Alaska declined by 2.34 degrees between 2000-2010.

•    A Fox News story last fall cited a National Snow and Ice Data Center report of a 60% increase in Arctic sea ice just between 2012-2013.

•    In a CNSNews article this spring, a Canadian evolutionary biologist warned that Arctic polar bears could be threatened by too much sea ice.

President Obama and Mark Begich’s pronouncements of an end to the scientific debate regarding climate change are based not on any new or conclusive findings of the scientific community, but on a willingness of ideologically driven politicians to exercise raw power to move their agenda forward.

Miller concluded, “What’s important is not what Mark Begich says this year, it’s what we know he will do next year if we give him another term in the United States Senate. We have watched him carry the water for Barack Obama and Harry Reid for five years now. Last year alone, he voted with the President 97% of the time. If Mark Begich is not in agreement with Barack Obama’s policies, why has he not put up a fight against this administration’s enactment of its anti-development climate change agenda through unlawful executive actions and bureaucratic fiat?”

Alaska Man Faces 99 Years In State Troopers’ Murders

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Department of Public Safety

Photo Credit: Department of Public Safety

A grand jury in Fairbanks on Thursday indicated Nathanial Kangas on six felony counts in the deaths of two Alaska State troopers.

The Office of Special Prosecutions says in a release that the 20-year-old Kangas is charged with two counts each of first- and second-degree murder in the May 1 deaths of Sgt. Scott Johnson and Trooper Gabe Rich in Tanana. He was also indicted on assault and evidence tampering charges.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller Applauds Alaska Libertarians for Schooling Begich in Liberty

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Senate Democrats / Flickr

Photo Credit: Senate Democrats / Flickr

Republican US Senate Candidate Joe Miller today responded to a recent statement from Alaska Libertarian Party Chair Michael Chambers regarding Senator Mark Begich’s recent mischaracterization of the libertarian movement in an interview with CBS News.

“I appreciate the fact that the Alaska Libertarian Party is speaking out on the important issues facing our state and nation,” Miller said. “What we don’t need more of is Mark Begich’s progressive ideology masquerading under the banner of liberty. True libertarianism is grounded in Constitutional liberty, and I am proud to share those values with the Alaska Libertarian Party.”

Begich attempted to align himself with libertarianism by suggesting that as Alaskans “we’re very libertarian . . . and we don’t think that government should be interfering in our personal and private lives.”

Alaska Libertarian Party Chair Michael Chambers responded with the following:

“Senator Begich, allow me to define the vast majority of libertarians for your educational benefit, as you seem to be confused:

1. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would remotely support the government takeover of our healthcare industry.

2. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would vote to confirm:
• Eric Holder – anti-gun
• Elena Kagan – anti-gun
• Sonia Sotomayor – anti-gun

3. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who supports:
• Common Core
• Federal Department of Education
• suppression of parental rights in education

4. I know of no Alaskan libertarian who would vote to support and advocate:
• The IRS in any malignant manifestation
• NDAA and the suspension of habeas corpus
• NSA invasion of our personal effects
• The Patriot Act

5. No Alaskan libertarian I know would advocate globalist policies like:
• The United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty
• TPP – Trans Pacific Partnerships
• UN Treaties having any jurisdiction or precedence over the US Constitution.

Certainly, there are a few libertarians who may support the socialist policies you advocate, but to infer that you are ‘libertarian’ in any of your political representations is to vacate any measure of truth.”

Miller concluded, “These are momentous times, and it is imperative that we transcend partisan frames of reference. The only way we can push back federal tyranny is for all Alaskans of good will to unite under the banner of Constitutional Liberty.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

For media inquiries contact Randy DeSoto at 907-888-8216 or [email protected].

Alaska Free Fall: Losing New Businesses Faster than ANY Other State

/2 Comments/in , /by

entrepreneurs

The American economy is less entrepreneurial now than at any point in the last three decades. That’s the conclusion of a new study out from the Brookings Institution, which looks at the rates of new business creation and destruction since 1978.

Not only that, but during the most recent three years of the study — 2009, 2010 and 2011 — businesses were collapsing faster than they were being formed, a first. Overall, new businesses creation (measured as the share of all businesses less than one year old) declined by about half from 1978 to 2011.

The authors don’t mince words about the stakes here: If the decline persists, “it implies a continuation of slow growth for the indefinite future.” This lack of economic dynamism, particularly the steep drop since 2006, may be one reason why our current recovery has felt like much less than a recovery. As Matt O’Brien noted on Wonkblog last week, annual job growth rates have stubbornly refused to budge above 2 percent for the duration of the recovery.

The authors of the Brookings study dug beyond the national numbers to look at the change in new firms at the state and metro levels and found that they generally mirrored the national trends.

. . . Alaska had the largest drop in new business, at 61 percent. Hawaii, Vermont, New Mexico and Wyoming rounded out the bottom five. Teasing out the causes of the overall decline or the variation between states is difficult; the authors stressed to me that their data don’t answer the questions of why or how just yet. But they will be looking into that in the months ahead.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Hunter Bags World Record Grizzly Bear

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Larry Fitzgerald and some pals were moose hunting near Fairbanks, Alaska, when they came across fresh bear tracks in the snow. Three hours later, the auto body man had taken down the grizzly that left the prints, an enormous bruin that stood nearly 9 feet tall and earned Fitzgerald a place in the record books.

Although Fitzgerald shot the bear last September, Boone and Crockett, which certifies hunting records, has only now determined the grizzly, with a skull measuring 27 and 6/16ths inches, is the biggest ever taken down by a hunter, and the second largest grizzly ever documented. Only a grizzly skull found by an Alaska taxidermist in 1976 was bigger than that of the bear Fitzgerald bagged.

“I’m not really a trophy hunter, or anything,” Fitzgerald, 35, told FoxNews.com. “But I guess it is kind of cool.”

Fitzgerald brought down the bear from 20 yards, with one shot to the neck from his Sako 300 rifle. He said he knew from the tracks he was on the trail of a massive grizzly, but only learned this week that he held a world record.

“We knew it was big,” he said. “It was a rush.”

Read more from this story HERE.