Should this Senator be Awarded ‘Lie of the Year’?

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocratsIn an interview with Bill O’Reilly last Sunday, Barack Obama doubled down on the IRS cover-up, claiming that there was not so much as “a smidgen of corruption” in the rogue agency’s clear political profiling of conservative groups.

Nothing could be further from the truth. How do I know this? Because just a few months ago, IRS officials apologized, and the President himself called the behavior “outrageous and unacceptable.”

Now we’re supposed to believe those who demand answers are acting out in bad faith and fabricating “phony scandals.” All this has prompted some to suggest that the Mr. Obama should be in the running for his second consecutive “Lie of the Year” award.

If you recall, the “Lie of the Year” last year was “if you like your health plan, you can keep it.” Problem is, Barack Obama should have had to share the award with Democrat Senator Mark Begich, because he sold Alaskans the same bill of goods.

Turns out Mr. Begich has not been honest about his voting record in Washington, D.C. either. After spending the last year telling Alaskans he was “as independent as Alaska,” Congressional Quarterly reported this week that the junior senator voted with Barack Obama 97% of the time in 2013. Now that’s what I call a whopper!

But that’s not all. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office is now projecting total jobs lost due to the passage of Obamacare to reach 2.5 million, according to Forbes online. This stands in stark contrast to Mark Begich’s 2009 claim that Obamacare would be good for small business.

Mark Begich could have saved Alaska from the train wreck we call Obamacare, but instead chose to hand his 60th and deciding vote over to Harry Reid and the Democrat Majority.

It’s time to send a clear and unequivocal message to the Washington elites. Obamacare must go. Whether it’s by repeal or through defunding, it’s time to kill Obamacare and put America back to work.

I can’t do this alone. But together, we can make a difference.

In the fight,

Joe Miller, candidate
United States Senate

Alaska: Your Legislators Need to Hear From You!

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Photo Credit: dmcdevitDear Friend —

The Alaska Legislature is now in full swing, and all the big government lobbyists are working the hallways. I was there last week in Juneau trying to make sure us taxpayers have a voice. Your legislators need to hear from you right now… The Senate will soon vote on SJR 9, a much-needed bill to give you the right to vote for School Choice. SJR 9 would let voters decide to rid Alaska’s Constitution of its flawed Blaine Amendment, a provision that denies Alaska parents School Choice.

The Blaine Amendment prevents Alaska from implementing any form of parental choice over their child’s education. Many studies show that Parental Choice improves public schools as well as private schools…. and that it saves taxpayers millions of dollars as well. You can read my recent op/ed commentary on School Choice that recently appeared in the Anchorage Daily News…. Just go HERE to read it on our new Americans For Prosperity – Alaska website.

Americans For Prosperity – Alaska has set up an Activist Alert email system to make it easy for you to contact your legislators. All you have to do is click here to send an email to Alaska Senators, urging them to support SJR 9. So, please go HERE now to make your voice heard on behalf of parental educational freedom, increased accountability to improve public schools, and saving taxpayers millions of dollars through increased school efficiency and competition.

This is just the beginning of our work at the Alaska Legislature. We will be monitoring bills there closely and providing you easy access to email key legislators when bills come up for vote in committee or on the House or Senate floor.

We need to multiply our efforts as well. That’s why we’re asking you to forward this email to your like-minded friends, family, and neighbors. They can find out about AFP-Alaska and sign up to be on our Activist Alert email list by visiting our webpage HERE.

Thank you for your devotion to the fight for freedom and limited government.

Sincerely,

Joe Balyeat
State Director for School Choice Projects
AFP-Alaska

P.S. Don’t forget to go HERE to send your email to all Alaska Senators urging their support for SJR 9 – to give all Alaskans their right to vote for parental choice and educational freedom.

Alaskan Politicians: Conservative Slacks with Liberal Suspenders

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Photo Credit: Wonderlane/flickrWhat does it mean to be a conservative today- especially in Alaska? As I began to reflect on the foundation stones undergirding the Republican Party Platform and then contrast them with the politicians serving in Juneau today, I see a great ideological chasm. It’s as if their conservative slacks are being held up with liberal suspenders.

To clearly see the truth in the matter, we must first separate eternal campaign rhetoric from legislative fruit. To truly evaluate a leader Jesus once said “You will know them by their fruits.” We must carefully avoid allowing inspirational campaign rhetoric to obfuscate governing results. One can easily see and cheer a gleaming fox on the neighborhood campaign stump, but so easily lose sight and therefore interest once they enter a distant capital henhouse. It’s time to start noticing the scattered feathers.

The first cognitive dissonance that I want to address is fiscal conservatism. Most Republicans campaign as a fiscal conservative in one way or another. After all, what conservative voter would not support responsible public spending? However, almost as soon as our elected leaders touch down in the capital, they generally vote for more public spending and passively allow the government bureaucracy to grow every year by mathematical formula. The incessant lobbying of public supplicants together with the collective ego of central planners- continually pull them of course like gravity into the big government orbit that diverts most career politicians who do not have the personal integrity to resist it.

Career conservatives have long forgotten the principle that the single greatest internal threat to our personal freedom and privacy is the unrestrained growth in government. In Alaska, our “fiscal conservatives” have managed to outspend liberal states in virtually every category leading to the most government laden state per capita in the nation. The legislature’s refusal to rein in spending along with the governor’s choice to keep the line item veto sword mostly in the scabbard is revealing. This year the State of Alaska is facing a $1 to 2 billion dollar deficit on declining oil revenue and yet still is spending like there is no tomorrow. Well, according to the state’s own budget forecasts, there will hardly be a tomorrow after we deplete or savings and hit a fiscal cliff in the early 2020s. Obviously, the label “fiscal conservative” does not apply to the majority of our career politicians in Juneau, so how else might we define being a conservative in Alaska?

Many Republicans run on a pro-life platform every election cycle and consistently cultivate campaign donations and voter support based on that issue. And yet in Juneau, they have accomplished nothing to advance the pro-life platform – in fact quite the opposite by ever increasing government spending. How many pro-life bills have made it through the legislature? Did a bill make it through the last legislative session when there was a solid Republican majority in both legislative branches as well as a Republican governor? Did the legislature reduce funding for agencies that pay for public abortions or did the governor veto abortion funding? You be the judge. If just being a campaign pro-lifer no longer defines being a conservative in Alaska, how else might one define it?

How about being a constitutional conservative? Perhaps that defines being a real conservative in Alaska! This broad area implies conservatives are ardent defenders of the U.S. Constitution. Alaska is consistently strong in its support of Second and Tenth Amendment rights. However, it fails miserably in other areas. For instance, the Alaska State Constitution specifically strips private citizens of mineral rights on their own private property. If the U.S. Constitution guarantees life, liberty, and property, and yet Alaska does not allow you to fully own your property, I guess we can cross true private property ownership off our Alaskan conservative values list.

Another area where I believe we have recently faulted in is public education. The Alaska State Constitution explicitly states that the legislature will establish a system of public schools. Yet the governor’s office allegedly went over their head and signed onto the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (i.e. federalized Common Core) and only asked to be released from membership after a massive parent and teacher furor going into an election year. The first and foremost rule of any elected official is to do no harm, either to an individual’s freedom or privacy. In my view, Common Core eliminates 85% of individual state, teacher, parent, and student freedom in public schools while utterly destroying personal privacy with personalized data tracking. Given our Republican inconsistences in constitutional freedom, privacy, and property areas, how else might we define being a conservative in Alaska?

Republicans by and large despise excessive government regulations. We decry federal regulatory overreach into Alaskan sovereignty. However, we have grown our own state bureaucratic and regulatory behemoths that bury any potential new natural resource development company in excessive red tape- the very thing we blame the feds for. I for one have been told by an oil executive that the small drilling companies – the very ones that are causing the economic miracles in states like North Dakota and Texas – are being actively kept out of Alaska by our burdensome state bureaucracies, and that “they wouldn’t touch Alaska with a ten-foot pole.” We must reverse course in this area if we expect to get different results. Our elected conservatives in Juneau apparently don’t believe in the principles of limited government at the state level, just at the federal level.

If we cannot adequately define an average conservative in Juneau as being either a fiscal, social, constitutional, or a limited-government conservative, how else can we define them? Perhaps by the conservative way they part their hair or by the conservative way they dress (minus of course the liberal suspenders)? Seriously, with these governing fruit inconsistencies, it’s high time that we re-anchor the definition of an Alaskan conservative from the U.S. Constitution on up. It’s time for a great reawakening of the concept that, “We the People,” means “We the individuals,” and that all God given rights flow up from the individual to government for the protection of our life, liberty, privacy, and property. We need to repatriate the Founding Father’s vision that government must be limited in scope if self-determination and free market competition are to flourish. Each one of these sacred principles is a lamp to our feet. Let us relight the conservative vision.

Judge Suddock: The Face of Judicial Arrogance

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Yesterday, Judge John Suddock did exactly what we predicted: he obediently granted Planned Parenthood’s request for a “temporary restraining order” or TRO. As the name implies, that order prohibits the state from enforcing the recently adopted regulations that do nothing more than stop taxpayer funding of abortions that are performed simply because a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant.

As a result of Judge Suddock’s decision, abortions will be performed this very week in Alaska that are done purely for reasons of convenience – and you and I will be footing the bill for all of it.

Years ago, I remember seeing a bumper sticker that said: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” I feel like that saying applies very well to the Alaska court system. If you’re not outraged at the behavior of our judiciary, you simply haven’t read enough of their arrogant decisions.

I’ve read Judge Suddock’s decision carefully. Like so many activist judges he behaves like a “super legislator” who thinks he’s in charge of crafting public policy, rather than a lawyer who is charged with a very narrow task of discerning whether a law or regulation is compatible with the constitution. At one point in his decision, Judge Suddock writes:

“DHSS (the Department of Health and Social Services) has tolerated a status quo of relatively unfettered physician discretion for twelve years since the Supreme Court’s 2001 overruling of its prior attempt to propound an acceptable standard. It (sic) implausible that a delay of a few months until an evidentiary hearing is held will unduly burden the DHSS in minimizing Medicaid expense. Accordingly, Planned Parenthood qualifies for a temporary restraining order.”

Translation: We’ve allowed the people who profit from performing abortions to have free reign to decide when YOU get to pay for one of THEIR abortions. And since this travesty has been going on for so long (primarily because of an earlier bad court decision), what’s the big deal in allowing it to continue for several more months?

The problem is, Judge Suddock, that someone who actually WON AN ELECTION (Governor Parnell) sees things differently than you. The Parnell Administration has the authority to do this because the Governor won an election, and that makes him accountable to the people. In contrast, nobody elected Judge Suddock to pass any laws, or decide how our tax dollars will be spent – even for a few months.

This Guttmacher Institute study (scroll down to Tables 2 & 3) shows the VAST MAJORITY of abortions take place for elective/non-medical reasons. Remember, Guttmacher is a pro-abortion research arm of Planned Parenthood.

Judge Suddock chose to ignore testimony offered in the past by Dr. Jan Whitefield, one of the most prolific abortionists in Alaska, under oath that he certifies medical necessity whenever a pregnancy would interfere with a woman’s work or education plans, or even if she views her pregnancy as an “affront.” In other words, an abortion is medically necessary whenever a woman does not want to be pregnant. Right now, because of Judge Suddock, any abortion a Planned Parenthood doctor certifies is medically necessary is just that, and the State must pay.

Call_To_Action.jpgAction item: Many of you have asked what you can do to protest Judge Suddock’s involvement in this case, since his former law partner once helped represent Planned Parenthood in an earlier lawsuit over Medicaid funding of abortion. It’s outrageous that Judge Suddock is still even on this case.

We recommend that you file a complaint with the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct.

You can visit the Commission’s webpage here:

https://www.ajc.state.ak.us/conduct/conduct.html

You’ll see a list of topics about the Commission, and one of the items is called “Commission Complaint Form”. If you click on it, it will allow you to download a pdf form you can use to file a complaint against Judge Suddock. The form contains a mailing address, email, and fax number that can be used to return the form to the Commission.

Standing for Families,

In His name!

Jim Minnery, President
Alaska Family Action

Collins, Murkowski Most Likely Republicans to Back Obama

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Photo Credit: Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call File PhotoSens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska held their reputations as leading GOP moderates in 2013.

In CQ Roll Call’s annual look at voting records, the two Republican women led the field of those most likely to vote with President Barack Obama on votes on which the administration clearly took a position, either through a formal Statement of Administration Policy or other expression of policy view.

Collins backed the Obama view on such votes 75.9 percent of the time, with Murkowski following at 72.3 percent. They were the only Republican senators above 70 percent. That’s in line with the argument that Murkowski’s voting record might prove beneficial to the 2014 re-election case of her Democratic counterpart Mark Begich.

Collins’ votes could serve her well in her own re-election bid as a New England Republican this year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Flint Hills Says North Pole Refinery Will Close

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Photo Credit: EricaJoy/flickrFlint Hills Resources announced Tuesday that it will close its North Pole refinery, shuttering a major employer in the Fairbanks area and eliminating a local source of gasoline, jet fuel, heating fuel and other petroleum products.

The closure will mean the loss of 81 jobs.

Mike Brose, vice president of Flint Hills Resources Alaska LLC, said the refinery will close because of a difficult refining market and uncertainties over future soil and groundwater cleanup costs that began under the refinery’s former owners, Williams Alaska Petroleum Inc.

“This has been a difficult decision made after a long, thorough and deliberative process,” Brose said in an announcement. “Our company has spent an enormous amount of money and resources addressing soil and groundwater contamination that was caused when Williams owned the refinery and the state of Alaska owned the land underneath it. So far, neither Williams nor the state of Alaska have accepted any responsibility for the cleanup.”

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said the closure is a major blow to the state, “particularly the economies of Fairbanks and North Pole as the refinery paid some of the highest wages in the region.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Could Legalize Marijuana By This Summer

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Photo Credit: matthew kenwrickEnough petition signatures have been verified to place an initiative seeking to legalize marijuana on the ballot this summer in Alaska, election officials said Tuesday.

The petition has met all the thresholds necessary to appear on the Aug. 19 primary ballot, the Alaska Division of Elections said.

The lieutenant governor’s office said it had verified the signatures from registered voters as of Monday evening. The total of 31,500 was a thousand more than needed, with about 6,000 signatures remaining to be checked.

The office has not yet certified the question for the ballot, but it’s expected to do so in the coming weeks.

“It’s good news,” said Bill Parker, an Anchorage man who was one of and initial sponsor of the initiative.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Yukon Quest’s Dog Sled Race of a Thousand Miles Begins with the First, “Mush!”

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The 31st annual Yukon Quest dog sled race started Saturday morning in Fairbanks, Alaska, and thousands from around the world came out to witness it. Eighteen teams, primarily from the United States and Canada, are competing in the race that takes mushers on about a thousand mile journey between Fairbanks and Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of Canada.

According to the official Yukon Quest website, where you can track the sled teams’ progress in real time, the trail follows historic Gold Rush and mail delivery dog sled routes from the turn of the 20th Century.

The teams are made up of 6 to 14 dogs.

Every year the start and finish locations alternate, so each community gets the opportunity to experience both. This year, due to the unseasonable warm weather (a mystery, I’m sure, to those in the Lower 48), both the start in Fairbanks and the finish in the Yukon Territory had to be modified. In Fairbanks, rather than starting on the normally frozen solid Chena River, earth-movers brought in tons of snow Friday night for the teams to launch down 2nd Avenue Saturday. In Canada, the race will not end with the sled drivers mushing up the frozen Yukon River into Whitehorse, but rather in Takhini Hot Springs, located about 18 miles north of town.

Because of the change to the finish and others along the course, the usual thousand mile journey will be closer to 900 miles, and the winner will likely be pulling into Takhini Hot Springs by next Sunday, or so. The record time set last year, also on a shortened course, was 8 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes.

Alaska Soldiers Train With Unmanned Aircraft

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Photo Credit: Dan Joling, Associated PressThe Army is flying a new bird over south central Alaska — and the pilots sit in the back of a Humvee.

Paratroopers with the 425 Brigade Special Troops Battalion on Thursday trained with a RQ7 Shadow unmanned aircraft system. The remotely operated aircraft are designed to provide reconnaissance for troops without putting observers in danger.

The unmanned aircraft provide near real-time video and information from infrared sensors. Operators can’t distinguish individual faces, said Sgt. Brandon Byers, but they can detect heat signatures and vehicle tracks.

“They’re able to distinguish the features and different marks on the ground,” he said.

Byers oversees the maintenance section. Besides the usual repairs, the unit launches the unmanned aircraft from pneumatic catapult launchers mounted on trailers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller Says Shell Withdrawal Underscores Need for Change

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Photo Credit: NewscastUS Senate Candidate Joe Miller says yesterday’s announcement of Shell Oil’s intent to withdraw from Alaska due to the adverse ruling passed down from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week is further evidence of the failed Democrat agenda.

“This latest blow to Alaska’s economy is a testament to the fact that elections have consequences,” said Miller. “Returning Mark Begich to the US Senate will only ensure that we get more of the same: more moral support for Barack Obama; more power grabs by Harry Reid; more activists confirmed to the federal bench; and more anti-development appointees leading the federal bureaucracy. It’s time to make a change.”

Just yesterday, it was revealed that Mark Begich has collected nearly $20,000 in campaign cash over the last two cycles from board members, executives, and associates of the plaintiffs who sued to stop drilling in the Arctic Ocean. These plaintiffs included the Alaska Wilderness League, Pacific Environment, Defenders of Wildlife, the Village of Point Hope, Oceana, and EarthJustice.

And that doesn’t include other affiliated groups and non-profits who account for thousands more. And who knows what their donors are doing?

It’s time to send a senator to Washington that folks can trust to put principle over party. Alaskans deserve a leader that they know won’t be cheating on them with Barack Obama and Harry Reid’s environmentalist friends.