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Alaska Democratic Party’s Lame Attempt at Demagoguery – Epic Fail!

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The State Senate Judiciary Committee had its first hearing on SB 49 yesterday, a bill designed to define “medical necessity” with respect to Medicaid-funded abortions. And as one might expect, the Democrats have already began their assault on proponents of the measure.

To no one’s surprise, they appear to be trying to resurrect the Demogogue-in-Chief’s manufactured “war on women.”

The five-member panel made up of two Democrats and three Republicans includes just one woman, a fact opponents of the bill appear eager to exploit for political purposes.

For a brief period, part way through the hearing, Senator Lesil McGuire stepped out of the room. While she was gone, someone in the room snapped a picture of the four male members of the Committee, which the Alaska Democratic Party was happy to tweet.

Clearly, they were trying to lead folks to believe that it was an all male panel. Well, we’re onto them.

As if reverse sexism is somehow relevent to the facts of medical science anyway . . .

Not only was the Democrat Party’s insinuation false, if anybody cares, the hypocrisy of it all was compounded by the fact that two out of the three doctors who testified on behalf of the legislation were women.

Apparently, Senator Bill Wielechowski had no legitimate objections to the bill either, as he spent almost all of his time cross-examining the expert witnesses, obviously trying to discredit them by scoring cheap political points.

Nice try.

When will the Democrats step up to the plate and actually engage in the public policy debate, instead of playing sophmoric games in an attempt to emotionally manipulate public perception?

Chances are, it won’t happen any time soon. That’s just how they roll.

Extreme Alaska: Snow-Kiting, Skijoring (Dog-Powered Cross-Country Skiing), And More

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Photo Credit: Tara Todras-WhitehillThe wind came from the northwest. It blew down from the glacier-studded peaks of the Alaska Range, through the icebergs of Turnagain Arm and across the frozen expanse of the Twenty Mile River. It was an unrelenting wind, the kind that fells trees, shapes mountains and drives people to their firesides. And there I was among the sculptured snow ridges and frozen grass on the banks of the Twenty Mile, attached to a giant kite, wearing a pair of skis.

When I signed up for snow-kiting in Alaska, I didn’t think about how it would feel to be bracing myself against a 25-mile-per-hour wind as I watched my kite flutter in the snow a hundred feet off, threatening to whip up into the air at any moment. All that kept it down was my hand on the rope “brake,” tight against my hip. I could barely hear Tom Fredericks, my upbeat instructor, shouting in my ear, “Now, it’s going to pull real hard when it first comes up,” before the rest of his words disappeared into the wind. Frankly, I was scared.

But then, I hadn’t come to Alaska in winter to take it easy. I let go of the brake. Seconds later, I was flying.

Colorado, Utah, Wyoming — these are the places one thinks of as winter sports paradises in the United States. But Alaska? Too dark, you might say. Too cold. Too, well, extreme. One imagines frostbite temperatures, cloud-scraping mountains and tundra too inhospitable for trees. The numbers bear out the prejudice: in the spring and summer of last year, close to 1.2 million people visited Alaska for vacation; in fall and winter, that number was just 34,000.

But as March approaches, average highs creep up to a balmy 34 degrees in Anchorage, and the daylight hours are as long as anywhere else. Conveniently for winter-sports enthusiasts, most of the 600 inches of snow the Chugach Mountains see each year remains. Still, few people go, leaving one of our country’s largest snowy playgrounds unvisited by any but locals and the few who are savvy enough to make the trip.

Read more from this story HERE.

Is BP Cutting Production To Blackmail Alaska?

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Photo Credit: Minale Tattersfield Roadside Retail BP’s tankers occasionally return to Valdez with millions of gallons of Alaskan oil on board, reports The San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, and the Fairbanks News Miner. With Valdez holding tanks 90 percent full, tankers top-off and return again to West Coast refineries that are still too full to receive their loads, because BP’s refining and retail capacity is maxed. Clearly BP is prioritizing just-in-time delivery to meet the maximum market share and profitability of BP’s West Coast refined products.

Alaska’s oil has been BP’s cash cow since their subsidiary Sohio Petroleum became their face in Alaska, in 1970. Before acquiring ARCO in 2000, BP successfully asked Congress to lift the ban on the export of North Slope crude. If BP were truly interested in exporting crude today, tankers wouldn’t be returning to Valdez with oil on board. However, after acquiring ARCO’s West Coast refineries and retail stations, BP’s incentives changed to the more profitable business of refining and retailing.

In 1981, I was in the Legislature when the biggest tax break giveaway ever was voted on; — a tax system nicknamed ELF. Prior to voting, an oil lobbyist told me they were losing so much money on their Alaskan investments, they were considering shutting down and leaving. Sound familiar? Shortly after voting for ELF, I uncovered a well hidden letter to stockholders from Sohio’s president. He explained that Sohio was practically drowning in cash. The letter was written before we gave them their 1981 tax break. –– I copied the letter and distributed it to all legislators, and soon became the first political target of BP’s surrogate, VECO.

In the mid 1980’s it became obvious that other countries were getting far more for their oil than Alaska. Even countries with expensive deep water platforms were making more. Between 1980 and 2000, BP went from the 13th largest oil company in the world to the 3rd largest. They did it with profits that rightfully belonged to Alaska. Profits that would have built roads and fattened dividend checks had it not been for VECO’s bribery and fraudulent representations by oil lobbyists. Given the chance, a jury might find the oil companies owe Alaska a few billion dollars.

BP controls Alaskan crude from the well head to the gas pump. They take Alaska’s oil for the cost of production and transportation, plus local, state and federal taxes. BP’s crude costs add up to about 28 percent less than independent nonproducing refiners pay. The life of BP’s cash cow is extended by trickling Prudhoe’s production; and Governor Parnell’s tax cuts won’t change BP’s incentives.

Read more from this story HERE.

Shell Ships Alaska Drilling Rigs To Asia For Repairs

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Putting their 2013 Arctic drilling plans into doubt, Royal Dutch Shell announced Monday that it will tow its purpose-built drilling rigs from Alaska to Asia for major repairs.

The Noble Discoverer and the Kulluk began work on two wells during the 2012 drilling season, though Shell had earlier hoped to do six wells.

The string of problems that befell Shell in the Arctic last year would amount to a comedy of errors, if it weren’t so expensive.

The Kulluk ran aground. The Noble Discoverer dragged its anchor and suffered an engine-room fire. Shell’s brand-new tug boat Aiviq suffered failures in all four engines while at sea. Shell’s oil spill containment dome broke during testing.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Talks Liberty

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Russ Millette will host Bob Bird on Alaska Talks Liberty this Tuesday Feb 12th at 3 PM AST, 6 PM CST, 7 PM EST.

Bob is a Constitutional Scholar and expert on Constitutional Law and will be talking about Nullification and the 2nd Amendment.

Please go to www.russmillette.com Tues at 3 PM AST and tune in.

Alaska Brewery Plans To Use Beer As A Source Of Green Energy

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Photo Credit: Associated PressJUNEAU, Alaska – The Alaskan Brewing Co. is going green, but instead of looking to solar and wind energy, it has turned to a very familiar source: beer.

The Juneau-based beer maker has installed a unique boiler system in order to cut its fuel costs. It purchased a $1.8 million furnace that burns the company’s spent grain — the waste accumulated from the brewing process — into steam which powers the majority of the brewery’s operations. Company officials now joke they are now serving “beer-powered beer.”

What to do with spent grain was seemingly solved decades ago by breweries operating in the Lower 48. Most send the used grain, a good source of protein, to nearby farms and ranches to be used as animal feed.

But there are only 37 farms in southeast Alaska and 680 in the entire state as of 2011, and the problem of what to do with the excess spent grain — made up of the residual malt and barley — became more problematic after the brewery expanded in 1995

The Alaskan Brewing Co. had to resort to shipping its spent grain to buyers in the Lower 48. Shipping costs for Juneau businesses are especially high because there are no roads leading in or out of the city; everything has to be flown or shipped in. However, the grain is a relatively wet byproduct of the brewing process, so it needs to be dried before it is shipped — another heat intensive and expensive process.

Read more from this story HERE.

Old Guard CBC Stages Coup in Alaska GOP

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WASHINGTON, DC, February 1, 2013 – In a hastily convened meeting Thursday night the outgoing leadership of the Republican Party of Alaska staged what amounts to a coup to oust the incoming Chairman and seize control of the party.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the controversy over the election of reformer candidate Russ Millette to the Chairmanship of the Alaska GOP. Millette is a Republican Liberty Caucus member who represents the more libertarian/conservative wing of the party and party insiders did not want him to take control of their party and institute reforms.

During the lame duck tenure of the outgoing State Executive Committee, party insiders raised various charges against Millette and his Vice Chair Debbie Brown, which observers categorized as “trivial” and “irrelevant,” amounting to little more than vague financial questions and accusations of not being enough of a party loyalist. No actual rule violations of any substance were raised.

A plan was put forward to hold a hearing on the charges at the installation meeting of the Executive Committee on February 1st. Then, to the surprise of party members who described the action as “a sham” and “a witch hunt,” the hearing was moved forward a day so that the new committee members would not yet be seated or have a vote on the accusations.

Even more troubling to many party members was the notification right before the meeting that outgoing Chairman Randy Ruederich had cleaned out the party treasury of $35,000 and transferred the money to a bank in Juneau out of control of the Executive Committee, a classic “rule or ruin” tactic designed to make sure that if the new leadership takes over they will have no money to fund party operations.

Read more on this story HERE.

State’s Rights Bill Protecting Alaskans’ Right To Keep And Bear Arms Introduced

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photo credit: housemajority

(SitNews) – Alaska Speaker of the House Mike Chenault (R-Nikiski) introduced a bill on Wednesday defending Alaskans’ Second Amendment rights in light of President Barack Obama’s announced plans to curb gun violence.

“We began work on this bill before the President’s announcement today, and now I’m extremely glad we did. Twenty-three Executive Orders have been signed into law without a review from Americans’ elected representatives,” Chenault said.

Chenault said, “Tragedy is not a license for federal encroachment of constitutionally protected freedoms. We can all agree that what happened in Newtown, Connecticut was an absolute tragedy. But what we fundamentally disagree on is how you meet the challenge it presented. The President is using it to further his liberal agenda to try and disarm and disenfranchise law-abiding Americans from their enshrined Second Amendment rights. No one should be comfortable with that, regardless of where you sit on the issue.”

“As a father, I prayed for those who lost children in the incident, and was sickened that someone would prey on our children,” Chenault said. “The President shouldn’t parade out children and pull on emotional heart strings on something as important as executing orders to circumvent the Congress and weaken the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Former Fairbanks Representative Mike Kelly stood up for Alaskans’ gun rights during the 26th Legislature, and I hope to carry on his legacy with this new bill.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Washington Times: Political Power Struggle in Alaska is Fight For the GOP’s Future

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WASHINGTON, January 14, 2013 — Those who follow the emerging blood sport of Republican Party internal politics know that much goes that doesn’t get much coverage in the major media, but may have a profound effect on the political future of the nation.

Events in far off Alaska are significant in what they show about a struggle which may be coming to your state GOP in the next few months.

The latest battleground in this struggle is the harsh political tundra of Alaska, where we saw the fight between establishment and reformers played out in a very public struggle between Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski for the Senate in 2010. Grassroots Republicans supported Miller in the GOP and he defeated incumbent Murkowski.

Unwilling to accept the loss, party insiders and leaders then supported Murkowski in a successful independent campaign against their own party’s nominee.

In that contest the establishment demonstrated a willingness to cast aside the desires of party members and even engage in blatant manipulation of the electoral process to get their way. Despite its physical size, Alaska’s political landscape is one of small towns, local powerbrokers, and more than its share of corruption.

Read more from this story HERE.

Governor’s Plan for Emergency Food Stockpile Hits Bump

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Alaska’s plan to stash stockpiles of emergency food in case the state is cut off from supplies by a disaster has hit a bump.

The state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs this week canceled its solicitation for proposals after receiving just one response, which was rejected. Department procurement officer Jolund Luther said Friday that the company that responded could not come up with a performance bond, which would have ensured the project was seen to its completion if the contractor went bankrupt or out of business.

Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the state’s emergency preparedness division, said officials remain committed to the plan and will look for ways to improve the solicitation before moving forward again.

Read more from this story HERE.