1. Corrections. Two corrections this week. In the first, I misidentified Marco Rubio (R, FL) who won the open Florida US Senate seat two weeks ago as Dino Rossi (R, WA) who lost to Patty Murray (D, WA) in a close race. The second correction concerns newly elected Alaska State Senator Cathy Giessel (R). At the time of our last conversation, she had not received an invitation to the senate majority coalition. A couple hours after that call, she got a call offering a committee chairmanship. She turned down that offer, as democrats hold an absolute voting majority in the coalition and she did not want to be beholden to democrats upon her entry into the state senate.

2. Items. Interesting Items started out as an e-mail list 14 years ago on the old Town Hall CompuServe site. Over the years, I have added a web presence. But the web presence has always been static, allowing no reader input outside of an e-mail response. The time has come to update that web site, and I am in the process of creating a blog-format site that will allow reader comments directly to the weekly on the site. Hope to have it up and operating by the end of the month. Will notify all subscribers via e-mail once it is online. There will be growing pains as we find out what works and what does not. Your assistance in sorting all this out will be most appreciated. While the update will not bring my web presence completely up to state of the art (no Twitter, for example), it should be a substantial improvement over what we have today. I will maintain the current web site as an archive of past issues. Please let me know what you think.

3. Groping. The latest out of the vermin that are currently in charge of the TSA are the full body scan backscatter radiation x-ray machines. These came about in response to the Undie-Bomber’s attempt to blow up his crotch last Christmas. Of course, he was a suspected terrorist and on the no-fly list. Yet he manages to get himself on an international flight with a one way ticket and little to no luggage. Response out of Janet Napolitano’s TSA is either the new full body scanner machines – which show all the private areas in full detail to the screener or a full body patdown including groping of the “family jewels” – all same sex, of course, perhaps based on Napolitano’s questionable sexuality. Much better to request an opposite sex patdown. Most of this blew up last weekend with a man trying to fly out of San Diego refusing the new screening machine and then refusing the groping. He recorded the entire incident on his cell phone, including the threat of civil lawsuit by the TSA and posted it online. The airline pilots and flight crews are also refusing the new screening techniques, partly based on the fact that they are all security screened in the first place and some non-zero percentage of them now carry firearms, and the fact that they ought not to be exposed to yet some more ionizing radiation on a daily basis. There are photos of a TSA gonzo groping a screaming and very upset 3-year old little girl. Michael Savage had a story of a youngster in braces that the screeners went after, removing the braces, and not allowing the parents to touch the youngster while they did so. The kid, of course fell down while the screeners watched and did not assist. Drudge ran a photo of a female in Muslim garb groping a nun in full habit. Welcome to the Brave New World of the TSA, where privacy means nothing. Napolitano responded to critics over the weekend by defending both the new procedures and the new machines, inviting the traveling public not to travel if they have a problem with the new procedures. She also said she would consider an opt out option for those with religious objections – read Muslims – to the new procedures. Great. We now have a new security procedure that allows Muslims to opt out on religious grounds a new screening procedure intended to stop Muslims who want to blow us up. There is a national opt-out day scheduled for Nov. 24. There is only one way to stop this madness, and that way is to require every single elected official, bureaucrat and muckety muck to go first thru the naked image machine and the “enhanced” patdown before any citizen goes through. Kind of makes you wonder what the TSA will do when the first Muslim terrorist with explosives in their rectal cavity successfully blows a hole in an aircraft inflight. Cavity searches in our future? Perhaps. This must stop immediately. It is time to shut down the TSA and return the responsibility for passenger screening back to the airlines where it belongs.

4. Browner. The Interior Department Inspector General released a report last week describing how the WH modified draft versions of the offshore drilling ban so it would appear that the panel of experts had recommended the ban. WH Energy Czar Carol Browner’s fingerprints are all over the rewrite. While head of Clinton’s EPA, Browner was particularly adept in doctoring evidence (secondhand smoke as a carcinogen), hiding evidence, deleting e-mails and shredding paperwork. She famously told her people that if they did not produce any paperwork on their deliberations, there would be no paperwork available for congress to subpoena. Browner and her staff are at the center of the effort to mislead the general public about why oil exploration was banned offshore the entire US. The ban has been tossed twice by a federal judge based on lack of adherence to normal process changes and lack of justification in making the decision to ban drilling and exploration. Unfortunately, this has not stopped Salazar’s Interior from slow-rolling permits for all offshore work since May, effectively shutting down exploration completely. If I were the new Republican majority in the House, I would defund all WH energy positions instantly. I would also consider completely defunding the EPA and the former Minerals Management Service (whatever it is called today) and returning those functions to the many states. But that’s just me. Malkin, Thurs.

5. GOTV. MS Governor Haley Barbour who also heads up the Republican Governor’s Association publicly criticized the RNC get out the vote (GOTV) efforts in the 72 hours leading up to the election. Barbour called the effort sub-par. In contrast, it appears that the democrats’ last minute efforts in rousing their base with visits from Obama, Biden and Clinton did manage to turn out enough of their inner city base to keep a disastrous election cycle from turning into a catastrophe. Barbour’s criticism, which according to Red State on Nov 9, carries some weight in the national party, likely signals the start of a what should be a bruising fight to replace Michael Steele as RNC Chairman.

6. Corpses. The democrat congress last year passed yet another anti-smoking statue. This one requires the FDA to issue regulations that order cigarette manufacturers to put more graphic anti smoking warnings on the sides of packages of cigarettes. There are a number of proposed photos of corpses that Allahpundit in Hot Air Thursday described as looking like they come from the movie Dawn of the Dead (zombies). A sufficiently enterprising cigarette manufacturer ought to wrap themselves in the new requirements and produce a Zombie brand of cigarettes, and market them exclusively to young smokers – something that would make the tobacco Nazis wild. Note that this is a product that has always been known as unhealthy. It is a product that was referred to in the early part of the 20th Century as “coffin nails.” I you want to ban it; ban it. But the politicians never will, as tobacco is one of the great cash cows for taxation. But they feel free to torture both smokers and manufacturers with an endless array of rules, regulations, disgusting photos, and anything else they believe will be done for our own good. CS Lewis observed in God in the Dock (1948) that:

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.

In this issue: 1. Elections – AK
2. Postmortem 3. National 4. No Compromise

1. Elections – AK. Other than the still to be completed Miller – Murkowski – McCheese race, elections did not go badly for conservatives in Alaska. We picked up three new House members; lost one in Fairbanks to a union onslaught. We failed to toss out an activist Alaska Supreme Court Justice. But the margin of her retention vote was much smaller than normal. We did not lose any State Senate seats, leaving the senate tied at 10-10. It took the democrat-heavy “bipartisan” coalition less than 24 hours to reorganize itself again with 16 members. Four conservatives in the state senate, including newly elected Cathy Giessel did not get phone calls to participate. We elected the sitting governor to his first full term. He was Palin’s LtGov and became governor when she resigned last year. We passed two statewide bond proposals – both with more than 60% of the vote. We rejected a democrat attempt to expand the number of legislators from 60 to 66 by the same 60-40% split. The race for US Senate is mostly over, with over 13,000 votes separating Murkowski and Miller. McCheese is a distant third and is not a player in the count. There are over 40,000 absentee, questioned and early votes to be counted. Miller is hoping that the majority of absentees will split his way, as the majority of them are military ballots. Miller would have to pick up 68% of the remaining uncounted ballots or hope that a vast number of write-in votes are tossed out to win the election. Counting resumes this week and next week in Juneau.

2. Postmortem. So what happened to Miller? Mostly a pedestrian campaign. Once she made the decision to run as a write-in, Murkowski pivoted smartly and ran as a committed leftist, figuring that she would pick up the middle and middle left. This decision, coupled with three solid months of demonization of Miller got her enough votes to likely be returned to the senate. But such a campaign decision comes with some cost, as there are a significant number of conservatives in this state that will show up in the primary six years from today and vote for anything other than Lisa. She may very well never get out of another primary as a Republican again. The other thing that this raced did was identify all the political players in Alaska. With it, the race also identified four things that future conservatives will need to solve should they run for congress. The problems include the native corporations, unions, media and the judiciary. Native corporations make a lot of money based on their ability to land no-bid federal contracts. They were set up as a vehicle to help the shareholders – poor natives in Bush Alaska, yet with few exceptions, the money ends up supporting corporate staff and executives. Not much gets back to the shareholders. They donated over a million dollars to keep the gravy train moving. You fix the problem of the native corporations in the next congress by supporting Claire McCaskill’s (D, MO) legislation that strips their ability to land no-bid federal contracts. Additionally, property rights need to be returned to shareholders so that they may buy or sell shares of the native corporations on the open market. Nothing like introducing property rights for shareholders into corporate ownership to properly refocus the corporate mentality. You solve the problem of the unions by passing right to work legislation here in Alaska. The unions drive a lot of political busses here and have the entire congressional delegation carrying their water for them. That must stop. The media is well on their way to solving their own problem by being as partisan leftist big government as they have been in recent years. We conservatives need to continue to remove and replace them. Finally, we need to address the problem of an out of control state judiciary by starting regular impeachments of activist judges. We need a constitutional amendment that removed the requirement for the Judicial Council to select prospective judges for nomination and confirmation by the governor. We also need to consider electing judges to a 2 or 4 year long term. If these black-robed wannabee politicians want to play politician, let them run for office on a regular basis. Solve any two of these four problems, and conservatives will do quite well running for congress in the future.

3. National. With the exception of races for US Senate, conservatives did spectacularly well last Tuesday night. They picked up around 65 new House members; the largest gain since 1946. That’s the good news. The bad news is that two years later in 1948, they lost about that many, returning control of the House back to democrats for nearly 40 years. Whatever the new conservative majority in the House does, it ought not to repeat the mistakes of the 80th Congress or the Gingrich majority in 1995. Republicans were elected because they were not democrats. They were elected to stop Obama and undo the socialist mess that the Pelosi-Reid congress inflicted upon the nation over the last four years. As such, they are on probation and must prove that they are indeed ready, willing and able to do what they have been saying they intend to do. Republicans picked up only six US Senate seats, bringing the senate from a 59-41 democrat majority to a 53-47 split. The Tea Party senate candidates with a couple exceptions did poorly. The really odd thing about this performance was that a number of them – Racine in WV, Rubio in WA and Angle in NV were all polling even to a few points ahead for most of the race. Usually these races break Republican, as polling normally under samples conservatives. All lost. I expect there was significant voter fraud in those losses, particularly in NV and WA. Voting fraud is something that must be solved at the state and local levels, for we will see no interest in solving it out of the Holder (In)Justice Department. Happily, there are 21 democrats up for reelection to the US Senate in 2012, many of them who ran as conservatives’ in 2006. And every single one of these bozos voted for ObamaCare. The down ticket races also broke well for conservatives, with several governorships flipping to Republican and 19 state legislature houses flipping Republican. This puts Republicans firmly in control of redistricting next year, which will fall out of the release of the census results. If we can do this two more times, we will be able to undo much of what Fedzilla has done to us, much of what Obama is going to do to us, and much of what the Reid-Pelosi congress has inflicted upon us for the last four years.

4. No Compromise. The first thing out of the barrel the day after the election were a number of prominent Republican moderates – Lindsay Graham and Trent Lott – demanding that the new conservatives in congress compromise with Obama and democrats in order to “get things done.” Yet none of these clowns were out campaigning for conservatives, as they are all moderates. This triggered a 3-day rant by Limbaugh aimed directly at the notion of compromise. Conservatives ought to compromise with Obama and the democrats precisely the same way that they compromised with conservatives over the last 2-4 years: “I won. You lost.” First up to bat will be a repeal of ObamaCare. Force the debate. Force the vote. Provide amendments to undercut all the democrat bait and switch arguments against repeal. And then send it on to the senate and force the 21 democrats up for reelection in 2012 to defend their vote over and over and over again. When that legislation fails, keep on passing it again and again and again, and send it to the senate for action. Defund it completely so that all the new bureaucracies cannot be created. Defund political appointees that are supposed to implement ObamaCare. Do the same thing with the EPA and their attempt to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Defund their attempt to make fracing illegal via the Clean Water Act. Fracing is a technique used to shatter oil and natural gas formations so that a well can produce oil or natural gas reasonably well. The greens are trying to make the technique illegal so as to stop oil and natural gas production. There are a thousand things like this that need to be defunded. And if the bureaucracy cannot pay itself, they cannot produce any paper. The democrats are counting on the permanent and friendly bureaucracy that they have put into place to continue their road to a socialist / fascist utopia while they are temporarily out of power. Time to do something about the bureaucracy.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.

1. Disobedience. The Miller – Murkowski – McCheese race turned into a full body contact event last week with an act of civil disobedience by conservatives here in Anchorage. The issue was a new voting procedure dreamed up by Lisa-friendly people at the Alaska Division of Elections. For the first time in state history, they were going to provide a list of all write-in candidates for this election. Lisa is only the most famous. Both the state Republican and democrat parties fought it through the state courts and finally lost the decision Wednesday. It is important to note that the Alaska Supremes, like the Florida Supremes in 2000, simply created new state election law on the fly with their ruling, nominally based upon the ability to provide assistance to disabled voters. As of Thursday morning, the list had between 5-10 names for all races statewide. Local talk show hosts and callers were pretty angry about the outrageous ruling. But something interesting happened. The people decided not to sit still and take it anymore. They decided to do something about it. They decided to send a message. One caller to the Fagan show suggested that listeners do an Operation Alaska Chaos – and register as many additional write-in candidates as humanly possible before the 5 PM closing of the Division of Elections office Thursday. There were a couple Facebook pages set up Thursday with the same idea. The call was made sometime between 2-3 PM Thursday. And all Hell broke loose for the next three hours as hundreds of conservatives exercised their rights to register as write-in candidates. This was picked up by the three local afternoon talk shows here in Anchorage. It was a wonderful demonstration of civil disobedience and very real commentary on an out of control leftist judiciary. In the end, we ended up with 147 certified write-in candidates for US Senate and most importantly, the illegal write-in list from the Division of Elections grew from a single page to as many as eight pages. The hot rumor over the weekend was that Lisa’s name will be prominently listed as the first entry on the list. Nobody who wants their vote counted should ask to see where it is really listed, as there are lawsuits still in process against the new procedure, as it was inflicted during early voting and not all early voters had the opportunity to exercise their new “right.” This may be an excuse for the state Supremes to further interfere in this election on Lisa’s behalf.

2. Fagan. As the Laws of Physics also apply to the political world, the Fagan talk show-led write-in drive also had an impact on him. He was bounced off the air the next day, Friday. What happened was that John Tracy, who is a long-time local television talking head, made a call to Fagan’s Station Manager (KQFD) with a complaint. Tracy now runs a local media consulting company and is under contract with the Murkowski campaign. He cleared the call with the campaign before making the complaint. There was no overt threat of legal action, but the inference was clear. Fagan was told to take the day off with pay. Fagan returned to the air Monday with the Station Manager to discuss the incident. He also wrote about it in The Alaska Standard. The important part of this is that the Murkowski campaign and its sycophants had no problem at all with using their connections to silence or punish a dissenting voice. Their descent into tyranny has been obvious and expected – given their complete embrace of unions and union thuggery.

3. KTVA. The Miller campaign released transcript and audio of a voice mail recording left on one of their phones by reporters working at the Anchorage local CBS affiliate, KTVA. One of the important things in life if you are a smear merchant is to always remember to hang up the phone after you are finished with your official call. Make sure to do your scheming and plotting in the dark. The reporters did not properly hang up the phone and the voice mail continued to record their conversation – which discussed (in mostly a joking manner) an attempt to find and interview a known sex offender at the Miller Palin rally in downtown Anchorage Thursday night. The transcript, printed in Drudge, Red County, and Big Government (Bretibart) over the weekend. The audio also went viral. Clearly, we have a media at all levels infested by leftists, the great majority of which are ready, willing and able to use their positions of trust and constitutional protection to make news to help or harm their chosen candidates for political office. The KTVA recording is just another example. It is also an example of the sort of media treatment that Joe Miller has received since he won the Republican nomination in August.

4. Pledge. Three Pledge of Allegiance stories are up this week. Two of which are spontaneous recitations of the Pledge by crowds attending political debates. The third is Congressman Betty McCollum (D, MN) who “inadvertently” omitted the words “under God” while leading the House in 2002. Opposition research dug up the event from CSPAN’s library. The first two events were a lot more fun. One occurred in a League of Women Voters debate in PA. When the congressional candidates were about to give their opening remarks, the Republican asked about the Pledge. The moderator said that it was not normally done, at which point the crowd stood up and recited the Pledge, much to the dismay of the moderator who spent the rest of the event sputtering about disrespect.

5. Jody. We have a candidate for Alaska House of Representatives in my district who is running against the incumbent conservative. She is a democrat, union backed, young and pretty. She also has a problem with alcohol, with multiple driving citations over the last several years including DUI, reckless driving, driving without a license, etc. For a young lady, this is quite a resume. She got hit with a devastating mailer late last week that must have really gotten her attention. In response, she and her union backers made the rounds of the district Saturday handing out a mailer accusing our conservative of taking over $17,000 from the Saudis. The mailer had the requisite photo of a Saudi Sheikh with a handful of money. Letters from the lawyers were exchanged late Saturday and the defamation lawsuit by the conservative was supposed to be announced Monday. Question for unions, greens and democrats: Is this the best you can do? Reminder to the unions, greens and democrats: The Maine DUI trick you played on George Bush in 2000 almost worked. Try not to run candidates that have the same sorts of problems and then complain about mistreatment.

6. NPR-A. The USGS announced last week that NPR-A holds only one tenth of the oil previously estimated. This area sits to the west of the Prudhoe Bay – Kuparuk – Alpine fields and is the next target for oil and natural gas exploration. The report went on to state that there is a LOT of natural gas from the exploratory wells drilled. I don’t know quite what to make of this report, as the Obama administration has been actively working to halt new exploration in NPR-A. Either the report is accurate, or it is not. Whatever the accuracy of the report, I do expect that Interior and the Corps of Engineers will use the results as an excuse to further obstruct construction of infrastructure necessary to move drilling rigs and production facilities west into the area.

7. Bycatch. Commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska reported catching nearly 60,000 king salmon last year. They were not targeting kings, so this bycatch may very well trigger some restrictions on their fishing in the next several years. This is particularly disturbing, as we had a statewide shortage of king salmon last season. The normal reported bycatch of kings is normally around 20,000 kings.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.

1. Outrage. Barack Obama’s path to the US Senate in 2004 was greased by an outrageous decision of an Illinois state judge to unseal the 1999 divorce proceedings of his Republican opponent, Jack Ryan. Like most divorce proceedings, some pretty scandalous stuff was claimed by both parties. And the local media, who brought the lawsuits in order to assist Obama’s ascension to the senate, had a fine old time publishing all the salacious details of the proceedings. Note that neither Jack nor Jeri Ryan (she of Star Trek: Voyager fame) wanted the proceedings unsealed or released. The excuse given by the Illinois judge was the public’s right to know about a candidate for the US Senate overrides the right to privacy. Ryan withdrew from the race shortly after the release and publication, allowing Obama to walk into the senate and eventually into the Oval Office. Last Saturday, we had a retired judge order the release of Joe Miller’s personnel files from the Fairbanks – North Star Borough, a job he was fired from in 2008. The excuse given was essentially the same as Illinois opinion, that the importance of the office being sought was far more important than the privacy rights of the candidate. Note that these are sealed personnel files, including medical, disciplinary, unsubstantiated co-worker complaints, etc.; none of which under state law are releasable. Yet they are expected to be released to the local media – which brought the lawsuits to force the release – midweek. Once again, the notion of the public’s right to know only applies to conservatives. We have seen no attempt by local media to explore Lisa Murkowski’s financial conflict of interest with her TARP vote. We have not seen any media attempt to explore multiple DUI, reckless driving, driving without a license citations for democrat House candidate Jodi Dominguez. We have seen no attempt to explore democrat House member Chris Tuck or democrat State Senator Bill Wielechowski’s conflict of interest as elected members of the Alaska legislature while taking paychecks from the IBEW. And we have seen no interest in investigating US Senator Mark Begich and his multiple real estate investments or his ranch in Nevada. Media interest only applies to conservatives. This is not all bad news, as the opinion does open the door to some unexpected conservative fun in court. For this judge has set the precedent that a candidate for federal office can be hauled into state court and that state court can order the release of their private files as long as the position sits high enough on the political food chain. If you want to have some real fun, you might want to bring a lawsuit in an Alaskan state court in Fairbanks (to make sure you get the same judge) to force the release of Barack Obama’s college transcript, his birth certificate, his employment records, and all his college files currently sealed away from prying eyes. After all, the public does have a right to know.

2. Lists. The latest out of Lisa-friendly state election officials is the posting of lists of approved write-in candidates at state early voting polling stations. The list was initially discovered in Homer last week and a complaint filed. The state Division of Elections, under control of the Lt Governor reconsidered the complaint and decided to go ahead with ordering the lists posted and / or being available at all polling places. Alaska has pretty strict laws against electioneering in and around polling places. Vehicles with campaign stickers have to be moved outside a 200 foot bubble from the polling place so as not to influence voting. Yet a write-in candidate, Lisa Murkowski gets her name typed on a piece of paper and posted and / or handed to voters within the polling place. This has never been done in Alaska. And this new procedure was implemented without any of the normal review or comment procedure required for new procedures. Needless to say, both the state Republican and democrat parties are in court demanding the state-sponsored Lisa Murkowski electioneering be immediately halted. This marks the only time in my memory that both parties have agreed on anything other than whether the sun was up or not. Judicial opinion is expected sometime this week.

3. AFN. The Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) held their annual meeting in Fairbanks last week. This meeting is essentially the corporate voice of the Bush villages and the various native Corporations. As such, they are normally inclined to approve things that favor the corporations rather than the native population in the Bush at large. One of the ongoing arguments in the Bush is that the native corporations, which were set up as a vehicle to help out their shareholders – exclusively natives – do not do what they were set up to do. Instead, income is used to hire fabulously bloated staffs which are paid very well. Little money gets back to the shareholders from most of the corporations. The corporations are protected from their shareholders by federal statute that does not allow shareholders to sell or otherwise transfer their shares to non-natives, effectively protecting the corporations from external competition. This tension among the native population has been building for decades. The AFN cancelled a forum with all three candidates for US Senate at the last minute last Friday, choosing instead to endorse Lisa Murkowski for reelection. This left Joe Miller and Scott McAdams to work the room after the endorsement was made. Typically, the AFN endorses whomever they think will keep the money flowing into the native corporations. Two years ago, it was Ted Stevens. Yet Mark Begich won overwhelmingly in the Bush. This year, their chosen candidate is Lisa Murkowski. Yet McAdams is married to a native lady and runs around in native garb when it suits him, which counts for a lot among some. Some observers believe that the vote in the Bush is going to be a three-way split, and absolute mess that will favor no candidate. The dynamic is that the corporate guys will go for Murkowski to keep the gravy train moving. The democrats (and they are a LOT of them in the Bush) will go for McAdams, as they like the race-based pandering. And there will be a lot of Miller supporters who like his message of self-reliance and local control. Things are changing in Bush Alaska, and the AFN is about to get left behind.

4. Cell Phones. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced the next assault on liberty by the Obama administration. This time, they are going to push for a complete ban on cell phone use in vehicles. The ban will be extended to all hands-free / Bluetooth / integrated systems (like GM’s OnStar). The excuse is the standard safety increase for a single American trumps the liberty of the other 300 million of us. In reality this is simply an assault on liberty and a tool to control our activities on a daily basis while empowering police to be yet more intrusive and obnoxious while they pull over more Americans for less reason. Before the feds politicized the science on the subject, drivers using cell phones were no more liable to have accidents than those changing radio stations, eating, drinking, yelling at kids, or any of the million other ways to be distracted while driving. LaHood has been successful in getting anti-cell phone laws passed in 30 states. Liberty is fleeting. And the do-gooders will never, ever leave you alone, as they are the worst of all totalitarians.

5. NPR. NPR fired their senior correspondent Juan Williams last week after he told Bill O’Reily on FNC that he worried when he saw Muslims in traditional garb get on airplanes with him. He was summarily fired after 11 years with NPR, who apparently did not like him spending time on Fox. The head of NPR went on to question his mental health with a smarmy little comment about his psychiatrist, echoing the old Soviet technique of sending political dissidents to the psych wards for “treatment.” Best of all, the event happened at the beginning of a national fundraising drive for NPR. There are a few things going on here. One is that NPR has long chafed at any of their correspondents having anything to do with FNC. This means that Mara Liasson is next up to bat. George Soros just donated $100 million to NPR to hire new reporters. I do not expect there were any strings attached with that donation. There is a move by the left to ostracize FNC, and Williams’ firing is a step in that direction.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.

1. AK Senate. The most recent polls on the AK senate race have Republican candidate Joe Miller maintaining his slim lead over write-in RINO Lisa Murkowski and democrat Scott McAdams. National conservative commentators are having the vapors because the race is in essentially a three-way tie, which is certainly a concern. But if you throw in the fact that Lisa and Lisa-friendly PACs have spent nearly $1.5 million on personal attack ads aimed directly at Miller, the fact that he has taken everything but the kitchen sink and is still retaining a small lead is not bad news at all. Unfortunately it is not as good news as it could be. Local papers and Lisa-friendly PACs filed suit in state court to release Miller’s unredacted personnel files from Fairbanks. This is being done for much the same reason as the Obama-friendly state court released Republican candidate for US Senate Jack Ryan’s sealed divorce proceedings in June 2004, leaving Obama with a free run for US Senate that November. We also started hearing classic democrat ads on local Anchorage radio over the weekend claiming that electing Joe Miller would end all Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid money flowing into Alaska. I have never, ever heard those sorts of ads here in Alaska. They are truly awful. Final observations are anecdotal in nature. Had a conversation with a colleague about the election. The colleague is a well-connected democrat with a lot of friends among local democrats. I heard that on that side of the political fence, Lisa is despised – mostly for her decision to run as a write-in and partly over the nature of the campaign she is running. I did not get the impression that Lisa will get any support from the left, who are by definition, far better politicians than any of us on the right. The other was a conversation yesterday while leaving the grocery store. I’ve talked football and basketball with the guy who bagged groceries for us for years. He asked Lisa or Joe? I answered “Joe.” He agreed, and then went on to blast the way Miller had been beat up upon for being poor with kids. From this guy’s perspective, the personal attacks on Miller are only serving to make him a more sympathetic candidate. There is an undercurrent of privilege working against Murkowski, especially since she and her supporters are doing the personal destruction routine against Miller. And resentment of her personal privilege will work against her in two weeks.

2. Lisa. As Lisa Murkowski has chosen a campaign of personal destruction as her vehicle to her reelection, she has a few questions to answer. The first and foremost is the basic political question: Are you better off now than when she was initially elected? The answer to that question is absolutely not. So the follow up is: why reelect her? If this is the work that she is doing for Alaska, get her the Hell out of office – sooner is better than later. Lisa has personally profited from her position as US Senator. In 2007, she was the beneficiary of a land sale on the Kenai River at about half the fair market value, a mere $300,000 gift. She disposed of the property following a significant public outrage. She also voted for TARP. Interestingly enough, the Miller campaign released Lisa financial disclosure documentation that had her with over $330,000 of investments in financial institutions that TARP bailed out. And from those institutions, Lisa received over $271,000 in campaign contributions for her campaign this year. Nice investment, that. And all for a single vote as a US Senator. It is clear that Lisa Murkowski has become part of the problem rather than the answer. She gets along quite well in the clubby, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours atmosphere that infest Washington DC. She must be removed from office. Miller is the guy to do it. Final note to Lisa Murkowski: When you live in a glass house, you ought not to start chucking rocks at your opponent.

3. Chamber. The latest and greatest attack out of the Obama WH is that foreign money into the Chamber of Commerce is the reason that the democrats are in so much trouble. The charge is laughable, especially coming from a group of people what turned off all credit card tracking controls during the 2008 presidential campaign. This allowed hundreds of millions of illegal, foreign and union campaign cash to flow into the Obama campaign. In response, the US Chamber of Commerce had its best fundraising period in years. Michelle Malkin wrote a cautionary note aimed at supportive conservatives reminding us that the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. The US Chamber of Commerce has been leading the effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform; it supported TARP, the auto bailout and the stimulus. It is supporting a number of pro-Obama democrat candidates nationwide, particularly in Arizona. So be careful about supporting these guys; they are not our friends and do not believe in the same goals as we do.

4. Whore. The latest out of the Jerry Brown campaign is a released audio of one of his campaign advisors (later identified as his wife) calling to Republican Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman as a whore. Brown agreed. Unlike the controversy with Don Imus and the Rutgers women’s’ basketball team several years ago, this faux pas was brushed off as a simple private conversation between people in the campaign. In response, the California NOW organization announced that they support Brown’s election as governor, demonstrating once again that the NAGs (National Organization of Gals) is little more than a leftist political front. The whore comment was front and center as a discussion point in last week’s debate between Brown and Whitman. Brown did not do well.

5. DADT. A US Federal judge in Riverside, CA who found the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on gays in the military unconstitutional issued an injunction last week against its enforcement worldwide last week. This puts the Obama administration, which opposes DADT, in a really tight spot right before the election. Obama now has a problem that he will do his level best to slow-roll until after the election, when he can allow the injunction to stand. The ruling was expected, given the impact of Lawrence v Texas from the SCOTUS in 2003. The injunction was not expected, and represents the very worst of judicial overreach. It is not the job of a Federal District Judge to change the world. This judge needs to be removed from the federal bench in the bluntest way possible. Perhaps the next congress will be up to the task.

6. O’Donnell. In contrast with Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell (R-Cand, DE) has cut the lead of Bearded Marxist Chris Coons (D-Cand, DE) in half. Obama made a campaign trip to Delaware to help save the seat. O’Donnell wiped the floor with Coons during a debate televised on CNN last week. O’Donnell did so well in the debate that CNN cut away to the rescue of the Chilean miners instead. We may see some magic in Delaware in two weeks.

7. Drilling. The Obama administration announced that they would be lifting their illegal moratorium on offshore drilling a month before it was scheduled to expire. The announcement is meaningless as they have levied a number of new “safety” rules designed to put all the smaller independents out of business. And they are still not approving any new drilling permits. The ban on offshore drilling has not been lifted in Alaska. Thank you, Lisa Murkowski. Thank you Mark Begich. Thank you Don Young.

8. Ranges. Our final story comes out of Puerto Rico, which has decided that a limit on the number of rounds fired on a firing range every year is their chosen path to a crime-free future. This latest assault on the Second Amendment puts a 500-round limit on every person who shoots in Puerto Rico. It does not apply to law enforcement or criminals.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.