Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –

1. Murkowski. Joe Miller, an attorney from Faribanks won the Republican primary against incumbent Lisa Murkowski Tuesday. As of this writing (and I am three days late this week), with 15,000 absentee votes counted, Miller holds around a 1,650 vote lead with 9,000 questioned ballots outstanding. Murkowski would have to take 68% of those outstanding ballots just to pull even with Miller. Lisa conceded the election Tuesday evening here in Anchorage. Miller ran the perfect campaign, painting Lisa Murkowski as too liberal for Alaska and too unwilling to successfully join combat against the democrats, Obama or Fedzilla and defeat them in congress. I wrote about the quandary for Alaskan conservatives in late July. You can find it here: http://thealaskastandard.com/content/lisa-or-joe There were a lot of wild stories flitting around in the conservative blogosphere about the recount and the close election. One from Red State had Murkowski’s campaign using a Republican Party of Alaska phone bank during the later days of the campaign. This is blatantly false, as no such phone bank exists. Another was that boxes and boxes of ballots were being “discovered.” This is also false, as Alaska is not King County, WA or Minnesota. Soros’ Secretary of State Project does not work up here, as elections are controlled by the LtGov, who runs for election with the Governor and is an elected position from the same party as the Governor. Our current LtGov is USAF Reserve LtGen Craig Campbell, who does not put up with much foolishness. Lisa Murkowski was proudly moderate to liberal. She was trained by Ted Stevens and in some ways became him in the Senate. Unfortunately, this is no longer the type of representation we here in Alaska need. Lisa supporters had little reason to turn out. Polling had her strongly ahead until the final few days of the campaign, when the Murkowski fired off an incredibly nasty, vicious ad against Miller – who promptly returned fire. Miller’s win also vindicates Sarah Palin, who endorsed him against Lisa. We had a ballot proposition that required parental notification or judicial permission in order to send a minor to the aborto-doc. This initiative overturned an Alaska Supreme Court ruling from a couple years ago that found the right of privacy of an under aged girl to get an abortion trumped parental rights. In the public schools, even to get an aspirin, parents must be notified and sign their permission. However, Planned Parenthood and a supportive school counselor can haul a 13-year old to the abortion clinic for surgery without any parental involvement at all. All the pro-lifers turned out to vote for the proposition. And this hurt Lisa Murkowski, who has long been pro-choice. She never supported the ballot proposition, much to her election chances. She could have supported the ballot initiative by going after the judiciary, as it is the job of the elected representatives of the people to decide these sorts of things, not five black-robed bozos. Democrats nominated a candidate from southeast Alaska, Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams, who was intended to be the designated mort against Murkowski. Now that the Republicans have nominated a new guy, Joe Miller, who ran as a strong constitutionalist, the local rumor mill has the democrats dumping their nominee and running former AK Governor (Phony) Tony Knowles or his LtGov Fran Ulmer in an attempt to steal yet another seat in the US Senate. The next few weeks are going to be very, very interesting. Expect the democrats to do everything possible to paint Miller as too extreme to serve all Alaskans. They are already spending a lot of time trash-talking the Tea Party.

2. AK Primary. Alaska held its primary elections last Tuesday. I discussed the senatorial campaign above. We also selected a candidate for governor, House of Representatives, and the legislature. We passed a ballot initiative that requires parental notification for any minor who wants an abortion, slapping the state Supreme Court in the face; and turned down a ballot initiative limiting people who take public money from using that public money to lobby for more public money. While the initiative was a good idea, it was flawed and dissolved during the campaign. The Republican governor nomination went to incumbent Sean Parnell, who almost won a majority of all votes cast. His closest opponent, Bill Walker, who was backed by the unions, is now being pushed hard by the unions to run as a third party candidate, which will nicely split the conservative vote and install democrat Ethan Berkowitz as our next governor. Walker has promised to make his decision by the end of the week. Total turnout on the Republican side was nearly double that among democrats. This was for all races, not just the hotly contested Lisa – Joe Miller race. If our side can maintain this sort of passion throughout November, we may do well. The race for US Senate and governor will be close, hotly contested campaigns. Berkowitz already fired his first couple of blasts against Parnell.

3. Ammo. The greens have been going after firearms for years. The latest round was a petition by the National Resources Defense Council to the EPA to ban all lead from ammunition for firearms. The logical trail was that lead is bad, so therefore it must be completely removed from the environment before it harms the wildlife. Interestingly enough, it is not the actual presence of lead that harms the wildlife; it is the manner and velocity which it is forcibly introduced into the body of the wildlife. The EPA considered the petition for months, even to the point of taking comments from the general public – which was the point in time when the story broke. Interestingly enough, congress anticipated such shenanigans from the greens when they passed the Toxic Substances Control Act. That legislation specifically exempted firearms and ammunition from consideration. Late last week, the EPA announced that they had rejected part of the NRDC petition and all was well with the world (at least for a little while). The EPA left the second part of the petition open for public comment until Sept. 15. That part of the petition is an attempt to ban lead in fishing sinkers – things which don’t harm the fish either.

4. Cameron. Director James Cameron has been carrying the water for the manmade global warming due to manmade emissions of carbon dioxide for several years. He has been loud of mouth and belligerent to the skeptics, even threatening them with bodily harm. He was supposed to debate Marc Morano of Climate Depot (and former Imhofe staffer) on global warming. As the time for the debate approached, Cameron made a series of substantial changes to the debate form, venue, format, etc. all intended (apparently) to get Morano to cancel. He didn’t, and Cameron bailed out at the last minute claiming that Morano was not important enough to debate. Morano and Climate Depot have been having fun with this for a week. You can read about it here: http://www.climatedepot.com/

5. Avastin. Here come the Death Panels. It appears that the Obama Administration has managed to corrupt the FDA to the point where it is approving or withholding approval of life-saving drugs based on cost alone. The first attempt is an anti-cancer drug called Avastin. This drug has been used for years to treat colon cancer. It works pretty well, but is very expensive. It has also been approved for use against breast cancer, and has been very successful extending the life of cancer patients. It is also very expensive at several tens of thousands of dollars per person treated. The solution by the Obama administration’s FDA? Withdraw approval to use it to treat breast cancer. The British National Health Service is one step farther down this path, withdrawing Avastin from treatment for colon cancers, condemning over 6,500 people in Great Britain to a much earlier and more painful death. And it is all about money; not the efficacy of medical treatment. Palin was right, ObamaCare IS Death Panels.

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.

I know a lot lefties who are devouted Christians.  They are quite sure Jesus is a Democrat and when said to feed and shelter the poor he meant Government should feed and shelter the poor.   Liberal Christians think Jesus wants their neighbors to pay for their health care so they can afford trips to Paris.  I am not sure where in the New Testament you find that particular commandment.   But I know a lot of people who are quite convinced that Jesus was an early version of Marx, and when Jesus says “charity” what he actually meant was robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

The lure of big government promises rewards in the here and now, not some Heavenly future.  It is that lure that moves the Christian Left.   The god of statism is generous with real gold here and now.

Error Free?  57 states, bitter clingers, promising to double electricity rates, calling grandma a racist to save Rev. Wright then throwing the Rev. under the bus a few months later, the Greek temple, the Berlin speech?  Error Free?  And that is just off the top of my head, if I started doing a little research I could be at this all day.

The truth is everything about Obama was obvious right there from the beginning.  We could see the arrogance in his turning back the tides speech, the condescension was there aimed at bitter clingers, the radical statism in his convention speech which was a laundry list of bigger and better government programs.  Everything we have grown to hate about Obama was as plain as day when we loved him, well you loved him, me never.

For some perverse reason the American electorate chose to see clothes when it was obvious the Emperor was stark naked.  I will never understand it.  But I will never let the electorate off the hook.  We the people saw the radicalism, the class warfare, the race card, the arrogance, and we voted it into the highest office in the land.  I don’t know why, but we did.

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –

1. AK Primary. Alaska has its primary Tuesday. US Senator Lisa Murkowski is running against Tea Party endorsed candidate Joe Miller. Murkowski has not been as conservative as this state would like, so the result will be a bit closer than she would like. But I do expect her to win Tuesday and in November. Representative Don Young is also up for reelection. He has a strong conservative running against him, who will not come very close unless there is some surprising magic in action. Young has been very close to local labor unions for the last 35 years, and that protection is going to cost him eventually. Three primary candidates are running for governor as Republicans, with incumbent Governor Sean Parnell expected to win. Whomever comes out of the Republican primary should be elected in November. We have two ballot initiatives. The most important one overturns an Alaska Supreme Court ruling that allows any girl at any age to get an abortion without either knowledge of or consent of her parents. This new right or privacy trumps all parental rights and is executed at the altar of privacy and abortion. The ad campaign in opposition to this common sense ballot initiative has been pretty festive. Tuesday is going to be a most interesting day.

2. Muslim. There was a poll released last week that discovered that nearly 25% of those polled believed Obama is a Muslim. Nearly half of those polled do not believe he is a Christian. This finding drove the state run media into a fit of apoplexy, and they spent two days running around pumping up Obama’s Christian bonafides. It isn’t working. Given that Obama has spent the last two years sucking up to, bowing, scraping and groveling to Muslims both here and in the Middle East; given his hostility to Christians and Jews; and his stunning support of the NYC Victory Mosque, this result is not unexpected. We Americans have a pretty good idea of what radical Islam is all about. It is an ideology masquerading as a religion, that demands its followers lie though their teeth as long as it advances the greater cause of Islam. We already know that Obama lies about most things. Why not also lie about his religious underpinnings as well? Personally, I don’t think he is a Muslim. I do think he is an unapologetic Marxist, who was well tutored in his 20 years at Reverend Wright’s Black Liberation Theology (Marxist) church in Chicago. Wright is also very close to Farakhan, as is Obama. Where there is smoke, there is fire – especially where Muslims are involved. They no longer deserve nor should they get any benefit of the doubt. Assume the worst, and we will be pleasantly surprised with it does not happen. Obama as a Muslim is the nation’s response to his sly use of the extended middle finger when he wants to zing an opponent. With this poll result, no small numbers of his countrymen are flipping him off in return.

3. Land Grab. Michelle Malkin had quite a week last week. She started last Sunday with an article on the Obama Great Outdoors Initiative. This is an effort by the feds (and the greens) to “protect” outdoor spaces. The vehicle is to send out various administration officials nationwide to “listening sessions.” We apparently had one last month here in Alaska with the head of the EPA in Dillingham listening to Pebble Mine opponents complain about a trillion dollar mine and thousands of new, high paying jobs being planned for their region. They are targeting state lands, privately held forest lands, literally anything they can get their grimy hands on. The vehicle for transfer appears to be the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a government funded slush fund used by greens to obtain private lands and hand those lands over to the feds. Malkin writes that the feds already own about one of every three acres of land here in the US. And they don’t have enough money to manage what they have. Why do they need more? Federal lands are going to be the vehicle to pay off the default of federal internal debt, and should be transferred back to the many states to do with what they will. Federal land holdings ought not to be increased. Malkin, Sun.

4. Ocean Grab. In late July, Obama signed an Executive Order creating the National Ocean Council. The Council is charged with implementing a version of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts in the offshore oceans and the Great Lakes. It is a signal that the Obama administration plans on regulating offshore oil and natural gas exploration out of existence. Congressional democrats have been attempting to pass oceans management legislation for five years – the Oceans 21 legislation. It has not gone anywhere (so far). So Obama decided to implement it by the stroke of a pen, using the Macondo oil spill as the vehicle to get it done. From Malkin, Fri:

The panel will have the power to implement “coastal and marine spatial plans” and to ensure that all executive agencies, departments and offices abide by their determinations. The panel has also been granted authority to establish regional advisory committees that overlap with existing regional and local authorities governing marine and coastal planning.

Expect the 27 bozos who comprise the Council to declare war on every single coastal and Great Lakes state. Then they will turn their attention to the lakes, rivers and streams.

5. Pelosi. House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi demanded congressional investigations of everyone funding opposition to the Muslim Victory Mosque in NYC. This call triggered all the predictable outrage on the right at her cluelessness. Michelle Malkin believes that it was not cluelessness at all, but an attempt to divert attention from a land grab by Pelosi and her cronies in San Francisco. There was a Naval Base at Treasure Island, which sits between San Francisco and Oakland. The Oakland Bay Bridge crosses the island. Pelosi brokered a deal that transfers the entire island to San Francisco, where they can develop it. While I strongly support the transfer of all federal lands back to the many states and local communities to dispose of as they wish, when democrats do the transfer, they make real sure that only their friends, supporters, cronies, and well connected political insiders get to participate. Essentially, this is more bailout of federal property owned by the taxpayers to enrich well connected democrats. Malkin, Weds.

6. Frank. Barney Frank must be worried. One of the architects of the financial meltdown in 2008, the creation of the housing bubble, and the destruction of the housing market, Frank now wants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac abolished and replaced with something not tainted with the rampant corruption and scandal that the two federal home loan institutions are currently tarred with. This sounds a lot like a bait and switch, getting rid of tainted entities while replacing them with new entities designed to do the very same thing, only better (or worse). On the other hand, he may be worried about his opponent and his reelection in November. We know he is willing to do anything and is one of the most dangerous people in congress. When he changes direction, we ought to pay attention. Hot Air, Weds.

7. Rifles. The Obama administration blocked South Korean government efforts to sell over 100,000 M1 Garand and Carbine rifles into the US market. The firearms are surplus from the South Korean military and range from the mid 1920s – 1940s in age. These are the weapons that helped win WWII. The excuses given by the Obama administration for refusing the import license were all the usual anti-gun drivel. This administration has been pretty sly about their rabid anti-firearms beliefs and you don’t often see them blow their cover. This story did not hit the US media at all and came out of the Korea Times via the Volokh Conspiracy, Weds.

8. Stolen Valor. The Ninth Circus found that lying about holding military decorations was free speech and therefore protected by the First Amendment. This bizarro ruling came on appeal of a guy who falsely claimed that he held the Congressional Medal of Honor. The ruling tosses out provisions of the Stolen Valor Act which makes it a felony to tell this sort of lie. There is a parallel case in the Tenth Circus in Denver that leaves the question open for additional proof of harm. We as a society have lost a lot when our courts start telling us that lying about things is protected under the First Amendment. Interesting that the entire justice system is based on finding the truth about things. This happens in events called trials. Gonna be hard to find the truth during a trial if lying is now constitutionally protected free speech. While I am sympathetic with the Stolen Valor Act, I wonder why these lying frauds cannot simply be prosecuted for fraud – misrepresenting themselves in order to obtain some personal or financial gain? As far as I can tell, committing fraud is not yet protected by the First Amendment. Although that is likely to change should these rulings persist.

9. Funerals. There is an evil congregation infesting the Westwood Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas that sends members out to stage anti-homosexual protests at military funerals. They are loud, nasty, in your face, and invasive. They also tell the survivors the reason that their family members died is because the US tolerates homosexuality. This twists the emotional knife in the raw wounds of the bereaved saying goodbye to their loved ones. They fund this nationwide “Christian outreach” via civil lawsuits against those that rise to their provocations and in your face evil. Make no mistake; these are thoroughly evil people. The State of Missouri passed legislation creating a bubble zone around funerals to keep these vermin a reasonable distance away from the funerals. Last week, US Federal Judge Fernando Gaitan threw out the Missouri law on the grounds that it violated the free speech rights of the protestors. I think this judge is a bit confused. Pro life demonstrators are already limited by court-defined bubble zones around abortion clinics, and the federal courts have determined that it does not violate their right to free speech at all. The State of Missouri needs to use the anti-abortion bubble zone concept as the basis of their appeal and dare the federal courts to also find it unconstitutional.

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.