Free Republic

Editor’s note: This is the first in a 10-part series produced by the Alaska Support Industry Alliance to educate the public about liquefied natural gas. Liquefied natural gas, or LNG, is natural gas converted to its liquid form. When natural gas is cooled to minus-259 degrees Fahrenheit, it becomes a clear, colorless, odorless liquid. LNG is produced by taking natural gas from a production field, processing it to remove impurities, and then liquefying the processed gas. LNG isn’t corrosive or toxic. It doesn’t explode or burn as a liquid. Natural gas is primarily methane, with low levels of other hydrocarbons,...

The White House and the Senate are working to squeeze House Republicans into accepting a bipartisan compromise from the upper chamber to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. Any emerging deal, however, will leave ObamaCare largely intact, angering conservatives who have demanded defunding or delaying President Obama’s signature achievement. House Republicans are fuming over the prospect that Senate Democrats and Republicans are working on a plan to jam them with a last-minute deal they would have to accept or risk triggering a federal default. “They are trying to jam us with the Senate and we are not going...

The Obama administration has turned bureaucrats at environmental agencies into armed SWAT teams to conduct unprecedented raids on small mining operations for what used to be simple reviews of clean water permits. That’s according to Colorado Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn, chairman of the House Natural Resources subcommittee on energy and mineral resources, who held a hearing Thursday that examined the August raid of armed federal officials including the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicken, Alaska. Lamborn said the “EPA SWAT team of heavily armed and armored agents conducted paperwork inspections on small mining operations, in what appears nothing more than an...

A trio of centrist Senate Republicans is pushing a plan to reopen the government for six months, extend the debt ceiling until Jan. 31, 2014 and make reforms to ObamaCare. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is spearheading the proposal along with Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). It would address Tea-Party conservatives concerns over Medicare by delaying the medical device tax for two years and creating an income verification program under the Affordable Care Act to ensure only eligible individuals receive subsidies on the insurance exchanges. The delay of the Medical Device Tax would be paid for by extending...

Alaska's governor, Sean Parnell, announced Thursday that a special counsel has been named to investigate raids by conducted by federal and state authorities near the town of Chicken. "Alaskans deserve to know all the facts in this case," Parnell said in a Thursday press release. "While these facts are being gathered, I will continue to be vigilant in defense of Alaskans' liberty and personal property.

The Denali Commission in Alaska, set up in 2008 thanks to earmarks by former Senator Ted Stevens, came under withering criticism from … the Denali Commission, or at least one member of it. The Washington Post reported yesterday afternoon on a letter sent by its Inspector General to Rep. Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight Committee, asking Congress to fire him and everyone else at the Denali Commission. Calling the bureaucracy “a Congressional experiment that hasn’t worked out well,” Mike Marsh wants Congress to save $7.4 million a year and eliminate a “middleman” agency.

Alaska lawmakers accused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of violating federal law by shutting down hunting on its lands during the government shutdown, saying a 1980 law guarantees state residents must have access to the land.

In June 2012, BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. made the startling announcement that it was dropping its ambitious plan to develop the offshore Liberty field using ultra extended-reach drilling from shore. In the 15 months since, it has been less than clear what alternate approach, if any, BP might take on Liberty. But now, the company’s direction is becoming evident. On the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management website devoted to Liberty, this statement has appeared: “BP Exploration (Alaska) is now proposing a stand-alone drilling and production processing island as the safest and most environmentally responsible course of development for the...

The companies seeking to advance a multibillion dollar natural gas pipeline project in Alaska have a leading contender for the terminal site where gas would be liquefied and shipped to Asia, signaling that a decades-old dream could still become a reality. Exxon Mobil, BP, ConocoPhillips and TransCanada Corp. announced Monday that the Kenai Peninsula town of Nikiski is the leading contender. Senior project manager Steve Butt said there are three or four other sites are still being considered — he declined to identify those — but said Nikiski has the land needed for the plant and the companies know they...

The report released Sept. 27 by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms what residents of Alaska have known for years — climate change is real, it’s effects are here now, and things will only get worse. The report cites the fact that the last three decades have been the warmest in recorded history, and that there is a 95 percent to 99 percent certainty that the current warming is caused by humans. The scientific debate about that issue is over. Alaskans might be wondering what Gov. Sean Parnell’s administration has been doing about this threat, and the answer...

TRENTON — Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor, is set to become the latest conservative to endorse Steve Lonegan in New Jersey's special U.S. Senate race, The Star-Ledger has learned.

ALASKA The race against incumbent Mark Begich is likely to end up tougher than it should be. Mark Begich, if you remember, was voted in on the 2008 wave on King Obama’s coattails. He won by something like 2% over incumbent Republican, Ted Stevens. Stevens was being indicted at the time (though the charges were later thrown out), so it’s remarkable that the race was that close. Stevens subsequently died in a plane crash. Mark Begich is a fraud. And I often call Joe Manchin a fraud, well Begich is a bigger fraud. He consistently avoids being tied to Obama...

The Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently paid $98,670 for the purchase and installation of an outhouse at the Swede Park Trail Head in Alaska. The purchase includes a single-vault Romtec 1011 "Aspen Single" prefabricated waterless toilet and its installation at the parking area for the trail head. ... The Oregon based company Romtec lists the "Aspen Single" model on its website for “as low as $9,999”, but the BLM says the price they paid likely includes shipping to Alaska. ... The $98,670 contract does not include the pumping out and maintenance of the facility. Those issues are addressed...

At least one candidate for the U.S. Senate wants to make it known that he stands with Sen. Ted Cruz’s effort to defund Obamacare. “I fully support any attempt to defund and repeal Obamacare,” Lieutenant Gov. Mead Treadwell of Alaska told The Daily Caller Wednesday as Texas Republican Cruz was winding down his 22-hour quasi-filibuster. “I applaud Senator Ted Cruz and the principled members of the Senate as they fight for the American people to get rid of Obamacare. When I am elected in November 2014 I will stand and work with Senators like Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.” Treadwell...

With President Obama speaking about his new federal health care law in Maryland Thursday, Republicans plan to hit vulnerable Democratic senators for supporting a government spending bill that included funding for Obamacare. The National Republican Senatorial Committee plans to blast Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La.; Kay Hagan, D-N.C.; Mark Pryor, D-Ark., Mark Begich, D-Alaska; and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., for opposing a Republican effort to defund Obamacare in a new government funding bill. All are expected to vote later this week to strip the defunding provision from the bill. "This weekend we will see the Republican Party stand with the American people...

20 Sep Republican Sen's Who Are UNDECIDED On Defunding Obamacare! Let's help them decide! Please RETWEET!! #DefundObamacare pic.twitter.com/xn8nG6Y9v6

News that will no doubt spark global warming debates, an ancient forest floor has surfaced thanks to an Alaska glacier thawing. According to Live Science, trees in the forest are at least 1,000 years old. Stumps and logs coming from the thawing glacier were first noticed 50 years ago, but the forest has begun to emerge only recently. Scientists from University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau noticed more trees popping up while studying the thawing Mendenhall Glacier. Many of the trees on the Alaska glacier, which is a 36.8-square-mile river of ice flowing into a lake near Juneau, are reportedly...

Sixteen-year-old Noah Graham of Solway is lucky to be alive after being attacked without warning by a wolf while sitting at a campfire with friends last month on Lake Winnibigoshish near the town of Bemidji in far northern Minnesota. ... the willingness of the Clinton administration to accede to the demands of DOW and other environmental groups, wolves were reintroduced in Yellowstone National Park in 1994 and quickly spread over a 500-mile radius to all corners of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Earlier this month, a pack of wolves stampeded 176 sheep — two were bitten and killed; one was half...

A new website launched by the National Park Service gives Alaska teachers a new tool to engage students in classroom and place-based learning. The website nps.gov/teachers is a one-stop shop for curriculum-based lesson plans, traveling trunks, maps, activities, distance learning and other resources. Alaska’s national park-based curriculum and other teacher resources are substantial and varied, and include: • Distance Learning: Glacier Bay National Park’s “Visiting Glacier Bay” provides an opportunity for a virtual visit to this Southeast Alaska gem. 

 • Curriculum: Denali National Park’s “Denali Rocks!” focuses on geology and provides eight lessons matched to Alaska State Standards for...

The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies – including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement -- have armed divisions. The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report. Though most Americans know agents within the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board employing armed officers might come as a surprise. The incident...

<p>Sarah Palin and her political action committee have been named in a copyright infringement lawsuit over the use of an iconic 9/11 photo.</p> <p>The newspaper publisher North Jersey Media Group Inc. is suing the former Alaska governor for posting a copy of the image on Palin’s SarahPAC website and her personal Facebook page without permission.</p>

As the 2013 season of devastating wildfires continues to rage across the American West, the question of arson as a form of major terrorism is again being raised. Already this year, 35,440 reported fires have burned a total of 3.9 million acres, with a quarter-million acres scorched the iconic Yosemite National Park. Large blazes continue to burn in several states, with six alive in Idaho, five each in California and Montana, and one each in Alaska, Louisiana, Oregon, Texas and Washington. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, says at this time last year, 45,278 fires had burned 7.9...

Fox confirms Vice President Joe Biden will have dinner Sunday night with a group of GOP Senators who could be swayed on Syria. The topic of conversation is expected to be what the President needs to say in his Tuesday address.

Some miners in Alaska want the feds to start digging for answers. A task force including members of 10 state and federal law enforcement agencies descended on a gold mine in the tiny town of Chicken (pop. 17) last month, in what locals described as a raid. “Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say "POLICE" emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms,” gold miner C.R. Hammond told the Alaska Dispatch. “How would you have felt? You would be wondering, ‘My God, what have...

link only: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130903/gold-miners-near-chicken-cry-foul-over-heavy-handed-epa-raids

<p>Just a reminder. The is a voter rebellion. The tea party rebellion. We are rebelling against business as usual in DC and against both major parties. The democrats have gone full-bore Marxist. The Republican GOP-e has gone full-bore statist. Very little difference liberty-wise, they're both anti-liberty. Neither party defends the constitution or our God-given liberty. They are ignoring the constitution and granting themselves dictatorial powers in the central government. We the people are basically at war against the ruling class. It's the tea party rebellion.</p>

First 6.9, then downgraded, upgraded to 7.0 At (am) 9:25 PST

Another day, another law disregarded by the Obama camp. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and representatives from nine other states have signed a letter to the Obama Administration demanding the administration pay up on mineral lease revenues owed to the states under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. This nearly century-old contract requires a certain percentage of the royalties collected by the federal government to be returned to the states where the minerals were produced. The administration now is trying to trim these payments under the guise of sequestration, saying that these royalties are subject to across the board spending cuts...

A man described by residents and police in an Aleutian Islands town as a known drug dealer was turned around at the local airport and run out of town by parents when he arrived from Anchorage Tuesday. Locals in the East Aleutians Borough community of Sand Point say the incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a nightly PenAir flight arrived in town from Anchorage with the man on board. In a caption for a Facebook photo of the confrontation posted by resident Carmen Dushkin, she said the incident personifies opposition by locals to a continuing flow of drugs...

Bill Kristol appeared on Morning Joe Tuesday morning and distanced himself from comments he made on an ABC online interview Sunday about Sarah Palin’s path back into political power, saying he gave a dispassionate answer to a question about her political future, and was not actually encouraging her to run. “I was asked, ‘Does Sarah Palin have a future?’ and I just tried to give an analytical answer, which is I don’t think she does having resigned as governor,” Kristol said. “I said, ‘I’m not urging this.’ This is useful to think outside the box, not just accept the conventional...

When Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol suggested on Sunday that Sarah Palin restart her political career by running for Senate, people noticed, because more than anyone else —more than John McCain, the candidate who picked her as his running mate, more than Steve Schmidt, the adviser who urged McCain to do it — Kristol is credited with launching Palin's career. On Tuesday, Kristol made it clear he does not want all that credit (or blame). On MSNBC's Morning Joe, Nicolle Wallace, who was Palin's aide during the 2008 campaign, asked Kristol, "How did you feel as sort of being branded...

Sarah Palin could rehabilitate her political career with a 2014 Senate run, Bill Kristol said Sunday. “I think the way Palin would possibly resurrect herself, if that’s the right word, or rehabilitate herself I guess a better way of putting it, [is] run for Senate in Alaska in 2014,” The Weekly Standard editor said during a Web interview with ABC. Kristol said the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee would be “pretty interesting” as a freshman senator after beating an incumbent in an election. “I’m not urging that, I’m just saying if I were her adviser I would say,...

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Up here, many folks don't much like President Obama's vision of a big government colossus dictating health care, doling out entitlements and generally meddling in the affairs of the citizenry. Alaska voted against Obama by 14 percentage points in 2012, and if another election were held today, the anti-Obama vote would most likely be higher. This is a tough self-reliant state. The weather is harsh and expenses are high. But there is work. With a 6.1 percent unemployment rate, Alaska is doing much better than the nation as a whole (7.6 percent). The median household income in...

Sen. Rand Paul is happy Sarah Palin is on his side. “I love an endorsement by Sarah Palin, what’s not to love?” the Kentucky Republican said on CNN on Tuesday. Over the weekend, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential nominee said she was on Paul’s side in his recent public spat with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “I’m on team Rand. Rand Paul understands, he gets the whole notion of ‘Don’t tread on me, government,’ whereas Chris Christie is for big government and, you know, trying to go along to get along in so many respects,” Palin said on...

Over the weekend, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is “for big government and trying to go along to get along.” She added that Christie has “got a schtick going there where he’s got a YouTube videographer following him around, kind of these set-up situations sometimes so he can be seen as perhaps a little bit avant-garde and going rogue on things.” Christie said nothing in return. He should. Here’s why. Taking on Palin is good politics for Christie or Jeb Bush or anyone else who is planning to run as a quasi-establishment candidate for...

So what say we conduct the experiment that could – and I emphasize could here – finally settle the question once and for all. Let’s just nominate somebody who has welded on all three legs of the stool and leaves not a sliver of daylight for the squishiness question. A nominee who will state without ambiguity that we’re going to bomb the crap out of anyone who is actively working against our interests. One who flatly proclaims that there will be no abortions for anyone and new Supreme Court justices will be inclined to overturn Roe v Wade. They will...

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell’s open-ANWR strategy isn’t working, at least not so far. The Obama administration has again turned back a Parnell proposal to conduct exploratory activity on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Republican governor had submitted, on July 9, an application to the Interior Department for a “special use permit” allowing the state to conduct 3-D seismic surveys across the coastal plain from 2014 to 2017. On July 26, the governor’s office released a July 23 rejection letter from Geoffrey Haskett, Alaska regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which manages ANWR....

Key lawmakers told Puerto Rico's governor on Thursday that it's time for the island to choose between statehood and independence. Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has been fighting to retain the island's status as a U.S. territory without voting rights, arguing that it provides the economically troubled island with an advantageous tax status. Leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over U.S. territories and insular possessions, said that's unacceptable. “After 115 years, it is clearly time for Puerto Rico to determine what political path it will take,” said committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). “The current status...

Sarah Palin @SarahPalinUSA Did Bob Beckel just defend Obama's anti-Keystone stance by claiming the Alaska pipeline employs "about 100 people"? Seriously?! -snip Beckel: “Do you know how many permanent jobs there are on the Alaska pipeline? About a hundred.” And with that, school was in session:

Sarah Palin's political action committee—simply named Sarah PAC—took in $460,537.83 so far this year, according to new filings with the Federal Election Commission. That sounds like a pretty big number! But when you look at how much the PAC has been spending, how it has been spending it, and the way things used to be, the picture looks far bleaker. First, the spending picture: In the first six months of 2013, Sarah PAC spent $496,505.68. That's $35,967.85 more than the PAC was able to raise. To be clear, Sarah PAC isn't in debt: In the latest filing, the PAC reports...

Alaska should be a top tier pick up opportunity for Senate Republicans next year...but their top choice of a candidate is Sarah Palin. 36% of GOP primary voters in the state say they'd like Palin to be their standard bearer against Mark Begich to 26% for Mead Treadwell, 15% for Dan Sullivan, and 12% for Joe Miller. Palin leads mostly based on her strength with 'very conservative' voters where she gets 43% to 20% for Treadwell, but she also leads him 28/25 with moderates. The problem for Republicans with a Palin candidacy is that even though she is in good...

FAIRBANKS - The commander of the Pacific U.S. Air Force told a group of defense journalists this morning that Eielson Air Force Base is one of the top contenders to be the second base to house the military’s newest fighter plane, according to the publication Inside Defense. The final decision for the next generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter won’t Be made until 2014, but Gen. Herbert Carlisle said that among nine Pacific region bases, Eielson was likely to be among the top four picks. "We haven't downselected, but I would say that Eielson, Misawa, Kadena (two bases in Japan) and...

What’s the outlook for the 2014 Senate elections? As in 2010 and 2012, the Republicans once again have a chance to overturn the Democrats’ majority. Much attention has been focused on whether Republicans this time will nominate candidates capable of winning key races, which they failed to do in the two previous election cycles. But another interesting question is how Democrats will try to hold onto seats in Republican-leaning states even as Barack Obama maintains his strong tilt to the political left. The lineup is certainly favorable to Republicans. Assuming the New Jersey seat now held by Republican appointee Jeff...

There's a lingering sense in Alaska that the field of GOP Senate candidates isn't done growing yet. But we won't know for sure until after Labor Day at the very earliest, when the latest potential candidate returns from military deployment to Afghanistan. Alaska Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan, a Republican, will spend the next six weeks in Afghanistan on military duty, the Associated Press reported Monday night. Sullivan is in the Marine Reserves and deployed to Central Command twice in the last nine years, according to his office biography. Sullivan's most recent assignment means he will be out...

Sarah Palin underexposed? It’s hard to imagine. But in Alaska, where she is considering a Senate run, she might be. The former governor “has no profile in Alaska. She’s not active,” says a Republican consultant familiar with Alaska politics. “She’s doing her own thing personally. She’s not giving speeches and doing Republican-women events and fundraisers and helping people. She’s just very much under the radar.” That kind of invisibility may have prompted her potential opponent, Democrat Mark Begich, to snarkily remark to Politico yesterday, “I don’t know if she’s a resident. She’s been away from Alaska a lot.” According to...

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t cross a grizzly. Sen. Mark Begich just learned that the hard way. Sarah Palin—former Alaska governor, failed vice presidential candidate, and America’s most famous Mama Grizzly—launched a bit of cyberwarfare against Begich, the Democratic senator from her home state, in a series of vitriolic Facebook posts on Thursday. The wrath of Palin was likely incurred Wednesday when Begich told Politico that the former governor had “quit on Alaska” when she resigned before completing her term. He also questioned whether she was still a resident of the state. Palin said Tuesday that she was...

"If she runs, it's going to instantly become the most covered, the most scrutinized, the most hotly debated Senate race of the 2014 cycle," Geraghty said. American Conservative Union chairman Al Cardenas said Republicans have a 50-50 chance of taking the majority back in the Senate in next year's midterm elections, and said it's an even more significant possibility if Palin runs for the Alaska seat. "If she runs, all the odds are off the table," he said. "She would win a general election." "The benefits of having her as a U.S. senator and helping us get back the majority...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An Alaska glacier is exposing remains from a military air tragedy six decades later.Relics from an Air Force cargo plane that slammed into a mountain in November 1952, killing all 52 servicemen on board, first emerged last summer on Colony Glacier, about 50 miles east of Anchorage. That discovery, by Alaska National Guard crews flying training missions out of Anchorage, put into motion a sophisticated recovery program carried out by the Hawaii-based Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. After last year’s initial work - when nearly everything that rose to the glacier’s surface was picked up - the JPAC...

Sarah Palin “quit on Alaska” as governor and “ has lost touch” with her home state, Mark Begich told POLITICO. The Democratic senator said Palin, who said Tuesday she’s considering challenging him for his seat in 2014, might not even be a resident of Alaska and is someone he won’t take seriously unless she emerges from a competitive Republican primary. “I don’t know if she’s a resident. She’s been away from Alaska a lot and has probably lost touch with what’s going on. She should go to my webpage,” Begich said. “Most Alaskans I see on a pretty regular basis,...

Wednesday morning, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions approved the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, as it’s commonly referred to. The bill prohibits workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It was first considered by the committee in 2002 and was the subject of hearings in 2009 and 2012. Three Republicans, Sens. Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Ark.) and the bill’s original co-sponsor, Mark Kirk (Ill.) joined 12 Democrats to quickly approve what committee chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) called “historic legislation.” In his statement, Harkin reiterated the main points of the bill, stressing that...