Free Republic

Energy: While taking credit for increased oil and gas production on private and state lands, the president moves to put 12 million acres of the oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off limits. OPEC and the Saudis are smiling. Whoever's in charge of presidential optics these days fits the classic definition of the blind leading the blind. It's bad enough that President Obama doesn't have time to get to Paris for a global protest against terrorism after the Charlie Hebdo attack but can meet and greet the San Antonio Spurs. But then he privately slams an invitation by Congress to Israeli...

In May 1881 US explorers approached Jeannette Island, Wrangell Island and Henrietta Island in the Arctic Ocean and claimed them for the United States. Wrangell and its 200 mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) has billions of barrels of oil/gas reserves and hundreds of millions of pounds of fisheries. It also has a strategic military location for tracking Russian moves in Arctic. Now, Vladimir Putin has begun construction of a naval base and army base on Wrangell without so much as a peep from the State Department or President Obama. Something is tragically wrong here. The State Department has undertaken the...

RedState assisted in sponsoring Rep. Steve King (R-IA)72%‘s event in Iowa this past weekend. I did not go, but made sure to pay attention to what was going on and who said what. As I have previously written, this is the most substantive field of Republican contenders since 1980. The number of Governors, Senators, and others who are running gives the GOP a deeper bench than any the Democrats can or will muster. They also agree on most topics and are trying to nuance themselves into unique positions. I appreciate Governor Perry’s desire to paint a vision for the country....

America's greens chalked up a `victory' when the United States Senate voted last week to omit funding for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the fiscal year 2004 budget. Not surprisingly, the Sierra Club's national office trumpeted the vote as one "to protect this spectacular (Alaskan) landscape." And it also claims with a straight face to favor reducing our dependence on foreign oil. We both agree on the last point. But the Sierra Club sees your SUV and its thirst for gas as the problem in our achieving that important goal. This powerful green lobby pushes...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is boosting protection of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and will ask Congress to designate more than 12 million acres as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich Coastal Plain. The designation would seal off the area in Alaska's northeast corner from oil exploration and give it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. Obama and the Interior Department announced the effort Sunday.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016. “You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid. Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination.

The White House is proposing to designate the oil-rich coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness permanently off limits to drilling. The proposal sets up a showdown with Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who said the White House also intends to put much of the Arctic Ocean off limits to drilling in the new five-year offshore leasing plan to be released this week. SNIP Obama’s proposal to designate 12.3 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness would require Congressional approval, and there is no chance...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) lambasted Hollywood liberals in a rambling speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday. The party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, who said this week she’s “ interested” in a presidential bid, took the stage with to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” feeding off the energy of the crowd as she jumped from conservative topic to topic. Her speech was replete with memories of her own trips to Iowa, but she also focused on one recent controversy — defending criticism over the country’s top-grossing movie, “American Sniper.” Palin detailed how she and her family were...

Just before she heads to Iowa for the first major conservative showcase of the 2016 election cycle, Sarah Palin said “of course” she’s interested in the 2016 presidential election. “Yeah, I mean, of course, when you have a servant’s heart, when you know that there is opportunity to do all you can to put yourself forward in the name of offering service, anybody would be interested,” Palin told ABC News' Neal Karlinsky while serving wild boar chili to the homeless in Las Vegas Thursday. When asked again if she could be “possibly” interested in a presidential campaign, she answered, “We...

LAS VEGAS — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declined to speculate on a potential 2016 run Thursday at the 2015 SHOT Show in Las Vegas, but she did offer the GOP some free political advice. We caught up with Palin as she was promoting the second season of her show, “Amazing America,” which airs on the Sportsman Channel Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET. “I’m not going to talk politics except to say the GOP had better go on offense. Man, they are not going to win any game on defense,” she told TheBlaze. “Being in the majority there in D.C....

Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday. Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be. If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “You don't want to be the first person to do something like this,” he said. He said that he tells other governors to “wait...

Democratic vulnerabilities appear to be limited to just two states. Former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Michael Bennet’s re-election in Colorado is rated as Leans Democratic. His home-state colleague, Democrat Mark Udall, was defeated in November. And Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid can expect a tough race in Nevada if he seeks re-election. His race is also rated Leans Democratic, as Republicans search for a challenger. ... Four of the nine seats Democrats lost in 2014 were listed as Tossups nearly two years before the election. In January 2013, Alaska, Montana and North Carolina were rated as Leans Democratic, and...

A false accusation of rape allegedly caused a Barrow man to beat his cousin to death in a Fairbanks hotel room Wednesday morning, according to Alaska State Troopers. Abraham S. Stine, 39, was charged Thursday with one count of second-degree murder for beating Wesley Lord, 37, to death at the Extended Stay Hotel on Old Airport Way. His girlfriend, Dominique Natalie Vasquez, 31, also of Barrow, was charged with one count of second-degree murder for her actions during the incident. According to charging documents, Vasquez had been smoking methamphetamine and drinking alcohol with Lord and two other men — one...

Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel served as a Democratic lawmaker between 1969 and 1981. He walked marbled halls during Richard Nixon’s “War on Drugs” and witnessed his congressional colleagues trying to see who could produce the most heinous draconian drug laws. Today, Gravel is getting ready to sell some kush, or rather, serve as the CEO of an edible marijuana company called KUSH, a Cannabis Sativa, Inc. subsidiary. “I’m anxious to assist in bringing this important resource to a broader market in a serious and credible way,” the former lawmaker said in a statement. KUSH announced in a recent press...

Yesterday, Governor Palin shared a seemingly benign "happy new year" Facebook  post that included photos of her son Trig using their dog, Jill Hadassa, as a footstool of sorts. True to form, the media and the Left (pardon the redundancy) jumped at the opportunity to express their outrage. Animal rights groups also made their disapproval  of the photos known as well, per POLITICO: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called the post inappropriate.“It’s odd that anyone — let alone a mother — would find it appropriate to post such a thing, with no apparent sympathy for the dog in the photo,” PETA President Ingrid...

Is this an actual fake outrage, where partisans pretend to be offended at something to play up the supposed inhumanity of their opponents, or is it a fake fake outrage, where only a few even bother to pretend but the media seizes on it anyway because it’s a “controversy,” sort of, and they’re bored? For the moment, it looks like it’s being pushed not so much by American liberals but by foreign press — the Independent, an Irish newspaper, and the always buzz-hungry Daily Mail. Turns out Facebook commenters grumbling at a former VP nominee now qualifies as international...

A former Democratic senator will take the reins of a company that makes marijuana products for recreational and health purposes. Cannabis Sativa Inc., this week announced that 84-year-old former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel will head its subsidiary, Kush, which develops and markets cannabis products including “Kubby” a marijuana-based throat lozenge. Gravel ran for president in 2008 and served between 1969 and 1981 in the U.S. Senate, where he was a vocal critic of the war on drugs. "We need to decriminalize drugs and treat them as a health problem," Gravel told Reuters on Wednesday. "You should go see a doctor...

Though we were promised a brand new day regarding America’s reputation in the world, the reality has been the opposite. Americans doubt the resolve of our President, as seen by the election results last month. Our nation’s image has suffered, and it is time we reverse this trend. This will not only secure our international standing, it will also secure our nation’s safety. Considering the drumbeat of violence around the world at any given moment – from violence across the Middle East to the devastation caused by Ebola in West Africa – conflict and instability seem to be a repetitive...

Senate Republicans will have to work hard to retain their recently won majority as they face a tough 2016 electoral map. They have 24 seats up compared to Democrats' 10, including seven in states resident Obama carried twice. Democrats won't have any red-state senators facing reelection and could be buoyed by a favorable presidential-year electorate. ... 1. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) 3. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) 7. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) 10. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

When Mr. McAmnesty (John McCain) morphed overnight into Mr. Border Security, under fire from Arizona conservatives fed up with the death and destruction flooding across its southern border, there was no great shock and nobody was in awe… When Tea Party princess Sarah Palin paid her political debt by endorsing former running mate Mr. McAmnesty for re-election to the US Senate, Tea Partiers’ were upset, but not surprised. But when Palin endorsed California candidate Carly Fiorina, running against Barbara Boxer, people were forced to ask who Palin is taking marching orders from these days… Fiorina is famous for her “Fiorina’s...