Free Republic

A Willow man accused of killing another man before turning the gun on himself in an April shooting in Talkeetna died Wednesday night in Anchorage. Billy Kidd, 57, spent 11 days in the critical care unit of an Anchorage hospital before dying around 10:22 p.m. of injuries sustained in the shooting that left 33-year-old Andrew Lafrance dead, Alaska State Trooper spokesperson Beth Ipsen said.

U.S. crude oil production fell at least 135,000 barrels of oil per day in January 2015 compared to December 2014 according to the EIA (Figure 1). Bakken Shale production fell the most of any play or jurisdiction losing 37,000 barrels per day in North Dakota and 4,000 barrels per day in Montana for a total of 41,000 barrels of oil per day (Figure 2). Production in California, the offshore Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and Wyoming also declined significantly. Figure 3 shows Bakken production based on DrillingInfo data. The 42,000 barrels of oil per day drop in January production is completely...

The National Energy Technology Laboratory has published some new results from methane hydrate testing carried out in 2011 and 2012 in the Ignik Sikumi test well on Alaska’s North Slope. According to an article in the latest edition of NETL’s Fire in Ice publication, the results shed light on the potential use of injected carbon dioxide as a means of producing natural gas from methane hydrate deposits, while also demonstrating that producing gas by depressuring the deposits may work more easily than previously thought. Methane hydrate is a naturally occurring solid that traps concentrated volumes of methane, the primary component...

Congress on Thursday took a first, perhaps historic step toward phasing out the 20-year-or-bust retirement system the U.S. military has used to shape and retain its career forces since the end of World War II. The replacement plan, as endorsed by the House armed services’ personnel subcommittee, is a blended system that would cut by 20 percent the value of future force annuities in return for an added tool to build nest eggs earlier — a 401(k)-like Thrift Savings Plan with government matching of service member TSP contributions. The enhanced TSP, with matching of monthly deposits of up to five...

Sarah Palin suggested today that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign kickoff is an imitation of the bus tour that the former vice presidential candidate conducted while mulling a bid of her own before the 2012 election cycle. “This Hillary Scooby-Doo Tour thing sure looks familiar,” Palin wrote in a Facebook post. “We’re flattered the liberals think the idea is really keen! Since it’s #ThrowbackThursday, it’s also pretty keen to thank the democrats [sic] for taking a page out of our playbook and also to share the picturesque, sincere, no-media ‘One Nation’ RV trek of ours a few years ago.” She released...

Archaeologists working at the Rising Whale site at Cape Espenberg, Alaska, have discovered several artifacts that were imported from East Asia. Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest trade was occurring between East Asia and the New World centuries before the voyages of Columbus.

It has been almost five years since former Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens tragically died in a plane crash, and over six years since he left the Senate in humiliation. The left viciously targeted him when he was 84, abusing the legal system using classic Alinsky tactics until Stevens’ name and career were utterly destroyed. Unable to beat Republicans at the ballot box as often as they want, the left now selectively targets Republicans who are less likely to be able to defend themselves, frequently using the Democrat dominated legal system to tie them up in court for years, destroy...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

Republican presidential hopefuls are united in blasting President Obama for his chaotic enforcement of marijuana laws, but the unity quickly breaks down when they are asked how they would handle things if they were in the White House. Some have sent mixed signals, saying state decisions should be respected while questioning how Mr. Obama has respected those decisions. Others have refused to say how they would wield the federal bureaucracy against marijuana. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is one of the few potential candidates to take a firm stance, saying he would insist on following federal statutes that outlaw the drug....

A three-year-old named Lee defends the abortion of his sister in a new children’s book – by an author with her own “ghost sister.” “Sister Apple, Sister Pig” by Mary Walling Blackburn focuses on an adult topic: abortion. The story follows Lee as he (or “she,” as the author stressed) searches for his sister – who might be an apple, a pig, or somewhere in a tree. Lee later decides “Sister is a happy ghost!” and explicitly says he’s glad Sister isn’t around to inconvenience his parents.

On top of an $18.9 million Defense Department grant doled out in Sept. 2010, the Institute received $13.6 million from the Department of Education, according to USASpending.gov. In the 2009 federal budget, another $5.8 million was appropriated through the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. The state of Massachusetts gave the University of Massachusetts $5 million, earmarked for the Institute. As a senator in 2010, current Sec. of State John Kerry waged an unsuccessful attempt to earmark another $28.9 million for the museum ... the $18.9 million Defense Department earmark was “funneled through the Defense...

Plans for an ambitious 12,400-mile superhighway linking the Atlantic and the Pacific are reportedly being considered by Russian authorities. The Trans-Eurasian Belt Development would see the construction of a vast motorway across Russia. It would connect with existing networks in Europe, making road trips to eastern Russia a far easier proposition. While roads do currently run across most of Russia, the quality tends to deteriorate the farther you travel from Moscow. The proposal, outlined in the Siberian Times, would see the road follow a similar route to the Trans-Siberian railway, through cities including Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok. A new high-speed...

Get ready for the White House to ignore their own science experts again. The Department of Energy commissioned a study by the National Petroleum Council which was meant to help determine our long range energy strategy. Their conclusion? We need to head on up to the Arctic basin and drill baby drill.

Britain could be linked with America by road as part of an ambitious project to create the world's longest superhighway spanning half the circumference of the globe. Proposals have been put forward to build the mega route stretching about 12,400 miles from the western edge of Russia to the Bering Strait where the country nudges Alaska.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday praised the Republican senators who declined to sign a controversial open letter to Iran. "I'm heartened ... that a few Republicans, seven to be exact, didn't sign the letter. That's nice. Seven out of 54, certainly seven better than nothing," Reid said from the Senate floor. The open letter, signed by 47 Senate Republicans, states that any deal reached on Iran's nuclear program could be overturned “with the stroke of a pen” after President Obama leaves the White House in 2017. Republican Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.),...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

Gina McCarthy, administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, overstayed her welcome in Alaska last year. When Alaskan native tribes honored the EPA worker with gifts, she returned the favor by telling the Wall Street Journal she threw one of the “f-ing things away” and that the moose meat she was given could “gag a maggot.” During Wednesday’s Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) grilled McCarthy about her ‘disturbing’ comments that were featured in the largely positive Wall Street Journal profile. “A lot of people saw that as a glowing article,” he said. “Most people in Alaska...

Kansas appears on the verge of becoming among the most welcoming states to people who want to pack heat. A bill promising Kansans the ability to carry concealed firearms — without taking safety training or weathering the background checks required in most of the country — won initial approval in the state Senate on Wednesday. The change, expected to pass Thursday to a likely receptive House, would make Kansas a “constitutional carry” state. That would mean citizens would not need a permit to carry a hidden gun. The bill would maintain the current permit process for people who want to...

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Smoking, growing and possessing marijuana becomes legal in America’s wildest state Tuesday, thanks to a voter initiative aimed at clearing away 40 years of conflicting laws and court rulings. Making Alaska the third state to legalize recreational marijuana was the goal of a coalition including libertarians, rugged individualists and small-government Republicans who prize the privacy rights enshrined in the state’s constitution....

Tomorrow, Feb. 24th, will mark a major step forward in the implementation of Alaska’s marijuana legalization law, as personal cultivation, possession, and consumption become legal. Last November, Alaskans voted 53-47% in favor of marijuana legalization, making it the first “red” state to pass such a law. “First Colorado and Washington, now Alaska and Oregon – and all with levels of support higher than the winning candidates for governor and U.S. Senate achieved in those states,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Legalizing marijuana just makes sense now to voters across the political spectrum and – as...