Oh Thursday I went to The Northwest Arctic Heritage Center or as most of you know it The New Museum. The University of Alaska put on this little presentation of their project called Northern Alaska Sea Ice Project Jukebox. What they're doing is gathering up an oral history of Arctic sea ice. They have audio files that date back to the 1970s.
And from all the interviews that they done and we can go back to what did they find out. Well it just proved what we knew already. The ice is getting thinner every year. There's no question about it. You should go onto their site and check it out. Our culture has a long history of passing information on via oral communication. So what UAF is doing is very cool. I suggest checking out their website and maybe lending them a helping hand. They said next month they'll be looking for someone to fly a drone in Kotzebue to take footage of the sound.
In the May 18th edition of The Arctic Sounder there was a story about when The Arctic Nations met up with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
At that meeting Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Elisabeth Wallstorm cited that the economic costs of climate change is 90 trillion dollars!
And many other voiced their concern for a warmer climate. Here's Rex Tillerson's response to them:
"You should know we are taking the time to understand your concerns. We're not going to rush to make a decision. We're going to make the right decision for The United States."
The right decision for The United States... What does that mean? Maybe to him that means opening up ANWR for oil exploration. Maybe it's protecting his besom buddies in Exxon from scientists.
That's right The Republican Congress is opening up scientists to be sued by corporations that poison our environment. If you ask their priorities are backwards. Why should they be allowed to sue? It was decided to Kialina didn't have the right to sue Exxon for all the damage they had done.
So what's everyone else doing? China and India are trying to hold their end of the deal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
When money talks democracy walks. When special interests and lobbyists pay off our politicians we lose our voice. That isn't their first amendment rights being protected that's ours being stomped on.
Have you ever donated to a political campaign before? Politicians ask for money all the time because they need it to run their campaigns. And they pay attention who's giving them money. You don't think that's true then put yourself in their shoes. So you get 12 emails from 12 different people from your district. Maybe you don't have time to go through all of them. You see who sent them and one of those 12 gave $1,000 to your campaign while you were running. Who are you going to listen to?
That's just the reality of our political system.
Okay so lets move you from being the politician to the person that gave $1,000. Maybe that's a stretch for you. Who's got the kind of money to be wasting on a campaign? You got bills to pay for and there's things that you want to get to enjoy your life. But lets say what this person said really grabbed you and you decided they spoke to you in such a way that you needed to give them $1,000. I bet it would make you really happy that person got elected.
Well with The Supreme Court's Citizen's United ruling back in 2012 and the creation of Super PACs the super rich have been able to hand politicians millions of dollars. That would have been illegal a year or two before that ruling!
Okay back to our scenario. You gave a candidate $1,000. But is he or she going to win with that alone? No you need to get your friends involved. Will they be willing to give $1,000? Probably not. Heck I be there are some friends you can't even get to spot you $10. But for the sake of argument lets say you guys and gals are really behind that person so you each give $1,000 to a candidate. That would be $12,000.
Giving money to a candidate to get them to pay attention to you works. It really does and I kind of had to happen to me before without knowing that I would get some attention.
Bernie Sanders ran for President last year. I was all for him so I donated several hundred dollars to his campaign. I was so excited about his campaign that I switched my party affiliation to The Democratic Party so I can vote for him in Alaska's Democratic Party Primary. And something weird happened. I got a call about someone who wanted me to campaign for Sanders. I was excited about it and even though it was 20 below outside I knocked door to door telling people why they needed to support Sanders.
But why was his campaign interested? This was Kotzebue, Alaska after all. A town of only 3,000 people. I only gave a few hundred dollars. Well I talked to the other people campaigning for him and they also gave money and some were in the hundreds as well. Because we collectedly gave money to The Sanders Campaign from Kotzebue it got us noticed. We were never really asked what our opinions were. They just wanted to know if we'd get more involved in helping Sanders win Alaska's primary. And several us were all for helping out even more.
So what about Hillary Clinton? Did she send someone to Kotzebue to help the people show her side and what she stood for? No it didn't happen.
Why wasn't she campaigning as strongly as Sanders was in Kotzebue?
It's not for a lack of support. In the caucus she nearly split the delegates. Had she got a few more people to go to her side Sanders won't have gotten all the delegates in our caucus. Why wasn't that important to her?
The conclusion that we came to was there wasn't a significant amount of money coming from Kotzebue to Hillary for her to care. That's logical. She had to concentrate on winning primaries that she could win. If her supporters there were not interested enough in giving a little bit of money than she can't waste her resources trying to fight an uphill battle in a state that hasn't voted Democrat in half a century.
It's better than thinking she just didn't care at all. Maybe she really did think she had the election in the bag and that's why she didn't go to states like Michigan.
Okay so lets continue our scenario from before. You and your friends given a candidate $12,000. That's a lot of money. Think of the things you could have done with $12,000 otherwise but you got together and decided you needed to support this person in getting a political office. So why did you give that money. Lets just take a random issue. It's just a scenario after all. Let's say Gun Rights. You and your 11 friends are hunters. You go out every year to help feed your family and you don't want your second amendment right to a fire arm to be messed with.
So you and your 11 friends got together and raised $12,000 to give to this candidate since he or she they will stand your second amendment right to own a fire arm.
Well your candidate decides he or she needs a Super PAC to raise more money. And because they created a Super PAC maybe one rich person who doesn't like the second amendment decides to give them one million dollars.
Okay lets say one group gives you $12,000 and a person with a different view giver you $1,000,000. Who are you going to listen to?
That one rich person has drowned you and your friend's voice with money. How are you supposed to compete with that? That isn't them expressing their first amendment right. That's a infringement on yours.
To prove a point back in the 2012 election Bill Maher announced he gave one million dollars to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Like Bill Maher or not is this what you want? The super rich getting together and making demands of our politicians rather than we the people?
So why did Bernie Sanders take notice of us? Well he decided the moral thing to do was not start up a Super PAC and raise money from the people in the traditional way that was done before the 2012 ruling of Citizens United.
So Sanders needed to go to the people for his campaign cash. Hillary Clinton on the other hand did have Super PACs and got money from them. We never saw her people come to Kotzebue.
I was talking to this to one of my co-workers and asked how are campaigns going to raise enough money for TV ads. Like they didn't exist before. And I asked him back is that what we really need was more campaign ads. Just look at this one.
The ad played over and over again before the 2016 election. Is that more of what we need?
Just who's side are we on when it comes to The Syrian Civil War? We all know for sure that we don't like The Islamic State. We have also bombed The Syrian Government recently. So that leaves the two rebel groups.
Our Turkish allies don't get along with our Kurd allies. What are we going to do about it? Why do we have to do something about it? How is helping Syria helping us? How did helping South Vietnam help us? How did rebuilding Iraq help us? How did creating a void of leadership in Libya help us? Why do we have to involve ourselves in foreign conflicts that have absolutely nothing to do with us?
Also why are we trying to make enemies out of counties that are no threat to us what so ever?
When are we going to stop getting ourselves needlessly involved?
Last night I started reading When Money Talks by Derek Chessman and I have to say it's a real eye opener. The book covers the money spent on politics and the bogus argument that money is speech.
Going though chapter 1 it's interesting to see how our free speech is regulated and rightfully so. You know you shouldn't be yelling profanities while going down the street. While there's many other ways it's regulated such as the volume we speak or where we do it. And it's all justified to protect other's property rights and their well being.
But what has happened recently is that our voice is being drowned by large corporations thanks to The Citizens United ruling by The Supreme Court.
It shouldn't be no surprise to any of you that our congressmen are being bought off. My question to you though is why do we take it? Well I say it's time to take action and people are as you are reading this.
I announced that I'm running for office and I know it's going to be hard. I'm someone who has worked for everything I have. And I feel that people will be behind me if this state income tax does pass and it begins to hurt them in their pocket books.
Recently former President Barack Obama has taken $400,000 to make a speech to the same Wall Street bankers that crashed our economy back in 2008.
We elected him to do something about the banks that crashed our economy. Instead what happened was they got a bail out and now the too big to fail banks are bigger than ever!
This is why I left The Democratic Party. They were supposedly for the people but that ended up not being very true. I'd rather get my support from the people rather than trying to line my own pockets from special interests.
Well lets be a little fair here. The House is trying to lower or get rid of subsides for the oil industry. Which is great news. We're all in this together and we should all give up something to help the team right?
"HB 111 also lowers the profits tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent."
Oh well look who won the pony there.
The working folk gets taxed more with a new state income tax while the oil industry gets a lower tax rate at 10 percent!?!?
I want someone to comment and defend this. Go ahead tell me how it's fair.
It's not just taxes. I have a commercial driver's licence. I live in Kotzebue, Alaska. Five years ago I got my licence in Kotzebue. But now with there being no DMV where I live I have to pay hundreds of dollars to get a flight down to Anchorage. Oh and if I feel like it maybe I could pay for a hotel and some food too.
And imagine if you live in one our the surrounding villages! You have to pay for a flight to Kotzebue then another to Anchorage.
So we get taxes more while getting less. The oil industry gets less taxes.
You might be telling me "Oh well they get less subsides. So they're giving up something too."
Dean is looking not only to give them a lower tax rate but he's also looking to open ANWR for the oil industry where they could make billions and billions of dollars off our oil.
Dean Westlake didn't go to Juneau to fight for you and me. He's helping the oil industry take our land. If you ask me I think it's about time to dump Dean.
Our representative Dean Westlake has a solution to our budget crisis in Alaska. It's more spending and tax cuts! Whoa look at who won the pony there. Dean has the same plan our federal government came up with to fix our debt.
Just think about it. If you you're in debt and owe a lot of money how do you fix that? If you ask Dean what you do it cut your income while also increasing the spending that you're doing. What nonsense! He's also cutting the money we bring into the region from outside hunters by banning people from hunting here unless you're somehow related. Well I guess Dean doesn't listen to KOTZ radio because they said that wasn't really a solution to the problem of the dwindling herd.
And when did tax cuts for the oil industry create any jobs? Bill Walker said this state is better for business because of the low tax rate we already had. Yet what happened to all the jobs? I'll tell you if you don't already know. They went away! Once oil prices dropped and a lot of the oil industry took their jobs and ran. Tax cuts don't create jobs. Demand does!
Can tax cuts bring back the VCR industry? Maybe if we cut some taxes early in the last decade Blockbuster wouldn't have died out. How ridiculous.
Our PFDs were slashed in half by Bill Walker. In Kotzebue we don't have a DMV for most of the year. Since we don't get all those services why don't we get tax break? Maybe it's because we're not lobbying Representative Westlake?
It's no secret, at least to a good number of people, that Fox News is the worst of the worst when it comes to The Corporate Media. I'm not talking about the fact they have a bias towards The Republican Party. No it's when you look at the viewers they're the least informed. They're less informed than the people who are watching CNN and NBC.
Recently Bill O'Reilly got into trouble. No it wasn't for touching himself while making phone calls to women. Fox couldn't employ him anymore because all the advertisers were leaving. His rating were going up because of the controversy. But all the extra viewers don't mean anything if all the ad revenue goes anyway.
You remember when NBC demoted Brian Williams because he lied about being on a helicopter in Iraq or something. I can't remember what it was and I don't care. My point is while NBC made a big deal out of their anchor lying while Fox stood behind O'Reilly and all his controversies and sexual harassment against women. No they helped O'Reilly by making settlements with the people he victimized.
What Bill O'Reilly did for years to women was okay because that's just the culture over there at Fox News. And it shouldn't surprise anyone they put profit over anything else there.
If you asked me before I'd tell you that Fox News would be okay. But it now it's reveled that Fox is in trouble for covering up the settlement payments they were making for O'Reilly.
On Saturday's Ralph Nader Radio Hour Nader suggested that we go on YouTube and listen to President Eisenhower's Cross of Iron speech. Here it is:
Ike hit the nail on the head there. It's about time we looked at all the military spending as wasteful. Is it really necessary to spend more money on our military than the next 11 countries combined?
Who is a threat to us right now?
The Islamic State? False! What capability do they have to attack The United States? Sure they were able to brainwash some our our citizens but they haven't been able to send their people here. Do you really think a angry terrorist is really going to go through a 3 year wait to get here as a refugee? You're out your mind if you think so.
The Syrian Government? No.
North Korea? Heck they can't even build a missile that can get off the ground! The people of North Korea can't have lights at night. The leader Little Kim is just a punk. Seriously what can they do against us? The idea that North Korea is any kind of threat to us is a lie; a lie that playing into the hands of Little Kim and the Neo-Cons over here.
Back before Dwight Eisenhower left The White House as President he warned of The Military Industrial Complex.
Trump has showed in the past that he can't handle criticism of him or even jokes about him. Remember when he attempted to sue Bill Maher when he suggested that his father was a chimpanzee? It's a silly joke and one no one would take seriously... except for Donald Trump. And Trump wasn't a private citizen. Remember he was a big reality TV show star on NBC so there's going to be people that make jokes about him.
Apparently Reince Priebus has said Trump and his gang has looked into either amending or abolishing the first amendment! This should surprise anyone. With his unprovoked attacks on The Syrian Government he clearly doesn't understand what his power is in The Constitution or he just doesn't care.
Don't forget he's very thinned skinned. It's rather ironic his supporters use the word snowflake to describe their opponents while Donald Trump is probably the biggest "snowflake" of all. Don't say something bad about him or he might sue you!
Will Donald Trump be able to do something about The First Amendment? Probably nothing about The Constitution itself no. But The United States have been able to bypass it with it's War on Truth the last several years. People have been jailed over telling the truth.
Can you believe? Donald Trump has a Republican lead House and Senate and he's crying about it. Did he think he was being elected King of The United States?
There's been a war The United States has been waging for a long time. No I'm not talking about the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. No there's been a war on truth by The United States.
There were two episodes of Ron Paul's Liberty Report that covered this war. This first one features former CIA Officer John Kiriakou. He was jailed for reveling that The CIA was torturing people and that George W. Bush ordered it.
And our course there's Wikileaks. Donald Trump goes from being a big fan to not so much when he gets into office. Also Julian Assange talks about The CIA's current attempt to re-brand the publisher to attack it as if it was a enemy intelligence agency.
Former Goldman Sachs banker and current Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin went to Wall Street managers and told them they should thank him for financial deregulation. He's gone out of way to help his pals get better stocks.
Don't forget who crashed our economy. It was the too big to fail banks like Goldman Sachs who are still to big to fail! It should surprise no one that he went to Washington to help his bosom buddies.
If you thought Donald Trump was going to Washington to "drain the swap" well you were conned. His administration is the most terrible one in the history of our country. Just look at who he's looking out for in this video.
It's a long video so I understand if you don't watch it. So I'll talk about one of the things he said here.
He said getting rid of The Estate Tax, or as I like to call it The Billionaires Tax, will help farmers. Is there farmers out there that have this much money? I think I'm detecting a lie here.
Also he said getting rid of The Billionaires Tax will help people who worked hard for their money. That's not true at all! I work hard for my money but none of my taxes are going done if The Billionaires Tax is taken away. You know who it would help a lot? Someone like Paris Hilton. Has she ever had a hard day of work in her life? Like her or not I think the answer is no. Oh and it would also help Donald Trump a lot too. Look at who won the pony there.
And since the super rich will pay less taxes under The Trump plan guess who has carry more of the load? Hard working people like you and me.
