Pro-life bills set to die in Alaska legislature
By Joel Davidson
Catholicanchor.org
A number of bills are now before Alaska legislators in the State House and Senate in Juneau. The following legislation is a round-up of bills that deal directly with pro-life issues. All of these bills were introduced into the State House or Senate in early 2009. However, they have since stalled in the Health and Social Services Committees of the Senate or the House. If these bills are not brought to a vote during this session, they will die in committee. The current session ends April 18.
SB 5 and HB 34: Partial-Birth Abortion
These bills would explicitly ban partial-birth abortion in Alaska — a procedure that entails a baby being partially born and then killed through abortion. Alaska is one of only 14 states that have not restricted this practice. Senate Bill 5 was introduced last year and has been sitting in the Senate Health and Social Services Committee since Jan. 21, 2009. House Bill 34 was introduced last year and has been sitting in the House Health and Social Services Committee since Jan. 20, 2009. Read more
Alaska Legislature not doing its job
By Mike Dingman
Alaska Standard Contributor
As I write this we are 56 days into the 2nd Session of the 26th Alaska State Legislature. In that time, nearly two months, legislators have been hard at work bearing down on the most important issues facing the State of Alaska, which after seeing a sharp decline in oil production is at an economic crossroads nearly unmatched in our history. So what has the legislature accomplished so far now that we are nearing the end of the session?
To date there have been a grand total of six . . . yes, six pieces of legislation passed through both houses of the legislature. One would think that they have passed something in regards to AGIA (Alaska Gasline Inducement Act), ACES (Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share), or anything relating to the construction of a natural gas pipeline. Sadly, this is not the case. The legislature has had found far more pressing issues this session, including debating how much lobbyists should be able to pay for their lunch, without disclosing it to the public, and answering that all important question – where in Juneau can Representative Nancy Dahlstrom get an appetizer for less than fifty dollars? Read more
Glenn Biegel on union extortion
By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard
Glenn Biegel is a fair-minded man and often tempered in his remarks. He appeared on my show on Tuesday and I was curious to hear his thoughts on the legalized extortion prevalent in our state perpetrated by Big Labor.
Click on the audio link below to hear his thoughts.
Read more
The Bigger the Government, the Less You Are Needed
By Dennis Prager
Among the things left and right, religious and secular, agree on is that one of the few real needs human beings have is to be needed.
When we are not needed, life feels pointless.
The need to be needed is universal. Men need it; women need it. The sexes may feel needed in different ways, but the depth of the need is the same. Many women feel particularly alive when needed by their young children; many men feel worthy when needed by their family and/or their work. That is why most women navigate difficult emotional straits when their adult children leave home and assume independent lives, and why most men find it so crushing to lose their job -- not necessarily because of loss of income, but because of the loss of meaning that comes from no longer being needed. Read more
Anchorage Daily News has abandoned all pretense of fairness
By Mary Ann Pease
Alaska Standard Contributor
Once again, the Anchorage Daily News is promoting its anti-development agenda through the powerful medium it controls- the local printed press. This time it has chosen to run a Compass piece denouncing the Knik Arm Bridge on the day of an Assembly meeting where the Daily News hopes the Knik Arm bridge is move off the short term transportation time line. By design, those in charge at the Daily News have today run a piece critical of the bridge that contains misleading figures and assumptions and does not afford any response in their paper until well after the Assembly meeting on the bridge. Certainly a point-counterpoint format presenting two sides of the bridge debate would be more beneficial to readers looking for information on the bridge. But that would undermine the anti-development stance of the Daily News, which explains why Jamie Kenworthy’s Compass piece ran alone on the morning of an Assembly meeting to discuss the bridge. We can all hope for more balanced information in the Daily News, but we certainly know not to expect it. And because they ran a Compass piece, which by its term is opinion, there is no checking or verification of the representations contained therein. It is clever use of the powerful tool of journalism-disingenuous, but clever. Read more
Build the damn thing!
By Dan Fagan
Publisher
The Alaska Standard
There is a clear distinction between the two major candidates running for governor in the Republican primary when it comes to Alaska’s gas. Current appointed governor Sean Parnell is sticking with AGIA as the best way to get our gas to market. Ralph Samuels believes it is time to abandon AGIA and build an in state line right now.
Click on the audio link below to hear Samuels' plan to build an all Alaska bullet line.
Read more
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