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When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hangar. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to an older F-15 fighter because they didn't want Obama speaking in front of the F-22, a controversial program he fought hard to end. "White House aides actually made them remove the F-22-said they would not allow POTUS to be pictured with the F-22 in any way, shape, or form," one source close to the unit relayed. Stephen Lee, a...

A reasonable argument can be made that Sarah Palin did the right thing when she quit after two and a half years into her first term as Alaska governor. Yes she let many down when she asked us for her vote and then quit after a couple of years on the job. And yes some would argue the only reason she quit was for more money and fame. But regardless of her motives, her quitting could end up saving the country. Even Palin critics would have to admit she is a mighty force on the political scene. Whether it’s firing...

WASILLA -- A Palmer city law that blocked people from carrying guns in city parks and other places was tossed out last week after a local man pointed out the rule infringed on people's Second Amendment rights. "I'm thoroughly excited," said Ryan Clark, a former Marine and now a plumber who lives outside Palmer. The outdated law prohibited anyone other than a peace officer or Alaskan with a permit to carry a concealed weapon from carrying any weapon, concealed or not, in government office buildings, courthouses, hospitals, schools, places where alcohol is sold or served, domestic violence or sexual assault...

Not only should we be careful in what we wish for, but we should be ever so diligent when drafting pro gun legislation. One of the greatest evils against the Bill of Rights is legislation that doesn't pass the constitutional test. This can happen even when the legislators have the best of intentions. Alaska police officers regularly disarm law abiding citizens, taking their firearms and running the serial numbers through the system. This in itself is a violation of the “fourth amendment”. No surprise here, officers that have taken an oath to uphold the constitution are regularly breaking this same...

A year ago someone set fire to Wasilla Bible Church. Today, that person is still out there. The Wasilla Police Department is leading the ongoing investigation, but none of the leads they've chased so far have ended up panning out. "The investigation is still open, and we're still asking the public to contact us if anybody has heard anything," Deputy Chief Greg Wood said. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and the state fire marshal's office both assisted in the initial investigation, and the state crime laboratory collected evidence at the scene. An ATF press release issued...

The storm mucking up Southcentral Alaska this week battered a far-flung U.S. Coast Guard outpost in the Aleutians over the weekend with hurricane-force winds, according to the National Weather Service. Out in Attu, the crew of the Coast Guard's Long-Range Navigation Station reported sustained winds of 125 mph with gusts hitting 178 mph over the weekend. The station also got more than a foot and a half of snow. The gusts, equivalent to the winds of a Category 5 hurricane, damaged a communications antenna, which broke free from three securing mounts, the Coast Guard said. The station's crew has been...

Cleanup efforts continued Tuesday on a three-quarter-acre area of tundra affected by a spill of oil and water near BP's Lisburne Processing Center on the North Slope. More than half of the affected area was coated by a sprayed mist from an 18-inch flow line, a pipeline that carries raw oil, water and gas to the center for separation… Late Tuesday it remained unclear how much oil had spilled or why the pipeline leaked. … The new spill was discovered Sunday afternoon. Cleanup of contaminated snow began late Monday, with 12 workers removing 40 cubic yards of contaminated snow with...

How much is Sarah Palin's new book tailored to evangelical Christian readers? Her writing partner for Going Rogue, Lynn Vincent, is a longtime editor at World magazine, which practices "biblical worldview journalism." Though the book is published by an imprint of HarperCollins, it is being distributed to Christian booksellers by Zondervan, the world's leading publisher of Bibles. And Going Rogue brims with testimony about Palin's Christian faith. Its opening pages relate how Palin's daughter Piper literally became the poster child for the antiabortion group Alaska Right to Life by posing for a picture with "pretend angel wings fastened to her...

NEW YORK – "Going Rogue" has sold a million copies. HarperCollins spokeswoman Tina Andreadis said Tuesday that just two weeks after publication, Sarah Palin's memoir has sold 1 million copies. The print run for "Going Rogue" has been increased again, to 2.8 million copies. The original printing was 1.5 million, then moved up to 2.5 million.

Authorities say an oil spill near Prudhoe Bay contaminated about 8,400 square feet of snow-covered tundra. Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman Weld Royal said oil cleanup crews rushed to the scene about 1 1/2 miles from a production center on the North Slope around 3 a.m. Sunday. She told The Associated Press that it still isn't clear how much spilled or what caused it, but the petroleum did not reach the bay. The spill occurred around an 18-inch pipeline that carried a mixture of crude oil, produced water, and natural gas, but the line was not in operation at...

Anchorage, AK --(AmmoLand.com)- You, the citizens of the great State of Alaska, are cordially invited to participate in A Rally of Patriots in support of our unalienable right to keep and bear arms as affirmed by our constitution! This rally will take place on Monday April 19th, 2010, statewide, in a city near you. The date April 19th has been chosen to coincide with the anniversary of the Revolutionary War Battles of Lexington and Concord. On this date, also, in Washington D.C., a million-person-plus participant march is scheduled to take place at the Washington Monument. Further information on the Washington...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday night that the attacks on Sarah Palin, his former vice presidential running mate, are unlike anything he has ever seen. “I’m entertained and sometimes a little angry when I see this constant, vicious attacks by people on the left,” McCain said of Palin during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics,” McCain continued, “the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin.”

Scientists in the US have discovered a new class of biological antifreeze molecules - the first that do not contain proteins. The antifreeze, extracted from an Alaskan beetle capable of surviving at -60°C, consists of linked mannopyranose and xylopyranose sugars, termed xylomannan, associated with a lipid. Large molecules that cause thermal hysteresis - a difference between the melting and freezing points of a solution - have been identified in many organisms that survive in the cold, from Antarctic fish to plants and bacteria. In all cases identified so far, thermal hysteresis appears to be caused by proteins, known as antifreeze proteins or...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Republican National Committee will announce Monday that veteran political strategist Alex Castellanos will assume a senior communications role at the committee, an RNC official tells CNN. (snip) "Now the RNC has a new focus and direction - the 2010 elections," Castellanos said when reached by telephone. "And I am happy to help."

BP and ConocoPhillips have reduced their capital spending and developmental budgets for Alaska in 2010 because of higher costs to produce mature fields, disappointing exploratory results and the state's new tax regime, the companies said. London-based BP's 2010 capital spending will be $850 million, or down 15% from more than $1 billion this year, John Minge, president of BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. said Wednesday during a conference. One-third of next year's budget will be spent on infrastructure renewal, one-third in drilling and one-third in growth projects, he added. BP's Alaska budget includes projects such as the development of heavy oil...

Sarah Palin comes to Asheville NC to have Dinner with Billy Graham & Family from richard bernier on Vimeo. Sarah Palin arrives in Asheville NC to have Dinner with Billy Graham & Family. 22 Nov 2009 - On a very short notice, Space Mountain Productions was advised that Mrs.Palin would be coming to Asheville to have dinner with Billy Graham & Familly. Mrs. Palin is on her book tour & will be in Fayetteville the next day to promote her book. Mrs.Palin arrived at 3:10pm & took a few questions & meet some supporters who had time to come to...

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase. On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state. And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going...

.... Barack Obama's speaking skills are his signature talent. He's a platform performer, a speechmaker in the great tradition, a kind of teleprompter Cicero. The campaign to become President owed more to Mr. Obama's oratorical mastery than to any other element. His speech on race in America, necessitated by revelations of the ugly thoughts and sentiments of his hometown preacher, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was the most important event of his campaign. If it had failed, his candidacy would have been doomed. Under pressure – the great test of the real speechmaker – he delivered. The other great speech of the...

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia -- U.S. Sen. John McCain says he enjoyed reading Sarah Palin's new memoir and says the tension between his campaign aides and hers is no big deal. But McCain likened the tension of a campaign to combat in an interview Saturday with The Associated Press on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Forum.

Sherry Johnston was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for dealing the prescription painkiller OxyContin. [...] Johnston made a deal with prosecutors to plead to a single felony count in exchange for dropping five other felony drug dealing charges against her. The deal called for the 42-year-old Wasilla woman to be sentenced to three years of prison time plus three years of probation, which is what the judge gave her. Johnston received less time than the normal five to eight years for a second-degree felony drug charge because the amount she was dealing was so small. Johnston is slated...

The mayor of North Pole, Alaska is calling a recent postal service decision an assault on Christmas. For years, the U.S. Postal Service has delivered thousands of letters to Santa Claus in North Pole, Alaska. Now, in the interest of efficiency and security, the post office has changed its policy. It will no longer deliver letters to Santa here, and requests for a North Pole postmark will be filled through its Anchorage office. The decision has angered many residents, most notably the owner of the area’s primary attraction, the Santa Claus house.

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Former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Thursday he has read Sarah Palin's book and has no regrets about picking her as a running mate. (snip) He also said if Mrs. Palin decides to run for president in 2012 and becomes the Republican Party nominee he would vote for her. "I hope she has every success," Mr. McCain said. "She's still pretty popular."

The U.S. Army now says it will allow media limited access to Sarah Palin's appearance at Fort Bragg. The Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer objected and the military changed its position slightly on Thursday night. It will grant a pool of reporters restricted access to Monday's appearance. Buckner said the setup will allow reporters their right to access .

While record low temperatures were recorded elsewhere in Interior Alaska, Fairbanks has been an island of relative warmth. That could end tonight or Friday as the low clouds and flurries that have blanketed the area move out, according to the National Weather Service. Lows could drop to 35 below zero Friday night, according to Allura Weimer, hydrological meteorological technician at the National Weather Service. Normal temperatures range from 9 above to 9 below zero. The record low for Thursday is 33 below zero, set in 1969.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

It has often been said that today's rank-and-file conservative is "anti-elite." I've always been uncomfortable with that characterization because — in my experience — conservatives are quite respectful of certain kinds of elites, like elite soldiers, elite athletes, and talented musicians and other artists (provided those artists don't believe that their abilities also provide them with unique insight into, say, health-care policy or war strategy). The elite that conservatives tend to disdain is the contemporary intellectual (or academic) elite, not because intellectual excellence isn't obtainable or worth respecting but because we look at what what passes for academic thinking these...

<p>Contact your Senators and let them know what you think!</p> <p>U.S. veterans or subsidies for United Nations (U.N.) bureaucracy.</p>

WASHINGTON — Palin-Beck 2012? Sarah Palin has suggested Fox News firebrand Glenn Beck could be someone she'd consider as a running mate if she makes a bid for the White House in two years. "I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I'm not there yet," Palin told the conservative news agency Newsmax as she promoted her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He's a hoot. He gets his message across...

WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday strongly defended the top advisers from his 2008 presidential campaign in the face of sharp criticism from his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin. McCain, in a telephone interview with Reuters, singled out campaign manager Steve Schmidt and senior adviser Nicolle Wallace for praise after Palin blasted the pair in her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life." "There's been a lot of dust flying around in the last few days and I just wanted to mention that I have the highest regard for Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace...

The pickings are apparently so slim in the linguistics field that three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists took on the conundrum of Sarah Palin's speech patterns. That's how it was reported, a conundrum, suggesting that they went off in search of a solution to a problem that didn't exist. Now, it was pretty good fun when Tina Fey took on Palin. There was one episode of "Saturday Night Live'' when Palin was a guest and Fey and Palin were on the set at the same time. I didn't know who was who. There were cards wandering around Foggy Bottom who had...

Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

Despite the fact that Sarah Palin uses her new book to air her grievances with John McCain's presidential campaign team, McCain reportedly said he enjoyed reading Palin's book. "I hope she sells lots of them," McCain told the Hill newspaper.

The U.S. Obama administration put its mark in the overwhelmingly Republican state of Alaska, asking Alaska pipeline coordinator Drue Pearce to step down, according to U.S. news sources Monday. Vice Admiral Thomas Barrett, USCG (Ret.), the deputy federal coordinator, will be interim coordinator until a permanent replacement is named. Pearce, a former Alaska Senate president, had been appointed federal coordinator of Alaska natural gas transportation projects by former President George W. Bush 2006. A terse statement by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska lamented the move, adding "I regret the loss of Drue's experience and knowledge on this project, but I understand...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spoke to The Hill Monday evening, denied Sarah Palin's allegation that his campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate. McCain said the bill was for legal work related to allegations that Palin made improper use of her influence as Alaska's governor to press for the dismissal of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten was embroiled in a custody dispute with Palin's younger sister, Molly McCann. "That was addressed by Trevor Potter," said McCain, "That was over the troopergate." In...

After the New England Patriots disasterous decision Sunday night not to punt on fourth down with the ball on the Indianapolis Colts' 28-yard line, former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, had every right to be ticked off. Especially considering that the Pats had the lead with little more than 2 minutes left in the game. Is it possible that the team's supposedly brilliant coach, Bill Belichick, got confused and thought the Manning brother waiting patiently on the opposing sidelines was Eli and not Peyton? Whatever the case, the Colts went on to win the game with 13 seconds left in the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Fewer than three in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin's qualified to be president, according to a new national poll - the least of any of the five potential candidates included in the survey. But another woman tops that list in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday: two-thirds of the public thinks that Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's qualified for the Oval Office. That's more than Vice President Joe Biden, who's currently next in line for the presidency. According to the poll, 28 percent of Americans say Palin is qualified to run the White House, with seven...

John McCain has asked his former campaign aides not to speak out against the charges Sarah Palin levels in her book, NBC news reports. This news comes after a number of former staffers anonymously blasted Palin's recount of the 2008 campaign. "John McCain offered her the opportunity of a lifetime, and during the campaign it seems that, for all of her mistakes, she is searching for people to blame," an aide said last week. "We don't need to go through this again." Even as NBC reported McCain's request, they included another swipe at her book from a former campaign aide....

This is one reason why we NEED overall general tort reform. Juan Williams and Bob Schieffer had best stop trying to rewrite history. Both of these guys claim either Gov. Sarah Palin left her position as governor for no reason or she could not handle the job. Both are lies. Both are liars and I’m sick of it. For those of you who refuse to actually read her resignation speech, or completely ignore what was going on in Alaska before, during and after the 2008 campaign, I guess I have to spend some time reminding you.

WASHINGTON - Sarah Palin is embarking on what is likely to be the most commercially successful book tour by a politician since Barack Obama launched The Audacity of Hope three years ago. Obama's book tour spawned a presidential campaign. Will Palin's eventually do the same? Her ultimate ambitions remain a mystery. The opening stage of the tour for her book, Going Rogue, has been marked by the same qualities that have defined the public reaction to her since that morning in Ohio when she was announced as John McCain's choice for vice president: curiosity and controversy. Give Palin credit. She...

When Sarah Palin burst onto the national political stage there was a lot of talk about her distinctive way of talkin', you betcha. Heck, she moved to Alaska when she was too young to speak and grew up in the small town of Wasilla, but doggone it, why did she talk like someone from the movie "Fargo"? Three University of Wisconsin-Madison linguists tackled the conundrum in a research article to be published in the Journal of English Linguistics next month. The answer lies in something that happened in the 1930s. During the presidential campaign, almost every aspect of Palin's life,...

WASHINGTON (CNN) - John McCain's former presidential campaign manager Steve Schmidt is the latest McCain adviser to cry foul over accusations Sarah Palin has penned in her yet to be released memoir "Going Rogue." Excerpts obtained by The Huffington Post characterize Schmidt in an unfavorable light, particularly in reference to the prank phone call Palin received from someone pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Right away, the phones started ringing," Palin writes. "One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. 'How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president...

A former top adviser and spokeswoman to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign is pushing back against comments reportedly made by Sarah Palin in her new book. Nicolle Wallace tells CNN that Palin's account of an ill-fated interview with CBS's Katie Couric during the 2008 presidential campaign is not true.

“Going Rogue,” the title of Sarah Palin’s erratic new memoir, comes from a phrase used by a disgruntled McCain aide to describe her going off-message during the campaign: among other things, for breaking with the campaign over its media strategy, its decision to pull out of Michigan and for speaking out about reports that the Republican Party had spent more than $150,000 on fancy designer duds for her and her family. In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign...

Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue" is set for release on Nov. 17 and with that will likely come a media blitz of epic proportions. However, based on the cover of the Nov. 23 issue of Newsweek, someone felt a response was warranted. The wizards of smart at Newsweek took an image from a shoot of Palin that originally appeared in Runner's World magazine for the cover and splashed the headlines, "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Sarah?" and "She's Bad News for the GOP - and For Everybody Else, Too." ...more (with bare-legged Palin cover)...

Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff vowed Friday night to attack the policies of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, saying the Conservative leader's four years in power gives him lots of political ammunition. .... Ignatieff said U.S. President Barack Obama is spending six times more per capita on clean energy than Canada. The Conservatives are spending less per capita on renewable energy than Alaska, he said. "You know who comes from Alaska, don't you," said Ignatieff, drawing a laugh. "So when it comes to clean energy, Stephen Harper isn't just behind Barack Obama, he's behind Sarah Palin."

We Alaskans have a very special relationship to our environment. The land is our back yard. We use it for recreation and subsistence. The land has provided our livelihood, for the people and for the state. Alaska is a land of amazing natural beauty, and the resources that underlie that beauty are what sustains our economy. Responsible development, sustainable yield, and resource stewardship were written into the constitution and statutes when Alaska became a state 50 years ago, and have been part of how we have developed our natural resources ever since. When Alaska Statehood was being debated, a major...

In 1968 the discovery of the giant Prudhoe Bay field, the first field to be discovered on Alaska’s North Slope and among the 20 largest oil fields ever discovered worldwide, triggered a northern Alaska oil industry that now includes 19 producing oil fields, all feeding oil into the trans-Alaska oil pipeline for transportation to the Valdez Marine Terminal 800 miles to the south. In fact, the totality of northern Alaska consists of five distinct geologic regions: the Brooks Range, the Brooks Range foothills (also known as the Arctic foothills), the North Slope (also known as the Arctic coastal plain), the...

The Resource Development Council (RDC) has been at the forefront of efforts to convince the Obama administration to provide for a seamless transition to new oil and gas leasing programs in the future that will expand access to the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). RDC strongly supports access to the OCS, especially in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and the North Aleutian Basin. The responsible development of potentially immense oil and gas deposits in Alaska would significantly boost the state’s economy, extend the life of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, improve the economic viability of the proposed natural gas pipeline from...

Inhabitants of the self-obsessed Beltway political world already have a beef with Sarah Palin's new memoir, "Going Rogue." Political types in Washington make a show of turning up their noses at actually buying and reading such books, but familiar faces can regularly be spotted in store aisles anyway scanning for their names in the index. Sarah Palin's book won't have an index, denying Beltway habitués the instant gratification of knowing whether they are included. Instead, political and media types who want to know if they figure in accounts of her conflicts with the McCain campaign or with major news media...