Free Republic

A year of crazy elections in Alaska is finally in the rearview mirror. But without ridding the state of ranked-choice voting, this confusing and ill-advised vote counting system will continue to undermine the integrity Alaska’s elections and disenfranchise voters in the future. Ranked-choice voting—or RCV—was approved in 2020 and made its debut in Alaskan elections in 2022. Instead of declaring a winner based upon who received the most votes, as is commonly done in elections determined by plurality, RCV requires a candidate to earn more than 50 percent of all of the votes. But instead of giving voters a second...

WALES, Alaska (KTUU) - A polar bear attacked and killed two people in Wales, on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula, Tuesday afternoon Troopers wrote in a dispatch that they received the report at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday involving a woman and a young boy. Troopers identified the victims Wednesday morning as 24-year-old Summer Myomick, of St. Michael, and her 1-year-old son Clyde Ongtowasruk. The attack occurred in the village near the school, troopers said. The two were walking between the clinic and the school when the attack occurred. Susan Nedza is the Chief School Administrator for the Bering...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After tidal surges and high winds from the remnants of a rare typhoon caused extensive damage to homes along Alaska’s western coast in September, the U.S. government stepped in to help residents — largely Alaska Natives — repair property damage. Residents who opened Federal Emergency Management Agency paperwork expecting to find instructions on how to file for aid in Alaska Native languages like Yup’ik or Inupiaq instead were reading bizarre phrases. “Tomorrow he will go hunting very early, and will (bring) nothing,” read one passage. The translator randomly added the word “Alaska” in the middle of...

You would have to be hiding under a rock to miss this video this week. But if somehow didn’t catch it, here it is. The video was filmed during a whale watching excursion in Gustavus, Alaska. The guests sure got what they paid for. I’m glad they come away just a little wet and with a great story to tell.

(Many links to various documents at source.)Alaska Statehood President Eisenhower stated his support for the idea of statehood for Alaska early in his administration but also expressed concerns that needed to be overcome before that could occur. The greatest concern was the issue of national security; this was during the height of the Cold War and Alaska was on the border of the Soviet Union. Another concern was the amount of public land in the territory; 99% of the area was owned by the Federal government and a suitable compromise had to be arranged to transfer unreserved lands to the...

(Photos and image at link.)A powerful transmitter in remote Alaska sent long wavelength radio signals into space Tuesday with the purpose of bouncing them off an asteroid to learn about its interior.The asteroid, 2010 XC15, is estimated to be about 500 feet across and is passing by Earth at two lunar distances, which is twice the distance between the Earth and the moon. Results of Tuesday’s experiment at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research facility at Gakona could aid efforts to defend Earth from larger asteroids that could cause significant damage.“We will be analyzing the data over the next...

It began decades ago, with a few hardy pioneers slogging north across the tundra. It’s said that one individual walked so far to get there that he rubbed the skin off the underside of his long, flat tail. Today, his kind have homes and colonies scattered throughout the tundra in Alaska and Canada — and their numbers are increasing.... ...Scientists have come to view their landscape engineering as beneficial, and even critical in some vulnerable ecosystems. In many places south of the tundra, conservationists have moved to protect and reintroduce beavers to restore stream and wetland habitats. But in the...

(No search results) The United States will auction nearly one million acres off the Alaskan coast for new oil and gas drilling in December, mandated in the so-called “Inflation” Reduction Act (IRA). The United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), inside the Department of Interior, will put hundreds of thousands of acres off Alaska’s southcentral coast up for auction on December 30 for new oil and gas drilling projects. The lease sale has to be completed by the end of the year to comply with the IRA, which was added to the piece of legislation to win support from...

Alaska’s sole congressional seat, which had been in GOP hands for 49 years, was recently captured by Democrat Mary Peltola. The victory has been touted by liberals as either vindication of their agenda or as portending the end of the career of Sarah Palin, Peltola’s most high-profile opponent. Yet the result, which took weeks to finalize, was easily explainable: It was a function of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting (RCV) and Top-four Primary (TFP) system — a system electoral engineers would like to institute nationwide. In essence, this system created a situation in which Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, were...

The anybody but Trump Fox News Network gave former S. Carolina Republican US Congressman Trey Gowdy, who talked a good game, but didn’t accomplish much of anything in his eight years in Congress, six and a half minutes of air time to push Republican Senator Tim Scott (SC) for President on Sunday.While Senator Tim Scott is a good man who came from humble beginnings, he, like Trey Gowdy, has been somewhat unremarkable during his 9 years in office. What the out-of-touch former lawmaker doesn’t understand is that no amount of praise by the former US Congressman, who walked away from...

12 RINOs …

Kelly Tshibaka, an Alaska Republican backed by former President Trump, is blaming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for her failure to oust centrist GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski this election cycle. Tshibaka, a former Alaska state official, conceded the contest on Wednesday after the latest rounds of vote tabulations showed Murkowski winning. The race took weeks to call given Alaska's ranked-choice voting system, a process in which voters select their preferred candidates in order and the vote share is distributed to the top two after a process of elimination. While Tsibaka blamed ranked-choice voting for her loss, calling the system frustrating...

Democrat Mary Peltola has won the race for Alaska’s at-large congressional seat, NBC News projected Wednesday, defeating former governor and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. While the election was held earlier this month, the race was not called for weeks because of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system where voters rank the candidates in order of preference. After the first round of voting, Peltola led Palin by more than 20 percentage points, with Republican Nick Begich, a scion of one of Alaska’s most well-known political families, in third. But because Peltola failed to win more than 50 percent, the voting...

Population 736,990 Est. Registered Voters 599,465

Late today the Pentagon said that Turkish military activity in northern Syria places US troops there at risk... In Brazil A Supreme Court justice shooting down the challenge of President Jair Bolsonaro to the recent election results... Two rulings from the Georgia Supreme Court today... The New York Times reporting that the Biden Administration Justice Department targeting President Trump wants to question former Vice-President Mike Pence... The ranked choice voting results rolled out in Alaska this evening... A recall of Disney-themed children's clothing over possible lead poisoning. The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says tonight there is a...

Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola won reelection to a full term in the House after she defeated Sarah Palin in a special election to replace Rep. Don Young in August. Peltola was the FIRST DEMOCRAT to win the House seat in solid red Alaska in 50 Years! Ranked-choice voting and mail-in ballots were implemented by referendum in 2020. The results of the November 8 election were announced Wednesday night.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won re-election in Alaska, dealing former President Donald Trump another loss in what has largely been a miserable midterm cycle for his hand-picked candidates in competitive Senate races. Murkowski, one of only seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, survived a challenge from Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, a former Alaska Department of Administration commissioner, in the state’s first Senate election to be decided by ranked-choice voting. Rather than limiting voters to one choice, the format allows for candidates to be ranked in order of preference. Neither Murkowski nor Tshibaka, the top two-vote...

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) trolled her Republican opponent Kelly Tshibaka after she took a lead in the first-place votes for the state’s Senate race. Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system means voters ranked the candidates from first place to last. A candidate must win a majority of first-place votes to win outright without additional rounds being needed.

As most are well aware by now, the disgraced founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried was the Democrat party’s second-largest donor just behind George Soros. As reported by The Gateway Pundit, in the 2020 presidential election, Bankman-Fried dished millions to the Biden campaign and followed it up by handing out over $40 million dollars to democrats in the 2022 primaries and midterms. Forbes reported last year that Bankman-Fried also donated to six RINOs who voted to impeach President Trump. Forbes reported : Since July, Bankman-Fried has made $5,800 contributions, the maximum individuals can give directly to Congressional campaigns, to the committees...

I've been keeping track of election results from Fox News updates. (Of those that "count," Fox is better than CNN, NBC, AP and others.) Election outcomes seem to be permanently stuck while a few states get their acts together, submit their results, and someone in the news "calls" the results as decided. Republican victories in the House have remain stagnant, while the Democrats continue to pick up seats. Here's where it still stands on Fox's map (as of 11/12/2022, 11:30 PST): House of Representatives: Republican: 211/218 needed Democrat: 201/218 needed Where are those yet uncalled 23-25 races*? California: 15 Arizona:...