Free Republic

Dec. 17: This story has been updated [1]. SAXMAN, Alaska -- When the oil boom came to Alaska, Congress promised new economic opportunities for native peoples like the Cape Fox Tlingit. The Tlingit had wrested a subsistence life from the harsh coasts of southeast Alaska for thousands of years, only to see their villages destroyed, their resources exploited and their population wiped out by disease when white settlers came in the 19th century. In 1971, Congress passed a law intended to right the historic wrongs and compensate natives for construction of a new oil pipeline through their ancient lands. The...

Democratic Senate candidate Scott McAdams doesn't just have to campaign to win over undecided voters. He also needs to stop people who might have otherwise helped make up his base from going for Sen. Lisa Murkowski's write-in effort. Polls released last week show the Republican Murkowski drawing significant support among Democrats and independents who might otherwise vote Democratic. "There were two schools of thought prior to (Murkowski) jumping in," said Anchorage pollster and political consultant Ivan Moore. "The first was that Lisa would split the Republican vote and lead to the Democrat winning. The second was that Lisa would basically...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. Four Naval Academy midshipmen and a professor, along with Navy scientists, head to the North Sea on Wednesday to search for the remains of Capt. John Paul Jones' ship, Bonhomme Richard. This search for one of the most famous ships of the American Revolution will combine oceanography, historical analysis and naval engineering and employ cutting-edge technology. A multibeam sonar, for example, will give researchers three-dimensional pictures of objects on the ocean floor, and a gradiometer, a mine-sweeping tool, can detect objects buried under sediment. If the researchers on this two-week expedition find the remains of Jones' ship, which...

NORFOLK Defense attorneys for a group of suspected Somali pirates are challenging the very heart of the government's case, arguing that in the history of the United States there has never been a piracy case that did not involve plundering or stealing a vessel. For that reason, the attorneys argue, the piracy case should be thrown out of court. In their most recent court filing, the attorneys argue that the 200-year-old piracy statute has never been updated and is not applicable to modern-day pirate suspects. Under that law, they say, Greenpeace activists who forcibly prevent a whaling ship from conducting...

In February 1996, then–White House aide and current Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan co-authored a memorandum to deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes regarding whether President Clinton should support proposed amendments to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill. The first amendment was to weaken the bill’s ban on “bundling” of contributions. The memorandum’s analysis of the proposal begins: “We have no data on which party benefits more from bundling practices.” The second amendment was to limit out-of-state contributions to candidates. The memo’s analysis begins: “The [limit] may hurt Democratic senatorial candidates.” In other words, the memo evaluated the amendments not on the...

MANAMA, Bahrain - The commanding officer of the Mayport-based destroyer USS The Sullivans (DDG 68), Cmdr. Neil Funtanilla, was relieved of command by Commander, Combined Task Force (CTF) 50, Rear Adm. Phil Davidson, due to loss of confidence, following an Admiral's Mast. The Non-Judicial Punishment (NJP) proceedings were convened to address allegations that Funtanilla was derelict in the performance of his duties during an inbound transit to the port of Bahrain, when his ship allided with a buoy. The misjudgments associated with this incident called into question Funtanilla's ability to continue to effectively and safely lead his command. As a...

Bud Selig would probably prefer to fly obliviously above the fray, but next year's All-Star Game at Chase Field has been thrust into the controversy over Arizona's new SB 1070 immigration law. Because of the racial profiling aspects of the law, the Daily Kos has called for Selig to pull the Midsummer Classic and all of its associated revenue from the state. So, too, has Change.org, which has created an online petition that will be sent to baseball executives and a Twitter hashtag #AZMLBB to focus the protest.

How do I feel? Click the Murtha tab to find out - but until then, our friend Phil can pass the good news.The Navy’s 10th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock will be named for Rep. John Murtha, the long-serving Pennsylvania Democrat who chaired the powerful House appropriations defense subcommittee before he died in February. According to a Navy memorandum obtained by Navy Times, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus notified Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead that he had selected “John P. Murtha” for the previously unnamed LPD 26. It’s the latest example of the Navy breaking a convention for naming...

ABOARD THE USNS SALVOR, Yellow Sea — Clear skies and a billowing sea Saturday were not telling of what was beneath the surface: brutally strong currents, frigid temperatures, and water so murky that divers would barely be able see in front of them if they had to go in. Those conditions, U.S. Navy divers and officials aboard this rescue and salvage ship said, are expected to persist and will make salvaging the wreckage of the South Korean patrol ship Cheonan that mysteriously sank more than a week ago unusually difficult. “This is a very challenging dive scene,” said Capt. Charlie...

Someone vandalized the Alaska Democratic Party headquarters over the weekend, knocking a hole in the front window of the Midtown office, according to Anchorage police. A Democratic Party official, David Metheny, arrived at the office around 11 a.m. Sunday, saw the damage and called police. The window's metal frame was bent and it appeared to have been struck by a hard object, according to Anchorage police Lt. Dave Parker. The office is on Fairbanks Street between Fireweed Lane and Northern Lights Boulevard. The outer pane was broken but not the inner pane. No one got inside the building, according to...

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The military changed its mind and took a group of aging World War II veterans to Iwo Jima on Wednesday. The former Marines, who fought at Iwo Jima 65 years ago, went to the island Wednesday morning on a C-130 aircraft, said 2nd Lt. Lucas Burke, a Marine Corps spokesman on Okinawa, where the group has been staying while in Japan. They joined hundreds of Marines, including Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway, at Iwo Jima for a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the historic 36-day battle. The Pentagon initially denied the veterans’ request for...

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – The military has denied a request from a World War II veterans group for transportation to Iwo Jima this week to commemorate the historic battle that took place there 65 years ago. The Greatest Generation Foundation asked the military for help after a charter plane company that had volunteered to take the group from Okinawa to the battlefield canceled unexpectedly two weeks ago. But Pentagon officials denied the request because it could set a problematic precedent for other nongovernmental agencies that ask for similar assistance, U.S. Pacific Command spokesman Marine Maj. Bradley Gordon said Tuesday...

I know we have a lot of fun back and forth banter on 'ole Sal's front porch. I like disagreement - I like creative friction without conflict - but for an exceptional moment I want to be binary. Can we agree that there is at least 1 thing that is 100% right and 100% wrong for the armed forces of a Representative Republic; the armed forces should never adopt in whole or in an obviously derivative manner any symbol of a domestic political party, organization, or movement? Can we at least find common ground there? Maybe I do need an...

According to a recent poll by a North Carolina research firm, Alaska voters have an unfavorable view of Alaska’s junior Sen. Mark Begich. Public Policy Polling found 35 percent of Alaska respondents in a recent poll have a favorable opinion of the state’s lone Democrat senator, in stark comparison to 51 percent of voters who have an unfavorable view. The firm conducted a poll of 710 Alaskans between Jan. 27-Jan. 28. Public Policy Polling also found Alaska voters have a strongly unfavorable view President Barack Obama. Approximately 56 percent of Alaska voters disapprove of the job the president is doing,...

Link: Kodiak Konfidential A supposedly harmless military explosive casing that was on display for years outside a now-defunct Kodiak bar turned out to have been live, KK reports. Fort Richardson's ordnance disposal team this week traveled to Kodiak to detonate the shell after the owner of the Kodiak Military History Museum determined it was still live. The explosion could be heard in the city. "I guess the upside of the whole story," writes the KK blogger, "is that all these years no drunk drove his truck into the bomb at high speed, OR tossed a seal bomb underneath it on...

NORFOLK Thousands of Hampton Roads sailors received orders this morning to prepare to deploy to Haiti as part of a massive U.S. effort to deliver humanitarian assistance in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating earthquake. At least four Norfolk-based ships are getting ready to leave for the impoverished country, said Ted Brown, a spokesman with Norfolk’s Fleet Forces Command. The amphibious assault ship Bataan, the guided missile cruiser Normandy and the dock landing ships Fort McHenry and Carter Hall will likely leave port by Friday, the Navy said. Expeditionary forces based at the Little Creek campus of the Joint Expeditionary Base...

A group that monitors Islamist Web sites has noted a disturbing trend - Internet posts from prominent contributors discussing attacks on U.S. warships. Online threats against U.S. interests are not uncommon, and Internet propaganda is nothing new, said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute, which translated the posts. But he said the recent posts are more significant because they come in response to an official communique from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group linked to the attempted bombing of a commercial American jetliner on Christmas. It urged followers to kill "Crusaders" on...

A few days of vacation in the Rocky Mountains is a good time to catch up on one’s reading. But if I was looking for escape from the issues on which I spend most of my time, I didn’t find it in Churchill, the brief but penetrating biography by Paul Johnson, who is among the world’s greatest living historians. In particular, Johnson’s account of the 1930s holds up an eerie mirror to the present. Johnson notes that when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, most Europeans failed to recognize either the nature or the gravity...

TOKYO — Two homemade mortar launchers found within possible striking distance of Naval Air Facility Atsugi on Wednesday are being investigated as a planned guerrilla attack, Japanese police said. The time-triggered devices contained projectiles and were found at 10:20 a.m. in a wooded area about 500 yards north of the main base gate in Ayase City by a Japanese neighbor, a Kanagawa Prefectural Police spokesman said Wednesday. No projectiles had been launched from the devices, the spokesman said. Further details on the launchers and whether the projectiles were explosive were unavailable Wednesday, according to the spokesman. Police suspect an attack...

SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Two minesweepers that arrived here on temporary rotation last summer will make a permanent home in Sasebo, the U.S. Navy announced Wednesday. The USS Avenger and USS Defender, both from San Diego, will remain here after a review found it would be better to keep the two minesweepers in Sasebo rather than regularly rotate ships in from the United States, the Navy said. Both ships had been in Sasebo for about six months and will join the base’s two other forward-deployed mine ships, the USS Patriot and the USS Guardian. The change was not due...