Alaska's GOP-controlled House just passed a bill which, if passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, would make it illegal for federal law enforcement officers to enforce federal gun laws.

ADN:

In a chamber dotted with female legislators wearing new camo scarves, the state House on Monday passed a gun measure that is wildly popular among the GOP-controlled Legislature even though it raises serious constitutional issues.

House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, is the prime sponsor of House Bill 69, which passed 31-5 on Monday after a lengthy and impassioned debate.

It declares that guns and ammunition possessed by Alaskans are exempt from federal gun laws. It also subjects federal agents to felony charges if they try to enforce any future federal ban on semi-automatic weapons or ammunition or enforce any new federal requirement for gun registration.

A legal opinion from a legislative lawyer said the measure likely is unconstitutional. When federal and state laws conflict, the U.S. Constitution declares that federal law is supreme, legislative counsel Kathleen Strasbaugh wrote in a Jan. 30 memorandum.

They don't care that it's likely unconstitutional. In fact, their response was to say "they had a duty to stand up for Second Amendment rights and won't bow down to the Federal government on this."

Democratic Representative Andy Josephson delivered a passionate rebuttal:

Mr. Speaker, we decided in 1955 to submit a state constitution. We joined the team. Our star is on the flag. I see it there. We didn't have to do that. We demanded it. We implored our 48 sisters, because Hawaii wasn't admitted yet, our 48 brothers and sisters, let us join this great team. And, you know, I care greatly about my state. but I'm very proud to be an American. Very proud. And for the court to say an administration law is constitutional, it is. I think this is successionist talk. That's what i think it is.

Yes, it is secessionist talk. It's nullification, which is not a legitimate way to stand against something you don't agree with. Nullification has been tried throughout the ages, from the Civil War to Jim Crow laws to Obamacare.

This is the Republican party of the north and the south today. They're vile, and violent, and waiting for a reason to start another war, only this time it will be over one black man, instead of millions.

State: Alaska

Type of election: Caucus

How it works: 24 delegates are at stake and are awarded proportionately.

Official election results: Alaska Division of Elections

Republican candidates: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum (all others have dropped out or are polling at less than 1 percent)

Democratic candidates: There is no Democratic presidential caucus.

Previous performance: In 2008, Romney won the caucus with 36 percent of the vote. Paul finished third with 15.5 percent. Obama won the Democratic caucus with 75 percent of the vote.

Newspapers: Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage Press, full list

Television stations: Full list

Progressive blogs: Mudflats

Latest polling: Basically no polling has been done on the caucus.

Nate Silver says the state will split relatively equally between Romney and Paul, with Santorum coming in third,

Bottom line: This looks to be the one place where Paul has a shot at a victory. It won't really matter, though, in the big picture.

State: Georgia

Type of election: Primary

How it works: 76 delegates are at stake. 31 are awarded statewide proportionately to candidates who get at least 20 percent of the vote. The remaining are awarded three per congressional district, where a majority candidate gets all three or if there is no majority, the delegates are given to the top two candidates 2-1.

Official election results: Georgia Secretary of State

Republican candidates: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum (all others have dropped out or are polling at less than 1 percent)

Democratic candidates: Barack Obama and minor candidates.

Previous performance: In 2008, Romney finished third to Mike Huckabee with 30 percent of the vote. Paul finished fourth with just under 3 percent. Obama won the primary with 66 percent.

Newspapers: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, full list

Television stations: Full list

Progressive blogs: Blog for Democracy

Latest polling: New York Times:

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In recent years, state pension funds and other social insurance funds lost $477 billion dollars. One of the key reasons for the decline was the recession, a direct result of conservative policies and a huge decline in tax revenues and other fees to the states, which declined half a trillion dollars in 2009 alone.

California suffered one of the biggest losses in 2009, with $136 billion being lost from their pension fund, 21 percent of national losses that year, despite having only 12 percent of the national population. The state lost nearly $100 billion the year before that.

The conventional wisdom response to the pension losses is to claim that it shows that pensions are too expensive and we should get rid of them. The problem with that is that if state governments invested money more wisely and raised revenue in a responsible way, the pensions are easy to fund and, more importantly, they are part of the promise that has already been made to state workers. These pensions are part of the compensation that was offered to workers to get them to take on jobs that are vital and often thankless. Cutting pensions effectively means cutting compensation for state employees, who are already under assault from every direction. It also means that we, as a society, renege on our promises and it means that high quality employees are likely to find work elsewhere, something that drives down the quality of services provided by government, further eroding the economy and the quality of life of all Americans.

Beyond this, the problem is that most of the losses were avoidable. Poor investments have been a major problem. States like Ohio and New York are suing BP for misleading investors, including state pension funds, about the state of the company even prior to the Deepwater Horizon spill. And investing in BP was far from the only bad investment choice made by states.

A much bigger problem has been a lack of regulation on investments and with the companies that make them and the agencies that rate them. So much fraud, deception and other crimes have been committed by these entities that the list of lawsuits currently in the works is too long to print in full.

Alaska is suing Mercer. California is suing Countrywide. And Standard and Poor's. And the New York Stock Exchange. Chicago and Atlanta are suing Northern Trust. Detroit is suing UBS. New Jersey is suing Lehman. Ohio is suing Wachovia. Oregon is suing Countrywide. We could go on and on.

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I read Joe McGinniss’ The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin. I read the whole thing. Cover to cover. It was not sensational. It was not tabloid-esque. It was not trash. It was what the cover claimed – the search for the real Sarah Palin. She has this thing with telling the truth – she doesn’t do it. Nearly ever. She just, as she says about others “makes stuff up.” This personality trait has been documented over and over again in the press. Perhaps this is why Palin reflexively attacks - not the message or the messenger – but the entire medium and whole idea of journalism and mass communication...often on national television.

So it’s a legitimate question: who is this woman?

Thanks to a sadistic editor from The Atlantic (she’ll say I volunteered, which is exactly what a sadist would say), I watched the entire two-hour misnomer Palin infomercial, The Undefeated at RightOnline this year. That was not the real Sarah Palin. That was 120-minutes of dog whistles and patriotic stock footage which tens of people ending up paying to see in the theater.

I don’t understand the immediate dismissal of McGinniss’ book by the left. It’s weird. Keith Olbermann decided to side with Palin’s opinion of the tome on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday. “But most of the stuff in there, why is it relevant, what’s the point of it, and how well-sourced is it?” asked the host of Countdown.

First off: anonymous sources, while they may not be the most optimal way to write a book, are very common. Journalists often “protect their sources,” some have even gone to jail for it. And for someone who’s as vengeful and vindictive as Sarah Palin, it’s more than understandable people wouldn’t want their names used. Alaska is a small state (as far as people go). Also, the entire book is not anonymous. Plenty of people risked the wrath of Sarah to dish about her to McGinniss.

The filmmaker of Sarah Palin – You Betcha, Nick Broomfield, came across the same fear of retribution if anyone they interviewed said anything negative about the Palins. So asking how well-sourced a book about a bully is, candidly, siding with the bully.

The only new and notable thing in Rogue was Sarah hooking up with Glen Rice when she was in college and a short anecdote about her doing cocaine. Two things that make her seem much more appealing and credible than anything she’s ever said publicly or had ghostwritten about herself.

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Well, here's an interesting little email (PDF) in the newly-released Sarah Palin collection.

In late June, 2008 around the time oil prices skyrocketed due to what we now understand to be rampant speculation, Koch Industries reached out to Lisa Murkowski and used her to reach out to Sarah Palin. Here's the text of Murkowski's letter to Palin:

While I know it may seem paradoxical for an oil refinery to be facing significant losses at this time of record crude oil and gasoline/diesel prices, I am writing to ask you and your administration to immediately undertake a new review of the equity of the state's current royalty oil contract with Flint Hills Resources , which runs the state's largest oil refinery at North Pole.

As you well know the Flint Hills refinery, owned by Koch Industries, is vital to Alaska's economy for a host of reasons. Not only does the refinery employ 155 residents in the Fairbanks area , one of the largest manufacturing employers left in the state, the refinery also produces significant amounts of aviation fuel, which is one of the key reasons why the state's air cargo transshipment industry has boomed in the past decade at both the Anchorage and Fairbanks International Airports. Those shipments also constitute a vital revenue source for the state-owned Alaska Railroad. If the refinery were to close due to its losses, or simply convert into a fuel distributor of imported product, it would deny Alaskans of about 60 percent of their locally produced fuel, potentially requiring the state to purchase more expensive fuel from refineries in the Lower 48 States, further hiking prices for gasoline and other fuels - something that simply should not be allowed to happen at this time of record energy prices throughout the State.

I understand fully that there have been issues with the willingness of the refinery's parent company to fully "open their books" so that the state can confirm the actual level of losses that the refinery is facing. I would hope that a confidentiality agreement could be reached quickly should new negotiations open concerning revisions to the 2004 contract so that the State can fully inspect the financial health of the refinery. Given the fundamental importance of the refinery to the state's economy, I encourage the state to consider contract revision talks that could benefit the State overall and the Fairbanks economy in particular.

I know how busy you must be this summer and I thank you for your consideration of this important matter at this time of record fuel prices nationwide. Best wishes.

Now, June, 2008 also happened to be when the murmuring for Palin to be nominated as John McCain's running mate was growing louder and stronger. Interesting timing, that.

John Katz, Palin's federal/state liason and special counsel, wrote this back in response:

The bottom line for us is that Tom Irwin and his staff are ready and willing to talk with Koch at any time, the gas pipeline notwithstanding. Recently, Tom stated this publically and, I believe, to Flint Hills directly. However, it is critical that Koch be willing to open its books, and they have been reluctant thus far.

At the moment, the State receives a $1 per barrel premium on royalty oil sold to Flint Hills. It is my understanding that the premium has crept up over the years and will likely be reviewed soon.

There were also some forwards of a staff conversation mentioned, but not attached. However, there was this comment at the end of Katz' forward of the entire email exchange to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources:

p.s. I don't normally forward exchanges with staff level people in the delegation, but I wanted you to get a flavor of the impact that Koch has had.

That's certainly an understatement.

Ed Rollins is a longtime Republican operative who back in 2009 had this to say about Sarah Palin: Ed Rollins on Sarah Palin quitting: It was a disaster and insulting

He started his career in politics back in the days of Nixon to Reagan and then he was hired by Huckabee in 2008 as his national campaign chairman. He was interviewed in the documentary called Boogie Man, about the life of Lee Atwater, the man responsible for the Willie Horton ads in which he talked about his friendship to Lee.

Rollins is considered a pro in GOPtopia:

National Campaign Director to Ronald Reagan in the 1984. In 1987, he had decided to manage the campaign of former New York Congressman Jack Kemp, convinced that Bush was not the true conservative heir to Reagan.
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On December 14, 2007, Republican Mike Huckabee announced he had hired Rollins as his national campaign chairman and senior advisor. Rollins was later overheard saying that he wanted to "knock out" Mitt Romney's teeth.

Rollins is now part of Bachmann's team and had this to say about Momma Grizzly:

Michele Bachmann's new top consultant, Ed Rollins, began his tenure with scathing criticism of potential Bachmann rival Sarah Palin.

"Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years," Rollins told Brian Kilmeade on his radio show, Kilmeade and Friends. "She got the Vice Presidential thing handed to her, she didn't go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance, she gave up her governorship."

He suggested that the contrast would favor Bachmann.

"Michele Bachmann and others [have] worked hard, she has been a leader of the Tea Party which is a very important element here, she has been an attorney, she has done important things with family values."

"She is probably the best communicator [in the GOP field] now that Mike Huckabee's not in there," he said.

Ed called her out on quitting her job as Governor of Alaska which virtually no Republican has dared to do before.

And so it begins.

We know Rep. Don Young of Alaska was not one of the two Republicans who forgot to take the oath of office on Jan. 6. But the question bears asking anyway: Does Young need to reaffirm his oath to the Constitution?

We've been wondering because Young actually signed a revolutionary oath concocted by militia organizer Schaeffer Cox -- the Alaska militiaman arrested last week for plotting to kill cops and a couple of judges -- declaring that the signers would refuse to recognize any new federal taxes or gun laws: "[T]he duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them and institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to us shall seem most likely to effect our safety and happiness."

David Holthouse at Media Matters' Political Correction has the rundown:

A video posted online in June 2009 shows Alaska Congressman Don Young signing a revolutionary "Letter of Declaration" written by Alaska militia leader Schaeffer Cox, who was arrested yesterday along with four compatriots for allegedly plotting to kidnap and murder Alaska State Troopers and a Fairbanks judge.

"Let it be known that should our government seek to further tax, restrict or register firearms ... thus impairing our ability to exercise the God-given right to self-defense that precedes all human legislation and is superior to it, that the duty of us good and faithful people will not be to obey them but to alter or abolish them," reads the declaration that Rep. Young signed.

So the folks at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence is putting together a petition demanding that Young clarify his position vis a vis his oath to uphold the Constitution and the federal office he holds.

As CSGV's Josh Horowitz puts it:

"It is simply unacceptable for a sitting member of Congress to sign a document calling for violence against the government of the United States. We call on Rep. Don Young to do the right thing and repudiate this repugnant document. "

You can sign here.

As Holthouse explained:

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The details about Schaeffer Cox, the Alaska militiaman arrested in a plot to kill and kidnap state troopers and local judges, are starting to emerge -- and they have a distinctly familiar ring to them. From the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner:

Details emerge in alleged plot to kill Alaska State Troopers judge

State court documents made available Friday detail the murders and kidnappings allegedly planned by Schaeffer Cox and militia followers as well as the secret FBI recordings that helped expose the plan.

The plan, which members of Cox’s Peacemakers Militia reportedly code-named “241” (two for one), was created as a potential retaliatory response to any attempt by law enforcement to arrest Cox, who had an outstanding bench warrant for not attending a trial over a misdemeanor weapons charge.

Under the plan, Cox and other militia members would kidnap two law enforcement officers or court officials for every militia member arrested. They would kill two officials in retaliation for every militia member killed in any conflict with authorities.

The document accuses the group of assembling an arsenal that included pineapple grenades allegedly stolen from Fort Wainwright, multiple tripod-mounted machine guns and “dozens of other high-powered assault rifles and pistols.” The court documents don’t say whether search warrants for the weapons were obtained, or if the weapons have been seized.

Most of the information in the charging documents come from private militia “command staff” meetings “lawfully recorded by the FBI through technological means available to them.”

Four of the five defendants accused of conspiring to murder and kidnap are described discussing the plan in a 17-page criminal complaint. Besides Cox, the co-defendants are Coleman Barney, 36, of the North Pole area and Salcha residents Lonnie Vernon, 55 his wife and Karen Vernon, 66.

It's abundantly clear that Cox is following the career of so many "sovereign citizens" before him -- from Gordon Kahl to Randy and Vicki Weaver to Jerry and Joe Kane: You start out as a laughable loony nutcase who believes in an alternative universe constructed of provably untrue conspiracy theories, and you end up a violent, extremist nutcase willing to gun down federal officers.

You can observe this gradual but inexorable career arc just in the videos Cox made before his arrest, including the above interview with a fundamentalist pastor made in January. In it, you can hear Cox's violent fantasies starting to bubble up, even as he claims to have 3,500 members in his Alaska militia organization:

COX: If there came a time where they were endangering my family, you bet I would kill those federal agents. And what kind of a father and husband would I be if I wouldn't? Would I sacrifice my family on the altar of submission to the wicked state? No, that would be despicable, we would highly criticize anybody who did that, stood by and watched in history. And we've got to reckon with the fact that that's our time right now.

Now, we have those agents -- with 3500 guys we have tremendous resources at our disposal. And we had those guys under 24-hour surveillance -- the six trouble-causers that came up from the federal government. And we could have had them killed within 20 minutes of giving the order. But we didn't because they had not yet done it.

Of course, you will notice that since Cox's arrest, those supposed 3500 militiamen have been pretty nonexistent on the scene, and none of the law-enforcement officers involved in his arrest have been subject to any kind of retaliation at all.

You can also hearing him make the usual disclaimers that they kick out any "violent" types from militias -- which, as always, are about as reliable as the Minutemen's similar disclaimers.

Dermot Cole at the News-Miner has more details on Cox's background:

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It's hard to say why it happened, but all of a sudden Bill O'Reilly decided last night to stop tossing Sarah Palin the usual softball questions and Hannity Jobs she's become accustomed to during her tenure at Fox News. He asked her to finally get specific instead of bloviating in vague generalities about where and how she's achieve the budget cuts she's calling for.

It made for the entertaining sight of the Mama Grizzly growling growling at the Poppa Bear:

O'REILLY: Wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait I just want to be very clear. So 55, anybody over keeps the social security that they have coming to them, but younger --

(CROSS TALK)

PALIN: When we --

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: -- or whatever the revision is?

PALIN: -- when we talk about increasing -- when we talk about increasing the retirement age, there is a good proposal on the table, a good idea to look at age 55 that all of this does have to be looked at.

But we need to quit assuming that government can, better than we as individuals, plan our retirement for us than our security they're stating - -

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: Ok, I got -- I got all that.

(CROSS TALK)

PALIN: -- and we need to --

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: -- but I got to get specific here, Governor. All right, so what you're saying is instead of 52 it goes to 55. So you can't draw on it until 55. Some people want mandatory retirement age where you would have to take it raised up to about 67.

Are you for that? Do you want to raise that mandatory age to 67 retirement? Is that --

(CROSS TALK)

PALIN: Everything -- everything is going to have to change for those who are enrolled in the program now and will be enrolled in the program now. But we do not change the pension benefit --

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: I -- I agree. The people who --

(CROSS TALK)

PALIN: -- of those who are receiving it now and that what's people care --

O'REILLY: -- brought in and the people who need it --

(CROSS TALK)

PALIN: And I really apologize that up here in Alaska we have the four second delay. So it's -- it's not an easy exchange --

(CROSS TALK)

O'REILLY: Ok.

PALIN: -- to try to -- to try to get my point across to you if you interrupt.

I gather that O'Reilly can interrupt President Obama 48 times in 10 minutes, and it's OK, but Heaven help the man who dares interrupt the Shrilla From Wasilla.

If there's anything O'Reilly hates, it's being lectured to by his guests -- that's his job, after all. So after Palin kept spouting meaningless, vague talking points, he kept going after her. In the end, he finally produced Palin's acknowledgement that she's in the "So Be It" camp when it comes to taking care of America's poor and unemployed:

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Sarah Palin's still pushing hard on her "drill baby drill" mantra hard, especially in terms of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, which she can barely wait to open up for drilling and a new pipeline. She went on Greta Van Susteren's show on Thanksgiving Day to criticize "the extreme politicians over on the left who want to buy into those extreme environmentalists who claim that there's no way you can responsibly develop a plot of land that was set aside for oil and gas development" -- particularly President Obama:

SARAH PALIN: Well, Obama needs to get up here. If he has as much time as he has on his hands to take all these vacations, maybe he should vacation in ANWR. At least fly over it, Mr. President, or play -- you know, play golf or do what he does. This is a national security need. This is -- there's that inherent link between security and our own domestic development. I think it's inexcusable that our president won't come up here and look at it.

Does anyone know what Palin's talking about here? Earlier this summer, Republicans tried attacking Obama for taking a vacation, until the WaPo pointed out that Obama at that point had taken far fewer days of vacation than his predecessor, the inimitable proprietor of the Lazy W Ranch in Crawford:

Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.

By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there.

Indeed, FactCheck found that Obama also took less vacation time than the revered Saint Ronnie, too -- though more than those lazy liberal Democrats, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Maybe Palin has in mind Obama's trip to Asia, since her pal Michele Bachmann had gone on national TV and lied about its magnitude and cost -- even though its utter falsity was quickly established.

Indeed, the wingnuts of the wingnutosphere have insisted on referring to it as Obama's "vacation" in India. They were helped along in this by Glenn Beck, who described the trip as "$2 billion for ten days so [Obama] can go see the festival of lights."

BECK: All on the heels of his wife's lavish trip to Spain, now our president is planning another lavish trip. And our dollar is losing value and the Chinese are warning us. The media again is missing it. The bickering today back and forth about how many hundreds or maybe -- maybe billions of dollars this is going to cost to insure the president's security but no one is asking, "Wait a minute, it could cost up to $2 billion to make sure he's safe? Then why is he -- has he seen the Grand Canyon?"

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