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      Sarah Palin announces run for US Congress in Alaska

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      Sarah Palin announces run for US Congress in AlaskaThe former governor says she will ‘combat the left’s socialist, big-government, America-last agenda’ Sarah Palin has announced her run for Alaska’s only seat in the US House of Representatives, marking her first run for public office in over a decade.“America is at a tipping point,” Palin said in a statement released on her Twitter account announcing her candidacy. “As I’ve watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight.“At this critical time in our nation’s history, we need leaders who will combat the left’s socialist, big-government, America-last agenda,” she said.It will be Palin’s first political campaign since serving as John McCain’s running mate in a campaign that saw Barack Obama elected president in November 2008.Fiery, anti-establishment rhetoric came to define Palin’s vice-presidential campaign, which served as a precursor to the rise of Donald Trump and the modern Republican party.Alaska’s House seat became vacant after the Republican Don Young died suddenly last month at age 88 after serving for more than four decades. Young had held Alaska’s House seat since 1973 and was seeking re-election at the time of his death.Sarah Palin requests new trial after losing New York Times defamation caseRead morePalin is shaking up an already unpredictable race for Alaska’s lone US House seat, where she joins a field of at least 40 candidates. The field includes current and former state legislators and a North Pole city council member named Santa Claus.Palin, a former governor of Alaska, has kept a low profile in Alaska politics since leaving office in 2009, before her term as governor ended.A special primary is set for 11 June. The top four vote-getters will advance to a 16 August special election in which ranked-choice voting will be used, a process in line with a new elections system approved by voters in 2020. The winner will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which expires in January.Others who filed their paperwork by the Friday deadline include the Republican state senator Josh Revak; the Democratic state representative Adam Wool; the independent Al Gross, an orthopedic surgeon who unsuccessfully ran for US Senate in 2020; and Andrew Halcro, a former Republican state lawmaker who is running as an independent. They join a field that includes the Republican Nick Begich, who had positioned himself as a challenger to Young; the Democrat Christopher Constant, an Anchorage assembly member; and John Coghill, a Republican former state lawmaker.Meanwhile, a man who years ago legally changed his name to Santa Claus and serves on the North Pole city council also filed with the state division of elections for the special primary. Claus, who said he had a “strong affinity” for Bernie Sanders, is running as an independent.He said he is not soliciting or raising money. He said the new elections process “gives people like me an opportunity, without having to deal with parties, to throw our hat in the ring”.“I do have name recognition,” he said with a laugh. TopicsSarah PalinUS CongressAlaskaRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Race to Replace Don Young Is Set to Be a Fascinating Political Experiment

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      The election to fill the seat of the Alaska congressman, who died last week, promises to be a Yukon adventure. It’s also a fascinating political experiment in the making.How do you replace a man who once willingly put his hand in a steel trap during a congressional hearing until it turned blue? Who waggled an 18-inch walrus penis bone at a top administration official? Who held a knife to the throat of a fellow lawmaker?How, in sum, do you replace Don Young?The death of Representative Young at age 88 last week leaves a void that won’t easily be filled, Alaskan political insiders tell us. Young was the longest-serving Republican in the history of Congress, a living relic who decorated his House office with stuffed animal trophies and larded his speech with profanity. He cultivated the image of a crude frontiersman in Washington while protecting Alaska’s extractive industries and, as our colleague Emily Cochrane writes today, steering billions of federal dollars to pet projects back home.Young flouted ethics rules with abandon. Regulators once forced him to repay nearly $60,000 for trips to hunting lodges that had been financed through campaign money. On another occasion, he was accused of taking bribes, though no formal charges were brought against him. His irascible outbursts often got him into trouble, as when he referred to Latino immigrants with an ethnic slur or when, before an audience of high school students, he used a profane term for anal sex when describing a photography exhibit.In a replacement, Alaskans are looking for “someone who will go to Washington, give the bureaucrats hell and bring home the pork,” said Michael Carey, a columnist for The Anchorage Daily News and a longtime Young observer. “But I don’t think anybody can wrap themselves in his mythos.”Just days after Young’s death, the race to succeed him is well underway. Friday is the deadline to file official paperwork, and potential candidates are already lining up.Al Gross, a former orthopedic surgeon who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2020, is running as a “nonpartisan.” He is perhaps best known for a goofy music video promoting his candidacy that includes the line, “He’s killed a bear, caught lots of fish, not swayed by party politics” and ends by describing him as “Alaska’s own bear doctor.”John Coghill, a former state senator with ties to the evangelical community, is running as a Republican. Nick Begich III, the Republican scion of Alaskan political royalty, has also indicated that he will enter the race, as has Christopher Constant, an openly gay Democrat who is a member of the Anchorage Assembly.Few expect Sarah Palin, a former Alaska governor and the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, to run. She told Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, last week that she was weighing whether to “throw my hat in the ring,” but made no commitment.Some in the Republican establishment favor Joshua Revak, an Iraq war veteran who previously worked for Young and is now a state senator. There’s also Tara Sweeney, an Alaska Native whose husband, Kevin Sweeney, is a consultant for Senator Lisa Murkowski’s re-election campaign. Tara Sweeney served in the Trump administration as assistant secretary of the interior for Indian affairs.Young’s death came as he faced growing doubts about his political longevity, with the prospect of being squeezed from left and right for the first time.“For years, Don was this untouchable Alaskan institution,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, a political consultant in Anchorage. “He had always been able to turn his fire and intensity on one enemy. But he had never really had to fight a war on two fronts.”Alaska’s political experimentWhoever ultimately decides to run, the House special election to replace Young will be watched closely. For the first time, the state will be using its unique “top four” primary system — and Alaskans aren’t sure what to expect.In the first round of the special election, to be held on June 11, every candidate appears on the same ballot. Voters each pick one candidate, and the four top vote-getters move ahead to the special general election, scheduled for Aug. 16. Voters then rank up to four favorites, including a write-in option. If no one earns an outright majority, election officials eliminate the lowest-ranking candidate, repeating the process up to three times until there is a winner.Supporters of the system say it will break the stranglehold political parties have over primary elections, give voters more choices and create incentives for bipartisan cooperation.“We’re already seeing more and different kinds of names, which is great for voters,” said Jason Grenn, the executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit group that promotes the top-four system.Some confusion might be inevitable. In a quirk of scheduling prompted by Young’s death, the regular open primary for his seat will be held the same day as the special general election for his seat. That means Alaskans will be choosing someone to represent them in Washington for the next two years even as they also choose someone to represent them for the remainder of 2022. It could be the same person — or someone completely different. Senator Lisa Murkowski is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe Murkowski factorThe top-four system will also be used in Alaska’s Senate election, a fact that has spawned accusations of political intrigue.Former President Donald Trump has made it his mission to oust Murkowski, who is defending her seat against Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican challenger. Murkowski was one of only seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during the impeachment trial last year, earning her a rebuke from the state’s Republican Party. As an incumbent, she has the backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, pitting the party’s establishment against its Trump wing.Tshibaka’s campaign team claims that the top-four system, which was adopted by ballot initiative in 2020, was devised to aid Murkowski’s re-election.There’s little evidence of that, though Kathryn Murdoch, an independent donor who helped fund the ballot initiative, said in an interview this month that the top-four system “allows Lisa Murkowski to be herself instead of worrying about her extreme right flank.”The claim prompts a chuckle from supporters of the system, who say that it is meant to alleviate the gridlock that often paralyzes Alaskan politics, and that it is not a product of Washington power games.“I haven’t talked to Lisa Murkowski in three or four years,” said Grenn, who is also a former state legislator. “There are no dark shadows behind the scenes.”What to read Republicans in Florida and Ohio are pushing for a greater advantage on their congressional maps.President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023 includes about $45 billion to take on climate change, which will be crucial to setting U.S. policy ahead of the midterms.California leaders are drafting legislation to help make the state a sanctuary for transgender youths and for people seeking abortions, as conservative states move forward with anti-abortion and anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws.Federal prosecutors and congressional investigators have found growing evidence that a tweet by Donald Trump in December 2020 urging supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 was a catalyst for far-right militants.briefing bookJustice Clarence Thomas with his wife, Virginia Thomas, before he spoke at the conservative Heritage Foundation in October.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesThe ballad of Clarence and GinniCongressional investigators want to know why Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged conspiracy-theory-tinged texts with Trump administration officials about overturning the 2020 election in the weeks leading up to the Capitol riot. Democrats are calling for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from any Supreme Court cases about the events of Jan. 6, while they press for more details about her involvement in that day’s drama.To better understand this unorthodox Washington pair, we chatted with Danny Hakim, an investigative reporter for The New York Times who recently wrote, with Jo Becker, a deeply reported Times Magazine article on the Thomases. Here’s our conversation:What first sparked your interest in them as a couple?The court has really moved toward Justice Thomas in the post-Trump era, since the pick of Amy Coney Barrett took place in the waning days of the Trump administration. For years, Justice Thomas was known for solo dissents or sharply written dissenting opinions, but now some of those might become majority opinions as the court’s dynamics have tilted.At the same time, his wife was a hard-line activist on the fringes of the party before she flourished in the Trump era, to the point she had direct access to the president. She has remained an important figure in the Trump wing of the party.There’s a line in your article that mentions that Ginni Thomas was in a group she later denounced as a “cult.” Were you able to learn anything more about her time there?The group was called Lifespring, and it was popular for a while. The best story I read about it was a 1987 piece in The Washington Post by Marc Fisher, who went to some meetings. The group would sort of break you down and get you crying and then try to build you back up, but it was quite controversial. One trainee told Fisher it was “like an enema of your emotions.”Ms. Thomas took part in the group in the early 1980s and then rejected it. And she took Clarence Thomas with her to at least one meeting of an anti-cult group that she attended in the wake of her departure from Lifespring.Ginni Thomas refers to her “best friend” in one of the texts that has emerged. Is it a leap to assume that’s a reference to her husband?We can’t say for sure, but they have used that kind of language when they describe each other. In his memoir, Justice Thomas refers to his wife as his “best friend.” She has called him “the best man walking the face of the Earth,” and friends of theirs whom we talked with told us they referred to each other that way. Justice Thomas has gone even further and called the two of them “one being — an amalgam.”Is your sense that Ginni Thomas is someone whose advice carries weight in the Republican Party, or is she someone who is humored because of her political connections and because of who her husband happens to be?It’s a good question. I think both. Her proximity to Justice Thomas is central to her influence, and it’s the reason she got the access she did to the Trump White House. She does not hesitate to invoke her husband’s name in her interactions with party officials and activists.At the same time, while establishment Republicans are often exasperated by her and see some of her views as outlandish, she does have a following among the hard-line wing of the party that is so prominent now, and she has spent years working in Washington alongside people like Steve Bannon to move the party to the right.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Our favorite photos from 2021: how Guardian US pictures captured a historic year

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      Our photographers captured many moving and inspirational moments in 2021. Here’s our pick of the most striking imagesby Gail Fletcher and Alvin ChangIn 2021, our photographers told some of the most profound stories in America. They captured personal moments, like a man assessing the remnants of his home after Hurricane Ida. There were inspirational stories, like how a majority Black high school created a girls lacrosse team during the pandemic. And there were historic scenes, like the lead-up to the presidential inauguration just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results. Thank you to all the photographers who worked with us this year.US cities are suffocating in the heat. Now they want retributionThe city of Baltimore is suing oil and gas companies for their role in the climate crisis, which has had an outsized impact on community of color. The image below shows Karen Lewis, who says her row house in Baltimore can get so hot that sometimes she has trouble breathing.Photographer: Greg KahnBallparks, stadiums and race tracks: US mass vaccination sites – in picturesPhotographer Filip Wolak took aerial photos of mass Covid-19 vaccination sites around the US. The Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta was selected as one of Georgia’s four mass vaccination sites beginning 22 February 2021.Photographer: Filip WolakAfter slavery, oystering offered a lifeline. Now sewage spills threaten to end it allRaw sewage leaks in Virginia have threatened the livelihoods of the few remaining Black oyster-people on the east coast. These leaks can be seen draining through neighborhoods, like this culvert that connects the historic African American Pughsville neighborhood to the larger drainage system. Below is five-year-old Braxton Miller swinging above the water.Photographer: Alyssa SchukarA quiet revolution: the female imams taking over an LA mosqueIn some mosques, women aren’t allowed to pray in the same room as men; in some mosques, women can’t even pray inside. But female imams in Los Angeles are pushing those boundaries with mixed congregation mosques and LBGTQ mosques, and using their sermons to talk about topics like sexual violence and pregnancy loss. Below are Nurjahan Boulden, Tasneem Noor and Samia Bano after praying together in Venice, California.Photographer: Anna BoyiazisThe preparation for an inauguration like no other – a photo essayThe Guardian asked photographer Jordan Gale to document the lead-up to the presidential inauguration, which happened just weeks after insurrectionists tried to overturn the election results on 6 January 2021. Below are steel gates blocking off parts of Pennsylvania Avenue leading up to the US Capitol and a woman looking through a security checkpoint.Photographer: Jordan GaleSalmon face extinction throughout the US west. Blame these four damsFour closely spaced damns in eastern Washington state are interfering with salmon migration. Below, salmon are seen swimming through the viewing area at Lower Granite Dam Fish Ladder Visitor Center in Pomeroy, Washington.Photographer: Mason TrincaThe California mothers fighting for a home in a pandemic – photo essayIn this photo essay about the precarious nature of America’s safety net, Cherokeena Robinson, 32 – who lost her job during the pandemic – lays in bed with her son Mai’Kel Stephens, 6, at their transitional house in San Pedro, California that they share with one or two other families at a time.Photographer: Rachel BujalskiA tiny Alaska town is split over a goldmine. At stake is a way of lifeIn Haines, Alaska, a mining project promised jobs, but some are worried contamination from the mine could destroy the salmon runs they rely on. In the photo below, a seagull flies above hundreds of spawning chum salmon on a slough of the Chilkat River, just below the Tlingit village of Klukwan.Photographer: Peter Mather‘Sad and so unfair’: Palestinian Americans celebrate a painful EidFor Palestinian American Muslims, the conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is supposed to be a time of celebration. This year, the violence in Gaza and Jerusalem made it a somber event. The photo on the left is Tiffany Cabán, who would eventually win a seat on the New York city council. On the tight are Muslim greetings each other after morning Eid al-Fitr prayers.Photographer: Ismail Ferdous‘This is a spectacular chorus’: walk into the cicada explosionTrillions of periodic cicada emerged this year after a 17-year dormancy underground along the eastern US. In the photograph below, cicadas swarm the trees near a home in Columbia, Maryland.Photographer: Gabriella DemczukHow a majority Black school in Detroit shook up the world of lacrosseDetroit Cass Technical high school, where the student body is 85% Black, only offered three spring sports for girls – until a group of girls asked the administration to add lacrosse. It was a unique request; while it’s a Native American game, most participants are white. This story is about this team’s two-year journey to get on the field and, eventually, win. Below, clockwise, are Kayla Carroll-Williams, 15, Zahria Liggans, 18, Alexia Carroll-Williams, 17, and Deja Crenshaw, 18.Photographer: Sylvia JarrusA chemical firm bought out these Black and white US homeowners – with a significant disparityIn 2012, the South African chemical firm Sasol announced plans to build a complex in Mossville, Louisiana. They bought out the homes of people who lived on that land, but an analysis found that they offered significantly less money to Black homeowners than white homeowners. The image on the right shows Eyphit Hadnot, 58, and his older brother Dellar Hadnot, 61. The Hadnot family lived in Mossville for 80 years when Sasol offered them the buyout, which they rejected. On the left is a plot of land where a home used to stand before Sasol leveled the building.Photographer: Christian K Lee‘Ida is not the end’: Indigenous residents face the future on Louisiana’s coast – photo essayThe communities of Pointe-aux-Chenes and Isle de Jean Charles suffered some of Hurricane Ida’s worst destruction. That left then with a hard question: Stay to rebuild, or leave? The photo shows Kip de’Laune searching for any salvageable items at his home in Point-Aux-Chenes after Hurricane Ida.Photographer: Bryan TarnowskiShe survived Hurricane Sandy. Then climate gentrification hitAfter Hurricane Sandy, Kimberly White Smalls hoped the city would help her rebuild her home in New York’s Far Rockaway neighborhood. Instead, the only option she was left with was to sell the house to the city. Below are Smalls’ grandsons – Donovan E Smalls, 9, left, and Kelsey E Smalls Jr, 8 – running down the street in Far Rockaway, Queens.Photographer: Krisanne JohnsonTopicsPhotographyUS politicsCoronavirusClimate crisisCaliforniaAlaskaReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Murkowski Announces Re-election Bid, Setting Up Clash With Trump

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      Of the seven Republicans who found former President Donald J. Trump guilty in his second impeachment trial, the Alaska senator is the only one facing re-election this year.WASHINGTON — Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, announced on Friday that she would seek re-election, formally entering what is expected to be the most expensive and challenging race of her political career after voting to impeach former President Donald J. Trump.Of the seven Republicans who found Mr. Trump guilty of incitement of an insurrection after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Ms. Murkowski is the only one facing re-election in the 2022 midterms. A moderate who has never won a majority of the general election vote in her Republican-leaning state, she is seen as the G.O.P.’s most vulnerable Senate incumbent at a time when there is little tolerance among the party’s core supporters for criticism of the former president or cooperation with President Biden.The race sets up a proxy battle between Mr. Trump, who has endorsed a Republican challenger, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and other Republican leaders, who are backing Ms. Murkowski in her bid for a fourth full term.In a campaign video announcing her re-election bid, Ms. Murkowski made no mention of Mr. Trump, instead highlighting her work on behalf of the state and offering a pointed warning that “lower-48 outsiders are going to try to grab Alaska’s Senate seat for their partisan agendas.”“I’m running for re-election to continue the important work of growing our economy, strengthening our Alaska-based military and protecting our people and the natural beauty of our state,” Ms. Murkowski, a third-generation Alaskan, said. “I will work with anyone from either party to advance Alaska’s priorities.”Ms. Murkowski, first appointed to the Senate in 2002 by her father after he became governor and resigned from the seat, is the second-most-senior Republican woman, after Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who won her own costly re-election bid last year. Ms. Murkowski has established herself as a crucial swing vote with strong relationships in both political parties, most recently helping negotiate the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that Mr. Biden is expected to sign into law next week.It is unclear, however, whether Ms. Murkowski’s record of directing aid and support to her state will be enough to overcome the grip of the former president on her party. Alaska’s Republican Party censured her in March for voting to convict Mr. Trump. The former president endorsed a primary challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, the former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration, who has promoted false theories of voter fraud in the 2020 election and hired a number of former Trump campaign staffers.“Lisa Murkowski is bad for Alaska,” Mr. Trump said in a June statement, after Ms. Murkowski voted to confirm Deb Haaland as Interior secretary. “Murkowski has got to go!”The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm for Senate Republicans, has backed Ms. Murkowski, who also has support of her party leadership. Ms. Murkowski has a long record of bucking her party, having helped to shut down the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, opposed the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and voted for a number of Mr. Biden’s nominees during the first year of his administration.“We support all of our incumbents, and fortunately for us, we’ve got great candidates running in our primaries,” said Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the organization, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But in the same interview, he acknowledged “you’d be foolish not to want and accept Donald Trump’s endorsement.”In 2010, Ms. Murkowski lost a primary race to Joe Miller, a Tea Party candidate, but mounted a successful write-in campaign, becoming the first write-in candidate in more than 50 years to win an election. In January, she told reporters that she would not switch parties, even as she questioned whether she belonged in a Republican Party that was influenced so heavily by Mr. Trump.“As kind of disjointed as things may be on the Republican side, there is no way you could talk to me into going over to the other side,” Ms. Murkowski said at the time. “That’s not who I am; that’s not who I will ever be.”Under a new election system approved a year ago, Ms. Murkowski will first compete in an open primary where the top four candidates will then advance to a ranked-choice general election. More

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      Mike Gravel obituary

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      US politicsMike Gravel obituaryUS senator for Alaska who read out the Pentagon Papers, an official study of the Vietnam war, to put them on the congressional record Michael CarlsonTue 6 Jul 2021 15.12 EDTLast modified on Tue 6 Jul 2021 15.13 EDTMike Gravel, the iconoclastic two-time Democratic US senator from Alaska, who has died aged 91, was best known for the day in 1971 when, in a meeting of the Senate subcommittee on building and grounds, he read for three hours from the Pentagon Papers, and put the entire document into the congressional record.The papers, a 7,000-page official study of the Vietnam war, which contradicted virtually everything the public had been told by successive governments, had been leaked to newspapers by one of its authors, Daniel Ellsberg, but the Nixon administration had won an injunction against their publication.The day after Gravel’s reading, the US supreme court, in New York Times Co v United States, quashed that prior restraint, and the papers were published, including Gravel’s own copy, by Beacon Press.Although he opposed much of US policy abroad, Gravel was also a business-oriented politician, whose major legislative accomplishment in the Senate may have been his exempting the trans-Alaska oil pipeline from the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 introduced by the powerful Democratic senator Henry Jackson.Gravel’s exemption of 1973 needed a casting vote by the Republican vice-president Spiro Agnew to pass. Gravel could be a divisive force in his own party, and after his Senate career ended was often dismissed in Washington as a gadfly, but his shifting positions on the left-right spectrum were not unusual in Alaskan politics, where he also needed to overcome the idea that he remained an outsider.Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was the son of French-Canadian immigrants, Alphonse Gravel, a builder, and Marie (nee Bourassa), and spoke French at home in his early years. He struggled at school – Assumption prep, in Worcester – and at 18 he decided to join the Israeli army fighting in Palestine.In New York, seeking advice on getting to Israel, he met Alexandra Tolstoy, daughter of the novelist, who was involved in helping Russian immigrants. She told him to finish school. He returned to Assumption, where an English teacher helped him cope with dyslexia and coached him to graduation.After a year at Assumption college, and two at American International college back in Springfield, he faced the Korean war draft, and enlisted in the army. He served in Germany and in France, where his knowledge of French saw him assigned to spy on the French Communist party.After his discharge, he gained an economics degree (1956) from the school of general studies at Columbia University, New York. Moving to Alaska, not yet a state, he worked on the railways, sold real estate and became active in the Democratic party. In 1958 he lost his first election campaign, for the territory’s house of representatives. The following year he married Rita Martin, and went into property development. That year, too, Alaska joined the union.In 1962, his firm went bust, but he was elected to the state house, serving as speaker in his second term. In 1968 he entered the US Senate primary against Ernest Gruening, one of only two senators (along with Oregon’s Wayne Morse) to have voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that authorised President Lyndon Johnson to fully involve US forces in Vietnam. Gravel positioned himself as a supporter of the war effort. He won the primary, and despite Gruening running as an independent, then won a three-way race for the Senate.In Washington, Gravel established himself as a critic of the war, twice fighting extensions of the military draft, including once by filibuster. He worked against allowing nuclear testing in Alaska, but also opposed legislation to designate massive amounts of Alaskan land as national parks protected from development. As well as joining Republicans to pass the pipeline, he aligned with conservative southern Democrats to preserve the filibuster they cherished to protect “states’ rights”.In 1972, Gravel published Citizen Power: A People’s Platform, detailing his positions on all major issues. When the presidential candidate George McGovern wanted to have the Democratic convention select his vice-president by a vote, Gravel added to the chaos by nominating himself. McGovern eventually selected Senator Thomas Eagleton as his running-mate (although after revelations he had been treated with electric shock therapy for depression, Eagleton was forced to withdraw).After winning a second term in the Senate in 1974, Gravel faced scandals when a staff memo detailing plans to raise funds from oil companies was leaked, and when he was accused of having been set up in a “sex for votes” scandal (he admitted having the sex, but denied changing a vote), which also cost him his marriage. He was defeated in the 1980 Senate primary by Clark Gruening, Ernest’s grandson, with the help of Republican votes under Alaska’s open primary system. After the Senate, Gravel’s career as a property developer did not flourish; he lost his Senate pension in his 1981 divorce. In 1984 he married Whitney Stewart, an aide to the New York senator Jacob Javits, and her money helped support the couple. Gravel began a foundation to support direct democracy, through referendums, then became chair of the Alexis de Tocqueville Foundation, with similar aims.In 2006 Gravel announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidency, and in the early democratic primary debates stole the show, arguing that US foreign policy was neither altruistic nor defensive in nature. The attention did not translate into funding or votes. He switched to the Libertarian party, to which by now he seemed more naturally attuned, with what was becoming his increasingly populist position, but failed to win their nomination.Although he made gestures toward the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential races, his efforts were hamstrung by his propensity to take the positions, on everything from relations with Iran to UFOs and 9/11 conspiracies, that pushed him into gadfly territory.He became chief executive of a company producing medical marijuana, and in 2018 published an updated edition of People’s Power. In 2020 he used his remaining campaign funds to found the Gravel Institute to promote progressive politics. He is survived by his wife and a son, Martin, and daughter, Lynne, from his first marriage.TopicsUS politicsUS SenateAlaskaobituariesReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Mike Gravel, former Alaska senator and anti-war campaigner, dies aged 91

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      Mike Gravel, a former US senator from Alaska who read the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record and confronted Barack Obama about nuclear weapons during a later presidential run, has died. He was 91.Gravel, who represented Alaska as a Democrat from 1969 to 1981, died on Saturday, according to his daughter, Lynne Mosier. Gravel had been living in Seaside, California, and was in failing health, said Theodore W Johnson, a former aide.Gravel’s two terms came during tumultuous years when construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline was authorized and when Congress was deciding how to settle Alaska Native land claims and whether to classify enormous amounts of federal land as parks, preserves and monuments.He had the unenviable position of being an Alaska Democrat when some residents were burning President Jimmy Carter in effigy for his measures to place large sections of public lands in the state under protection from development.Gravel feuded with Alaska’s other senator, Republican Ted Stevens, on the land matter, preferring to fight Carter’s actions and rejecting Stevens’ advocacy for a compromise. In the end, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980, a compromise that set aside millions of acres for national parks, wildlife refuges and other protected areas. It was one of the last bills Carter signed before leaving office.Gravel’s tenure also was notable for his anti-war activity. In 1971, he led a one-man filibuster to protest the Vietnam-era draft and he read into the Congressional Record 4,100 pages of the 7,000-page leaked document known as the Pentagon Papers, the Defense Department’s history of the country’s early involvement in Vietnam.Gravel re-entered national politics decades after his time in the Senate to twice run for president. Gravel, then 75, and his wife, Whitney, took public transportation in 2006 to announce he was running for president as a Democrat in the 2008 election ultimately won by Obama.He launched his quest for the 2008 Democratic nomination as a critic of the Iraq war.“I believe America is doing harm every day our troops remain in Iraq – harm to ourselves and to the prospects for peace in the world,” Gravel said. He hitched his campaign to an effort that would give all policy decisions to the people through a direct vote, including health care reform and declarations of war.Gravel garnered attention for his fiery comments at Democratic forums. In one 2007 debate, the issue of the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Iran came up, and Gravel confronted Obama, then a senator from Illinois.“Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?” Gravel said.Obama replied: “I’m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike.“Gravel ran as a Libertarian after he was excluded from later debates. In an email to supporters, he said the Democratic party “no longer represents my vision for our great country”.“It is a party that continues to sustain war, the military-industrial complex and imperialism – all of which I find anathema to my views,” he said.He failed to get the Libertarian nomination.Gravel briefly ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020. He again criticized American wars and vowed to slash military spending. His last campaign was notable in that both his campaign manager and chief of staff were just 18 at the time.“There was never any … plan that he would do anything more than participate in the debates. He didn’t plan to campaign, but he wanted to get his ideas before a larger audience,” Johnson said.Gravel failed to qualify for the debates. He endorsed Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the contest eventually won by now-President Joe Biden.Gravel was born Maurice Robert Gravel in Springfield, Massachusetts on 13 May 1930. In Alaska, he served as a state representative, including a stint as House speaker, in the mid-1960s. He won his first Senate term after defeating incumbent Ernest Gruening, a former territorial governor, in the 1968 Democratic primary.Gravel served two terms until he was defeated in the 1980 primary by Gruening’s grandson, Clark Gruening, who lost the election to Republican Frank Murkowski. More

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      in Elections

      Trump endorses Kelly Tshibaka, Murkowski’s challenger in Alaska’s Senate race.

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      Former President Donald J. Trump endorsed Kelly Tshibaka on Friday in her race against Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, giving his support to an outsider candidate who promoted false claims of election fraud last year and has written articles in support of gay conversion therapy.“Lisa Murkowski is bad for Alaska,” Mr. Trump said in a statement, criticizing her vote to confirm Deb Haaland as secretary of the Interior Department. “Murkowski has got to go!”Ms. Murkowski was censured by the Alaska Republican Party in March for her vote to convict Mr. Trump during his second impeachment trial. The state party said it did not want her, a moderate Republican who has represented the state since 2002, to identify as a Republican in the 2022 election.The National Republican Senatorial Committee, however, has endorsed Ms. Murkowski, noting that its position is to defend Republican incumbents.Despite her political vulnerabilities, Ms. Murkowski has overcome challenges from the right before. In 2010, she became the first sitting senator in half a century to win an election as a write-in candidate, defeating a popular Republican nominee aligned with the Tea Party.Ms. Tshibaka, who is little known in the national political arena, served most recently as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration before resigning to run for Senate.Hoping to seize on the popularity of Mr. Trump, who twice won Alaska by wide margins, Ms. Tshibaka has positioned herself as a “MAGA”-loving outsider, promoting false theories of voter fraud in the 2020 election.As a student at Harvard Law School, she endorsed “coming out of homosexuality,” writing approvingly of a day “dedicated to helping homosexuals overcome their sexual tendencies and move towards a healthy lifestyle,” according to archives of her work unearthed by CNN’s KFile. She also urged gay people to participate in “pastoral counseling” and “accountability groups.”More recently, she has hired Mr. Trump’s current advisers and former campaign managers, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, as well as his former campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, as advisers.Mr. Trump has been following the race closely, his advisers said, hoping to unseat Ms. Murkowski. He met with Ms. Tshibaka two weeks ago at Trump Tower, according to a person familiar with the meeting.The top four candidates from Alaska’s all-party primary will advance to a general election, which will be ranked choice. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden suspends Trump-era oil drilling leases in Alaska’s Arctic refuge

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      The Biden administration on Tuesday suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reversing a drilling program approved by Donald Trump and reviving a political fight over a remote region that is home to polar bears and other wildlife – and a rich reserve of oil.The interior department order follows a temporary moratorium on oil and gas lease activities imposed by Joe Biden on his first day in office. Biden’s 20 January executive order suggested a new environmental review was needed to address possible legal flaws in a drilling program approved by the Trump administration under a 2017 law enacted by Congress.After conducting a required review, interior said it “identified defects in the underlying record of decision supporting the leases, including the lack of analysis of a reasonable range of alternatives” required under the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law.The remote, 19.6m-acre refuge is home to polar bears, caribou, snowy owls and other wildlife, including migrating birds from six continents. Republicans and the oil industry have long been trying to open up the oil-rich refuge, which is considered sacred by the indigenous Gwich’in communities, for drilling. Democrats, environmental groups and some Alaska Native tribes have been trying to block it.Bill Clinton vetoed a Republican plan to allow drilling in the refuge in 1995, when he was president, and the two parties have been fighting over the region ever since.The US bureau of land management, an interior department agency, held a lease sale for the refuge’s coastal plain on 6 January, two weeks before Biden took office.Eight days later the agency signed leases for nine tracts totaling nearly 685 sq miles. However, the issuance of the leases was not announced publicly until 19 January, former president Donald Trump’s last full day in office.Biden has opposed drilling in the region, and environmental groups have been pushing for permanent protections, which Biden demanded during the 2020 presidential campaign.The administration’s action to suspend the leases comes after officials disappointed environmental groups last week by defending a Trump administration decision to approve a major oil project on Alaska’s north slope. Critics say the action flies in the face of Biden’s pledges to address climate change.The justice department said in a court filing that opponents of the Willow project in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska were seeking to stop development by “cherry-picking” the records of federal agencies to claim environmental review law violations. The filing defends the reviews underpinning last fall’s decision approving project plans.Kristen Miller, acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, hailed suspension of the Arctic leasing program, which she said was the result of a flawed legal process under Trump.“Suspending these leases is a step in the right direction, and we commend the Biden administration for committing to a new program analysis that prioritizes sound science and adequate tribal consultation,” she said.More action is needed, Miller said, calling for a permanent cancellation of the leases and repeal of the 2017 law mandating drilling in the refuge’s coastal plain.The drilling mandate was included in a massive tax cut approved by congressional Republicans during Trump’s first year in office. Republicans said it could generate an estimated $1bn over 10 years, a figure Democrats call preposterously overstated.Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Nation steering committee, thanked the president and interior secretary Deb Haaland and said that tribal leaders are heartened by the Biden administration’s “commitment to protecting sacred lands and the Gwich’in way of life”. More