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ANCHORAGE (KTUU) - An Anchorage resident had a brief meeting with the 44th United States president on July 3, as he returned to America following a family vacation in Asia.

Jolene Jackinsky entered Signature Air Service at around 7:20 a.m. on Monday. She says she had entered the business looking for Iliamna Air, and told her baby that they would be going "bye bye" soon. At this point, Jackinsky said, former President Barack Obama, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, remarked to her, asking, "Who is this pretty girl?"

Jackinsky said Obama then approached the two and asked to hold her baby and spoke with her briefly.

"He asked what our names were and where we were going. He talked about how fast they grow up and that he's got a girl who's going to college," Jackinsky said.

"When her dad walked in, Obama was still holding our baby and [Obama] said, 'Hey, I'm taking your baby!'"

A Signature Air representative confirmed that Obama was refueling there on Monday for about 40 minutes before continuing on his chartered flight back home.

"After that, he hopped on the plane and away he went," the representative said.

Bomb sniffing dogs with the TSA reportedly were on hand to clear the runway and the aircraft the president was traveling on. The secret service was also present on the flight, as is standard for all U.S. presidents.

As for when Obama and Jackinsky shared words, the president was similarly protected in the waiting room. "Two guys in black suits were sitting like 15 feet away, near the entrance," Jackinsky said.

The meeting and minor photo op lasted only about five minutes, according to Jackinsky, but it had a lasting effect, she said.

"It was unreal, very exciting. After I met him I couldn't believe I actually talked to him and he held my baby."

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Former President Obama stops in Anchorage on his way home from family vacation - KTUU.com

Sen. Rand Paul has not been quiet about his displeasure with the Republican healthcare bill as it was written, saying many times that he can't vote for it unless it looks more like an actual repeal of Obamacare.

Paul has derided Republicans for dropping the essence of their previous "repeal and replace" mantra for another big government approach, which promises an infusion of more federal money into the healthcare system.

Now that Paul has voiced support for separating the repeal effort from the replace effort into two different bills, he has distinguished himself even further from the rest of his caucus as one of the few remaining small government, pro-liberty Republicans.

Commenting on the current bill, he said, "We have nearly $200 billion in insurance bailouts. Does anybody remember us complaining that Obamacare had insurance bailouts?"

He continued, "Now, there are Republicans getting so weak-kneed they are saying, oh, we're afraid to repeal the taxes. What happened to these people? They all were for repealing Obamacare. Now there's virtually no one left," and continuing, "every time you add more federal money, more spending, for the big government Republicans, it offends the conservatives."

Paul also said on Cavuto: "You could say to the moderates we are going to give you more spending over here but it's going to be on a separate bill, and then you say to conservatives like me that are worried about the debt and think that we're going to ruin the country I can't vote for all that spending so if you want my vote, clean up the repeal, don't put all the Christmas ornaments and billion dollar goodies on it, just give me repeal, and if the Democrats and big government Republicans insist on Christmas ornaments that cost $45 billion and $100 billion, it'll be on a different bill."

His implication is clear: he wants to reduce the federal government's role in health care as he and others in his party previously promised to do and is, therefore, a conservative, and those Republicans supporting this bill are not.

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Rand Paul is going to war with his own party - Washington Examiner

Arifoto Ug/dpa/picture-alliance/NewscomSeveral U.S. senators, including Rand Paul (R-KY), want Attorney General Jeff Session to reassure industrial hemp farmers that the Justice Department will abide by legislation restricting federal interference in the fledgeling industry.

In a letter to Sessions released Friday, Sens. Paul, Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Al Franken (D-MN), and Michael Bennet (D-CO), said several participants in industrial hemp pilot programs in their states reported they have been or are at risk of having their personal and business accounts closed by jittery banks.

Banking concern "is evidently due to the uncertainty of the continued legal status of the industrial hemp industry, and because the funds contained in the accounts are associated with industrial hemp," according to the letter to Sessions.

"While we do not believe the government should compel financial institutions to do business with the hemp industry," the senators wrote, "we are worried that the fear and uncertainty of government actionthat the Department of Justice will roll back certain protections for legal industrial hemp entitiesis causing financial institutions to close these accounts."

The 2014 farm bill passed by Congress allowed state agriculture departments and universities to start industrial hemp pilot programs. The law enforcement arm of the federal government was much less enthused about the programs than the legislative branch. As my colleague Jacob Sullum reported in May 2014, Customs and Border Patrol agents, acting under orders from the Drug Enforcement Administration, seized 250 pounds of hemp seeds intended for pilot farming projects in Kentucky.

Since then, Congress has continually passed appropriations bills, most recently this year, blocking the Justice Department from interfering in the industry or going after financial institutions that handle hemp funds. (This effort has no doubt been helped by the fact that GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell represents Kentucky.)

Several states have enacted legislation this year to create pilot programs or expand industrial hemp farming, including West Virginia, Oregon, South Carolina, and Florida. Meanwhile, Kentucky's pilot program, started in 2014, has been experiencing a mini-boom.

Access to banking is still a struggle for the hemp industry, much like the industry for hemp's narcotic cousin, marijuana. In November of last year, Vice reported that many hemp farmers in Colorado were turning to Bitcoin to solve their banking woes.

Sessions has been a notable foe of marijuana legalization although, for now, the federal government's detente with states that have legalized the drug remains in place.

Sessions' reassurance that the Justice Department will stay out of the hemp industry, the senators say, will provide reassurance to both the industry and banks.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Watch ReasonTV's 2012 video on Hemp History Week and ending the war on George Washington's favorite crop:

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Rand Paul Presses Jeff Sessions on Industrial Hemp Policy - Reason (blog)

Summer in a gubernatorial election year means its time to start the debate over the number of debates.

And it has, with a flourish. Republican nominee Ed Gillespie proposed a series of 10 debates with Democratic nominee Ralph Northam, a somewhat more modest demand than the 15 debatesRepublican Ken Cuccinelli demanded of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in 2013.

Northam has accepted threedebatesand seven joint appearances, but he dismissed the overall demand as a public relations stunt.

Gillespie called Northams counter-offer insulting.

Both candidates are correct. This is a public relations stunt, as Northam said, and a very old, tired one at that. It is also insulting, but not in the way Gillespie meant.

The insult is that gubernatorial debates in Virginia are little more than smaller versions of the carefully packaged affairs weve all witnessed at the national level.

What people watch for and what the press and political junkies delight in are those gotcha moments that make for great copy and easy attack lines.

But lets indulge Gillespie on his demand for many debates and ignore his own ducking and dodging on the issue in the waning months of the Republican primary.

Lets have 10 debates. Or 19, as the Roanoke Times has suggested.

But lets also insist on a couple of things.

Libertarians had a good case for being included in the 2013 debates between Cuccinelli and McAuliffe. But their candidate, Robert Sarvis, had to settle for running an ad during one debate. He was excluded from another by a media outlet because he didnt qualify under debate rules worked out between the major-party candidates.

Bipartisan agreement is easy to find, especially if it leads to keeping voters in the dark.

While Sarvis ended up winning just 6.5 percent of the vote, and Republicans still blame his campaign for costing Cuccinelli the election (a claim Paul Goldman and I refuted), including Sarvis on the debate stage would have offered voters a bit of relief from that campaigns incessant negativity.

It also might have offered them a critique of the major parties, their policies and their records.

That would have been refreshing and enlightening.

Hyra campaign director John Vaught LaBeaume told me that his candidate would be willing to participate in any and all debates or forums that both the Democratic and Republican candidates agree to take part in.

As he should.

LaBeaume also hopes the debate organizers are open to including Hyra and do not fall prey to the self-interested campaigns of the Democratic and GOP nominees.

That would mean the Northam and Gillespie campaigns would have to agree to allow Hyra in as part of their ground rules for debating one another.

Thats self-serving and should not be tolerated by any debate sponsor, particularly if that sponsor is a media organization.

To its credit, Roanoke television station WDBJtried to get the campaigns to agree to allow Sarvis to join the debate the station sponsored in 2013 owing to quite a bit of negative reaction to [his] exclusion.

The McAuliffe campaign was somewhat interested in the idea; the Cuccinelli campaign wasnt.

Should we expect a similar outcome this year?

Gillespie spokesman David Abrams told me, Either Ed or Ralph Northam is going to be the next governor of Virginia, which is why the organizations sponsoring debates invited them.

Northam spokesman David Turner told me the campaign would agree to include Hyra in the debates.

Thats a good first step. One that fits Northams political calculus, but still good. Candidates should agree to participate in as many as possible and televise them all. And organizers truly interested in an exchange of ideas rather than a clash of talking points dont allow the candidates to dictate terms.

After all, youre paying for the microphone.

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Let the Libertarian debate - The Washington Post - Washington Post (blog)

Posted July 7, 2017 by Adam Flanery & filed under American History, Civil Rights, Labor, National Government, National Politics, News and Public Affairs, Social Services, State Government.

A lot of books have tried to explain the rise of conservative power that poses a direct challenge to the reforms that came about under the New Deal, the labor movement, the Civil Rights movement, and the Great Society.

In her new book, a Duke University professor reveals a little known conservative think tank that had its beginnings on the University of Virginia campus. With help from one of the Koch brothers, the think tank helped reframe the debate over the role of business, government and individuals.

The book is Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Rights Plan for America.

The author is Nancy MacLean. Shes the William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University. Her previous book is Freedom is Not Enough. Host Rob Lorei interviewed her about her new book.

To listen back to this interview from Thursday, June 15, 2017 click here.

Tags: Koch brothers, Nancy MacLean

Originally posted here:
Libertarian Republicans Powered by Billionaire Money Plan to Undo Gains of Last 100 Years - WMNF