Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
1. ANC Elections
2. Vaxxer
3. Trial
4. Allotments
5. Space
6. Republicanism
7. ChiCom
8. Donors
9. Big Tech
1. ANC Elections. Municipal elections here in Anchorage got out to a rousing start last week with a runoff for Mayor next up. Lessons learned as follows:
- All four conservative School Board candidates lost, though not for the reasons you might think. Granted there was the usual splitting of conservative vote between multiple candidates and little splitting among the candidates the local Teachers union supported, this loss is entirely on the conservative candidates and the conservatives who should have voted for them. Also on the ballot was a mayoral race, one that had at least 15 candidates on the ballot. Total vote for mayor was around 67,000. Three conservative candidates split 49.5% of the ballots cast while everyone else split the rest. However, for school board, there was a significant undervote, with 8,800 – 11,500 who voted for mayor not bothering to vote the rest of the ballot. In other words, conservatives were both idiots and lazy, most certainly not taking the time to vote anything other than mayor. This is why teachers union candidates win school board races. It is why all the bonds continue to pass every single year in this town. A recall of a despised Assembly member also failed. The closest school board race lost by 92 votes. The undervote in her race was 8,800. The largest loss was by 1,300. Her race had a 11,500 undervote. Not a single one of these candidates spent a dime on turning out Our Side to vote. There were no text messages, no automated phone calls, no reaching out via social media or e-mail. When we don’t vote. We can’t win.
- Democrat Forrest Dunbar, a current Assembly member is on his way to a runoff against conservative Dave Bronson. Dunbar is a real piece of work, a Yale educated lawyer who is also an Army National Guard JAG. Dunbar has been a reliable vote for our veto-proof Assembly liberal majority, crushing small businesses, voting for masking, lockdowns, and hammering businesses and individuals who refuse to comply. He is friendly with BLM and AntiFa. He was previously a strong supporter of the Me Too movement until it came after the former mayor, whom he believed rather than the wronged woman. The local feminists, not unexpectedly, endorsed him. Interestingly enough, local police chose to sit this one out, likely due to an attempt by the Assembly to get into the policing business last summer. If Dunbar is elected, expect Anchorage to follow (or attempt to follow) Portland and Seattle right down into the morass of failed democrat mayors.
2. Vaxxer. As the US approaches 200 million vaccine doses, we are seeing two groups of people – conservatives and blacks – increasingly resisting pressure to get the vaccines. Conservatives are reacting quite logically to the censorship of all discussion about the vaccines, anti-virus protocols, and any discussion by the media and Big Tech. They are also reacting to the multiple changing stories by governments at all levels during the 14 months of the festivities. The traditional anti-vaxxer movement is almost exclusively a conservative, particularly white conservative phenomenon. While black resistance to vaccines is traditionally tied to some really awful health and experimental medicine a century ago that were racially based, this might not be the case. Of course, it is the rationale being trotted out by the Usual Suspects in the media and left to explain what is going on today. As an aside, medicine was beastly to everyone a century ago. Ask Margaret Sangar. That being said, my guess is that it is more closely tied to being scaremongered about every single thing with a white fingerprint on it every two years for the last 60 years. Much easier to simply choose not to believe anything and stay as far away as you can from things you are told create pain. The Usual Suspects are using black resistance as a vehicle to withhold life-saving medical treatment (their description of the vaccines, not mine) from whites, prioritizing vaccines for blacks and Latinos first. Washington State is the easiest example of this. We have a known problem with two groups of people with growing resistance to vaccinations. What are the so-called Smart Guys like Fauci doing about it? Are they making a case for vaccinations? Hardly. Fauci over the last few weeks ends up being one of the biggest anti-vaxxers in history. Why? Because he has been running around demanding no change in any of the COVID protocols after someone has been vaccinated. You still have to mask, socially distance, not dine indoors, and continue doing what you had to do before getting the vaccine. If there is no upside to getting vaccinated, why get the shot?
3. Trial. Well, the State of Minnesota got their scalp with convictions of Derek Chauvin on all three charges last week. The result was not unexpected given the pressure by BLM / AntiFa, multiple democrats up to and including Harris – Xiden. The Minneapolis city government’s settlement with Floyd’s family for $27 million during the trial did not go unnoticed by either the jury or the court. Best coverage of the trial and aftermath I found was in Legal Insurrection. If they aren’t in your daily rotation, they should be. Their conclusion was that the prosecution outlawyered the single defense attorney during the trial, literally burying him in additional information, over 5,000 pages of new stuff during the 2-week long trial. This all by itself ought to be grounds for an appeal. For his part, Alan Dershowitz does not believe that Chauvin got a fair trial, and the jury was simply caving into the mob. One alternate juror confirmed this. The mob came after Chauvin defense witnesses. Yeah, they got their conviction, but at what cost?
4. Allotments. No good deed goes unpunished. Generally, the worse the deed is, the worse the punishment. Here in Alaska, Alaska Natives were promised parcels of land in return for signing up and serving in the Vietnam War. It took a mere 50 years for the promise to finally be fulfilled with Trump signature on legislation that would transfer 2,800 parcels of federal land to Alaska Natives and their families. Last week, newly ensconced Interior Secretary Deb Haaland put a two-year hold on all allotments, extending the initial three week stay. Here’s the fun part. Haaland is a native, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe. She had wide and vociferous support from Alaska Natives, particularly females for her nomination because she was a native and would by definition take much better care of them and their interests than White Man. Both our US Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan ended voting for her nomination much to the disgust of a lot of the rest of us who take great exception with voting to confirm someone based on sex and race rather than actual competence. And that was before any mention of her embrace of the Green Nude Eel. For Haaland, this isn’t the end, as she is just getting warmed up. In the words, of HL Mencken, Alaska Natives got what they wanted, and they got it good and hard.
5. Space. A pretty busy week in space last week with the third successful helo flight by Ingenuity helo on Mars and the third successful SpaceX launch of a manned Dragon Capsule that docked with ISS Sunday. The Dragon launch reused both the booster and the capsule. As of right now, there are 11 onboard ISS, which is the most since 13 were onboard in 2009. 4 are scheduled to return Apr 28 in the Dragon capsule that has been connected to ISS since Nov 2020. Starting to get busy out there. We will hope Harris – Xiden don’t screw this up.
6. Republicanism. Following Trump’s success in expanding Republican voters among minorities, how do we continue that success? How do we exploit that opening in the armor of the left? One way might be to sell Republicanism, that is a personal life that is strongly positive. Being a victim is hard work. So is constantly pinging from one outrage to the next one, as is constantly being on the watch for the next racial insult, real or perceived. There are only so many brain cells and so many seconds in the day. When you spend all your time and effort chasing the foolishness, there’s not a lot left for actually getting on in life, which is why democrats play this game. I believe there are some real opportunities available, particularly in education, to build bridges between minority parents and conservatives. We both want the same sort of thing for our children. And the people standing in the way are all democrats or their supporters (teachers unions). Add to that the burgeoning racism of BLM, AntiFa, CRT, and the attempt to shut down math and science because racism, I think there is an opening large enough to drive an 18-wheeler through. Time to exploit that opening. And that opening along with the Harris – Xiden reprise of the O’Bama suburb busting Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) will also work directly to peel off some number of suburban white women from the democrat coalition.
7. ChiCom. Question for learned observers out there: In what way does media trash-talking about the US, racial issues within the US, or US failures differ from ChiCom anti-American propaganda? The answer is none at all, which may lead us to conclude that the media is completely owned today by the Chinese Communist Party. Think about that when you pay attention to what they are trying to tell you.
8. Donors. A Norfolk Police Sgt was doxed and fired after a hacker group revealed his $10 donation to Kyle Rittenhouse’s defense fund. The mayor announced the anonymous donation “… is not consistent with the values of our city or the standards set for our employees.” Of course, none of this is written down or agreed to by the city, the police department or the local police union, which will end up making the officer a very wealthy man in the not-so-distant future.
9. Big Tech. When going after Big Tech for its rampant censorship of all things conservative, states need to carefully apply the lessons learned during the telecommunications days, and use the terms “common carrier” and “public accommodation.” These terms were used by Justice Thomas in is dissent to the Trump Twitter case a few weeks ago. It is these terms that will be the basis upon which Big Tech is going to be regulated. When they refuse, like AT&T, they will be broken up. State and local bills regulating Big Tech need to clearly define the terms and impose penalties when Big Tech violates the law.
More later –
- AG