Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue –
1. Alaska
2. MIA
3. Execution
4. Blogger
5. Idaho
1. Alaska. We are a couple weeks past the point of the midterm election cycle where it is all attack ads all the time. As such, I expect my Gentle Readers (hat tip to Isaac Asimov) to be fully as sick and tired of the festivities as I am. At this point in the festivities, democrats are well into their Nuclear Winter mode for Republicans, aimed at suppressing turnout, for Midterms are all about turnout. If we don’t turn out to vote, we can’t win. Democrats know this, which is why they have been playing the voter suppression game for over a generation or four. With that in mind, I’ll pass along a few observations on the upcoming midterms in Alaska. You guys know my perspective. While prepared for a positive outcome, I am well prepared for Nuclear Winter should the Bad Guys prevail.
- The most consequential political race in the state is the reelection of Dan Sullivan to the US Senate. This is his first time up for reelection. In my time up here since Sept 1992, Sullivan has been the most reliable conservative member of the Alaska delegation to congress. Losing him would be a terrible loss. After initial weakness in 2016, foolishly following Lisa Murkowski’s lead refusing to endorse Donald Trump after the Billy Bush smear, he has been a reliable and vigorous member of MAGA, and brought the State of Alaska along with him. This campaign has been one of the most expensive in state history, with Peltola dragging over $17 million of outside $$$ into the state to elect her. The Indian Maiden is not without her problems, as she has a reputation for a rather filthy mouth and ugliness to her staff, 25 who left over her 2+ years in the House. Her biggest claim to fame is missing some 20% of all votes, a record that stretches back to her time in the Alaska Legislature when she was occasionally known as Cocaine Mary.
- We even had an appearance by democrat super lawfare lawyer Mark Elias, who sent a three-page cease and desist letter to Jeff Landfield and the Alaska Landmine. The letter demanded he pull a story based on the NYT report of Peltola dropping the n-word multiple times in 2024. Peltola’s campaign persona is Smiling Mary, the Indian Maiden from Bethel. Elias’ participation in this is significant, as he is one of the top two democrat mouthpieces, specializing in anti-Trump lawfare and tweaking election law in democrats’ favor nationwide. Landfield is long time local blogger who delights in stirring things up. He is pretty good at it. No word on whether or not the NYT got a similar letter (unlikely). Landfield did not pull the piece. The significance of the letter may be that Peltola’s polling in the senate race is not nearly as good as we are hearing, so the democrats are pulling out their hired gun to help.
- Next up is the race to replace Republican Mike Dunleavy as governor. Dunleavy was elected to do great conservative things. Sadly, he was saddled with democrat-led majorities in one or both houses of the Alaska legislature. In response, his game morphed into a defensive one, successfully managing to fend off much of the legislative foolishness intended by the democrats over the last six years. Four candidates made the November ballot. The first is our designated democrat, Jonathan Kreiss – Tompkins (JKT), a very young, 10-year legislator who managed to bring in millions of Outside $$$ from Anthropic and other Tech Bros. The other people on the ballot are all Republicans, nicely splitting the RCV vote. Consistently in the lead has been Bernadette Wilson, a former figure skater out of the business world. She is feisty and understands the issues. She yelled at me over an article and probably will again. She was right, BTW, and I made the correction. Next up on the list are former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former state Attorney General Treg Taylor. President Trump was in Alaska Tuesday for a rally in support of Republicans and called for both Bronson and Taylor to drop out. As of this writing, neither have, though Bronson managed to lie about his discussion with Trump publicly a couple of times. In Trump World, nobody survives lying to Trump or about him. Bronson’s political future in Alaska is now measured in days, 15 to be exact. As of this writing, there are more votes for the Republicans than JKT whose support sits around 42 – 43%. Sadly, the vagaries of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is a subtraction game, so the total Republican ballots that make it to the final count will most certainly decrease.
- Next up is democrat Bill Hill, who was recipient of a cookie cutter, Outside funded million dollar political campaign to replace our congress critter Nick Begich. Hill’s claim to fame was a decade in charge of a failing school district on the Alaska Peninsula. He was sufficiently successful that the reading and math proficiency rates crashed under 10%. To be fair, it was a tiny school district, but with only 25 students, you can focus your resources on individual students who need them. Bro Hill wasn’t all that interested in education, concentrating on other issues, including his support for trans athletes in his school district. As of this writing, Begich seems to be reasonably ahead.
- We have two ballot initiatives. The first, and most important is repeal of Ranked Choice Voting, passed by Club Lisa to ensure she never again had to thrash her way through a Republican primary to be reelected (she lost the first of these to Jo Miller in 2010. Unfortunately, Miller was crazy, which allowed her to she run as a write-in candidate in the general election, one she won that year. Her minions floated a ballot initiative to rewrite election law in Alaska so that she wouldn’t have to travel that gauntlet again. The initiative passed (with no small amount of assistance from the Alaska Judiciary) in 2020. Alaska attempted to repeal the initiative twice, 2024 and this year. We hope to be successful this time around.
- At his rally, Trump was in his element, bombastic, pointed, giving no avenue to democrats. Among the other things he announced, was an agreement by Taiwan to purchase 20 – 30% of all natural gas from a proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline, so far stonewalled by legislative democrats and RINOs. They would also invest $4.4b in its construction costs. Commerce Secretary Lutnick also spoke, noting that the project had been nationalized on national security grounds. I believe that comment to be in error, as nobody has followed up on it. Rumors out there are that Trump is increasingly irritated with obstruction from the democrat / RINO majority in the Alaska legislature, and nationalization is certainly a tool in his box to get this project off the dime.
2. MIA. Missing in Action (MIA) for a couple weeks in Texas was democrat candidate for US Senate Jame Talarico. He popped up Oct 9, after 9 days between public appearances at a friendly concert at an Austin City Limits music event. During his absence, Republicans made significant hay about his absence, perhaps too much. There was a bit of a feeding frenzy to find the guy, figure out where he had been, and wrap it around his scrawny neck. Turns out democrats are pretty good at this foolishness too, as are the Paxton hating Texas Republicans. There was at least one (and probably more) call(s) to a suspected care facility in Ohio asking if Talarico had been a patient. Answers from the on-duty nurse were studiously ambiguous. The callers released the conversations as unassailable proof that Talarico had been under mental care, something not proven. As of this writing, he appears not to have been in that particular facility, though he was clearly somewhere other than on the campaign trail. It is also obvious that this may very well was a setup, playing into the worst possible fears and assumptions of the political right, which may be damaging to Paxton if not properly dealt with. Have no idea how successful this gambit was, or even if it were a gambit at all. Note to all on Our Side: be very careful of rising to the bait. Fly fishing is packed with attractant flies, things that irritate fish to the point where they are unable to help themselves and rise to hit the fly. Are we better that the fish? Sometimes. Sadly, sometimes, we aren’t.
3. Execution. SECWAR Hegseth announced the live execution by firing squad of former Maj Nidal Hasan for the mass murder he committed at Fort Hood Nov 2009. Hasan at the time was an Army psychiatrist. He opened fire at a Division Readiness Processing Center, shouting Allah Akbar, targeting unarmed military members and civilians. He killed 13, wounded another 32 before being shot. O’Bama declined to approve his execution. Trump approved the recommendation along with the live broadcast, at least initially, though it was later reversed. There was significant blowback aimed at the broadcast, most some version of “we are better than that.” This will be the first military execution in 65 years, far too long. Here’s where I come from. As a kid somewhere in Cali, I remember gas chamber executions broadcast on local radio, complete with play-by-play announcer. It did get my attention, or whatever passes for attention from a 10-year-old. The US has a long history of public executions up until the last half century, complete with picnic baskets, families and kids. I believe that we owe adherents of Islam not one whit more respect or deference that they show us when they murder us. I believe we need to make whatever we do to them just as morbid and ugly as humanly possible, up to and including creative use of feral hogs. You girls wanna go all 7th Century on us? I’m good with that. Insult these particular adherents of Islam to the maximum. Make it awful. Show them just as much TLC as they showed the concert goers they assaulted, raped, kidnapped, and murdered three years ago. Take them to FAFO-land.
4. Blogger. So much for free speech in Ohio. This one is more an example of inside baseball than free speech and presented to remind us all how quickly the rule of law goes away when the justice system is subverted (perverted?). An Indy Ohio blogger was found guilty of first-degree misdemeanor telecommunications harassment on Oct 9. His crime? Sending around text messages aimed at an Ohio State Senator running for Senate President (he ultimately dropped out) containing sexually explicit Shrek images. The senator called the local police chief and asked what charges could be filed. The judge who signed the arrest warrant received campaign contributions from the senator. The prosecutor carried the case forward with a straight face rather than getting laughed out of court, claiming it was a harassing message. Even Republicans will use the full force of law against their critics, which is why free speech ought to be inviolate.
5. Idaho. One of the things the left does in red and purple states to turn out their voters is float ballot initiatives purporting to protect Women’s Right to Choose, but in reality locking in the ability to abort to the time or birth or a week or two afterwards. One such fight is taking place in Idaho,. with Prop 1 claiming to create a legal right to abort up to viability. Out of state billionaires have so far donated $4.5 million. LDS Church entered the fray last week with a million-dollar donation in opposition along with a letter to 1,300 Idaho congregations, an unexpected action by the proponents. They are fighting a similar proposition in Nevada. The biggest thing the proposition will do is bypass parental consent for abortion. This is done entirely based on what a single doctor will sign up to do. The initiative also scraps state requirements for doctors to perform the abortion. Note that any 15-year-old granddaughter needs parent permission for a field trip. A similar measure passed in MO 2024 expanded Planned Parenthood facilities in the state from one to six. MO is attempting to repeal the initiative in Nov. Note that in entering the fray, LDS is putting its name on the bottom line. Backers of the initiative, not so much.
More later –
- AG