WAS INCIDENT PROMPTED BY CLAIRE RICHARDSON’S FACEBOOK POST?
A member of the Republican Women of Juneau was verbally accosted in a grocery story on Monday by a woman wearing a Jesse Kiehl (for Senate) button.
The Jesse Kiehl supporter called the surprised woman out as a Republican and a “racist bitch.” She also took her photo without her permission.
The incident of intimidation occurred after the Lt. Gov.’s Chief of Staff Claire Richardson had named the Republican woman specifically on Facebook. In a small town like Juneau, this type of thing gets around fast, and Richardson is one of the most influential liberals in the Capital City.
The woman who was verbally attacked is a member of a racial minority. She’s never been attacked like that in Juneau before, and the attack put her in fear for her job. She is not a board member of the Juneau Republican Women’s Club, as Richardson alleges in her Facebook post.
Richardson, in other Facebook posts, also encouraged Juneauites to contact Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski to lodge complaints about a specific member of their staff who happens to be a Republican from Juneau.
This is the Sen. Maxine Waters playbook: Harass people in public and intimidate them.
The Republican women in Juneau have hunkered down, after being accused by Richardson for being anti-semitic, and now knowing that the Leftists are going to harass them in public.
While they are determined to remain above the fray, because their mailer was a fair commentary on taxes, they have altered their behavior because some of them fear for their safety after a senior member of the Walker-Davidson Administration has dog-whistled that it’s OK to attack them.
The mailer in question arrived in voters’ mailboxes over the weekend showing a politician stuffing money into his suit jacket. That image, Richardson says, is a slur on Jewish people. Candidate Jesse Kiehl is Jewish. The intent of the mailer was to talk about the danger of electing a tax-and-spend liberal.
A CALL FOR HER DISMISSAL
Claire Richardson is a senior member of the the government and has a key oversight role in today’s election. Her role is especially important because former Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott resigned in disgrace last month and the new Lt. Gov. Valerie Davidson is probably not up to speed on election matters. She was the commissioner of Health and Social Services.
Must Read Alaska is calling for the Lt. Gov. Davidson to place Richardson on immediate administrative leave, because Richardson has compromised her role as a neutral arbitrator in this election over which she has so much influence.
Richardson has, through her actions, meddled in the election in a way far more egregious than mere Russian propaganda on Twitter. Richardson, using her bully pulpit, has created a climate of fear among conservatives in the Capital City on the eve of an election.
KTOO DOES THE STORY
The public broadcasting station in Juneau decided the mailer was worth a story, and interviewed Richardson, who said she was merely acting in her capacity as a private citizen.
However, Richardson is a political appointee in the office overseeing elections. She has now made public statements against the activities of a political party, and she has done so on the day before the elections.
KTOO illustrated its story with a doctored photo of the mailer in question, turning the hands blood red. On the left is the KTOO version posted yesterday, while on the right is what the mailer actually looked like as it was received in mailboxes:
Later Monday evening, the KTOO image redness disappeared and the image posted now is closer to the original on the mailer. Must Read Alaska has asked the KTOO newsroom for an explanation of what happened with that image over the course of several hours on Monday. We’ll post the response.
Scott Kendall, the governor’s chief of staff, was featured in the Washington Post today also criticizing the Republicans for the image of using cash to represent taxes. He sees it as a representation of stereotyping.
“I was revolted,” Kendall told the Washington Post, adding that the ad was blatantly anti-Semitic. “Jesse is proudly and prominently a member of Juneau’s Jewish community. . . . It is tough for me to process through that and not see an ill intent.”
Kendall, in a text exchange with Must Read Alaska, said he did not believe that the Republicans who approved the ad were anti-semitic, but that was an entirely different opinion than the one he gave to the Washington Post.
Richardson is far enough up the State food chain that her identity is inseparable from her employment, so she doesn’t have strictly personal opinions unless she gives an explicit disclaimer that the opinion is personal only. You may recall that in my days of writing to the Juneau Empire on issues I always included the disclaimer that the opinion was personal, not that of my employer, and at that time I wasn’t as far up the org chart as Richardson is, but was recognizable because of my position.
I think the communists, excuse me, Democrats characterizing that flyer as anti-Semitic says more about their prejudices than about the authors. But if Democrats didn’t have prejudices and hypocrisy, they’d have nothing at all.
Well said Art!
The only “Semitism” here is Claire’s opinion that “cash” & “Jew” are synonyms… Coincidentally,
that reminds me of a line from Fiddler on the Roof…
Anti-semitism?
True dat. Excellent comments as always.
They are calling into play reason to believe that this election will be questionable at the least. You can not speak about an issue on a personal level when your official capacity is to oversee a fair and balanced election.
This is just the start. Juneau is a town full of bureaucrats, mostly all Democrats. Republicans have always been ostracized in Juneau.
Civility seems to have been on the brink since Walker’s people came on board in 2014. Mean and nasty!
The Democrat women have been some of the worst. Throwing around the word “racist” shows extreme desperation and demonstrates a lack of mental clarity. And it will get worse when Dunleavy begins to drain the swamp in Juneau in about three weeks.
Let’s hope he really does drain the swamp. I’ve seen the same people in place for years, no matter who the Gov is. I’ve also observed many government workers change their tune once their candidate loses. Most of them are Dems no less who start immediately sucking up to the new leader. It’s pathetic.
Don’t say “always”. The Republican Party had a decent foothold in Juneau for decades until large sums of money began flowing in to the state treasury, allowing the permanent bureaucratic class to eventually take over. It’s no surprise that Cathy Munoz was so viciously demonized two years ago, since her father and grandfather played major roles in the party’s former prominence there.
Hopefully when Dunleavy takes over he sends that Richardson woman packing, she is a disgrace to all Alaskans.
Unfortunately the picture in the ad does not illustrate the words about wallets. The picture looks like he is pocketing the cash. But there is no question the Dems are stooping low to excite the Jews in their base. The Dems have fallen from any semblance of decency. Let us be extra careful not to fall off that limb too.
This might be a another good reason for moving the capital out of Juneau sooner rather than later.
That would really be a good move at this point!
Is John Manly still around? He used to draw caricatures similar to that ad all the time in the 1980s, my favorite being the legislator with his hand out saying “Why do you think they call it a bill?”.
Speaking of John Manly, a humorous aside. His caricature of Bettye Fahrenkamp with the “In” and “Out” earrings, drawn ca. 1981, became so well-loved that she began wearing those earrings in real life. Years later, groups associated with the Alaska Democratic Party used that cartoon for promotional purposes, apparently unaware that it was drawn by a longtime Republican insider.
If the Republican Women were talking about taxes, why didn’t they mention taxes? Nor did they make any specific endorsement of another candidate, so one can only wonder their intent. The most charitable explanation would be that they were tone deaf, unaware, unknowing, or maybe a bit duplicitous. They might benefit from having some objective person proofread their ads before they send them out to the community in the future. It would also be nice to play fair, girls.
The tax issue was explained on the reverse side of the mailer. And as an Independent is the competitor of Mr. Kiehl (there is no Republican opponent), the tag “fortunately, you have an independent choice” was used.
The reverse side of the mailer states:
During the last legislative session, Democrats pushed a State Income Tax, the creation of a State IRS, a Sales Tax and a Payroll Tax.
I don’t see how that is connected to Jews. If the politician was black and you said that you would be racist?
I hope that Ms. Richardson has a plane ticket out of town purchased for tomorrow and further, that she may feel a compelling interest in using it.
The only “Semitism” here is Claire’s opinion that “cash” & “Jew” are synonyms… Coincidentally,
that reminds me of a line from Fiddler on the Roof…
Claiming racial or religious hate where there really is none is an insult to those who have truly suffered. Thats all I’ll say.
Transference…..lets run the decoy play.
This is so ridiculous it must be a joke. Is this April Fools day? ALL politicians are accused of pocketing money from businesses, contributors, corporations, oil companies, lobbyists, or through taxes. Kind of jumping to conclusions to assume it’s a slight against Jews. Sounds like Claire is a conspiracy theorist.
Bye bye Claire Richardson, looks like you will be unemployed come Dec 3rd. Good riddance.
The left is promoting racial and ethnic strife in America. While they curry the favors of non-whites they smear white people with fascism, racism, hatred. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see where this is taking the USA. We’re looking at some serious social problems in the next twenty years. They left hates America and they hate the American people.
If this was not an act of anti semitism, why was not other candidate hit with the same ad? Just the Jewish guy got the ad. That needs an explanation. Maybe there is one. Would like to hear it.
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