Governor takes a swipe at Anchorage Daily News over persistently biased reporting; reporters snap back

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Gov. Mike Dunleavy is hitting back at fake-news the Anchorage Daily News. In a short video posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Dunleavy pointed out inaccurate items in the newspaper’s story about his parental rights bill.

House Bill 105 makes it clear that parents have rights over how their children are taught sex education.

In schools around the country, parents have been shocked to learn that their young children are being taught the specifics of things like how to have anal sex and even how to have sex with adults.

In one third-grade curriculum, children are taught, “You might feel like you’re a girl even if you have body parts that some people might tell you are ‘boy’ parts. And you might not feel like you’re a boy or a girl, but you’re a little bit of both. No matter how you feel, you’re perfectly normal.” Some parents may view this as gender identity training and would want to know if their third-graders are being indoctrinated.

Reports about teachers telling children that there are multiple gender identities have prompted widespread protest across the nation as parents flock to school boards to set their school officials straight.

Dunleavy encouraged people to read the bill he has authored for themselves, rather than through the filter of the newspaper, which painted the bill darkly.

The bill can be read at this link.

“Another example of fake news by the ADN. We introduced a bill yesterday on parental rights in education. And basically what the bill says is parents have the right to say yes or no to whether their child is going to receive instruction or be part of a program that touches upon the subject of sex or gender,” Dunleavy said.

“Here’s what the Anchorage Daily News says,” he continued. Then he read a sentence from the story the newspaper, which stated, “Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Tuesday introduced education policy proposals that would limit sexual education and the rights of gender non-conforming students in public schools.”

Dunleavy said, “This bill does nothing to limit the rights of anyone.”

Reporter Iris Samuels slapped back on Twitter, with a passive-aggressive response: “Thanks for reading our coverage, governor! Proud of the reporting we are doing at @adndotcom about this legislation and thankful to our readers who look to the ADN for fair journalism. Just like the governor say [sic]: read the bill (then judge our reporting for yourself).”

Reporter Sean Maguire for ADN also was defensive, summarizing a conversation he had with Dunleavy’s Press Secretary Jeff Turner:

The Anchorage Daily News is not the only liberal entity that has decided to take a hostile stance to the bill. The author of the ranked-choice voting system (Ballot Measure 2) now used in Alaska also had words of rebuke for the governor, and wrote that children are more likely to be abused at home because of the bill.

In a Twitter message, attorney Scott Kendall fantasized all manner of abuse that parents might inflict on children, should the bill pass.

The bill is unlikely to pass, of course, because the liberal-run Senate is going to bury it in a committee. Rep. Loki Gale (she/her), who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has said she will not allow the bill to even have a hearing.

66 COMMENTS

  1. Strawmen arguments from adn – their attack has nothing to do with reality. As much as I applaud the Governor’s effort at preserving parental rights, this bill cannot cure the issue at hand: between peer pressure from the kids who do attend the grooming/sex training classes and social ostracism, bullying, and persecution by the teachers and staff at the schools, any child who is allowed not to attend – whether by parental choice or other – will be required to transition to anything other than heterosexuality to be accepted as being “cool”. Folks, the fox is controlling the hen house – the only answer is to get your kids out of public schools, NOW.

    • Rich Thorne, exactly right. Flee the Educational Industrial Complex. There are better options, our children are worth it.

    • “…….the only answer is to get your kids out of public schools, NOW.”
      Note how Anchorage School District student population decreases, but district pleas for money increases like usual……or even with greater desperation. Actually, the only answer is to DEFUND government schools. “Now” would be nice, but “inevitable” works for me, too.

    • Good question. He presided over Dunleavy’s last inaugural ball. What’s wrong with Binkley’s loyalty? Is there any?

      • “…….What’s wrong with Binkley’s loyalty? Is there any?”
        The problem is finding a truly conservatice editor. You may as well be hunting unicorns.

  2. I guess I’d hate to be one of Scott Kendall’s kids. The potential for parental abuse is high(?).

  3. Absolutely the Governor’s bill is the most appropriate and parent affirming. ADN always is oppositional to actual American families. I’m sick of them. Their published hostility toward natural families increases the negative emotional tone of unhappiness that Anchorage is now renown for being.

  4. Governor Dunleavy: Time for School Choice. Dissolve the Department of Education. Parents get your kids out of the public schools as soon as possible. Binkley: my new name for your paper is the Toxic Times. All these sickos want to do is indoctrinate these young children with sex. Why? so the educators can have sex with them and get no repercussions like those of the past. Some I know had sex in the school rooms were protected and received their full retirements Believe me there was more than one of them..the Legislature enacted a new law because common sense was too easy. Instead of going directly to jail these perverts got a free pass.
    Is that what parents have to look forward to?

  5. This is why most newspapers are considered a joke. No one that I know subscribes. They don’t waste their hard earned dollars for garbage. Get a grip ADN, DNM and the rest. MRA, The Watchman, yep. You guys are pretty good. Don’t miss the mark often. Thanks.

  6. ADN has been a liberal leftist rag since the 90’s. I canceled my subscription in 1991. They have no real journalists working at ADN, just leftist properganda hacks…

    • ADN has really gone to the dogs in the last 10 years. The strategic wordsmithing, subtle microaggressions against conservative principles, and constant slant toward the progressive agenda has gone to a whole new level. ADN has really been overplaying their hand and will be giving away much more market share in the next few years if they keep it up. The young ‘ins and arrogant ones will push until its too late for ADN.

  7. Good for the Governor to fight back. The truth is that so-called democrat legislators like Loki Tobin are not above cancelling the governor of the state. This is what happens when they are afraid to even let the bills be heard in committee. These legislators should be cancelled themselves. Hope the governor line item vetoes their prize bills. As for the ADN it should reconsider its coverage. The only real answer is for Alaskans to home school their kids and leave the corrupted schools for the corrupted parents in Anchorage and Fairbanks. Enough is enough!

  8. Any real Alaskan knows that the ADN is the home for yellow journalism in our state, and has been since the Anchorage Times folded. Accept it and move on. What we need is more sources for accurate reporting without the woke bias. Suzanne does a great job here at “Must Read Alaska”, but the liberal idiots control most of the mainstream media and they keep accurate news away from the people. We need more blogs and sites like MRA to get the word out. Keep up the good job Suzanne, and how about some of you more articulate conservatives helping out by starting additional blogs reporting factual conservative news to keep us informed?

    • Agreed.
      I don’t agree with all of MRAK’s biases, and its reach (even locally) is limited.
      Comment lag/deletion is common, so sometimes hard to tell if the conversation is genuine or just being stage managed. But contrast this to the leftists that have successfully purged comment sections from nearly all major media over the last 10 years – once they realized they didn’t enjoy the public ‘talking back’.

      But 100% – hope MRAK expands and Suzanne is successful. I would be be unable to track local or state politics without, because the alternatives are so completely disreputable and discredited. What is the point of being open minded and curious about ‘what the other side’ thinks – when all they do is openly lie to your face?

  9. Iris Samuels is a former intelligence analyst for the Israeli defense force and a graduate of Princeton. Ask yourself why someone like this would be working for the Anchorage Daily News covering and editorializing state and national politics up in Alaska. A political reporter there gets unusual access to a governor, senators, business leaders, policy makers. Field work.

    ‘https://www.idea.int/iris-samuels

    • “…….Ask yourself why someone like this would be working for the Anchorage Daily News……..”
      Excellent information and suggestion. Thank you. Even with ‘conservative’ ownership, the ADN simply won’t change its stripes. It exists to project liberal propaganda, regardless of economic costs.

  10. I have nothing to do with ADN fake news. They wouldn’t tell the truth about Covid, Covid vaccines or Covid treatments. The best doctors at treating Covid, not just in the USA, but the world, used Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in their treatment protocol. Yes to the bill, and yes to school vouchers.

    • That contemptible authoritarian freak David Hulen, editor of the ADN, personally banned me from my years-long membership in the online ADN comments section in April of 2020 simply because I questioned — note, simply “questioned”, not disputed or denied — the efficacy of mass public mask wearing during the Wuhan Virus panicdemic. And that is not a guess on my part — he informed me specifically and personally.

  11. Everyone I know thinks the same thing about ADN. It is a one sided woke leftist pice of garbage. When they changed their color all of us said good riddance. Scott Kendall is a wannabe person of power but is really a coat tail grabber. He is a nothing lawyer who needs to go back to some blue state where he would better fit in with losers.

  12. When did a Republican owned newspaper become liberal for reporting factual information? This mornings edition included an opinion piece by AG Taylor defending Governor Mini Ron’s attack on the LGBTQ community. MRAK has gone all out on culture wars and attacking the Alaska Constitution. Following FOX’s lead to feed crap to the MAGA minority, it is good for business

    • Your fetid radical leftist logorrhea has long ago become tiresome, “frank”.
      Why don’t you go back and troll the online ADN comments section. Oh wait, that’s right, you can’t, because the intolerant totalitarians who operate the ADN propaganda arm of the Alaska globalist establishment have eliminated that former public forum in their hatred of free expression of opinion, particularly opinions that run counter to their own.

    • You got it, the side that believes a fictional storybook from 2000 years ago is at war with the side that believes in fictional genders, and both sides just sink more and more into their echo chambers, surrounding themselves with peers of equal delusional thought, gaining affirmation and deepening their resolve.

      What a world.

    • Obviously you don’t read the ADN Frank or you wouldn’t even ask this question.
      Additionally please quantify your statement about “factual information”.

      Also what do you have against parents having a say in our children’s education? That’s how it was when you went to school.
      School used to be about reading, writing and arithmetic….you know the tools needed to be basic functioning adults. Now it’s all about CRT, gender bending and tic toc. No wonder our country is falling.
      The only ones on the attack are the lgbtq+ncis community. You guys are the ones screaming and censoring. We, after giving you your marriages, work places, safe spaces, child adoption, and maternity leaves for men are now simply asking you to stop trying to force gender confusion and hyper sexuality on second graders. I guess you have a problem with that too.
      MAGA or not most parents don’t feel like our kids need to be taught about oral sex at school. You liberals have perverted the education system into something akin to caligula. We have much more to worry about for our kids than drag queen story time and tampons in the boys bathroom.
      It’s too bad people like you don’t put the same anger and self righteousness into asking the schools to teach kids how to balance a check book or read a tape measure.
      You never had kids did you?

    • Frank, you pride yourself on intellectualism. Be honest. The ADN printing an opinion piece responding to this same biased reporting is not the same as the biased reporting itself. When Treg Taylor responded his statement was presented as opinion. When an ADN reporter writes a story their opinion presented as fact.

  13. ADN and Alaskasnewssource are nothing but dirt. They are trying to emulate CNN and “The View”. anyone with brains knows not to believe any of them. They are reduced to the rags at the checkout counters by the alien abduction and Elvis’s sightings.

  14. Besides, nobody in Alaska politics is remotely afraid of Dunleavy. He lost any respect outside of his sycophants in Wasilla 4 years ago.

    Only reason he’s governor now is the lack of a better choice

    • “…….Only reason he’s governor now is the lack of a better choice.”
      Hello? Isn’t that the supreme reality of every elected official out there? Better hang that statement up above whatever altar you worship at, because that’s the basic truth about elections; desperately trying to elect the better of the offered evils.

      • Never said otherwise. Dunleavy is the classic example of the evil of lessers.

        He’s ineffective, has no political spine, and is always days late and dollars short. His win loss record in matters of merit is somewhere between sad and pathetic.

        We’ll never know, but I strongly believe had the progressives not run Bill Walker we’d have a new Governor.

        Alaska should be able to do better, but can’t.

        The alter I worship at is remarkably apolitical. The people who run it are, sadly, another matter. Not sure why that matters to you, but hope it helps.

  15. The ADN is absolutely the worst place to attempt to get any facts, due their continual leftist bias in all things political. The coverage of the Anchorage assembly, a cabal that would be indicted on RICO violations if they were a private entity, is so one sided that it obliterates any opposing facts.

  16. no reason to get mad at adn, we elected majority of repubs but stedman did not want to have to deal with conservatives. so him and couple of others teamed up with dems here we are. it seems bert is only interested in no pfd,spending for schools and trying to make the govenor look bad, mike svenson sitka

  17. When it was part of the McClatchy Soviet !!. I worked for them once. Their library wasfull of Marxist tomes!!

  18. The Governor is right of course, but I am not even sure this is a liberal vs. conservative matter. This is a morality matter. What would we do if a teacher took a sixth grade class to a farm and had sex with one of the sheep in front of his students? So far as I can see the Anchorage Daily News and many legislators would defend that! I cannot foresee where the people who insist that drag queens receive taxpayer funding to do sex shows in front of children will lead next, and I don’t want to think about it. Thankfully I have no children or grandchildren in public school so I don’t have to think about it. But it won’t surprise me to see this take twists and turns that will be even much more disturbing.

  19. I want to add that it’s situations like this that indicate to me how grateful we all should be for MustReadAlaska! Where else can Alaskans find a balanced view of the news? The Anchorage Daily News, the Juneau Empire, the Alaska Beacon and Alaska Public Media are completely aligned with the legislators that summarily opposed this legislation, likely before they even read it. I cannot fully explain how it can be that in a Red state so much of the media is so far Left, and so dogmatic and unthinking, but if there is another state in which media balance is so dependent on one person as is the case in Alaska right now I am not aware of it.

  20. To think we all had high hopes when Binkleys took over the ADN and it turned out to be another joke of a newspaper.. mean spirited lying and vindictive. I sense a change in the wind with the real conservatives, we are pissed.

    On a side note the mainstream media is flipping out hardcore. MSNBC last night had 1/8 of the screen on tv stating that trump was demonic that was on there for 20 solid minutes. Tells me they are in panic mode already. What kind of crudballs run this media. It’s amazing how bad it has gotten. More importantly the people of this country better figure out what these scumbags end game is. Freedom and peace is definitely not part of their game plan that is guaranteed.

  21. Amy Demboski hired Scott Kendall to represent her in the case she has against Mayor Bronson. I can’t wait to see what argument he’ll use on her behalf. And regarding the fake news ADN, it is interesting how those reporters think that those who read the governor’s bill will come to the same conclusion as they did.

  22. Most Americans are in favor of the US Constitution and so are also in favor of make America great, again, sentiments. What else is there: communism? China? Monarchies?

  23. Exactly the reason I stopped taking the ADN about 15 years ago; When did the policy stop in schools that parents had to ALLOW PERMISSION for ANY discussion of sex education? I remember I always got a paper from my kids that asked for my permission for them to attend sex education discussion.

    • Barb, they can send permission slips home, however, it is what is going on in schools.That is attempting to transition children without parent’s permission, and give them access to the cultural filth they call books in the libraries., If you pay attention to the school board meetings,, the powers of be don’t want to hear or see what the parents have to say. When I wrote to Margo Bellamy and asked a question…When did they put the “Professional” category in the libraries. What reason would you have a professional area when they put these pornographic books in for only educational personnel to have access to them. She sent my email to the Superintendent over a month ago, Have I gotten an answer: No it is just pass the buck and ignore which is typical and ongoing. The Ak News source would not answer my email as to who told them that these porn books were in the libraries under professional. I received no answer.after emailing them twice. So that is what we have as President of the Anchorage School board. In my opinion, a nothing burger.And I am not the only one she has ignored.

  24. Remember when ADN bought up the Chugiak Eagle River Star and shut it down? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

  25. Kudos for ADN displaying their bias. Nothing like watching them self destruct based on attacks versus the realization of facts. Our facts are what we decide they are.

  26. Governor Dunleavy’s Parents Rights in Education bill protects ALL children, regardless of their sexual orientation. It gives parents the ultimate say on how their children will participate in sex-ed classes, as it should be. This is a cultural war and all need to armor up for the upcoming battle to save our children. One suggestion re trans students using bathrooms: Let them use the staff bathrooms. There, problem solved.

    • I was thinking a flying lesson . if he figures out flying without mechanical assistance before impact, wellll.

  27. Basically, America has become Babylon from the Bible. Your views only count if it corrupts a child’s fragile development and enters them into the left’s idea of normal, which is completely abnormal and is abusing parental rights and the rights of an innocent child. If you disagree with the woke mob, you are treated as an outcast. I applaud the Governor’s attempt to dampen the assault on our children, but there is no negotiating with these people because they are controlled by demonic spirits and will not compromise. I would encourage the Governor to learn from real leadership and follow Governor Desantis and his example of really protecting the children and parental rights. Children are being victimized and groomed by the radical side of the LGBTQ community and the corrupt teachers’ unions. There are members of the LGBTQ community that disagree with what is being done to kids and are speaking out against it. I would highly recommend you pull your child out of public education until we can reform the entire education system to actually get back to educating our children, not indoctrinating them.

  28. AS 47.17.290 (3) “child abuse or neglect” means the physical injury or neglect, mental injury, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, or maltreatment of a child under the age of 18 by a person under circumstances that indicate that the child’s health or welfare is harmed or threatened thereby; in this paragraph, “mental injury” means an injury to the emotional well-being, or intellectual or psychological capacity of a child, as evidenced by an observable and substantial impairment in the child’s ability to function;…(6) “department” means the Department of Health and Social Services;……….

    What are the Alaska Constitutional rights of a child? Article VII Sections 4 and 5. The legislature shall provide for the promotion and protection of public health. The legislature shall provide for public welfare.

    Is it in the best interest of the child for the parent, foster parent, or guardian a (FIT aka PRUDENT) parent, foster parent, or guardian to have all records from the school? Do parents have an important Constitutional right to oversee and direct the upbringing of their children? What does the Superior Court and Supreme Court have to say about a parent’s Constitutional Rights?

    As parents, grandparents, legislators, judges (SCO 1993), state (OCS, testimony on 2/14/23), and all other individuals I believe we MUST always do what is in the best interest of the child(ren). HB 105 recognizes and supports the whole well-being of the child(ren) and the Constitutional Rights of the parent(s).

    Read the story(ies) about AK Mom and George by David Ignell. What is the whole well-being of AK Mom’s children? What is the State OCS doing to protect each child from ongoing trauma, and reunite these children with their FIT parent?

  29. It is at once astounding and disparaging to me that this conversation is even ongoing. I believe that Governor Dunleavy has recognized a problem area that should fall squarely under the category of common sense but sadly due lack thereof it needs to be legislated. Depending on which source of global statistics one consults or chooses to believe, the overall population of the LBGTQ+ community constitutes somewhere between 3 and 7 percent. There seems to be a hugely disproportionate amount of noise coming from this segment of the population recently. I have had numerous friends and acquaintances over the years that fall into one or the other of these categories. What consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of my business and I will neither condone nor condemn. Many of these individuals are great citizens and contribute to society while keeping their private lives to themselves. When some of the twisted types start targeting children with this crap it has ratcheted up to a whole different level. Parents are responsible for their children period! Particularly in the sensitive area of sex education. This is not a Democrat versus Republican thing nor is it a liberal versus conservative thing. It is good versus evil. To encourage or even to suggest to a child that they have an option to change gender is despicable. As a youngster I grew up with kids from various different backgrounds, some were city kids and some were farm kids. Some young girls were more feminine and some young boys more masculine. Some of the girls fit in better with some typical male activity. We called them “Tomboys”. Left to their own designs and progression these folks matured into productive normal members of society. Politically correct, wokeism, gender fluidity or whatever you want to call it is a poisonous venom that is coursing through the fabric of this country and has emboldened a very minute and sick segment of the population that is targeting our children and our future. This is unacceptable and it must be stopped. I applaud Governor Dunleavy.

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