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After attending a Trump rally, I realized Democrats aren’t ready for November

Suzanne Downing
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After attending a Trump rally, I realized Democrats aren’t ready for November

By KARLYN BORYSENKO / MEDIUM

I think those of us on the left need to take a long look in the mirror and have an honest conversation about what’s going on.

If you had told me three years ago that I would ever attend a Donald Trump rally, I would have laughed and assured you that was never going to happen.

Heck, if you had told me I would do it three months ago, I probably would have done the same thing. So, how did I find myself among 11,000-plus Trump supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire? Believe it or not, it all started with knitting.

You might not think of the knitting world as a particularly political community, but you’d be wrong. Many knitters are active in social justice communities and love to discuss the revolutionary role knitters have played in our culture. I started noticing this about a year ago, particularly on Instagram.

I knit as a way to relax and escape the drama of real life, not to further engage with it. But it was impossible to ignore after roving gangs of online social justice warriors started going after anyone in the knitting community who was not lockstep in their ideology. Knitting stars on Instagram were bullied and mobbed by hundreds of people for seemingly innocuous offenses. One man got mobbed so badly that he had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to the hospital on suicide watch. Many things were not right about the hatred, and witnessing the vitriol coming from those I had aligned myself with politically was a massive wake-up call.

Democrats have an ass-kicking coming to them in November, and I think most of them will be utterly shocked when it happens.

You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone who wasn’t a straight white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.

But when I witnessed the amount of hate coming from the left in this small, niche knitting community, I started to question everything. I started making a proactive effort to break my echo chamber by listening to voices I thought I would disagree with. I wanted to understand their perspective, believing it would confirm that they were filled with hate for anyone who wasn’t like them.

That turned out not to be the case. The more voices outside the left that I listened to, the more I realized that these were not bad people. They were not racists, nazis, or white supremacists. We had differences of opinions on social and economic issues, but a difference of opinion does not make your opponent inherently evil. And they could justify their opinions using arguments, rather than the shouting and ranting I saw coming from my side of the aisle.

I started to discover (or perhaps rediscover) the #WalkAway movement. I had heard about #WalkAway when MSNBC told me it was fake and a bunch of Russian bots. But then I started to meet real people who had been Democrats and made the decision to leave because they could not stand the way the left was behaving.

I watched town halls they held with different minority communities (all available in their entirety on YouTube), and I saw sane, rational discussion from people of all different races, backgrounds, orientations, and experiences. I joined the Facebook group for the community and saw stories popping up daily of people sharing why they are leaving the Democratic Party. This wasn’t fake. These people are not Russian bots. Moreover, it felt like a breath of fresh air. There was not universal agreement in this group — some were Trump supporters, some weren’t — but they talked and shared their perspective without shouting or rage or trying to cancel each other.

I started to question everything. How many stories had I been sold that weren’t true? What if my perception of the other side is wrong? How is it possible that half the country is overtly racist? Is it possible that Trump derangement syndrome is a real thing, and had I been suffering from it for the past three years?

And the biggest question of all was this: Did I hate Trump so much that I wanted to see my country fail just to spite him and everyone who voted for him?

Karlyn Borysenko, MBA, PhD, is an organizational psychologist, consultant, and executive coach.

Read the rest of this column at Medium.

Passengers who came through Anchorage from Wuhan are out of quarantine

Suzanne Downing
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7
Passengers who came through Anchorage from Wuhan are out of quarantine

Some 195 evacuees from Wuhan, China, who on Jan. 29 transited through Anchorage International Airport’s North Terminal on their way home, have been released from their quarantine at March Air Force Base in Riverside County, Calif.

The group, released on Feb. 11, was under a 14-day federal quarantine for COVID-19, the flu virus that originated in Wuhan, to ensure they were not contagious. It was the first federal quarantine in nearly 60 years.

“All 195 evacuees have completed final health check” and “pose no health risk,” said Dr. Nancy Knight with the Centers for Disease Control.

The photo above was released by the Riverside County Department of Public Health, as some of the travelers threw their surgical masks into the air in celebration. None are expected to need follow-up testing, the CDC said.

While at the Air Force base, they were housed in the bachelors quarters, a series of apartments, and were able to take part in various activities, such as Zumba classes, while at the same time their temperatures were taken multiple times each day.

When the cargo plane carrying the passengers, mostly American diplomats and their families, landed in Anchorage, there were reported to be 201 passengers onboard. The number released by health officials from the March AFB quarantine is 195, with no explanation for the discrepancy.

To date, more than 69,289 people have contracted the COVID-19 virus, and 1,689 have died as a result. The virus has surpassed the fatalities from the 2003 outbreak of SARS.

‘Call of the Wild’: An allegory of Alaska political life

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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‘Call of the Wild’: An allegory of Alaska political life

‘KILLING SPITZ’ MEANS ELECTING REAL REPUBLICANS

By ART CHANCE

Watching movie trailers for the “Call of the Wild” started me thinking about what I once thought Alaska was about, when in 1974, I packed up Wife 1.0, kid, and dog in a Toyota Land Cruiser and set out “North to the Future.”     

“Call of the Wild” is being marketed as an “All-American” story. But it occurred in the Yukon Territory; the book’s author Jack London is about as far from a mainstream American as you get.   

Don’t get me wrong; I like some of London’s writing: “To Build a Fire” is one of my favorite pieces of writing. But London was an atheist, a Socialist, an alcoholic, and at the end of his days a morphine addict who died of an overdose. That is not an “All-American” biography.

To go with the “Buck the dog protagonist” analogy, we the people of Alaska, have to struggle with Spitz, our lead dog.  

“The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see…” is the Republican fratricide in the organization of the Alaska Legislature.

Much of Alaska’s history has been an existential struggle against a harsh environment.  As Jack London’s protagonist in “To Build a Fire” struggled and failed to build a fire in the Yukon wilderness, we struggled to build a state and only became one because of the Soviet Union’s relentless anti-colonial pressure.

The United States worried about our viability as a state from the outset and considered us a welfare dependency liability.  In reality, Congress only considered us for statehood because the Cook Inlet oil discoveries gave us some revenue other than from washing each other’s clothes.   

Then came Prudhoe Bay.

Since oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, we’ve become trust fund babies.   Like Buck when he was Judge Miller’s dog, we have become soft, pampered pets. Only about a third of our population even bothers to engage in productive, wealth-producing work; the rest are either public employees or welfare recipients.   

Welfare is so lucrative in Alaska that you’re foolish to work a job that pays much less than $40,000 a year and provides full benefits. 

Like Buck, we’re going to have to learn to be wild again.

The leadership of the House are a bunch of union-owned hacks.  I worked on the union side when I was young and dumb and learned that the ultimate goal is to get yourself into a position where a bunch of working stiffs have to work and pay union dues so you no longer have to work with the tools of the trade and you can make a salary many multiples of theirs for doing nothing measurable.

The Senate is run by a true trust fund baby and by Nurse Ratched. They are in thrall to their egos and to the healthcare racket, the education racket, and the public employee union racket.  

They happily ignore the interests of everyday Alaskans so the administrators of so-called non-profit healthcare organizations can make a million bucks a year for sending invoices to the State, and so “education professionals” can run school districts producing the least-able students in the nation.

And they ignore the interests of regular Alaskans so union officials can make multi-hundred thousand dollar a year salaries to extort money from public employees so that the employees can get and keep jobs.

The governor and his administration are clueless. They don’t have anyone in their appointee ranks that has a clue how to run State government, and they have a disloyal and barely competent workforce beneath the appointee level.   

Not only does the Administration not know what to do, it doesn’t have anybody it can ask.  In my book I recommend that any Republican executive taking over from a Democrat fire everybody s/he has a legal right to fire and let the merit system employees run the government; they’ll keep it running.   

I’m not so sure that is good advice anymore; from what I’ve seen if the merit system employees don’t have somebody telling them what to do, some portion will actively sabotage the Administration and the rest will just sit and idly stare.

Like Buck, in “Call of the Wild,” we’re going to have to find it in us to kill Spitz.  We have to hear and obey the call of the wild.  

Now that the Administration stupidly went for an expedited hearing on the Recall Dunleavy case, the Supreme Court is getting to pay Dunleavy back for the “abortion budget cut.” That’s the cut Dunleavy made to the administrative portion of the court’s budget, and shifted it over to pay for the state-funded, elective abortions that the Supreme Court demands the state cover.

Some of us learned long ago that you don’t cross swords with the people who can decide your fate. Gov. Dunleavy’s fate is to become a former governor this summer. His only hope was to have the recall on the General Election Ballot in November, as Alaskans will vote overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump and people who vote for Trump aren’t likely to vote to recall even an inept Republican governor.   

The only people who will vote in a recall Special Election are super voters and interest-group voters, and the interest groups will work their lists hard.   Of course, there really aren’t any Republican/conservative organized interest groups.   

Dunleavy is toast.  If the only hope they had was to delay the recall vote to the General Election, and Dunleavy and Attorney General Kevin Clarkson embraced the expedited hearing, then they deserve what’s going to happen to them.

Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer will be governor in November and he isn’t up until 2022, so he’ll get to oversee redistricting and try to keep the Democrats from redlining Republicans/conservatives into oblivion.   

“Killing Spitz” requires that the working, tax-paying people of Alaska eliminate the rent-seekers and tax farmers in the Alaska Legislature. It has been suggested that elected officials become like NASCAR drivers and wear all their sponsors’ logos on their jackets.  When you vote, remember you’re not voting for the candidate, but for his/her sponsors; choose wisely.

Alaska’s people do not have to live out the existential crisis of “Call of the Wild.” Our Yeehats are not among the People of the State, but rather among a largely self-anointed elite of rent-seekers and power mongers. We don’t have to have Buck’s existential battle with the Yeehats, we just need to send some legislators packing in the next Primary and General elections.

If you haven’t read Jack London’s “Call of the Wild” or haven’t read it in a long time, pick up the book and give it a read; it is a good allegory for our time and place. Watching the new movie won’t do, because that’s Hollywierd.

Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon. 

Look for the union label: Reps. who axed Janus defense money took big bucks from public unions

Suzanne Downing
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21
Look for the union label: Reps. who axed Janus defense money took big bucks from public unions

JOSEPHSON AND CLAMAN PAID WELL TO FIGHT JANUS

The Dunleavy Administration is having to defend itself in court against a public employee union lawsuit resulting from the Administration’s enforcement of the Janus decision.

[Read: A conversation with Mark Janus]

But union-back Democrats in the House of Representatives said “no way” in a House Finance subcommittee meeting last week. They stripped the funding.

COMPLICATED BUDGET MANEUVER

The Dept. of Law in January contracted with an Outside law firm to defend the state from a public union lawsuit against the state’s “opt-in” plan that would comply with the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.

Law planned to pay up to $600,000 for the subject-expert lawyers, as the case resulting from a lawsuit by the Alaska State Employees Association against the Dunleavy Administration, is expected to go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[Read: State will work to protect workers’ rights]

Last week, the House Finance subcommittee, headed by Rep. Andy Josephson, decided there will be no Outside legal counsel. The committee renamed the appropriation title for the “civil division”  in its budget. As a maneuver to protect unions against the Janus decision by the Supreme Court, subcommittee Democrats now call the budget item the “Civil Division Except Contracts Relating to Interpretation of Janus v AFSCME Decision.”

A separate appropriation line is now called, “Legal Contracts Relating to Interpretation of Janus v AFSCME Decision,” and it has just $20,000 in the item, the smallest appropriation legally possible from the subcommittee.

During the hearing, Democrat committee members said they disagree with the Administration’s decision to pursue Janus litigation, and wanted to send a message they will not support spending the money to defend workers’ rights to affirmatively opt-in on union membership, rather than being automatically enrolled in a union, and having to buck union pressure if they want to opt out.

[Read: State employee union gets court to block Dunleavy on union dues collection]

The Democrats on the committee have a conflict-of-interest problem. Two legislators on the House Finance subcommittee who made a point to strip the funding are themselves heavily funded by public labor union political action committees.

In the last election, Rep. Andy Josephson received $18,250 of his total $26,676.73 in campaign funds from Labor Union PACS, which represents about 68 percent of his total campaign funding.

Josephson is, coincidentally, the grandson of Arnold Zander, the first president of AFSCME International.

AFSCME is the union that lost the case against Mark Janus, a public employee from Illinois who did not want his union dues to be used for political purposes and didn’t want to be compelled to pay union dues.

Rep. Matt Claman

Rep. Matt Claman received $15,600 of his total $110,053 in campaign funds from Labor Union PACS and union representatives, which represents about 15 percent of his total campaign funding.

Thoughts & considerations: Many Alaskans still on board with Donald Trump

Suzanne Downing
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12
Thoughts & considerations: Many Alaskans still on board with Donald Trump

On Feb. 12, Must Read Alaska asked readers of the MRAK newsletter (subscribe here) how they are doing with the Trump presidency after Donald Trump’s remarks at the 68th National Prayer Breakfast, which rubbed some Christians the wrong way.

Subscribers to the newsletter are largely conservative, but readers run the gamut from Libertarian to Democrat-Socialist.

Here are the answers that came into the MRAK mailbox through Friday, lightly edited. Feel free to offer your own thoughts in the comment section below:

As a pro-life Christian, what choice is there?

Trump is his own worst enemy. His supporters detest much of his behavior, but they support most of his policies and accomplishments. If it wasn’t for his personality problems, his poll numbers would be 20-30 points higher. Fortunately for Trump, the Democrats offer clowns for opposition. The Democrats are doing all the right things to re-elect Trump. Let’s cheer them on.

Having grown up in New Jersey I experienced many people from New York. Donald Trump is a New Yorker, and his comments do not offend or bother me in any way. People that are offensive should be offended.

I am glad he speaks his mind. It’s about time we had a president thatdoes it. I voted for him, will do so again, and have no regrets.  The only mistake he has made is underestimating the depth of the D.C. swamp. Thanks. Read your site daily, make a sweatshirt without a hoodie and I will buy 5..

His message was amazing and fantastic! 

Trump 2020!

Keep America Great!!!

I love our president and stand behind him 100%.

Regarding Donald Trump’s comments at the Prayer Breakfast. I see this as Donald Trump being Donald Trump, but for many I know, his persona rubs them the wrong way, even though his policies are appreciated.

I see that as a tendency of many to try to represent themselves as above the fray—all while secretly cheering him on.

He is the first president to dare to be real. Personally, I like that, but for those who like to walk around pretending to be righteous and good and pure people no matter what is in their heart, it is disturbing and they dare not be caught acknowledging that he is really saying what they themselves wish they could.

Our MAGA-POTUS Trump has no peer in recent history if honestly measured in terms of striving against all odds to actually deliver upon campaign promises that benefit the average American. 

To find an equal, one would have to look back to our founding, or perhaps, the great war of Slave-Owning Democrats VS the United States of America. I think about Lincoln in the context of Trump sometimes, because the last time the Democrats were this pissed off at Republicans, was when we tried to end slavery.

When your opposition is (partial list below)

All that, and our President keeps showing up, keeps fighting and winning every damned day….?  So, yeah, you can say that I support him, my only question is: How does he do it? 

You really want to know?

Not a fan here.  I think we can/should do better.

God sent us a president who is imperfect and sometimes profane, but he is protecting my First Amendment right to religious freedom, he is protecting my Second Amendment right to own firearms, and he’s fighting for the rights of all Americans to live, including unborn Americans. Onboard? Heck yes. No-brainer.

Congressman Don Young recently sent around a question asking for input for Trump’s State of the Union address.  I encouraged him to encourage Trump to publicly repent of his sins and lead the nation in repentance before the Lord our God.  Our nation, from the family to the schools can’t run away from the Lord any faster with our sin.  We are heading for the Lord dealing with us and, if we paid attention; He probably is!

Trump is not worthy of being president in in any sense of the word; my vote for him will be voting for the least of the evils in the candidate bucket of the stuff we had lots of in the barnyard of the dairy farm I grew up at.

He’s still getting the boost from the impeachment.  He’ll drop off a little, but still blast the Dems enough to have long coattails. Speaker McCarthy it will be, and Senate majority will grow.  Dems will have to shift right or die off. All this could change if the Donald really truly blows it – but I don’t think that will happen.

I parted with the Republican Party National and in State when both became more concerned about their own re-elections and making money for themselves. Trump is the only politician that I believe is still trying to do what is best for this Country and fighting to keep his promises to his voters. I support him because he is the only honest patriot in the political system.

One thing I think of is how the media treated Sarah Palin when she ran for VP.  She had been outrageously popular as governor but she rose above the sight line (to borrow a line from Stephen King) and got national attention.  Suddenly she was being mocked for participating in a beauty pageant, for taking longer than four years to finish college, for saying ‘you betcha’ basically for being us.  Who Hillary Clinton later called “a basket of deplorables” and who CNN’s Don Lemon famously mocked recently.  I cannot find it anymore but there was an opinion piece written when she ran called “The importance of Sarah Palin” containing reference to “the cold blank stares of those nice people we invite into our houses and even our bedrooms” Meaning news commentators.  I just picture us staring at them in shocked realization that they don’t like us at all.

Back to Trump, our betters have been trying to get rid of him since before day 1.  The impeachment was obviously a farce.  I can see people voting for Trump because our betters don’t want him.  Kind of a middle finger to the Deep State.

I should say I voted for Trump because I was voting against Hillary who I believe sat across the table from a certain power and sold her soul long ago.  Almost literally I believe that. 

I expected Trump to abandon every principle he espoused once elected.  I have been pleasantly surprised. 

I am reminded of people complaining about Ulysses Grant and Lincoln replying “Yes but he fights.” 

He fights.  I intend to support him this go-round.  We shall see.

I feel like a woman without a country.  I am a Republican “never-trumper.”  Last time round I voted Libertarian.  This time round I want him gone! 

 So do I vote for a moderate Democrat?  I don’t want to, but the party leaders are leaving me no choice.  I don’t  want a Democratic Administration.  I simply cannot vote for Trump, I cannot support him and I want desperately to have him gone!  He lies like a rug, flat out, all the time.  He treats people with such discourtesy.  Yuk!

 Most any other Republican president could have done the good things Trump has done …and without doing all the lying and atrocious stuff he does. 

I am unhappy.  I work out my frustration on the woodpile.  Maybe Trump needs a woodpile.  

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to unload.  It’s been building.

Eight apply for Supreme Court vacancy

Suzanne Downing
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6
Eight apply for Supreme Court vacancy

Eight attorneys have applied to the Alaska Judicial Council for an upcoming vacant position on the Alaska Supreme Court and three applied for the Palmer District Court, the Alaska Judicial Council announced today.

The Supreme Court applicants are:

Dario Borghesan: Borghesan has been an Alaska resident for 11-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 9-1/2 years. He graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 2008, and is currently a chief assistant attorney general in Anchorage.

Dani Crosby: Judge Crosby has been an Alaska resident for 33 years, and has practiced law for 23-1/2 years. She graduated from Gonzaga University School of Law in 1996, and is a superior court judge in Anchorage.

Kate Demarest: Demarest has been an Alaska resident for 9-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 11-1/2 years. She graduated from University of Minnesota Law School in 2008, and is currently a senior assistant attorney general in Anchorage.

Jennifer Stuart Henderson: Judge Henderson has been an Alaska resident for 16-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 16-1/2 years. She graduated from Yale Law School in 2001, and is currently a superior court judge in Anchorage.

Yvonne Lamoureux: Judge Lamoureux has been an Alaska resident for 15-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 16-1/2 years. She graduated from University of Virginia School of Law in 2003, and is currently a superior court judge in Anchorage.

Margaret Paton Walsh: Paton Walsh has been an Alaska resident for 15-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 14-1/2 years. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 2004, and is a chief assistant attorney general in Anchorage.

Paul A. Roetman: Judge Roetman has been an Alaska resident for 47-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 18 years. He graduated from Regent University School of Law in 1999, and is a superior court judge in Kotzebue.

Jonathan A. Woodman: Judge Woodman has been an Alaska resident for 20 years, and has practiced law for 26 years. He graduated from the Ohio State University College of Law in 1993, and is a superior court judge in Palmer.

The applicants for the Palmer District Court are:

Craig S. Condie: Magistrate Judge Condie has been an Alaska resident for 15-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 15-1/2 years. He graduated from the University of Utah School of Law in 2004, and is a magistrate judge in Palmer.
Tom V. Jamgochian: Jamgochian has been an Alaska resident for 15-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 14-1/2 years. He graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 2004, and is an assistant district attorney in Nome.

Eric Senta: Senta has been an Alaska resident for 35-1/2 years, and has practiced law for 9-1/2 years. He graduated from University of Minnesota Law School in 2010, and is an assistant attorney general in Anchorage.

The applicants will be screened by the Council’s seven members (the chief justice, three non-attorney members, and three attorney members). A survey of Alaska Bar Association members, and personal interviews with the applicants are part of the evaluations, according to the Council’s Executive Director, Susanne DiPietro. Interviews with applicants and a public hearing will be held in May.

The Council will select two or more nominees for each vacancy to send to the governor. The governor will have 45 days to make appointments from the Council’s nominees.


Recall group can collect signatures, high court says

Suzanne Downing
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28
Recall group can collect signatures, high court says

THE FIX IS IN, RECALL ELECTION WILL LIKELY BE IN JUNE OR JULY

Recall Dunleavy Committee can proceed with collecting signatures on the petition to recall the governor, even while the case is being argued before the Supreme Court. The ruling came on Friday afternoon.

The Supreme Court said that while the Superior Court judge considered the harm to Stand Tall With Mike, if the petitioners were allowed to proceed with their signature gathering, the Superior Court judge did not consider the harm to the recall committee.

“However, the superior court did not expressly consider the harm to Recall Dunleavy resulting from a stay, and as a result it appears to have applied an incorrect analysis,” the ruling states.

The ruling is a serious setback for the team defending Gov. Mike Dunleavy, represented by both the State Department of Law, in its capacity of defending the Division of Elections, and Stand Tall with Mike, an independent group.

The rapidity of the court schedule is what is most telling:

The briefs have to be filed in 11 days, and oral arguments are set for March 25. Even more telling is that the court has said it would rule on the same day.

The court appears to be ready to ramrod the matter through so the question can appear on special election, low-turnout ballot, in the middle of the summer.

Alaska transgender wo/man marathoner could compete in Olympics trials as female

Suzanne Downing
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47
Alaska transgender wo/man marathoner could compete in Olympics trials as female

A transgender female Alaskan, born male but with the help of drugs is living as a woman, may be the first transgender athlete to compete in the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in Atlanta this month, if he/she qualifies passes the ‘chemistry” test.

Megan Youngren, 29, qualified for the women’s marathon trials when he/she placed 40th in Sacramento at the California International Marathon on Dec. 8. The Olympic marathon trial in Atlanta is Feb. 29.

Youngren is from Soldotna. He/she began taking hormones in 2011 to suppress male qualities and enhance female qualities, and “came out” as transgender in 2012. He/she began running in 2013 to lose weight associated with the medications, and for health reasons, according to Sports Illustrated, which described Youngren as an Alaska Native.

U.S. Track and Field’s transgender policies include “certain medical benchmarks be achieved,” including not having testosterone over a certain level for the year leading up to the competition. The organization stops short of requiring surgery for men presenting as women; for women transitioned to appear male, there are no barricades to competing against men.

“The intent of this policy is to establish competitive eligibility and to help ensure fair competition. The policy also contains safeguards to protect the privacy of any athlete(s) making the request for eligibility.”

Youngren competed in the Fairbanks Equinox Marathon in 2016. In August of 2019 Youngren finished second overall in the Kenai Salmon Run, placing ahead of 10 men in that race. He/She also finished second in the Anchorage RunFest marathon among women, and third overall. In the Anchorage Mayor’s Marathon in 2019, Youngren came in second in the women’s division, behind former UAA skier and current assistant Nordic coach Marine Dusser, whose time of 3:05:49 beat Youngren by 22 seconds.

In Connecticut this week, the parents of three teen women filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday to block transgender athletes in Connecticut from participating in girls sports.

Represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the three teen athletes are saying that those with male anatomy who are competing in their division are depriving from from track titles and scholarship opportunities.

Bloomberg on rise in Alaska?

Suzanne Downing
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10
Bloomberg on rise in Alaska?

THE BETTING MARKETS ARE NOW WEIGHING HIS CHANCES

The betting markets are one way to get a gauge on what voters really think. Increasingly, they think Bloomberg is making inroads in the Democrat Party in Alaska and across the country.

The latest PredictIt.org charts show that while Bernie Sanders is still No. 1 with Alaska Democrats, Michael Bloomberg is all of a sudden worth placing a bet on.

On Jan. 25, the top betting pools were for Bernie Sanders – 68 cents, Joe Biden 27 cents, and Elizabeth Warren, 12 cents. At the bottom were Andrew Yang, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar.

Snapshot of the Jan. 25 PredictIt.org bets on the Alaska Democrat primary winner. Michael Bloomberg was not even on the list.

Since Jan. 25, the mood has shifted. Now, Bernie Sanders contracts are selling for 73 cents, but Michael Bloomberg came out of nowhere and is in second place, at 18 cents for the Alaska Democrat Primary.

After the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primaries, the Democrats and the mainstream media are looking for who they can back as the person who will beat Donald Trump, and they’re nervous about the strength of Sanders.

The gamblers give them reason to take a look at Bloomberg . While Sanders is still far ahead of the pack and Bloomberg was not even on the list of wagered candidates in January, now, the national bets put Bloomberg far ahead of Biden and Buttigieg, while Elizabeth Warren is hardly registering for bets.

In Alaska, Sanders is still strong, followed by Bloomberg, who is clearly on the rise and who has been endorsed by Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz:

On Feb. 14, Bernie Sanders is rising, but all of a sudden, Michael Bloomberg is showing up on the charts in Alaska Democrat Primary betting.

Bloomberg is spending heavily on his campaign. NBC News reports that the billionaire spent more than $1 million a day on average during the past two weeks on Facebook and Instagram ads.

The Nevada Democrat Caucus is held on Feb. 22, and early voting starts on Saturday, Feb. 15.

Polling from the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows Sanders is leading for the first time in the 2020 election cycle in Nevada.

According to the the poll, 25 percent of respondents picked Sanders, who identifies as a Democratic Socialist. The next highest preference is Biden at 18 percent.

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