“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote late Saturday at Truth Social and on X/Twitter.
The media pounced: Trump was “sowing doubt once more about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare,” said the AP.
The AP has decided that election fraud just is not a thing.
“Please beware,” Trump continued in his post, “that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
In other words, election fraud will be prosecuted by the Department of Justice.
The headline on the AP story, carried around the world is this: “Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate.”
Even in the Anchorage Daily News on Sunday, the AP headline ran verbatim as news, not commentary:
“Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly,” the AP story continued.
The AP was once considered to be a neutral news source. In recent years, however, it has drifted toward a point-of-view style of journalism.
Over on PBS, the news team is already pre-spinning how Trump might deny a 2024 loss:
“Beware when PBS brings on a ‘nonpartisan’ expert on election integrity, and no one mentions Kamala Harris at all. On the September 3 PBS News Hour, deeply biased White House reporter Laura Barron-Lopez brought on David Becker for a segment titled “How Trump has made election lies a key feature of his campaign.” But this wasn’t just about Trump denying he lost the election in 2020. Most of it was about ‘pre-denial,’ or how Trump would spin a loss in the 2024 election,” explained writer Tim Graham at Media Research Centers’Newsbuster website, which holds mainstream media accountable.
Becker co-authored an anti-Trump book with CBS reporter Major Garrett, titled “The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of ‘The Big Lie,'”touted as an “overwhelming counterattack” on Trump’s election denial. The “Big Truth” authors imagined theoutbreak of civil war in 2023, according to Graham.
At Amazon, the new book by conservative Jack Posobiec, titled “Bulletproof: How a Shot Meant for Donald Trump Took Out Joe Biden,” was given a thumbnail book cover that advertised a completely different book: “Kinfolk.” After over 24 hours of the wrong image being attributed to the conservative writer’s new book, Amazon had still not fixed the error. It was showing a photo of a publication that is a guide to Seoul, Korea.
Posobiec wrote, “They are sabotaging the FIRST book ever written about the Trump assassination.”
The mainstream media and companies like Amazon appear determined to take sides during the election cycle, repeating habits they perfected and locked in during the 2016 and 2020 general elections when Trump was also on the ballot.
Must Read Alaska will continue to hold them accountable, even from our outpost here in the Great Land, where we work to preserve free speech and free people.
The “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” according to Catholic Vote, is “a vile anti-Catholic organization.” Their motto is “Go and sin some more” and they use the cross for pole dances. The group satirizes Catholic beliefs for the sake of activism. They mock Easter Sunday with a Hunky Jesus/Foxy Mary contest. According to the Catholic League, they hold “Midnight Confessional Contests” awarding the “hottest confessions.”
So it makes sense that Dodgers fans came unglued when they heard their team would be rewarding the anti-Catholic, anti-Christian group. The Dodgers withdrew their award in response to customer outrage and disinvited the “Sisters.”
But the California Teachers Association stepped in and strong-armed the Dodgers into standing with perverts against the will of their paying customers.
California Teachers Association’s May 2023 New Business Itemstates, “CTA shall release a public statement condemning the Dodgers’ recent decision to rescind the Community Hero Award for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.”
As veteran California teachers who’ve served within the unions and personally witnessed the radical agenda CTA imposes upon teachers, we find it suspicious that while the Dodgers are taking so much rightful heat for their June 16 celebration of the offensive “Sisters,” the teachers union is getting away scot-free. CTA’s offensive intrusion into America’s national pastime and its endorsement of drag queens mocking nuns is scandalous. That’s why discerning Americans have had enough and are rising up in protest against teachers unions.
“The statement of the CTA should alarm every Catholic parent who sends their children to California public schools. No school should be a place where children are sexualized or taught anti-Catholic prejudice,” said Father Sebastian Walshe of St. Michael’s Abbey in the Diocese of Orange.
The CTA rationalizes its stance with: “The Dodgers decision is rooted in the same bigotry that’s led to the LGBTQIA+ books being banned, drag shows being criminalized, and life-saving medical care being taken away from minors.” But this is a deceptive statement. Americans are pushing back on pornographic books, drag queen events, and sex transition surgeries on children because these things are destructive to children and an affront to families and American values.
Catholics are not the only Americans offended by the CTA’s endorsement. Jews, Muslims, Protestants and teachers like us are outraged as well.
Rabbi Dov Fischer, a senior congregational rabbi and law professor in California comments in his EdSource article, “The state’s school system, established to provide a safe learning climate for all students regardless of their ethnicity, race, language or religious affiliation, is now [thanks to unions] a social laboratorywhere students and families from devout faiths feel ostracized.”
Dr. Ahmed Soboh, the Chairman of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella organization of 67 mosques throughout California, agreed with the rabbi: “Making fun of religious symbols or mocking religious figures should not be celebrated, especially by those who have the honorable job of educating our children.”
Most teachers would agree with the reasonable statements of Father Walshe, Rabbi Fischer, and Imam Soboh. However, the CTA does not represent the majority of teachers. CTA’s endorsement of the “Sisters” is offensive to most teachers, and it demonstrates the radical, out-of-touch views of CTA leadership.
Families of faith have good reason to be appalled since CTA – and its national arm NEA – misrepresent most teachers while controlling the trajectory of public education. Sahara Medrano, a dedicated veteran teacher and a minority representative of the California Teachers’ Union State Council, sees the red flags: “It’s becoming increasingly clear that a politically charged anti-Christian culture of religious intolerance is spreading throughout public school districts across our nation. If this trend continues, our public school system will break confidence with the religious community they are entrusted to serve. Students of faith are starting to boldly speak out saying they don’t feel safe in public schools.”
Teachers don’t feel safe either. And we have to ask, what does forcing the Dodgers into submission to a political agenda that harms children have to do with representing us as educators?
As public school teachers who’ve also served in Christian ministry for years, we commend Muslims, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants for collectively taking a stand for true religious tolerance, by standing against the religious intolerance of CTA. And we’re calling on teachers to join in protest too.
Let’s follow the lead of fed-up Americans who are using their enormous power of the purse to deliver a financial sting to the Dodgers and companies like Bud Light and Target who cave to pressure from special interest groups instead of serving their customers.
Teachers can stop the power of the intolerant CTA by refusing to pay union dues, but we need your help educating teachers that they no longer have to pay unions as a condition of employment. If we help teachers empty the purses of union overlords, Americans can restore childhood innocence and freedom of speech and religion, and get back to enjoying baseball.
The National Transportation and Safety Board is investigating the crash of a Bell 206B helicopter near King Salmon.
On Saturday morning, Alaska State Troopers were notified that the helicopter carrying five peopled crashed into the Naknek River. The crash occurred between 9:15 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., not long after the helicopter departed the King Salmon Airport. Emergency personnel and good Samaritans were able to get all the occupants of the aircraft out of the water prior to Troopers and Alaska Wildlife Troopers arriving on the scene.
One passenger, Martin Delaureal, 73, of Metairie, Louisiana was killed in the accident. Next-of-kin has been notified. NTSB was alerted and is responding. The helicopter remains in the river as of Saturday night, pending getting equipment to the site so it can be removed, at which point the NTSB will continue its investigation into the crash.
Footage from the Naknek River camera operated by the U.S. Park Service shows that conditions may have been foggy in the morning.
The number of students enrolled in Anchorage School District schools has decreased, according to the district’s updated enrollment figures as of Sept. 5. That includes correspondence school students who don’t use school buildings.
Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt announced in April that it’s past time to close some campuses and consolidate, as the working-age population of the city has declined by more than 17,000 residents, or 8.5% over the last decade, and the student enrollment has declined by nearly 10%. He said in the spring that he would gather community input and that decisions would have to be made this fall.
In 2002, 50,055 students attended Anchorage public schools. By 2010, the district had just under 50,000 students. Last year during the official count released in October, the enrollment had fallen to about 43,370 students.
So far this year, the shrinkage appears to be continuing at to 42,353, with a further drop to 37,000 predicted by 2027.
This year’s enrollment number will not be official until October’s annual formal count.
On top of an outmigration problem balanced somewhat by an increase in the homeless population, birth rates in Anchorage have sagged.
In 2004, some 10,336 babies were born in Anchorage. In 2022, that dropped to 9,410 babies born. Granted, births in Anchorage may be from moms and dads in other parts of the state, but a drop is still relevant to school management and forecasting.
The disappearance of babies, while not appearing dramatic on the surface, is already the equivalent of three elementary schools.
The State of Alaska says the overall fertility rate in Anchorage has gone from 72.4 per 1,000 women in 2004 to 64.3 in 2021, the last year the state has published its estimates. That is more than an 11% drop in fertility.
However, in the discussion of population outmigration and student enrollment’s falling numbers, there are population collapse deniers.
The chairman of the Anchorage Assembly says “marginal loss of population in Anchorage is wholly driven by JBER personnel decisions. Otherwise, Anchorage is growing.”
Denial by city leaders doesn’t negate the fact that 70% of Alaska’s 30 boroughs and census areas lost population over recent years. Meanwhile, unlike what Constant supposes, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson has seen no significant force reductions, although the Obama Administration had planned for such reductions in 2014. The Obama military slashing plan for JBER was halted in large part by efforts of Sen. Dan Sullivan in 2016; he was elected to the U.S. Senate two years earlier and made protection of military strength in Alaska a priority.
Anchorage had nearly 294,000 people in 2010, and the latest estimate is 289,653. Current population estimates can be found at the State of Alaska website here.
Since Bryantt took over the schools in 2022, he has been trying to right-size the footprint of the campuses, but has been met with resistance. While in 2022 he said six elementary schools need to be closed, the board caved to complaints from the public and only agreed to close Abbott Elementary School. But in reality, Abbott Elementary is still a school district facility serving as Alaska Native Cultural Charter School.
Meanwhile, the MatSu School District to the immediate north of Anchorage has grown to 19,705 students.
Fairbanks has 12,331 enrolled, having lost 1,300 students since 2015.
On Monday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s staff will hear from all sides about whether the Eklutna Hydroelectric Project and associated dam should be reauthorized. His decision is due no later than Oct. 2.
The Anchorage Assembly last week passed a resolution demanding that Dunleavy delay the decision for two years. On Monday, he’ll hear legal points for why a delay of his decision might be legal or not legal, according to agreements made in the 1990s.
The Assembly wants the delay because it doesn’t want the reauthorization of the dam. The Assembly majority wants to wait until there’s a different governor in office — preferably one that will cave to the demands of the Assembly to take down the dam that holds nearly all of Anchorage’s drinking water and a significant portion of its electric capacity for homes and businesses. The Assembly has gone on record wanting full restoration of the Eklutna River, something that was never envisioned under the terms of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife agreement.
The project was sold in 1997 to the Municipality of Anchorage, Chugach Electric Association, and Matanuska Electric Association. As part of the sale of the project, the three utilities entered into a Fish & Wildlife Agreement in 1991. The agreement requires the project owners to develop and propose to the governor a program to protect, mitigate damages to, and enhance fish and wildlife impacted by the development of the hydroelectric project.
But now in 2024, after selling off Municipal Light & Power to Chugach Electric under Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, the Assembly has no voting role in the matter. The municipality is not an ownership member without ML&P.
The Assembly has been, however, holding government-to-government meetings with the Eklutna Village, which has about 70 people enrolled, and the Assembly has been threatening to sue the governor if he reauthorizes the dam, which was first built in the 1920s and rebuilt in the decades that followed.
The governor has the authority to reauthorize the dam as it is or with a plan developed over a five-year process by the voting members of its ownership group, which is now Chugach Electric Association and Matanuska Electric Association.
“They would threaten the water supply and cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer and ratepayer dollars,” said Power the Future in July. “They believe that other energy solutions (i.e., wind and solar) can more than make up the power produced by the Eklutna system. Ask Anchorage residents what that might have looked like this past January, when the current wind solution would have powered less than 700 homes on the coldest day of the year, while the Eklutna supply powered over 28,000 between Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley.”
According to the description by Eklutna Hydro, the 1991 Agreement says the governor will review the proposal and issue a final Fish and Wildlife Program giving equal consideration to:
the purposes of efficient and economical power production
energy conservation
the protection, mitigation of damage to, and enhancement of fish and wildlife
the protection of recreation opportunities,
municipal water supplies
the preservation of other aspects of environmental quality
other beneficial public uses
requirements of State law
Throughout the process, the owners are required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, state resource agencies, including the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, and any other interested parties.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is an electoral system where voters rank candidates by preference instead of choosing just one.
While choice is the personal judgment in favor of merit or value, preference determines favor by any methods available, often sacrificing the evidence of merit or value. A choice is a context-driven decision. A preference emerges when a person assesses different options, hence ranking one’s options.
RCV promotes a bromide which insists if no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed according to the voters’ next preferences. This process continues until a candidate achieves a majority.
Two states, Alaska and Maine, have adopted RCV for statewide purposes.
It is noteworthy that Maine has six active political parties as opposed to Alaska’s 17 active political parties.
Maine has a population of about 1.35 million people with about 950,000 voters. Maine’s voter population represents almost 70.4 % of the state’s population. Maine’s population is increasing. Maine adopted RCV in 2016 and started to use it in 2018. It is used in all federal elections, including U.S. Senate and U.S. House races and its state elections.
Alaska has a population of about 734,000. The Alaska Division of Elections reported for Aug. 5, a 605,892-voter population. Alaska’s voter population represents almost 82.6 % of the state’s population. Alaska’s population is on the decline. Alaska adopted RCV in 2020 and started to use it in 2022. It is used in all federal elections, including US Senate and US House races and its state elections.
The Maine RCV maintains the Democratic Party’s majority support of its elected officials. Maine is a predominantly Democrat state where the Democrats include over 36% of the voters while Republicans include over 29.5% of the voters. The balance of voters is what Maine’s Office of the Secretary of State calls “unenrolled voters” which are independents, almost 29%. As the voting preference for independents is Democrat and with the inclusion of the Green Independent Party of 3.9%, Maine’s Democratic voter population is about 69%.
The Alaska RCV also maintains the Democratic Party’s majority support of its elected officials.
Using the voter roll report from Aug. 5, the Democrats include over 12% of the voters while Republicans include almost 24% of the voters. The balance of voters who share Democrat ideological perspectives includes the Moderate Party of Alaska, .065%, the Green Party of Alaska, .25%, Nonpartisan, 13.9%, the Progressive Party of Alaska, .042%, and Undeclared, almost 45%. With the inclusion of the Democratic Party voter population, this total of over 59% of Alaska’s voting population.
Ranked choice voting is a progressive reform. Denying its connection to politics would be both misleading and academically unsound.
Although RCV itself is not inherently partisan, clear political trends can be observed in its adoption. To account for the political culture and ideology within the states of Alaska and Maine, the adoption of RCV in these states reflects a broader movement of how the system dehumanizes the voting process, especially when compared to the traditional “one person, one vote” method.
This process of the ranking of voter preferences leads to depersonalization. This is central to understanding how RCV is dehumanizing.
In the 1960’s, a series of social psychologyexperiments were conducted byYale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, who intended to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience.
Milgram’s experiment was designed to explore the extent to which individuals would obey authority figures, even when asked to perform actions that conflicted with their personal morals. The experiment exposed a disturbing inclination for individuals to follow authority figures’ orders.
RCV instructions require voters to rank candidates in order of preference, introducing a level of complexity that differs significantly from the simplicity of casting a single vote for a single candidate. This complexity creates by design a sense of distance between the voter and the impact of their ranked preferences.
Just as Milgram’s experiments demonstrated that its subjects become detached from the consequences of their actions through the structured nature of the experiments, voters in an RCV system become detached from the immediate impact of their vote. The need to trust a complex, algorithmic process leads to a sense of incremental powerlessness as often, voters do not fully understand how their ranked preferences translate into the final outcome.
In contrast, the traditional “one person, one vote” system is straightforward and transparent. Each voter casts one vote for their preferred candidate, and that vote directly influences the election result. This simplicity reinforces the connection between the voter and the outcome, allowing individuals to feel that their participation has a clear and direct impact.
Does Alaska want an electoral system which upholds the democratic ideal of individual empowerment, where each person’s vote carries equal weight and significance?
Moreover, the reliance on complex algorithms in RCV can mirror the way Milgram’s participants placed trust in an authority figure, even when it conflicted with their personal judgment. Voters in an RCV system are compelled to trust an impersonal process, which leads to a sense of alienation. The transparency and directness of the “one person, one vote” system, on the other hand, allows voters to see the results of their collective decision-making more clearly, fostering trust and reinforcing their role as active participants in the democratic process.
In essence, Milgram’s model of obedience and depersonalization provides a framework for understanding how RCV, despite its intentions to create a more inclusive and representative system, risks creating a sense of detachment and dehumanization.
Through the deceptive semantics of “choice” versus “preference”, RCV falsely aims to broaden voter choice, improve election outcomes and eliminate “dark money”. The complexity of the process leads to a feeling of alienation among voters as their personal impact seems diminished by the intricacies of the system. The traditional “one person, one vote” method, by contrast, maintains a stronger connection between the individual voter and the democratic process, ensuring that each vote is both meaningful and direct.
As further evidence of RCV dictating political outcomes, it is also used in New York City, New York, San Francisco, California, Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Burlington, Vermont. The Democrats are the dominate political party in all these cities.
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) presents itself as a progressive reform aimed at enhancing democracy, but upon closer examination, it reveals significant flaws that undermine the very principles it seeks to uphold. The complexity of the RCV system, which requires voters to rank candidates by preference, introduces a layer of detachment between the voter and their individual impact on the election outcome.
This detachment mirrors the disturbing findings of Milgram’s experiments, where participants became increasingly disconnected from the consequences of their actions as they obeyed an authority figure. Just as Milgram’s subjects were led to act against their moral judgment, voters in an RCV system are compelled to trust a complex, impersonal process, which can lead to a sense of alienation and powerlessness.
The traditional “one person, one vote” system, in contrast, is straightforward, transparent, and reinforces the direct connection between the voter and the election result. It upholds the democratic ideal of individual empowerment, where each person’s vote carries equal weight and significance. The deceptive promise of “choice” in RCV, when in reality it often amounts to a mere ranking of preferences, dilutes the strength of personal judgment and leads to a depersonalized voting process.
As Alaska faces the implications of RCV, the state must consider whether it wants to continue down a path that risks concentrating political power in a single dominant party, as has been observed in the above RCV-implemented entities, or whether it will uphold a system that ensures every vote is meaningful and directly impactful.
The decision Alaska makes will determine whether its electoral process remains a true reflection of the people’s will or becomes another victim of dehumanizing political engineering.
Michael Tavoliero is a resident of Eagle River and writes for Must Read Alaska.
The proud American union is a union by force — as was feared with Patrick Henry’s warning in 1788, and later proved by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861.
That’s what we have, and we have made the best of it, despite our history that spilled much American and native blood to achieve it. Each state is uniquely different, and the circumstances of admission changed as the frontier moved westward.
Look at the 1785 map of the U.S. shortly after we won our independence. Because of western land claims, we might have had “Chicago, Connecticut”, “Milwaukee, Massachusetts,” or “Memphis, North Carolina”.
The American states have operated under three different authorities, beginning with an unwritten provisional government in 1776. After the Treaty of Paris yielded British territory as far as the Mississippi River, the supposedly weak and ineffective Articles of Confederation — our first written constitution — convinced states that their land claims west of the Appalachians were unrealistic. As settlers moved west, Congress drew up new states, matching equal sovereignty with the Original Thirteen, and a harmonious union emerged … for a time.
As land was acquired through treaties, wars and purchases, the size of the U.S. became increasingly unwieldy, and the federal government assumed more centralized powers. The 14th state, Vermont, denying the claims of both New Hampshire and New York, declared its own sovereignty and then applied for admission to the union, but this was not a good template for the future.
Congress designed unorganized territories, organized territories and states based on the whims of committees and their chairmen. They were as wise as they were foolish, depending on the geography, native considerations and emerging economies and culture. Slavery created tensions that mandated compromises, which although were creative, merely swept the dirt under the rug, leading to the great war and federal power grab of the 1860s – 70s.
Our third constitution, which we call The Constitution with a capital “C”, likely anticipating that committees often make grotesque and misshapen mistakes, permitted the re-drawing of state boundaries with the following proviso in Article IV, Sec. 3:
New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
Tennessee was fractured off from North Carolina in 1796 and Maine from Massachusetts in 1820. Then we tread into dangerous waters, because the state of West Virginia was illegally created in 1863, just one of the many drastic and dangerous constitutional overthrows under Lincoln’s supposedly avuncular and wise hand. Indeed, it was a good move for the people of those western counties of Virginia. But “good” does not necessarily mean “constitutional”, and by paying indemnity to Virginia well into the 20th century, a de facto apology was made.
Now we live in an era of ideological separation, and it is becoming intolerable. It is a “rural” versus “urban” divide, and with it comes warped perceptions of reality from the poor souls who live in the asphalt jungles of our decaying urban zones. They have never seen a farm, sat in a small town café, smelled manure, or inhaled the delicious fragrance of the forests that are only a few miles away, even in New York.
Chicago continues to sprawl from its dark and filthy slums into the flatlands of Illinois, as people escape from crime and ugliness, yet bring with them the untenable ideas of socialism to pollute new areas. The same has occurred in New Hampshire and southern Maine from the Boston area. Then ask anyone in Montana, Nevada, Idaho or Arizona if they fear the same problem from Californians who bring their socialist baggage with them, even as they escape the results of those policies.
Eastern Washington and Oregon, northern California, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Minnesota, and downstate Illinois are locked in the tyrannical bear hug of socialism that their population centers force upon them. It translates into government corruption, high taxes, public school indoctrination, atheistic political correctness and the loss of freedom and evils of the fake Climate Change Cult.
Alaska is not immune to this. Southeast Alaska has little in common with the road system (which includes Prudhoe Bay), and the road system has little in common with Southeast or the Arctic and western villages. It is political suicide to say this, but I am not an elected official, so I will do it: Southeast lives off of the productivity of the road system, is a two-day drive through a foreign country to reach, and demands that the road system pay for the sustenance of its economic livelihood.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Southeast has an untapped mining and logging economy, but it is locked up by the federal Green Lobby that it seems to worship. While its cultural focus is on Seattle, Southeast demands that the state capital remain with them, defying the will of the people that has never been changed since 1974. It would seem that if they like their lifestyle of tourism and a stagnant economy, they ought to apply for admission to Washington state — if Washington would want to assume this albatross around their necks.
This cannot last much longer. America and Alaska are going broke, and must undergo an authentic re-shuffling, whether it be a geographic or an ideological one. It will hopefully be one of our own making, uncontrolled by the evil forces of communism that exist in Pacific Rim foreign governments, with their bought and willing enemies of freedom within our own ranks.
Bob Bird is former chair of the Alaskan Independence Party and the host of a talk show on KSRM radio, Kenai.
A Seward man was taken into custody in Seward on Wednesday after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with stealing someone’s identity to issue a threat to “bomb and shoot” Alaska’s governor.
According to court documents, on April 12, 2024, Matthew Edward Stanley, 22, used an account with a virtual private network service to access the State of Alaska website and send a message to the governor.
Stanley allegedly used a different individual’s personal information when addressing the letter, falsely representing that that individual was the one who had sent the threats.
The indictment states the message requested pay rates be raised for “me and my son. Or else everyone at [Victim Labor Union] and my son will take a stand here at seward.”
The message continues with a threat to “bomb and shoot you with my son.”
Stanley is charged with one count of issuing a threat involving explosives, one count of false information and hoaxes and one count of aggravated identity theft. The defendant is scheduled for his initial court appearance today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew M. Scoble of the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, in addition to up to 10 years in prison for his other alleged crimes. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker of the District of Alaska, Special Agent in Charge Robert Hammer of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Pacific Northwest operations and Alaska State Trooper Colonel Maurice Hughes made the announcement.
HSI and the Alaska State Troopers are investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney James Klugman is prosecuting the case.
Although Rep. Laddie Shaw, already a retired U.S. Navy SEAL is retiring in January, he still has one of the most valuable assets in the Republican Party — his endorsement.
Lucy Bauer, a Republican running to replace him in House District 9, just won that endorsement. She is running against Democrat-endorsed Ky Holland for the South Anchorage seat.
Bauer is an American by choice. She immigrated from China at a young age to escape communism and became an American success story in business in Anchorage, where she settled.
In addition to Shaw, who was first elected in 2018, Bauer has the endorsements of Duby and Loran Baxter, Judy and Randy Eledge, Sarah Erkmann-Ward, Beth Farnstrom, Pal and Suzanne Gionet, Sami and Bruce Graham, John Hendrix, Christine and Duane Hill, Sen. James Kaufman, Dawn and Thad Phillips Al Smay, Rep. Cathy Tilton, Michael and Lindsay Williams, Roberta and Dan Zipay, and Gretchen and Mike Stoddard, to name a few. Gov. Mike Dunleavy also endorses her.
You can meet Bauer and hear more about her life story and why she is a conservative at an event coning up at Bell’s Nursery, 13700 Specking Ave., Anchorage, on Sept. 16, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., when her campaign is hosting a fundraiser for her first run for public office.
