The pro-Peltola Super PAC “Vote Alaska Before Party,” reports it is spending money to attack the candidate most likely to be the biggest threat to Peltola’s reelection this election cycle: Mark Begich.
Wait, what?
Mark Begich is actually a well-known Democrat who is not running for office, but who has indeed been in politics a long, long time, as the mayor of Anchorage and with one term in the U.S. Senate. He supports Peltola.
It was a “1D10T error,” which in computer parlance means a human error. The super PAC meant to report that it is attacking “Nick Begich,” who is the leading Republican running against Peltola.
It’s a mistake many have made, confusing the old-guard Democrat Mark with Republican Nick Begich, who is Mark’s nephew and as different from Mark as they come. Nick comes from the more freedom-loving side of the family and he has been a Republican since he was in high school, when he was a member of his high school Republican club.
Families are like that. Even Donald Trump has a liberal niece, Mary Trump, who opposes the former president.
Vote Alaska Before Party is spending $5,900 to oppose Nick Begich and equal amounts to oppose Gerald Heikes and Nancy Dahlstrom.
Maybe politicos outside Alaska may not know one Begich from another, but it’s an embarrassing mistake for the group’s treasurer, Alaska liberal political operative Jim Lottsfeldt, to make. He’s been around Alaska politics as a consultant to Democrats up and down the ballot and Sen. Lisa Murkowski for over three decades, and would consider someone like Mark Begich to be one of his closest allies.
In 2022, the super PAC Vote Alaska Before Party received more than $1.7 million from the House Democrats’s political action committee, and received other contributions from groups like Sealaska Corporation and IBEW. All of it went to support Peltola.
This year, its receipts are drastically reduced, although the super PAC’s fortunes could change after the Aug. 20 primary.
An actor’s testicles hung out of his costume on stage during the Olympics Opening Ceremony show that featured a drag-queen version of the Last Supper, one of the holiest moments of Christianity. They were the balls viewed ’round the world. And the tableau was followed by drag performances of various types, including one number depicting the Greek god Dionysus who appeared to be mostly naked but covered in blue paint.
Now, Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, has filed a Federal Communications Commission complaint against NBC for airing obscene and indecent content from the Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in the complaint that NBC and its stations/outlets on TV, cable, and internet carried (and continues to make available) the Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 26, which included an adult male purposefully exposing himself in the presence of a child/children. There was a child performer on the stage during the exposure.
Screenshot of opening ceremony.
“This content is both obscene and indecent and, to make matters worse, was aired during viewing hours when it was likely seen by millions of children and minors,” the complaint said. “The obscene/indecent content occurred during a portion of the ceremonies that mocked Jesus Christ and the Last Supper. The Olympics was forced to issue an apology over the content.”
From the televised performance, it’s impossible to tell if the actor’s testicles were actually exposed or were sheathed by a body suit that accentuated his genitals.
According to the FCC, “federal law prohibits obscene, indecent and profane content from being broadcast on the radio or TV.” The FCC further states:
Obscene content does not have protection by the First Amendment. For content to be ruled obscene, it must meet a three-pronged test established by the Supreme Court: It must appeal to an average person’s prurient interest; depict or describe sexual conduct in a “patently offensive” way; and, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Indecent content portrays sexual or excretory organs or activities in a way that is patently offensive but does not meet the three-prong test for obscenity.
The FCC says airing obscene or indecent content is a federal crime, but this is a case that may be dismissed by the lower court due to First Amendment claims.
“The blasphemous Olympics’ Opening Ceremony which included, among other obscene and indecent acts, a man partially exposing himself around children, is patently offensive for any sensible American and requires immediate FCC action against NBC” Fitton said. “The Justice Department should also launch an investigation, especially given the use of children in this obscene and indecent NBC broadcast.”
Eagle River’s Alev Kelter and the U.S. Women’s Rugby team won the bronze medal in their victory over Australia on Tuesday. The Australians led 12-7 but at the end of the match, team member Alex Sedrick ran most of the length of the field to score for the win.
The women’s team had lost to defending champions New Zealand on Monday, putting them in the running for the bronze.
Kelter has been an athlete all her life. When she was 14 years old, Kelter won a spot on the U.S. national soccer development program and later captained the U18 U.S. national hockey team, winning back-to-back gold medals at the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Women’s World Championships. After her senior year at Wisconsin, she tried out for the Olympic ice hockey team, but didn’t make the final cut. She started playing rugby at age 22, and competed in the U.S. women’s rugby team in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Her personal website says she is dedicated to social justice, inclusion, and body positivity.
Joy Beth Cottle, who changed her registration to Republican immediately before filing against Republican House Rep. Frank Tomaszewski of Fairbanks, has gone on the attack. She’s attacking conservatives and she’s attacking white men for the crime of being white.
She blistered Tomaszewski and two other sitting Republicans because they attended a symposium in Washington, D.C. that focuses on conservative, Christian-based leadership. Two of the Republicans she blasted were ethnic minorities — Rep. Jamie Allard and Rep. Stanley Wright.
In her attack, Cottle linked an article from a leftist blog out of Anchorage, whose founder is now employed by Rep. Alyse Galvin, the Democrat from Anchorage who flies under the false-flag “undeclared” category now.
It’s not a blog that a Republican would go to for her talking points, but Cottle jumped right in to become the first ever.
Cottle, who is a firefighter battalion chief, recently texted someone in Fairbanks a message stating that white men need to sit down and shut up. While she had railed about legislators attending faith-based conferences, calling them extremist and unconstitutional, she was not at all concerned about the constitutional rights of white men:
Cottle, who is deeply involved in union politics, has been identified here on Must Read Alaska as a false-flag Republican. Now, she is showing her true colors, blasting white men for being white, and falsely characterizing the leadership workshop that Republicans attended.
Cottle receives support from the same organizations that support Democrats almost exclusively, including the Alaska Public Employees Political Information Committee for $1,000, ASEA/AFSCME for $1,000, NEA for $1,000, IUOE Local 302 for $1,000, and Alaska Laborers Local 341 for $1,000, to name a few. All of the Democrats running for office are receiving the same level of support that Cottle is getting from these and other unions.
Cottle also has taken in donations from Democrat Sen. Scott Kawasaki, Democrat Grier Hopkins (NEA employee and candidate for mayor), and numerous other Democrats.
Tomaszewski, an electrician for over two decades who started a birch syrup company before running for House, defeated incumbent Democrat Rep. Grier Hopkins, 55-45%, in 2022 and is running for reelection for his first time.
Sagen Maddalena, who competed in shooting sports for the University of Alaska Fairbanks for six years, nearly medaled, but came in fourth place in the women’s 10m air rifle competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Monday, as she competed for Team USA in Chateauroux, France.
Maddalena, born in Woodland, Calif., started shooting competitively while growing up in the Golden State. She competed on the UAF Rifle Team from 2013-2018 and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2019.
She’s a four-time National Rifle Association First Team All-American in Air Rifle — 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and 2017-2018. She’s also a three-time NRA First Team All-American in Smallbore — 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18, a three-time CRCA First Team Aggregate All-American — 2016, 2017 & 2018, and NRA Second Team All-American in Smallbore in 2015.
Maddalena qualified for the eight-person final after placing seventh in the women’s 10m air rifle qualification round Sunday at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre, located 173 miles south of Paris.
Maddalena is an Army sergeant who is a shooter/instructor with the Army Marksmanship Unit international team. She is a two-time Olympian, having placed fifth in the women’s 50-meter rifle 3 positions (smallbore) competition at in Tokyo in 2020. Monday’s fourth-place finish was her first Olympic air rifle final.
Maddalena will compete next in the 50m rifle 3 positions competition on Aug. 1. In this event, she took a bronze medal in the 2023 world championships.
Winning the gold was Hyojin Ban of Korea. China’s Yuting Huang won silver, and Switzerland’s Audrey Gogniat shot for the bronze.
UAF has a storied shooting program. The president of the University of Alaska system, Pat Pitney, was the 1984 gold medal winner in the 10m air rifle.
Another former Nanook is competing on Team USA. Rylan Kissell is makes his Olympic debut this week, competing in Men’s 10m Air Rifle, Mixed Team Air Rifle and 50m Smallbore Rifle.
A native of Colorado, Kissell was a seven-time All-American, the 2023 individual air rifle champion, a member of the 2023 NCAA Championship team and the CRCA Most Valuable Shooter, during his years at UAF. He was the 2022 CRCA Shooter of the Year and had the first-ever perfect score at the NCAA Championships in 2023 in air rifle.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the members of Congress who will serve on the House task force on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Republican members of the task force:
Chairman Rep. Mike Kelly (PA-16) represents Pennsylvania’s 16th District and resides in his hometown of Butler, the location of the assassination attempt. He has longstanding ties to the local law enforcement community, is the author of the resolution creating the Task Force and will serve as its chairman.
Rep. Mark Green (TN-07) is a former U.S. Army major, combat veteran and E.R. physician. He is the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Rep. David Joyce (OH-14) served as an attorney and county prosecutor for 25 years and is former Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
Rep. Laurel Lee (FL-15) is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney, a former judge for Florida’s 13th Judicial Circuit and former Florida Secretary of State. She serves on the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees.
Rep. Michael Waltz (FL-06) is retired from the U.S. Army Special Forces and is a former White House and Pentagon advisor. He serves on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Oversight Committees.
Rep. Clay Higgins (LA-03) is a former U.S. Army staff sergeant and former law enforcement officer who maintains an active commission and Peace Officer’s Standards and Training (POST) certification. He serves on the Homeland Security and Oversight Committees.
Rep. Pat Fallon (TX-04) is a former U.S. Air Force officer, and serves on the Oversight and Armed Services Committees, and their respective subcommittees dealing with Tactical Air and Land Forces and National Security.
Democratic members of the task force:
Ranking Member Rep. Jason Crow (CO-06) is a decorated former Army Ranger having served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Rep. Crow was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his heroism in Iraq. He is a Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Rep. Lou Correa (CA-46) is a senior Member of the House Judiciary and the House Homeland Security Committees, where he sits on the Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement & Intelligence Subcommittee. In that capacity, Rep. Correa recently traveled to Butler, PA to visit the site of the assassination attempt.
Rep. Madeleine Dean (PA-04) currently serves on the House Judiciary and House Foreign Affairs Committees and is a longtime Pennsylvania public servant, having served in the State House for six and a half years before coming to Congress.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (PA-06) is a veteran of the United States Air Force and currently serves on the House Armed Services Committee and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Rep. Glenn Ivey (MD-04) is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney and State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County who now serves on the House Judiciary, Homeland Security and Ethics Committees.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (FL-23) is the former Florida Director of Emergency Management, where he oversaw both disaster response and after-action analysis. He serves on the House Oversight and Accountability and Foreign Affairs Committees.
The task force is empowered with all investigative authority of the House of Representatives, including subpoena authority. For the remainder of this Congress, it will assume control and jurisdiction over all pending House committee investigations regarding the Trump assassination attempt.
The goal of the task force is:
To understand what went wrong on the day of the attempted assassination.
To ensure accountability.
To prevent such an agency failure from ever happening again.
The task force will make recommendations for reform to the relevant government agencies and recommend any necessary legislation to implement the reforms.
While in Austin, Texas on Monday, President Joe Biden was told by a reporter that his plan to remake the Supreme Court had already been pronounced “dead on arrival” by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
Biden replied, “I think that’s what he [Johnson] is. He is dead on arrival.”
President Biden was just asked on the tarmac about Speaker Johnson calling his Supreme Court reform “dead on arrival.” “That’s what he is,” Biden said. Asked for clarification, a reporter shouted, “That he is?” Biden responded: “He is. Dead on arrival.” pic.twitter.com/kEOV2y21Yi
It’s the kind of thing that the legacy media would run with if Donald Trump had said it. It would be declared a threat on the Speaker’s life.
But in these times, the mainstream reporters are only reporting negative news on Trump, not on Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reporters, for example, reported that Trump had said if people vote for him, they’ll never have to vote again. He was speaking at an event organized by the conservative group Turning Point Action in West Palm Beach, Fla., when he said, in his characteristic way, “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.”
The media pounced, purposefully trying to show that Trump intends to be a dictator:
Four years ago, at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the National Institutes of Health gathered a group of experts to provide Covid-19 recommendations to health care providers and issued the first version of the “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines on April 21, 2020.”
Forty experts gathered to review data and make recommendations that would be followed worldwide. The NIH was extremely influential in controlling the narrative and ensuring a lockstep approach to Covid treatment. That included multiple jabs, face masks, social distancing, closing businesses, isolating the sick, etc. Any alternative therapies were frowned upon, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022, led the charge.
The government stayed diligent in updating these guidelines as new therapies approved by the government became available. Even though the federal Covid-19 Public Health Emergency was ended by President Joe Biden in May 2023, this panel of experts at NIH continued to review the guidelines and update them as needed. They released 72 versions of the guidelines during the Covid years.
Now more than a year after the health emergency was officially over, the NIH will stop updating the information and take down the website that has the recommendations on it, citing that other professional organizations will continue to provide those guidelines (as they did these last four years).
Meanwhile, the mainstream media are firing warning shots with articles about the uptick in Covid rates caused by the latest highly contagious new variants. Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at the University of California, is sounding the alarm. Dr. Chin-Hong stated “you have a very, very transmissible variant, probably one of the most transmissible we’ve had. We have a lot of population immunity, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of chaos.”
The “you should be worried bell” is being rung again to foment fear. But fear not: The government is ready with a new Covid jab that is coming out this fall for those of you who feel a desire to get the jab. And rather than call it a “booster,” it will simply become the annual shot you need to take, much like the push to take the flu shot. The government has promised it will be updated to be “effective” against whatever the current strain is.
It’s unclear how the government will do that as the little bugger has mutated faster than pharmaceutical companies can make an effective update.
So, why now with Covid on the uptick would the NIH choose to take down its web page concerning Covid treatments?
It seems the NIH suddenly realized other professional organizations were also posting guidelines. Or perhaps it was that the NIH realized new treatment modalities for Covid have slowed to a drip. And NIH stated they are getting fewer and fewer calls asking for advice.
Dr. Cliff Lane, director of the clinical research division at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a co-chair of the panel, stated there are “specialty doctors’ groups — such as the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America — who will be the keepers of Covid-19 treatment guidance from now on. They’re the usual stewards of best-practice guidelines anyway.”
I didn’t see where they would archive the data so you could access it in the future. NIH announced “the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines website will remain available until August 16, 2024, and will provide a downloadable PDF of the final version of the Guidelines.”
I recommend you download a copy so you can review which recommendations worked or didn’t work. This would also be useful information if you were harmed by some of the “recommendations” and need a copy of them for a future lawsuit.
As we “close” this episode of American history, Dr. Marty Makary, professor and surgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, summed up those Covid years well. He said:
“The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the U.S. government. Misinformation that Covid was spread through surface transmission, that vaccinated immunity was far greater thannatural immunity, that masks were effective … That myocarditis was more common after the infection than the vaccine. We’ve seen something which is unforgivable, and that is the weaponization of medical research itself … Public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.”
Many people were fearful and believed the government four years ago. I don’t think many people will ride that train again, but then again, who knows? Fear is a powerful tool, especially when it is used by any government.
Linda Boyle, RN, MSN, DM, was formerly the chief nurse for the 3rd Medical Group, JBER, and was the interim director of the Alaska VA. Most recently, she served as Director for Central Alabama VA Healthcare System. She is the director of the Alaska Covid Alliance.
Editor’s note: This report will not be posted on Must Read Alaska’s Facebook page because the company is deplatforming conservatives. Join us over on X/Twitter.
Anchorage resident Jay McDonald was one of those who found that a photo he had posted on social media of Donald Trump right after the assassination attempt on July 13 was blocked by Facebook.
He wasn’t the only one. Soon, others were writing about their same experiences. People were posting on X/Twitter their experiences with Facebook’s election interference.
The photo was of Donald Trump triumphantly raising his fist after being shot in the ear. People who posted the photo showed that the image was blocked and blurred by Facebook, with the message that it was an “altered photo.”
The photo that McDonald posted was put on his Facebook page the same day as the shooting in Butler, Penn. and is the same photo that has been seen millions of times around the world.
Dani Lever, a communications employee for Facebook eventually took to X/Twitter to explain that the removal of the photo was an “error.”
Screenshot of Dani Lever’s Twitter post on July 29, 2024.
Critics note, however, that these errors only seem to be applied to conservatives. In McDonald’s case, Facebook did not say it was its system but was “independent fact checkers” who determined his photo to have been doctored.
Earlier, people had noticed that Google and artificial intelligence programs were preventing them from seeing informationabout the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
