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.
One of the things those of us with military experience consider before the exchanging unpleasantries with the “other side” is choosing and preparing the location most advantageous to whatever it is we want to do and least advantageous to whatever it is the other side wants to do. This is referred to as battlespace preparation.
The battle this time around is the removal of the Eklutna Dam, something it appears that the Anchorage Assembly fully supports.
Rick Whitbeck has written multiple pieces about what a bad idea this is. Suzanne Downing also has multiple pieces on the festivities.
Today’s issue is AO 2024-46, by Chairman Constant and Vice Chairman Zaletel. This ordinance directs Anchorage Water and Waste Utility to “decouple” the Municipality’s access to drinking water from the 1991 Eklutna Fish and Wildlife Agreement. This decoupling was introduced April 24. The first public hearing was on May 7. Action on it has been postponed four times, most recently to July 30.
If you sort through the multiple “Whereas” clauses, you find that Mayor Dave Bronson did a brilliant job obstructing the Assembly’s efforts to remove the dam, most recently neglecting to notify the Assembly of a Regulatory Commission of Alaska order for the Municipality to surrender its vote on the Eklutna Operating Committee. This was done as part of its approval of Chugach Electric’s purchase of Municipal Light & Power, agreed to by the Assembly and the Ethan Berkowitz Administration in 2019. The Assembly claims that the Bronson administration did not inform them until December, 2023.
In Jan 2024, AWWU and the Eklutna Owners (Chugach Electric and Matanuska Electric Association) executed a term sheet governing AWWU’s access to drinking water. The Assembly demanded access to the sheet and eventually saw it during a February 2024 executive session. They were not allowed to retain copies, which irritated them greatly, as shown in the “Whereas” statements. Since then, there has been at least one amendment executed.
The final “w”Whereas” clause claims public funds, water rights, public lands have been encumbered by agreements that the Assembly was never informed of, and has no voice, while the Bronson Administration withheld “critical information.” Note that all of this is direct fallout from the ML&P sale that the Assembly, Mayor and Regulatory Commission of Alaska all approved.
From here, it looks like the Bronson Administration prudently took steps to keep both the lights on in Anchorage and keep drinking water flowing to Anchorage residents (per the AWWU term sheet).
On the other hand, these steps make it more difficult for the newly self-anointed experts in all things electrical and water on the Assembly to remove the Eklutna dam, something they are hell-bent to do.
The Assembly is in something of a tough spot with this, as MEA doesn’t support the dam’s removal. The Chugach Board got a little less likely to support the removal in April. And the RCA, Legislature and governor don’t support removal, though the greens certainly do support removal.
Why is the Assembly so hard-over on removing the dam? I expect the opening bid was obeisance to green dogma. Over the last three years, they included kneejerk opposition to all-things Bronson. Today, I don’t have a publicly stated reason, but if it were me, I would first use the follow the money filter.
We already know that Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel is making a very nice living off the Homeless Industrial Complex she helped build over the last decade, a complex that has wasted tens of to over a hundred million dollars over that period. Given government-to-government relations established between this Assembly and the 72-member Eklutna tribe, one can only wonder what sorts of offline negotiations and promises have been made.
In my view, follow the money is the very first thing to look at.
Passing this ordinance is simply another step toward making it easier to remove the dam. Their problem is that removal will require RCA approval and a compliant governor. Doing something about the RCA will take a while. They think their compliant governor is waiting in the wings when Democrat Forrest Dunbar runs to replace Gov. Dunleavy in 2026.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
The July 30 meeting of the Anchorage Assembly contains an action item that could lead to even more regulations for businesses and residents, as well as increased government carrying costs in the future: Another Climate Action Plan is going to be funded.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is requesting $362,750 to pay a private company to plan and provide the Climate Action Plan. The contract with Resource Systems Group, Inc., the group being recommended for the award, would run until June 30, 2026.
“The AMATS Climate Action Plan will build on the existing Anchorage Climate Action Plan, inventory transportation greenhouse gas emissions, evaluate strategies to reduce future emissions, update equity data from the AMATS Non-Motorized Plan, and engage a broad array of stakeholders throughout the development of the plan,” according to the LaFrance Administration.
The original climate action plan for Anchorage was adopted by the Anchorage Assembly on May 21, 2019, during the administration of Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, a Democrat who left office early due to a scandal involving a local news reporter.
There’s no explanation given by the current mayor’s office as to why another Climate Action Plan is needed. The goals of the first Climate Action Plan for Anchorage still need to be executed. They include:
Continue upgrading street and trail lights to high-efficiency LEDs.
Improve energy and water efficiency in municipal facilities.
Expand local renewable energy generation and use.
Increase opportunities for residents and businesses to implement clean energy technology.
Reduce the number of vehicle trips by offering alternatives for getting around by walking, biking, carpooling, and taking public transit.
Support infrastructure for electric vehicles.
Increase waste diversion.
Capture more potential energy in collected refuse.
Protect forest, wetlands, waterways and urban green spaces.
Prepare for and respond to increased risk of wildfires and other health and safety impacts of climate change.
Conduct a financial analysis to assess and plan for the cost of climate actions.
Evaluate life-cycle costs in planning and procurement.
The prioritizing of planning for climate change comes at the expense of real-world problems that Anchorage is facing, which include a loss of population as working Alaskans move to the MatSu Valley, and the overtaking of the city by large vagrant-and-criminal encampments, which have made walking the streets and trails an unsafe activity for residents, who may choose to use their cars to get around in order to ensure greater safety.
If an average homeowner pays $6,000 in property taxes to Anchorage, that means the tax payments of 61.3 homeowners are being used to finance this new Climate Action Plan. Just the plan, not the action itself.
Meanwhile, China is building two coal plants per week, according to Reuters, which reported last year that China had 243 gigawatts of coal-fired power either approved or under construction, enough to power the whole of Germany.
China began building coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 37 GW in the first half of this year, and approved 52 GW of new projects, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air and Global Energy Monitor, whose dataset shows the Bank of China to be the largest financier of coal plant construction globally, with over $6.5 billions invested, while China Construction Bank has $3.3 billion invested in coal plant manufacturing.
“The climate cult must be celebrating the return of its influence with Municipal leadership,” said Rick Whitbeck, Alaska state director of Power The Future. “Spending $362,000 to refresh a completely unnecessary and cost-prohibitive set of criteria that will lead to increased municipal costs seems counter-productive to rational people. Yet, here we are with doing just that under the two-headed monster of Chris Constant and Suzanne LaFrance. Anchorage needs to focus on crime, homelessness and economic development, and less on trivial matters that only will line pockets of special interests at taxpayer expense.”
