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Scott Ogan: Rule 21 rules the House

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Scott Ogan: Rule 21 rules the House

By SCOTT OGAN | CAPITOL INSIDER

I served eight years in the House of Representatives and had the privilege to serve with Speaker Ramona Barnes. Ramona was tough, and even though I beat her right-hand guy Ron Larson (which caused Ramona to lose her speakership), she was not vindictive.

In fact, we became good friends and strategic partners. Her most used quote was, “Your word is your bond.” She reminded all that one’s word is the only thing one has when serving in the Capitol. Once the election was over and leadership positions were decided, the Caucus rolled up their sleeves and got to work. Gail Phillips was my first Speaker.

Republicans hold a slim House majority after sitting out four years on the bench in the minority. The alignment that holds the House Majority organization together should be the fact that Alaskans elect more Republicans in both bodies. 

With the Senate going over to “the dark side,” it is more important than ever for the House to hang together, or face being hung separate (metaphorically speaking). If both bodies are controlled by the Left, the paradigm will shift with policy in Alaska and have a profound effect on the state’s future. My next article will outline the significant legislative differences between the key members of the Left and Right in both bodies. It will show that Alaska is standing at a major policy intersection, also-known-as “the fork in the road.”

The Democratic agenda is morphing further to the left fork, exemplified by the recently proposed shift to becoming openly hostile toward any hydrocarbon energy production in Alaska. In the past, the Legislature voted unanimously in favor of a number of resolutions regarding the opening of ANWR.  Additionally, with the paradigm shift of state funding now coming from your Permanent Fund dividend, the moderate Left must feel empowered to go ahead and throw the oil industry under the bus.

The right fork, is one of Alaskan energy security. Our climate does not allow us much room to be hugging too many trees. If we do not have hydrocarbons for heat and electricity, we will be cutting down a lot of them to keep warm.

That is exactly what is happening in Europe right now! Oh wait, but trees scrub carbon, right? Name your issue and then look at what Anchorage is becoming: A mini Portland, Seattle or San Francisco. Is the rest of Alaska destined to become more Californicated?  

House members to watch:

Republican Speaker Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla. The chief cat herder has her hands full keeping 21 people happy daily (Rule 21). She presides over a razor-thin majority with the Rep. Bryce Edgmon-led Bush Caucus in complete control of House Finance under the watchful eye of master dealmaker, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel.

During the last election cycle, there was substantial House turnover with many new members who are just now learning how “sausage is made” and have yet to understand “the law of unintended consequences.” Tilton succeeded Speaker Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak. One presiding officer from Kodiak at a time, please.
 
Rep. Thomas Baker, R-Kotzebue. The purported pro-full PFD successor to Rep. Josiah Patkotak will soon be given committee assignments. Watch for Committee on Committee notices. Patkotak was more conservative than some Republicans and many observers were disappointed when he aligned with the Democrats when first elected. Given that Rep. Patkotak was an “Independent,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy was not obligated to appoint a Democrat to replace him. The majority caucus decides how the power deck will be shuffled; will there be a shake up? Welcome to the fray, Rep. Baker. Remember the other Ramona Barnes saying, “When someone is patting you on the back, they are looking for a soft spot that is vulnerable.”
 
Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer is a rising star in the Republican Caucus; she is intelligent, tough, and principled. After spending four years knowing what it’s like to be in the minority, she has landed the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Her committee has a lot of hot button issues in it. Thus, she holds a lot of power cards in her hand. Vance’s election reform and Sen. Matt Claman’s involuntary commitment bill are two of them, and it will be interesting to see how deftly she plays those other cards. Can she break the Senate gridlock in a body where age and treachery rules? She was smart enough to beat longtime Homer Rep. Paul Seaton. Don’t underestimate her.
 
Rep. Calvin Schrage, U-Anchorage, is the Democratic Minority Leader. A relatively new player, Schrage is a “Undeclared” who heads up the Democratic minority in the House. He’s what I would call a “smooth operator” and about as “Independent” as Sen. Cathy Giessel and Rep. Louise Stutes are Republican. Watch what he does, not what he says. Conservatives should be glad he’s sitting out these innings on the bench.

Rep. George Rauscher, R-Sutton. One of the senior House members, Rauscher carries an extensive legislative agenda. His experience and calm demeanor should make him a legislative hard hitter in the House. The Democrat-controlled Senate is where his bills will live or die.

Rep. Ben Carpenter, R Kenai, landed the chair of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee. He’s a proponent of being one of the adults in the room by advocating for a sustainable fiscal policy. The plan that Shower, Carpenter, and some reasonable Democratic counterparts worked on does not have a heartbeat with the fund-big-government, “Three Amigos PFD raid plan.” He is challenging freshman Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Kenai, who teamed up with fellow union-backed Sen. Kelly Merrick, R-Eagle River, to join the Democrat-dominated Senate Majority and make sure public labor contracts are fully funded by your family’s mini Permanent Fund dividends. Carpenter is a solid guy, a former Army officer with real-time battle-hardened combat leadership experience. Bjorkman should be nervous.

Rep. David Eastman, R-Wasilla, is a West Point graduate. David survived a court challenge about his Oath Keepers affiliation thanks to his lawyer, Joe Miller. David is a perpetual loner and a caucus of one. He marches to the beat of a different drum and his philosophical opposite, Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, also serves on Vance’s Judiciary Committee. Get out the popcorn when you watch House Judiciary on “Gavel Alaska” with these two wild cards. Spice up the popcorn with fiery Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, as vice chair. It’s a good thing Chair Vance has experience homeschooling her children back in the district. 

Scott Ogan is a former House lawmaker who served from 1995 to 2004, and Senate lawmaker who served in 2003-2004. He is a legislative analyst for Must Read Alaska.

Scott Ogan: People to watch in the Alaska Senate

They, them, xe, ze, zi, zer, per, it: UAA launches gender-studies ‘Why Pronouns Matter’ class

Suzanne Downing
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They, them, xe, ze, zi, zer, per, it: UAA launches gender-studies ‘Why Pronouns Matter’ class

A one-credit course titled “Why Pronouns Matter” is seeking students for spring semester in Anchorage. The flyer from University of Alaska Anchorage says that the class “Only meets 1 day per week!” and is for people who are “LGBTQIA2S+” or their allies, or for all “who want to know themselves better.”

According to the campus publication “Green and Gold News,” the cutoff for enrollment is Dec. 15, and the instructors need 10 students or they can’t offer the class.

“We need you, this class needs you, and this movement needs you,” the campus publication says. “A 1-credit course also sometimes helps students get over minimum credit requirements, such as needing 9-credits to live in on-campus housing or being full-time at 12-credits to receive full financial aid opportunities.”

In the “Why Pronouns Matter” class the focus “will be on exploring and deepening our understandings of why respectful language matters, which will indeed include discussions of pronoun use, but that is the mere surface level of where we endeavor to go. Through this focal point on identity exploration, we’ll come to better understand our own positionality in the cycle of oppression, and come away with tangible ways we all can be more present in the cultivation of collective liberation. While this course is only 1-credit, it will be a substantial contribution to your personal and professional development. You’ll gain knowledge and skills that employers need on their teams, but you’ll also feel better at connecting with others and more grounded in your own truths.”

Gendered pronouns include she and he, her and him, hers and his, and herself and himself. “Personal preference gender pronouns” (or PGPs) are words that people ask others to use in reference to themselves. Typically, they butcher the English language in the process, and may be plural gender-neutral pronouns such as they, them, their(s), referring to a single human.

Without 10 students in the course, the instructors can’t get paid for cultivating the “movement” of “collective liberation” and “positionality.”

Budget problems? What budget problems? University of Alaska Anchorage opens new Pride Center on campus

University of Alaska is a publicly funded university with open-access enrollment, meaning that anyone may attend, regardless of academic ability. The university system often promotes a narrative that state budget cuts lead to reduction in essential academic programs.

Alaska Federalist Society speaker series: Social media bias, discrimination, and Supreme Court

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Federalist Society speaker series: Social media bias, discrimination, and Supreme Court

In 2021, Florida and Texas enacted laws to reduce discrimination against viewpoints on social media platforms. The Texas law was upheld in the Fifth Circuit, whereas the Florida law, sponsored by Gov. Ron DeSantis, was struck down in the Eleventh Circuit. 

The Florida law punishing Facebook and Twitter-type social media sites for throttling conservative speech was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment, the Eleventh Circuit Court ruled.

“Put simply, with minor exceptions, the government can’t tell a private person or entity what to say or how to say it,” said Circuit Judge Kevin Newsom, writing the opinion on the Florida case. “We hold that it is substantially likely that social media companies — even the biggest ones — are private actors whose rights the First Amendment protects.” Newsom is a Trump appointee.

The U.S Supreme Court has agreed to review both the Florida and Texas cases. At issue is whether the First Amendment prohibits the States from restricting social media firms from engaging in editorial choices about whether, and how, to publish, and disseminate speech.

The Alaska Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society will host former Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone in discussing the two cases. Stone, who has argued eight cases in front of the US Supreme Court, successfully defended the Texas law (HB20) before the Fifth Circuit and has briefed the US Supreme Court. 

Stone will share his analysis about issues arising from social media content moderation and how the Supreme Court might decide the cases.

Before joining the Texas Solicitor General’s Office in 2020, Stone was Chief Counsel for Sen. Ted Cruz, and previously practiced at Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius in their Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Group in Washington. D.C., and at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick. He also served as an Olin-Searle-Smith fellow at Harvard Law School.

Stone began his legal career as a law clerk to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, to then-Chief Judge Edith Jones on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

He also clerked for Justice Daniel Winfree at the Alaska Supreme Court. Stone received his law degree from Northwestern University and his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, Dallas. He is the founder of Stone, Hilton PLLC.

Thursday’s luncheon meeting begins at noon at the Petroleum Club of Anchorage, 3301 C. Street, Anchorage, AK 99503. Members pay $10, and nonmembers pay $20, which includes lunch. Register at this link.

Federalist Society luncheon: The Founders, money and the Constitution

Supreme Court won’t take up counselor’s appeal on Washington state’s ‘conversion therapy’ muzzle

Suzanne Downing
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Supreme Court won’t take up counselor’s appeal on Washington state’s ‘conversion therapy’ muzzle

The Supreme Court has refused to take up a challenge to a state law in Washington, which is similar to an Anchorage ordinance that prohibits therapists from using any form of so-called “conversion therapy” with their minor-aged clients.

Three of the more conservative justices dissented from the decision to leave the matter in the hands of Washington State, which has Senate Bill 5722, prohibiting counseling a minor about the hazards or realities of alternate sexual identities or sexual activities that may bring harm.

Brian Tingley, a marriage and family counselor, went to court in 2021 to challenge the 2018 law, saying it violates his First Amendment rights because it curtails his ability to speak freely to young people about issues relating to gender identity or sexual attraction to the same sex.

In 2020, the Anchorage Assembly passed a similar measure. In Anchorage, it’s only lawful to encourage, assist, medicate, and surgically alter youth in order to meet their wishes to become something they are not.

Any licensed therapist in Anchorage who discourages transgenderism or warns of its risks can be charged; violating the ordinance subjects a counselor to a $500 fine per instance.

Anchorage’s ordinance was passed with the guidance of a nonprofit that specializes in grooming children into sexual identities of various sorts — the Trevor Project, a controversial organization founded by Sam Brinton, the former Biden White House Energy Department appointee who has been charged with stealing women’s luggage.

Sam Brinton, luggage thief, fetishist, Biden appointee, and advisor to Anchorage Assembly, gets no jail time

The Washington district court dismissed Tingley’s lawsuit. He appealed to the 9th Circuit, where he was also denied.

Tingley, with 12 states and several nonprofit backing him, appealed to the Supreme Court in March, which has considered the case since September.

Legal case emerges: Is transgender treatment of kids a form of ‘conversion therapy,’ prohibited by Anchorage local ordinance?

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote dissents from the court’s denial of review.

Thomas said government officials cannot dictate “what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

Washington’s law says “licensed counselors cannot voice anything other than the state-approved opinion on minors with gender dysphoria without facing punishment,” Thomas wrote, adding that he had no doubt that the basic issue of the free speech of counselors would “come before the court again,” and “When it does, the Court should do what it should have done here: grant certiorari to consider what the First Amendment requires.”

Justice Alito wrote that it is “beyond dispute that these laws restrict speech, and all restrictions on speech merit careful scrutiny.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted that he, too, would have granted Tingley’s petition.

Alliance Defending Freedom took up the case on behalf of Tingley, a licensed counselor who has been practicing in Washington State for more than 20 years.

“During that time, he has talked with adults, couples, teenagers, and children to help them identify and achieve the goals that they set for themselves, consistent with their own moral values and religious beliefs. Under Brian’s guidance, his clients have pursued meaningful and positive changes in their lives. But now, Brian’s practice is in jeopardy,” the Alliance said.

“In 2018, Washington passed a law censoring private conversations between counselors and their clients. The law stipulates that if a client wanted to undergo a gender transition, the counselor and client can speak about anything. But if a client wanted to become more comfortable with her biological sex or talk through the emotionally and medically difficult process of de-transitioning, counselors like Brian would be prohibited from having those conversations. Simply by working with clients to achieve the goals they set for themselves, Brian faces fines of up to $5,000 per violation, suspension from practice, and losing his license and livelihood,” Alliance Defending Freedom said.

“But the government doesn’t get to regulate counselors’ speech. This law is a clear violation of both freedom of speech and religious freedom, in a very private setting. That’s why ADF filed a lawsuit on Brian’s behalf challenging Washington State’s unconstitutional law,” the group said.

Evidently, in America in 2023, the government does indeed get to regulate counselors’ speech, however, when it comes to transgenderism and same-sex activity for youth.

Peltola fingered by Fox News for taking blood money from radical colleagues AOC and Jayapal

Suzanne Downing
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Peltola fingered by Fox News for taking blood money from radical colleagues AOC and Jayapal

Congresswoman Mary Peltola is on a list of more than 30 Democrats in Congress who accepted money from socialist-leaning colleagues Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Seattle and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who have defended Hamas and who voted against condemning Hamas’ brutal rape and murder of innocent Israelis during their Oct. 7 terrorist raid.

According to a Fox News Digital review of federal filings, Peltola accepted $11,000 from the anti-Israel Democrats, including $6,000 from Rep. Jayapal’s “Build Our Movement” political action committee and $5,000 from Ocasio-Cortez’s “Courage to Change” PAC. Both contributions are for the 2024 election year cycle.

The attack by Hamas on Israel resulted in 1,200 dead that day and hundreds taken hostage. But on CNN, Rep. Jayapal said that people should be “balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians” when she was asked why liberals remained silent over the Hamas terrorists using rape as a weapon of war.

Why do so many of Mary Peltola’s allies support terrorists?

The candidate who received the most money from the far-left progressives who refused to condemn Hamas is Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., who hauled over $47,000 from the campaigns of PACs controlled by anti-Israel Democrats.

Rep. Matt Cartwright, D-Pa., received the second-most from The Squad leftists — $25,000 from Jayapal and Ocasio-Cortez’s leadership PACs in the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, with most of that cash ($20,000) coming from Jayapal’s Medicare for All committee, according to Fox News.

“The third-highest money hauler from the anti-Israel Democrats is Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Ill. Between 2018 and 2022, Underwood took in $23,000 from committees tied to Garcia, Jayapal, Carson, Ocasio-Cortez and Omar, with each of her donations ranging between $1,000 and $7,000,” Fox News wrote.

Ben Petersen of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Rep. Peltola accepted “blood money” and should return it.

“Mary Peltola needs to answer for why she took so much money from anti-Israel Democrats who can’t even bring themselves to condemn a terrorist attack in which 1,200 people were murdered,” Petersen said. “She needs to immediately return the blood money.”

Peltola is not the only vulnerable Democrat taking toxic cash from House ‘Squad’ Hamas-supporters

UPenn president resigns after troubling testimony before congressional committee

Suzanne Downing
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UPenn president resigns after troubling testimony before congressional committee

She didn’t resign when one of her school’s top male swimmers took away swimming trophies from female athletes earlier this year, but University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill did resign Saturday, just days after her disastrous testimony at a Congressional hearing about campus antisemitism and the university’s tepid response.

Dozens of public officials, donors, and members of the university community had called for her resignation.

Lia Thomas, transgender swimmer, just captured women’s NCAA title for 500-yard, and didn’t even break a sweat

“It has been my privilege to serve as President of this remarkable institution. It has been an honor to work with our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members to advance Penn’s vital missions,” Magill said in a statement. Magill will remain a faculty member at the university’s law school.

Two days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Magill still failed to issue any statement condemning the atrocities, which included the killing of men, women, and children during a surprise attack. Instead, the university posted a note on Instagram honoring Native and Indigenous people “their culture, history, and importance as members of the Penn community.”

One of the university’s largest donors, Marc Rowan, chief of Apollo Global Management, said on CNBC,

“So this weekend, while 1,200 Israelis were being butchered and murdered and raped, we tweeted as a university about Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” Rowan had given at least $50 million to the university, according to the New York Times.

Then came the campus protests, in which students and some faculty called for the genocide of Jews in repose to the war between Israel and Hamas terrorists.

During a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York asked the presidents of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University whether calling for the genocide of Jews on their campuses violated institution’s bullying and harassment policies.

Answering Stefanik, Magill said that it was “context dependent,” as it pertains to the university code of conduct.

“If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment,” Magill said. “If it is directed and severe and pervasive, it is harassment.”

“So the answer is yes,” Stefanik said. Stefanik said, “It’s a context-dependent decision, that’s your testimony today, calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer. ‘Yes,’ Ms. Magill.”

Magill replied, “It can be harassment.”

Her responses to the committee questions were less than satisfactory. In fact, they were so bad that Penn Trustee Board Chair Scott Bok also resigned over the weekend.

On Sunday, the president of Harvard University, also under pressure to resign for her lack of response to the Hamas terrorists and to the campus calls for genocide of Jews, was accused of plagiarizing her dissertation that earned her a PhD.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reminded America of what had happened to initiate the current war: “The atrocities that we saw on Oct. 7 are almost beyond description or beyond our capacity to digest.”

Speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN, Blinken continued, “And we’ve talked about them before, but the sexual violence that we saw on Oct. 7 is beyond anything that I’ve ever seen, either.”

Watch the congressional hearing on CSPAN at this link.

UPenn transgender swimmer wins two more events at meet with Harvard women

Murkowski joins Democrat-led group attending COP 28 climate convention in Dubai

Suzanne Downing
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Murkowski joins Democrat-led group attending COP 28 climate convention in Dubai

Alaska has a high-level representative at the United Nations climate change conference, known as COP 28, in Dubai. Sen. Lisa Murkowski joined a handful of Democrat senators in attending the conference.

The Senate delegation includes Democrat Senators Ed Markey, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tom Carper, Chris Coons, and Ben Cardin, and Republican Lisa Murkowski.

“We’re here because we know we need action. We’re very concerned about the fact that we have missed a lot of our targets. We are in crisis right now,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin told reporters during a conference call. “We have to mitigate as much as possible the damage.”

“The goals are to take stock of how close we are to the global commitments that were made in Paris, and to recognize that we’re going to need to adjust our climate targets in order to be able to save the planet,” said Cardin, who began attending the annual conference eight years ago.

Murkowski is the only Republican senator attending. She said that world leaders need to be realistic and that while “it’s OK to be aggressive” there needs to be an energy transition from current energy sources.

“I joke but it’s not a joke, it’s very serious — I am the ‘bi’ in the bipartisan and I’m happy to be here,” Murkowski, said on the call. “I am genuinely happy to be here because these conversations are so significant to all of us around the country.” 

“To me, coming from an Arctic state, Alaska, a state that is seeing warming at two and a half, three times faster than any other area in the country,” Murkowski said. “And the implications, the ramifications that that has, whether it is food crashes in our food supply, when it comes to return of the fisheries, what it means for our infrastructure on land where we see a more accelerated permafrost, climate change is a very real concern and a pressing issue.”

The conference began Nov. 30 and runs through Tuesday, Dec. 12. The main thrust of the conference is a push to hold the warming of the climate to 1.5 degrees celsius.

Sen. Markey wrote on his official Senate page, “Negotiators have been urged to narrow down their options so they can agree on how to save Earth from disastrous levels of warming and help vulnerable societies adapt to weather extremes as the clock runs down on United Nations climate talks.”

He told reporters there need to be guarantees “that we don’t add to the climate crisis with a nuclear nonproliferation crisis. Any steps forward … have to be accompanied by the very strongest, full-scope safeguards, or else we will see North Koreas, and Irans and Iraqs all across the planet.”

Markey grandstanded with anti-oil protesters, saying the protesters are right and the oil and gas industry is wrong.

“There are a lot of questions about the scale and the persistence of American investment in the global energy transition and in the fight against climate change,” Sen. Coons said. “That will be a sustained effort, regardless of the outcome of our next election.”

“COP 28 is an opportunity to identify global solutions for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, inform countries’ preparations for revised and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (national climate plans) due by 2025, accelerate the green transition that is already happening,” the United Nations writes in its description of the event.

More than 70,000 delegates are attending COP 28, including the U.N. member states, business leaders, climate scientists, indigenous representatives, journalists, and various others.

Read all the news releases coming out of COP 28 at this link.

Alaska Democrat state senator thinks pro-Israel, pro-Jewish Americans are also anti-vaxxers. Turns out, he may be right

Suzanne Downing
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Alaska Democrat state senator thinks pro-Israel, pro-Jewish Americans are also anti-vaxxers. Turns out, he may be right

Alaska State Sen. Forrest Dunbar wondered out loud on X/Twitter if anti-vaxxers and pro-Israel Americans were one and the same. He was commenting on an Economist/YouGov poll that showed Americans’ views on Jews and Israel.

“I’d like to see cross-tabs between this and antivaxxers. I’d be willing to bet that there is a strong correlation, with a similar set of casual factors for both,” Dunbar said on X/Twitter.

Apparently, Dunbar, who is Jewish, didn’t actually look at the poll. Anchorage citizen activist Jay McDonald did, however, and noted that the Anchorage hard-Democrat lawmaker unknowingly “owns the libs with facts and logic!”

As it turns out, Democrats are not all that friendly toward Jews or Israel as a nation. Republicans are more so, and yes, Republicans lean more toward skepticism of government-forced Covid vaccines, according to other polls.

But first, the numbers on Jews and Israel, with a definitely trend of Democrats disapproving of both:

  • – Some 40% of Democrat poll respondents said that Israel is deliberately trying to wipe out the Palestinian population while fewer than 15% of Republicans agreed with that statement.
  • – When it comes to the Holocaust, 23% of Democrats said that Israel exploits its Holocaust victimhood for its own purposes, while under 15% of Republicans agreed with the statement.
  • – Fully one quarter of Democrats said Israel has too much control over global affairs, and 22% said that the interests of Israelis are at odds with the interest of the rest of the world. 19% of Democrats said Jews have too much power in America, compared to 12% of Republicans agreeing with the statement.
  • – Finally, 10% of Democrats said that the Holocaust is a myth, compared to less than 7% of Republicans.

One thing Democrats and Republicans agree on, according to the poll: When it comes to anti-Jewish hate crimes, 68% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans say hate crimes against Jewish people in the U.S. are a very serious or somewhat serious issue.

67% of Americans agreed with the statement that Holocaust denial is antisemitic, the poll shows. About one-third said boycotts of Israeli goods and universities antisemitic, and one in five said opposing Israeli treatment of Palestinians is antisemitic.

Republicans are more willing to say that boycotting Israeli products is antisemitic: 52% of Republicans say it is, compared to 24% of Democrats. One-third of Americans overall say that believing American Jews are more loyal to Israel than they are to the U.S. is antisemitic.

Read the rest of the poll summary at this link.

As for Covid vaccine skepticism (or “anti-vaxxers,” as Dunbar calls them), a Morning Consult poll revealed in September that since the Covid vaccine rollout and subsequent revelations, Republicans have become a lot more skeptical.

Before 2020, polls showed little overall difference along partisan lines on issues related to vaccination in general, such as whether students should be inoculated against measles to attend public schools.

But since Covid, Republican voters have diverged from everyone else, a report from POLITICO summarized.

“A new POLITICO | Morning Consult poll, conducted as part of POLITICO’s ongoing series about the rising anti-vax movement, shows Republican voters are less likely than Democrats or independents to say vaccines are safe for children. It also shows that as many Republicans now say they care more about the risks of vaccines than they do about the health benefits,” the publication reported here.

Assemblyman Forrest Dunbar dumps on Anchorage public on his way out the door to the Senate

Watch video: A winter tour of Little Diomede’s school, where Gov. Dunleavy has declared disaster

Suzanne Downing
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Watch video: A winter tour of Little Diomede’s school, where Gov. Dunleavy has declared disaster

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared a disaster for Little Diomede Island following the partial collapse of the city office building last month.

The Nov. 26 incident, in which the weather-worn building sagged and encroached onto the adjacent school, leaving some cracks, has left the remote island community in the Bering Strait grappling with an infrastructure challenge at a time of year when reaching the area is sometimes difficult due to weather and short daylight hours. The island is reached via helicopter.

Gov. Dunleavy activated the state’s Public Assistance program, designed to provide financial support to local governments and select non-profit organizations for the repair of critical infrastructure and emergency protective measures.

A team that includes a Department of Transportation and Public Facilities structural engineer and representatives from Kawerak, the region’s Tribal Health Consortium, visited Little Diomede to assess the situation. Preliminary findings indicate that ground settling and the age of the building contributed to its collapse.

Take a tour through Little Diomede on the way to school with Rob Michaud, who posted his tour on YouTube four years ago, when he was teaching at the school:

Efforts are now underway to remove essential equipment from the city building, including firefighting, and postal office equipment. To prevent further movement of the structure, cribbing has been strategically placed underneath portions of the building. An Alaska State Defense Force member was sent to the island to coordinate with the State Emergency Operation Center.

The building will need to be demolished to prevent further damage to the school, which has been placed into “remote learning” mode since Dec. 4, with plans to resume in-person education after Christmas break. The community’s post office, which was located in the partially collapsed building, has established a temporary location in Little Diomede’s old clinic. Residents can continue to receive packages, and once the community’s postmark equipment is retrieved from the damaged city building, regular mail services will resume.

Little Diomede, home to fewer than 100 people, is the smaller of the two Diomede Islands that sit in the Bering Strait. Big Diomede, less than 2.4 miles to the west, is part of Russia and is west of the International Dateline. All of the people living on Little Diomede live within the small city perched between steep slopes and stormy seas. The island, about 2.8 square miles, is in the Nome Census Area.

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