Election integrity is the cornerstone of nations, states, and communities that truly represent the will of their people. Alaskans must believe in the election process to trust that the outcomes are fair. Unfortunately, private actors took advantage of the chaos of the 2020 presidential election to transfer enormous quantities of money to election offices.
Some of that money made it to Alaska.
The Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) is a Democrat-led nonprofit with major donors including Google and Facebook. In 2020, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, led by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s wife, donated $350 million to CTCL, which in turn distributed funds to more than 2,500 election offices nationwide.
Although the program has been suspended for future elections, a detailed look at how that money, coined “Zuckerbucks,” was spent in 2020 illustrates the danger.
Advertised under the guise of “COVID-19 response grants,” less thanone percent of grant funding nationwide went toward “personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff, poll workers, or voters.” Most alarming is the substantial funding going toward “vote-by-mail/absentee voting equipment or supplies” and “nonpartisan voter education.”
The media fawned over the Mark and Chan Zuckerberg initiative, crediting the millions dumped into U.S. election offices with saving the 2020 election. NPR proclaimed “How Private Money From Facebook’s CEO Saved the 2020 Election.” Imagine the uproar and hysteria if, for instance, Charles Koch had donated the $350 million instead of Mark Zuckerberg. The corresponding NPR report in this farcical reality would surely have been sprinkled with dire warnings about the future of our democracy and accusations of malicious conservative influence.
Such warnings are more appropriate than the fawning. The Wall Street Journaleditorial board described one case that demonstrates the improbability of a private organization’s funding “nonpartisan voter education.” Green Bay, Wisconsin, received $1.2 million from CTCL, which made available to the city a consultation with the Brennan Center for “post-election audits” and “cybersecurity.” Noting the Brennan Center’s partisan disposition, the Journal asked, “What if conservatives underwrote ‘voter outreach’ by town clerks, while sending in experts from the Heritage Foundation?”
Using private funds and accepting partisan help, whether from Mark Zuckerberg or Charles Koch, is clearly inappropriate for election officials, even if well within the First Amendment rights of the donors.
The evidence suggests that Zuckerbuck grants unduly influenced Democrat jurisdictions. Several CTCL founders worked for the New Organizing Institute, a progressive 501(c)(4) organization that trains progressive organizers in digital strategy and data management. Aside from the employment history of its founders, however, grant dollars were disproportionately awarded in several states to Democrat jurisdictions.
According to the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), in Pennsylvania, counties won by Biden received nearly $5.00 per registered voter, while counties won by Trump received only $1.13. This funding appears to have substantially raised voter turnout among Democrats compared with both the 2016 elections and jurisdictions that did not receive any Zuckerbucks. A similar distribution ($7.13 for Biden counties versus $1.91 for Trump counties) in Georgiamay actually have influenced the outcome: Counties that did not receive a grant didn’t show much leftward shift, but Zuckerbuck counties swung, on average, 2.3 percent toward Biden, which accounts for the state’s overall move toward the Democrat.
CTCL stood ready with suggested consultants and organizations, most left-leaning, some of whom offered to assist with tasks and asked for information properly reserved for official elections staff. Experts from groups such as Power the Polls, Mikva Challenge, the Brennan Center, the Center for Civic Design, the Elections Group, Digital Response, and the National Vote at Home Institute lent, or at least offered, their assistance to official election offices. The Wisconsin activist from the National Vote at Home Institute even had the gall to ask to see and record the Milwaukee Election Commission’s election management system, which includes the poll books.
In Alaska, the Denali and Haines Boroughs received $25,000 eachfrom CTCL “to support the safe administration of public elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The grant application and final grant reports were collected through public records requests to each borough.
The Denali Borough reported spending almost $12,000, or 47% of the grant amount, on “vote-by-mail/absentee voting equipment or supplies,” while only $4,500, or 18%, went to PPE. A $25,000 grant may not seem like much when it comes to government, but in this case, it was two-thirds more than the borough’s $15,000 one-year election budget established for 2020.
The Haines Borough reported spending only $250 on PPE, or 1%, and $3,730, or 10%, on “vote-by-mail/absentee voting equipment or supplies.” The majority of the Haines Borough grant purchased new ballot boxes and handicap ballot booths. For perspective, the Haines Borough’s one-year budget for 2020 was originally $4,368.
If it is true that election offices have insufficient funds, having private actors underwrite official election business is not the solution. Even with squeaky-clean motives, private money sows distrust in the election process and damages the integrity of elections. When motives are less than honest, the cash weighs like a thumb on the scale and can tip outcomes in favor of the preferences of whatever organization is sponsoring your local elections.
In fact, recent polling shows that 85% of all Alaska voters “oppose allowing government offices that oversee elections to accept funding for their operations from private individuals and special interest groups. … No other [election integrity] issue polled had such profound and widespread agreement across all political parties. Keeping Alaska elections protected for Alaskans is clearly not a partisan issue.”
Ensuring election integrity and restoring the confidence of voters cannot be an afterthought. Alaska must take further steps to protect the state’s election integrity and restore voters’ confidence.
Here is the full version of the affidavit that the FBI presented to get a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, the home of former President Donald Trump’s Florida. The search was conducted to attempt to retrieve documents the government believes were classified and that were removed and stored at Mar-a-Lago by Trump or his surrogates at the end of his presidency. Portions are redacted, according to officials, to protect the human sources who provided the information and the names of the investigators:
The popular mayor of the Kenai Peninsula Borough is resigning from that position so he can travel the state and continue campaigning for governor. Charlie Pierce broke the news on the Must Read Alaska Show with John Quick, host and producer.
He said if he made the top four for the November ballot, he plan always had been to resign.
He has been a mayor who has not raised taxes, but lowered them, and the borough has more reserves now than when he took office. Schools have been funded to the cap for the last three years without raising taxes or the mil rate. Pierce first came into office in 2017, and was six years on the Assembly.
As a Republican running for governor in the primary, he got 6.70% of the vote on the Aug. 16 ballot, enough to place him in the final four for the ranked choice election in November.
Another tranche of special general election ballots has been counted, raising temporary congressional candidate Mary Peltola to 70,730 total votes, or 39.25%. This puts her 8 points ahead of Sarah Palin, who has 56,246 votes, or 31.21%.
Peltola, a generic Democrat with a D rating from the NRA, came out of nowhere in this race, rocketing from 10% of the vote in June’s special primary to 39.25% on Aug. 16. And she, the Bethel Yup’ik grandmother with few campaign dollars, is beating the most famous person in Alaska history, who appears to be capped at 31% of the vote. While voters have had an opportunity to mark a ballot for Palin three times this year, she has not been able to move the needle more than four points from the June 11 special primary, when she garnered 27% of the vote.
Nick Begich, who was at 19% for the special primary, has moved the needle to 28%, shrinking the difference between him and Palin from 8% down to 3%. But he remains in third place, where he will be the first to be eliminated in ranked choice counting on Aug. 31.
To win outright with the ballots counted so far, a candidate would have to have 90,098 votes. That ballot universe will shrink when any voter who only picked Begich, and chose no other candidate for second place, sees his ballot exhausted.
For Palin to win at this point in the ranked choice scenario, she would have to close the 8% gap between herself and Peltola, and then get another 11% for a total of more than 19% increase from where she sits now to reach the 50+1 goal.
Palin needs roughly 28,124 more votes to win. Those votes would likely come mostly from Begich voters who marked her second. Based on polling, however, 70% of Begich voters have a negative opinion of Palin.
Peltola, however, needs as few as 19,368 of those second Begich votes to win if every ballot counted so far stays in play (this is unlikely, since the ballot universe shrinks when a ballot has no second choice).
Polls show that between 20-30% of the voters in the special general bullet voted, which means they only voted for one candidate. That indicates the number of Begich ballots that will be exhausted will be 20-30%.
This rough (and dynamic) calculation is based on the current 180,194 people voting; a few more ballots will dribble in over the next few days, but it appears that the ratios are not changing much at this point.
Turnout has been heavy for this election, second only to the 2014 primary, when there were 193,400 votes — a 38% turnout. This year has the second-highest turnout in recent memory, even though it’s only at 30.7% due to the fact that so many people have been automatically registered to vote through the Permanent Fund dividend application automatic registration process, which drives up the voter numbers and drives down the percentage of actual interested voters.
Five precincts are still missing; they are in the rural districts and there’s no word as to where those votes are and whether there is a chain of custody established for them.
The final vote count is on Aug. 31, when all the ballots must have been received by Division of Elections. Then, the Division will eliminate Begich from the calculation and take all the second votes from those ballots and distribute them to what voters had indicated: Palin, Peltola, or nobody. The winning candidate is the one who reaches 50+1 of the ballots that have a second choice.
The Division of Elections will announce more ballot counts on Friday in the afternoon.
Sometime overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, the Mat-Su Republican Women’s booth at the Alaska State Fair was vandalized. Someone destroyed one of the running lights on the trailer and put several random dents and large scratches down one side. The vandal also tore down the board that had names of veterans and ribbons on it and left it face down on the ground.
The booth is one of the many that are at the fair every year, and the women and men who volunteer at the booth hold an annual gun raffle as part of the festivities. Volunteers said it appeared someone took the sign for the gun raffle, which was attached to a concrete block, and used it as a battering device. Other than the broken running light, the rest of the damage was mainly cosmetic.
Mat-Su Republican Women’s Club was established in 1947, when the Territory of Alaska was still largely run by Democrats.
The Anchorage Assembly met in a special meeting midday on Thursday to override the mayor’s vetoes of select projects the Assembly had chosen to fund with American Rescue Plan Act funds. The Assembly opposed the veto based on the Assembly’s LGBTQ and Black-Indigenous-People of Color guiding principles.
The Assembly leadership laid a last-minute memo on the table at the beginning of the meeting describing its disagreement with the mayor over the projects.
The memo essentially calls the mayor a racist for vetoing the Assembly’s chosen projects.
The meeting was disrupted constantly by technical issues that made it difficult to hear the participants. The Assembly’s attorney Dean Gates was unintelligible while he described why the veto override was appropriate. But the Assembly leadership’s override memo said, in part:
“The mayor’s vetoes single out regional projects and projects for marginalized communities, such as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) Alaskans, LGBTQ+ Alaskans, new immigrants, and people facing homelessness.
“The elimination of funding for these projects goes against the Assembly’s guiding principles to invest once-in-a-lifetime ARPA funds in long-term projects that aid populations that need it most; address current, historical, and geographical inequities in our systems that have intensified due to COVID-19; and have a fair and positive impact across the municipality. Not only do the mayor’s vetoes undervalue these community-driven projects and invalidate the Assembly’s collaborative work, the mayor asserts that this valuable funding opportunity should be directed towards one-time municipal costs (where other alternative funding options are available) instead of impactful investments that will shape the community for years to come,” the memo read.
The memo went on to say the Assembly priorities focus greatly on LGBTQ and the Alaska Black Caucus’ “equity center.”
Assemblyman Chris Constant dramatically read an email into the record that he claimed was sent to the head of the Alaska Black Caucus from a member of the Anchorage community. The email said blacks are lucky to live in Alaska and not in Africa “chasing meerkats,” and Constant said there are obviously still “dark impulses deeply in our community” such as the letter writer.
The letter Constant made a part of the public record follows”
From: Stefan Kozma Date: August 5, 2022 at 10:37:28 PM AKDT To: cghodge—- Subject:White Privilege Card
“Are you seriously stupid enough to think that a Filipina was able to avoid a ticket because she showed the cops a joke white privilege card? This is the problem with your kind, always in victim mentality mode, always a chip on the shoulder and always super UPPITY. This is why nobody wants y’all living next door, or in the same classroom or even the same country. You live in Alaska due to the white man, you use white man’s technology on a daily basis and you have no idea how lucky y’all are not to be back in Africa chasing meerkats with sticks in loin cloths like y’all’s great great grandpappys. Show some respect and appreciation for god’s sake, y’all would have a lot more success in life with that attitude.“
However, the letter from Stefan Kozma appears to have come from a man who actually resides in Alberta, Canada, not from Anchorage, as Constant was presenting. In fact, there is no such person registered to vote in Alaska under that name.
Assemblywoman Meg Zaletel asked that sections of the veto be separated out so that she would be able to vote on the majority of the override. She has a conflict of interest since she leads the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, which skims money from the city to talk about homelessness, yet provide no services. Led by Zaletel, who makes over six figures, ACEH stands to gain from the veto overrides.
Assemblyman Kevin Cross argued with the Assembly leadership memorandum, saying the racist inference by the Assembly leadership is disingenuous. The Black Caucus is getting ARPA funds for a second time, he said, while the Assembly had not funded projects for the Polynesian community, for example. He also reminded the group that the parameters set by the Assembly included directions that no group that had previously been awarded ARPA funds would be awarded them again.
“I don’t think we should be funding studies,” he said. Rather, the Assembly needs to fund shovel-ready projects.
He also didn’t think more grants to push Covid vaccinations were needed.
“The pharmaceutical industry is making $98 million a day off the vaccines. They can pay for their own advertising. They don’t need us,” said Assemblyman Cross, adding that $250,000 to advertise vaccine availability would not make a dent.
Assemblywoman Austin Quinn-Davidson noted the “awkwardness of a bunch of white people talking about which groups of color ‘deserve’ or should get these funds. I find it personally very awkward and it’s a reminder to me why we need to diversify this Assembly and I will do what I can to continue trying to recruit members and candidates who reflect the diversity of our community.”
Quinn-Davidson supported the reelection of white Forrest Dunbar over challenger Stephanie Taylor, who is black. Quinn-Davidson also supported the election of freshman Assemblyman Daniel Volland over Stephanie Taylor for the new downtown district that was carved out by the Assembly to increase liberal strength on the body. Both Dunbar and Volland are white middle-aged males.
“Also, I’m just so tired of us all fighting all the time and I think we don’t need to pit groups against each other. You know, we can acknowledge that there’s so much money, we made our best decision collaboratively, we all compromised and what we ended up with was a package that didn’t include everyone. And that doesn’t mean we can’t go find funds.”
The vetoes passed 8-3 for the section Zaletel was not able to vote on, and 10-2, and 11-1 for the rest of the vetoes.
THINGS CAME TO A HEAD WHEN THE MOM FOUND THE DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL IDWITH HER NEW MADE-UP NAME
By KELSEY BOLAR| INDEPENDENT WOMEN’S FORUM
On a small, unassuming cul-de-sac in Alaska, the mother of two young daughters came face-to-face with the growing phenomenon of adolescent girls identifying as the opposite sex due to a social desire to appear transgender. Critics call the social contagion theory “unfounded” and “absurd.”
But for Susie, whose name I’ve changed to protect her family’s privacy, she watched it unfold in her own neighborhood, inside her own home.
After returning in 2020 to the U.S. from a four-year assignment abroad, Susie’s family settled into a house on a street where two out of the eight girls identified as boys. At the local high school where their daughter would soon attend, at least another 10 girls identified as the opposite sex. Shortly after moving there, Susie’s oldest daughter, who had just turned 15-years-old, also said she felt like a boy.
Susie’s daughter was still wearing skirts and makeup. Growing up, she never had ‘tomboy’ tendencies or showed signs of gender confusion. Susie didn’t believe that her daughter’s sudden transgender identity was anything more than a phase, so she and her husband chose not to make any drastic changes, settling on a “wait and see” approach. They wanted to give their daughter time to experience and explore her feelings, without giving into the lie that their daughter was anything but her biological sex.
But every institution surrounding them, from health professionals, to the public school, and a local LGBT support group, rushed to validate their daughter’s gender confusion, treating it as real. Worse, they intentionally deceived Susie and her husband, using their daughter’s birth name and female pronouns in official communications, while using her made-up name and male pronouns behind closed doors.
As a new school year commences, the situation is still ongoing. Susie’s daughter tells her mom that she’s still confused about her gender, but the school sees no nuance in that confusion. Instead, school officials affirm her feelings as a boy, against Susie and her husband’s objections.
One of the first things Susie and her husband did after their daughter said she was transgender was find a therapist who they thought could explore why her daughter felt like a boy. The therapist introduced Susie’s daughter to a local online community of children who also identified as transgender, which Susie thought might help. By meeting people whose gender identity had been a struggle since early childhood, Susie thought her daughter might realize what she was experiencing was different. But that’s when Susie realized that all the children identifying as transgender were just like her daughter.
“They were all 12 and up. And it was all recent,” Susie said.
The group was supposed to be monitored by an adult who was affiliated with a local LGBT group. But when the conversation veered into a discussion about the leather pride flag, which indicates an interest in kink, it became clear that it lacked adult oversight.
“That’s totally inappropriate,” Susie said. “He, or whoever it was, was not moderating the conversation or taking into account that these kids are barely in middle school.”
After participating in the group, Susie said attempts to talk to her daughter about her gender confusion went from open and productive to hostile. Using new buzzwords she picked up, such as “dead name,” which refers to a birth name a person who identifies as transgender no longer uses, her daughter would lash out and instigate fights that never used to occur in their home.
Sensing their daughter’s mental health was declining, Susie and her husband decided to sit in on a session with the therapist. During that session, they learned the therapist had been using male pronouns and her daughter’s made-up name from their very first meeting. This had been going on for about six weeks, and Susie and her husband had no idea.
Susie and her husband tried to explain to the therapist why they needed time to process their daughter’s feelings and weren’t ready to implement changes such as using male pronouns or her new made-up name. For starters, it was the first time Susie’s daughter had vocalized these feelings face-to-face with her father. Prior to that, she had only confided in her mother. But instead of listening or asking her daughter questions, Susie said the therapist turned on her and her husband, pitting them against their daughter by suggesting their support was insufficient and offering to “talk to the school” on their daughter’s behalf.
“My jaw hit the floor,” Susie said. “We love our daughter so much and we would never disown her or abandon her for any reason. There’s nothing on this planet that could make us do that. Then to have someone step in and treat us like we aren’t doing what’s good for her when they have known her for two months — we’ve known her for her whole life.”
Susie’s daughter lived a happy, healthy childhood until the sixth grade, when she made friends with a girl while living abroad who was self-harming. After that, Susie said her daughter also began self-harming, though superficially, which prompted Susie to seek therapy for her daughter. A year and a half before they moved back to the U.S., a child psychologist diagnosed Susie’s daughter with anxiety, depression, and “failure to adapt.”
After her daughter began identifying as a boy, Susie e-mailed the therapist from overseas to ask if, during their 18 months together, the issue of gender identity had ever come up. The therapist told Susie that her daughter “did not meet any of the criteria or give any indication [that being transgender] was a genuine thing for her,” Susie said. The therapist was “99% certain that this was a phase.”
The therapist recommended that Susie and her husband continue the “wait and see” approach they were currently pursuing, which meant showing love and consistency while setting healthy boundaries for their daughter.
Susie and her husband stopped booking sessions with their daughter’s new therapist in Alaska and to Susie’s knowledge, that therapist never contacted the school. But unbeknownst to them, the school was already transitioning their daughter behind their backs.
Shortly after classrooms reopened for in-person learning in the spring of 2021, Susie’s daughter had an anxiety attack at school. Susie suggested that she visit with the school counselor, whom she had told about her daughter’s gender exploration, and how she and her husband wished to handle it.
“At the time I thought the counselor was indicating to me that she understood and agreed with what I was saying,” Susie said.
But in fall 2021, at the start of the next school year, Susie found her daughter’s school ID, which featured her new, made-up name.
The fact that the school was transitioning her daughter behind her back came as a surprise to Susie, since the school was still communicating with her using female pronouns and her daughter’s birth name. To avoid upsetting her daughter, Susie waited to confront the school. But that winter, Susie decided to email the counselor asking how her daughter’s name would appear in the yearbook. Susie was told she would receive an email from the faculty member in charge of the yearbook. But instead, she received a phone call from the school counselor and the curriculum advisor.
“They proceeded to tell me, I have no say over anything my daughter wants to go by or what’s in her record or anything,” Susie said. “The only thing I had a say over was what her name was on her transcript. And the only way that changes is with a court-documented name change. But otherwise, their wording to me was that it was illegal for me to insist on a certain name or anything in the yearbook or on her ID.”
Susie was at work when she received the call. She followed up with an email asking for the legal basis for the school’s actions. They told her their legal reasoning was based in Title IX.
Title IX is a federal statute that outlaws sex discrimination in education. The Biden administration recently proposed new rules that expand the law to cover “gender” and “gender identity,” giving schools an excuse for socially transitioning children while keeping parents in the dark. While the Biden administration certainly intends to push these controversial and potentially illegal rule changes, those rules are not yet in effect and schools are currently free to respect parental rights.
“The fact that they were using guidelines to fight me kind of caught me off guard,” Susie said. “I had to educate myself.”
A couple of weeks later, Susie had a follow-up conversation with a representative from the school district. She explained how her daughter’s former therapist, whom she had worked with for 18 months, didn’t think her daughter’s transgender identity was genuine. She asked why the school was refusing to get on board with the approach she and her husband wanted to take.
The district representative told Susie they don’t need a diagnosis to call her daughter whatever she wants to be called. When pressed to explain how they differentiate between what is a casual declaration and a mature, well thought out decision, the representative told Susie, “They watch the child.”
Susie was never told who was watching her child. She was simply told, “They observe them and see how they dress and what type of activities they participate in.”
At the time, Susie’s daughter still wore skirts and makeup.
With a new school year beginning this month, Susie logged into the parent portal to check her daughter’s information. The name she filled out when enrolling her daughter was changed, then grayed out with no ability for her to edit.
“Obviously, someone who isn’t her parent or legal guardian entered this on her enrollment paperwork,” Susie said. “How do you stop the school from doing something that they’re not telling you that they’re doing?”
Susie hasn’t been able to find a new therapist whom she can trust, and feels betrayed by her local public school.
“I thought parents and the school were supposed to work together for the well-being of the child,” Susie said. “It doesn’t feel like that’s happening.”
Susie feels alone and, in many ways, abandoned in how she’s attempted to navigate her daughter’s gender confusion. But in her community, she’s far from alone in having a child who identifies as transgender.
“My daughter’s friend group at school, everyone is something. No one is themselves, for lack of better words. Everyone’s a different gender,” Susie said, adding:
“Girls going through stuff collectively in high school and middle school together, and influencing each other is nothing new. Every girl has been through it, but I think what makes this different is that it is becoming a human rights issue and it’s being taken on by adults that don’t necessarily play a part in a child’s life. And it’s being championed by people who don’t have children or don’t have children dealing with it. I feel like if I were to start using the preferred name and pronouns, I feel like that’s kind of the nail in the coffin. That’s me saying, ‘Yes, there is something not right about you as a female. So you should definitely identify as a male because you don’t act the way a female should act.’ And I would never want to put that thought in her head. And frankly, it makes me sad that she has that thought in her head to begin with — and that it’s being fed by the school and that former therapist.”
Susie’s now-16-year-old daughter recently said that going to school makes her “want to throw up with anxiety.” Often she asks not to go to school at all. Right now, Susie said the school is the only place that’s using male pronouns and her daughter’s made-up name.
“If she’s trying to get away from school because it makes her feel bad, and she wants to be home where we absolutely affirm her as a person, but we don’t affirm this identity, to me, that speaks volumes,” Susie said. “Her safe place is where we’re letting her be herself.”
Kelsey Bolar is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum. She is also an editor of BRIGHT, a morning newsletter for women, by women, a senior fellow at The Steamboat Institute, and a contributor to The Daily Signal and The Federalist. Her work has been featured in USA Today, National Review, The Washington Examiner and more.Bolar is a frequent guest on Fox News, Fox Business, and was featured as a speaker on the 2018 CPAC panel, “#UsToo: Left Out by the Left.”Previously, Bolar worked for The Heritage Foundation as a senior writer and producer. There, she co-hosted the weekly podcast, “Problematic Women,” produced videos that received millions of views, and regularly appeared on radio and TV.
The Division of Elections is a busy place these days, with workers burning the midnight oil. Getting answers is not always easy. Here are some housekeeping dates to keep in mind:
On Friday the Division will be at the deadline to receive receive absentee ballots for the primary election mailed from within the U.S., U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and from overseas.
Sept. 2 is when the regular primary election results will be certified.
Sept. 5 is the deadline for candidates to withdraw from the general election ballot. Tara Sweeney has already withdrawn from the regular congressional race. Most state House and Senate races only have two or three candidates in them; few will drop.
For the special general election conducted Aug. 16 for the congressional vacancy, Aug. 31 is the final count for the first-choice votes on the ranked choice ballot.
Aug. 31 is also when the Division of Elections will run the tabulation on the second choice, meaning that the third-place finisher will be dropped and his supporters, if they made a second choice, will have their votes reassigned to that second choice.
About Chris Bye: It’s a great gift for the Libertarians, who managed to get someone into the final four for the general election for Congress with candidate Chris Bye.
In the primary, Bye got 1,087 votes, or 0.61% of the vote on a crowded ballot. But then Tara Sweeney dropped out, and she did so in time for Bye to be able to move up onto the ballot.
“Chris Bye is an Alaskan, a husband, a father of 4, a combat veteran, an Alaskan fishing guide, a youth soccer coach, former youth shooting coach and an avid outdoorsman. He is not a politician. His family is not connected to politics nor big money. He is not a DC insider. Chris is just a regular Fairbanks guy who firmly believes in Liberty and Freedom for all.
“Chris dedicated half his life serving this great nation, as both an enlisted soldier in the U.S. Army and later as a commissioned officer. And retirement did not dull the desire to continue that service. He has also witnessed first-hand the devastating effects of policies made in Washington D.C., so far removed from the realities Alaskans face. It is this first-hand evidence that draws him into serving beyond the Fairbanks and Fort Wainwright community by running for Congress.
“He will not pretend to have all of the answers. He will look to all Alaskans, especially those directly affected, to help solve the problems facing us. While we may not always agree, constructive dialogue including diverse perspectives is essential to creating the best Alaska, not just for certain groups but for everyone. We can do better. We owe it to our children to do better. And it starts by electing representatives who work for us, not just a party. It’s time Alaska.”
About Mary Peltola: She has a shot at winning the temporary congressional seat for Alaska, which we wrote about earlier.Some fun facts from Washington Post reporter Dan Zak: Her first role model in life was musher DeeDee Jonrowe, (who happens to be a Republican), who holds the fastest Iditarod time for a woman and is a three-time runner-up in the race. Peltola grew up dog-mushing.
Peltola’s first piece of legislation as an Alaska legislator was a gun ban, which was reaction to a school shooting in Bethel — pre-Columbine, in 1997. Peltola doesn’t believe citizens need what she calls “weapons of war.”
Peltola won 45 percent of the latest batch of ballots counted, about 21,000 ballot, which boosted her total vote to 39%. If the rest of the ballots break the same way, she’ll be close to 40% and may become the overall winner of the special election with the secondary votes of Palin and Begich. Remember, Peltola started with just 7% of the vote in the primary.
Ranked choice polling:
As of July 7, 2022, the major polling and analysts ranked this seat either solid or likely Republican:
Endorsements: Congressional candidate Nick Begich receivedthe endorsement this week of the Ketchikan District 1 Republicans.
District 34 Republicans (Fairbanks) endorsed Frank Tomaszewski running for State House, Sen. Robb Meyers for re-election to Senate seat Q, and Kelly Tshibaka running for U.S. Senator. They voted in favor of censuring Sen. Click Bishop, a Republican who is running for reelection.
District 9 Republicans (Anchorage Hillside) endorsed Roger Holland for Senate Seat E (new).
President Joe Biden has unilaterally forgiven college loan debts for Americans making less than $125,000.
But not really. Instead, what he has done is transfer the debt to millions of Americans who either didn’t take out college loans or who have paid off their loans through their own labor. And Biden has perpetuated the university racket of jacking up prices for education on families.
“I understand not everything I announcing today is not going to make everybody happy,” Biden said. But then he defended his decision, calling it “responsible and fair … Let’s be clear. I hear it all the time, ‘How do we pay for it?’ We pay for it by what we’ve done,” Biden said, but he didn’t outline what that meant by “what we’ve done.”
Even some college graduates disagree with Biden.
“I cannot believe I gave two legs for my tuition. What a dope I am. Ooh-rah!” said Army combat veteran and double amputee Joey Jones, pointing out that many Americans gave some of the best years — and best limbs — of their lives to earn their tuition.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the “student loan socialism is a slap in the face to working Americans who sacrificed to pay their debt or made different career choices to avoid debt. A wildly unfair redistribution of wealth toward higher-earning people.”
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said the decision “baptizes a broken system,” and “forces blue-collar workers to subsidize white-collar graduate students. Instead of demanding accountability from an underperforming higher education sector that pushes so many young Americans into massive debt, the Administration’s unilateral plan baptizes a broken system. This deeply regressive action — which fails even to acknowledge that most debt is held by folks with graduate degrees — will do nothing to jumpstart the reform higher education desperately needs.”
On social media, the White House announcement was met with a majority of scorn:
Social media response to the announcement was negative.
Since the 1980s, the cost of four-year university education has tripled, even after adjusting for inflation. Federally guaranteed Pell Grants now cover less than one third of a college education, while they used to pay for 80 percent of a four-year degree. The university tuition inflation racket has harmed working families the most, and a typical graduating senior has incurred $25,000 in debt. For many, the debt is much higher, and for degrees that will not get them the kind of employment that will pay for them to live the lifestyle to which they’ve become accustomed.
“President Biden believes that a post-high school education should be a ticket to a middle-class life, but for too many, the cost of borrowing for college is a lifelong burden that deprives them of that opportunity. During the campaign, he promised to provide student debt relief. Today, the Biden Administration is following through on that promise and providing families breathing room as they prepare to start re-paying loans after the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic,” the White House said.
The debts are being transferred to taxpayers, and with 87,000 new IRS agents being hired by the Biden Administration, there will be an IRS agent in every farmhouse in America ensuring that families pay for someone’s degree in gender intersectionality studies.
Biden’s plan loan forgiveness program will cost taxpayers around $300 billion.
Biden also extended a pause on federal student loan payments for what he called the “final time” through the end of 2022. He was set to deliver remarks Wednesday afternoon at the White House to unveil his proposal to the public.
The White House fact sheet on student loan forgiveness is at this link.
