Speaker Edgmon’s war on William Weatherby

By
Suzanne Downing
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25

DISTRICT 37’s TOP DEMOCRAT GETTING TOO MUCH HELP FROM HIS AIDE?

“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other,” said the character Slim, in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

Some in the Alaska Democratic Party are scared of House District 37 candidate William Weatherby (Dillingham, King Salmon, Naknek, the Aleutians, King Cove), and they joined a Facebook page last month to trash Weatherby’s reputation.

It got ugly. There were threats of physical violence against Weatherby, and he was called vile names. Must Read Alaska has a half dozen screenshots to back up this claim.

It looked like a vendetta account, but since Weatherby had filed a letter of intent to run against Speaker Bryce Edgmon, a Democrat from Dillingham, he is somewhat of a political target. “No to William Weatherby District 37” had distinct political overtones, especially when leading Democrats from all over the state suddenly joined the group in January.

The posts contained immature, terroristic threats like this one made in a private message to Weatherby:

The originator of the page appeared to be a “John Riddle,” a fake identity. Riddle posted provocative comments about Weatherby, and made accusations that were not just childish, but false, like this:
The fake John Riddle account was reported to Facebook, which dutifully deleted it, but the “No to William Weatherby District 37” page remained and was replete with comments about Weatherby, who had run against Edgmon in 2016 and is a Libertarian-leaning type of Republican with letter of intent to run against Bryce Edgmon in 2018.
Weatherby, who is active on social media, noticed the group needed a new “Administrator” after Riddle was blocked by Facebook, so he stepped into the fray to protect his reputation. He took over the page, infuriating the founder of the group. Weatherby has let the group stand, but he’s now policing the comments, and he’s changed other aspects of the page, including the banner.
William Weatherby

ENTER BRYCE EDGMON SENIOR STAFF

Meanwhile, in early January Rep. Bryce Edgmon’s top legislative aide, Amory Lelake, had been behind the scenes adding dozens names to what could only be described as a hate or terroristic group at that point.


Amory Lelake / Mark Begich / Social Media

While once very few people knew about the group, suddenly dozens of members of “No to William Weatherby District 37” were in, and they were some of the most powerful people in Alaska: Elected legislators in the Democrat-controlled House Majority, for whom Lelake is the top staffer on the staffer food chain, union officials, and media members.

Few of the members of the group were even from the Bristol Bay district — it was all being stoked from Juneau, late in the night on Jan. 4. It was a one-woman social media jihad on a man who had decided to run for office against the woman’s boss.

Lelake added the names of Reps. Ivy Spohnholz, Adam Wool, Harriet Drummond, Les Gara, Matt Claman, and Vince Beltrami, to name a few. She added other Democrat-friendlies, too, including several legislative staffers, her mother, as well as Alaska Dispatch News political reporter Nat Herz.

Must Read Alaska took some screen shots of all the work that Lelake had done to build up the social media war on Weatherby.

A sampling of her handiwork is shown here, with names readers will recognize:

Presumably they gave all their permission to join a Facebook tribe whose sole purpose seemed to be politically driven by Democrat legislators, staffers, and Alaska’s top union officials.

Is this the Alaska Democrat Party’s war on the working class?

Have any of the members of the group ever met the handyman and school bus driver named William Weatherby?

Asking for a friend.