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March 28, 2024

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Friday, January 28, 2022

Alaska Votes to Go Back

~Chitina mail truck delivers the latest news, 1919

It’s surprising that more Alaskans aren’t wearing those puffy white braces around their necks. If you missed getting whiplash from Tuesday’s election results, you either don’t follow politics or you’re hibernating with the bears.

The nation rejected the radical right agenda on many levels. Four states approved marriage equality for their gay and lesbian citizens. (I know! Maryland, Maine, Michigan and Washington aren’t, like Anchorage, holding public meetings so hundreds of people can quote scripture about why their freedoms are under attack if they can’t FIRE or EVICT gay people.)

Recreational marijuana was legalized in Washington and Colorado. Three days later a King County prosecutor dismissed all pending possession cases. See, they’re already saving taxpayers money.

Hawaii is sending a Buddhist to the Senate and a Hindu to the House of Representatives. Both women are Democrats. Sen.-elect Mazie Hirono is an immigrant from Japan, and the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate.

Wisconsin elected Tammy Baldwin, the first openly gay senator. (Former Sen. Larry Craig doesn’t count, for obvious reasons.)

Because of pick-ups across the country, women now make up 20 percent of the United States Senate.

The “legitimate rape,” “forcible rape,” “God’s will rape” and “that rape thing” candidates were defeated by Democrats, mainly in states that went for Mitt Romney. Turns out conservative women made the difference in those elections by voting for sanity over party.

Thank you, ladies.

Virginia, after a year of “trans-vaginal probing” state laws, sent a Democrat to the Senate and went blue for Obama. Turns out women there may smile and nod with their party on the outside of the voting booth, but check a different box on the inside.

California voted to RAISE taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year instead of cutting public education. They could have privatized schools, like Florida has, but with so many of those schools failing (including one that was paying its principal more than half a million dollars of taxpayer money), they went a different direction.

Montana, another Romney state, voted 75 percent in favor of a 28th Amendment to the Constitution stating, “Corporations are not people, money is not speech.”

The Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and many other reactionaries spent hundreds of millions of dollars and earned no return on their investment. Even Donald Trump was mad at Karl Rove, tweeting, “Every race CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.”

The Citizens United decision met up with “Citizens, United” and lost.

If the House of Representatives was decided by electoral votes instead of popular ones, the Democrats would have taken over. But thanks to gerrymandering in states run by Republicans, the GOP held power. Speaker John Boehner, seeing the result of the election, said, “We don’t have a tea party caucus.” Actually, sir, you do. It’s called the Republican caucus. Moderate Republicans like Indiana’s Dick Lugar were primaried by loons who lost on Tuesday to Democrats. Lugar’s seat hadn’t been held by a Democrat since 1977.

The states with the highest-paid workers and highest wages for teachers voted for Obama.

When George W. Bush lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote (only because the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t let the ballots be counted), he called his win a “mandate.” President Barack Obama has an actual mandate. The country rejected the extreme agenda of a right bankrolled by billionaires and corporations. People stood in line for hours – even after the election was called for Obama – defying deliberate attempts to disenfranchise voters across the country.

Depending on your point of view, the whiplash in Alaska either happened early in the evening or later.

The kickback against the extreme red tide of 2010 took care of business nationally, but the residue of that extreme agenda washed up here. (Health note: Red tides either mean don’t eat the mussels, or the government is going to start to stink pretty soon.)

Nationally, we went forward. As a state, we went back in time. When they count the 35,000 absentee votes still outstanding, we will hit 51 percent turnout in Alaska. That’s the lowest showing for a presidential election year since statehood. (I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: any adult getting a Permanent Fund check should be required to vote – even if you don’t check a box, you should have to show up and tear a ballot in half.)

A majority of Alaskans voted to give away our wealth to Big Oil as quickly as possible. Within 24 hours, new senators-elect were already talking abortion bills. The social issues that have been kept off the table will now be the main course. Fantastic. Women will become baby pipelines, public school teachers will be vilified and we can wage war on the gay agenda and Sharia Law, (which, ironically, agrees with this crew on gay people).

Here’s the good news for all of us. The election is over and with four Supreme Court Justices in their 70s, we needed the president to win. The bad news is that next legislative session’s Gavel to Gavel coverage will need to air in black and white, we’ve gone that far back.

Comments

comments

Comments
10 Responses to “Alaska Votes to Go Back”
  1. The Kid says:

    Yeah it’s costing them a few trillion dollars, so far, and it just keeps growing…as they keep stalling…
    Don’t worry – I will invest in Alaska first, get our rigs of revenue/business jump started first…
    Oh – but wait – I am suppose to be what, Sean, a “vulnerable adult” now?
    Gee Bright Eyes..I thought the vulnerable adults couldn’t help anyone?
    Ask Frank how that Reversal of Statutes of Limitations worked out?

  2. Just Sayin' says:

    State of Alaska has much to pay back a certain BIRTHRIGHT individual Senator Hollis French nicknamed…
    Parnell will be bewildered and begotten and beveled to have to adhere to those federal investigations…
    Looks like those Missed Opportunities will have a chance to be heard now…
    God Bless the United States of America…lol…

  3. kiksadi50 says:

    Parnell started selling us down the river the minute Palin resigned. This is not a brilliant guy. He isn’t really even savvy; but when he saw his opportunity he seized it. At least we have a Pres. that will slow the inevitable greed driven corporate projects down, with enforced regulations & deliberation. Parnell must have lost his mind when Romney lost.The Repub. were going to make it so easy for him.Now it will be harder working with the Feds., but he has powerful people with no scruples pulling his strings.He really is a worthless Gov. W e are really screwed in southeast: the Elders and kids here need (& deserve) resources. We haven’t been getting adequate funding for direct human services since Palin; she hated Southeast & we will get even less, now that Stedman is no longer chair of his committee.Peaple around here seem to be putting a lot of expectations on the shoulders of J. Kreiss-Tompkins. He’s only one guy vs a whole lot of people who want Alaska to regress. It’s very sad.

  4. mik from iowa says:

    All these elections make sense as soon as you realize that nutters,as a whole,are de-evolving back to the trees they originated from at warp speed. They don’t believe in evolution and to prove it they are….you know…..un evolving.

  5. Zyxomma says:

    This is really, really, sad.

  6. Alaska Pi says:

    At whatever level I’m really really really bummed over the loss of the sensible bipartisan working group of last session I am wondering how much the assignments for
    “Stevens, a former history professor, will chair the Education Committee and Stedman will chair Health and Social Services.”
    http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/house-leadership-positions-28th-alaska-legislature-chosen
    might act as fingers-in-the-dam of stupidity against some of the worst of the social issue crap.
    Am I working too hard to see something semi positive here?

    I’m with you Shannyn- 51% vote is pitiful! Especially in a combined Federal/State election year.
    Come on Alaska!!

  7. GoI3ig says:

    The big oil give away will only be the first of their actions. Expect gay rights, planned parenthood, Denali Kid Care, and legal abortion to also take large hits. At the risk of sounding cliche’…..the lunatics are running the asylum.

    • EatWildFish says:

      Only if we let them, Gol3ig! As we clearly did with the pathetic voter turn out.

      As the saying goes (and I oft repeat) “We can’t do it to you without you!”

  8. Ivan says:

    Sad and Pathetic, Alaskans are going be shocked when they realize that they will have to start paying taxes
    ( maybe give up the PFD checks )
    in order to pay for government because their “conservative” state representatives have given away the money necessary to run the state.
    They have cut their nose off to spite their own face.
    When they find they are standing in pile of their own sh!t they will wonder why they can not smell it,
    ( or do anything about it because they voted away their own rights.)

    • Mo says:

      Y’know, Ivan, you may have just provided the optimal Democratic talking point for the next round of elections:

      “Republican legislators gave away all the money, now you get to pay state income tax again!”