Seward's Day Begins With Fire Trucks

Before the fire trucks, in fact yesterday, Sunday, we were at the Anchorage Botanical Garden Spring Conference downtown at the Dena'ina Center.  I'd never been to one of these before.  I was a bit underwhelmed, but I did get some ideas and tips and inspiration.  In this session (on the right) we learned how to make a liquid to spray on plants to get them the calcium, and boron they need to flourish.  

Most useful, I think, was meeting someone from the Anchorage Soil and Water Conservation District who will come to my house next fall and test the soil and make suggestions.  We've got some areas where only the hardiest plants survive.  I'm hoping that can be changed.  

But today I woke up to see two fire trucks across the street.  I was worried that a neighbor was having an health emergency, since there didn't seem to be a fire anywhere.  When I went out, I saw there were actually four AFD vehicles.  

Since I was out, I decided to walk around the neighborhood and get some blood moving in my veins. I kept wondering about why they needed so many vehicles for a paramedic call.  When I got back, the firefighters/paramedics (there are far more paramedic calls than fire calls) were walking back to the vehicles.  Not from the building across the street, but from around the corner.  

I asked one of them what was happening and he told me they had been viewing the house around the corner that had burned.  Which was when I realized that I'd read about a fire nearby while we were visiting out granddaughter Outside, but had forgotten about it.  And I was reminded again that it's always good to ask rather than assume.  

I also found out today that my very low carb diet, of the last four months, did indeed make a difference on my A1c blood test.  That was gratifying.  I'd thought that it hadn't made a difference based on another test result I got last week.  But this test wasn't in among the results until today.  

I also went to pick up a book on hold at the library.  The door I normally go in was locked, so I went over to the main entrance where I saw the sign that said the library was closed for Seward's Day.  I had gone to the library website to see how long they were going to hold the book, but there was nothing there that I saw to say the library was closed.  Oh well.  

This evening I walked over to see which house had burned.  It was an apartment building.  What is odd is that another house almost next door, burned down in  March 2016.  The red circle is the recently burned house.  The purple circle is the new house built where the 2016 house burned.  

Here's the building a little closer up.  Another neighbor came out to see what I was doing near the

burnt house.  He said he'd called the fire department that night and helped to get another family out.  There was a man who went back in to get his wife.  Both died. It was arson he said.  

I noticed that both news articles were written by the same reporter.  I'm guessing that he didn't visit the site this time because he should have noticed that it was practically next door to the previous fire.  

Hope you had a good Seward's Day and thought about the man who negotiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russians - who actually only occupied a relatively small portion of the land.  

Wealth Inequality In America - Perceptions and Reality

This video is very dramatic and easy to follow.  Its findings seem in the ballpark with other such information I've seen.  

Nevertheless, I did poke around to make sure they were consistent with what others have found.  At the bottom are some links to others which show, at least roughly, a similar distribution. 

The video is short and to the depressing point.  This is why billionaires have worked to hard to capture the Supreme Court.  So that we can't meddle with this reality.  

Here are some other studies of Inequality:

• Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis -The State of U.S. Wealth Inequality, February 05, 2024
• The Council on Foreign Relations - The US Inequality Debate  Below is on of their charts.  It's interactive in the article at the link.

• US Census:  Income Inequality Visualizations
• European Central Bank - ECB publishes new statistics on the distribution of household wealth

Thoughts On The Anchorage Mayor's Race

The only thing I know for certain, the current mayor needs to be retired.  He was the surprise winner last time in a runoff.  He was a candidate because of the pandemic and homelessness.  He was backed by those who opposed masks and the decisions to quarantine in Alaska and Anchorage.  A key group supporting him live in Geneva Woods, a neighborhood of large houses in mid-town, where his supporters were strongly opposed to the Municipality buying a Best Western Hotel that had seen better days and turning it into a shelter for the homeless.  Easy walking distance to their snooty neighborhood and that was unacceptable.  

His supporters have disrupted Assembly meetings, yelled epithets are LGBTQ and Jewish Assembly members, wore yellow stars and compared the restrictions due to COVID to be like the Holocaust (which they normally would deny even happened.)  

Many of his appointees have long gone.  One of his former City Managers is suing the city for about three quarters of a million dollars,  His approach to homeless folks was a mass shelter in a giant tent.  I'm still fairly certain that if we track down why he wanted to buy that tent, we'd find some sort of financial or political connection.  Snow removal has been a disaster.  

So, the mayor is not on my list.  

Suzanne LaFrance was on the Assembly for much of the Mayor's tenure, chair part of that time.  She early on announced she was running for Mayor.  This is a non-partisan race and I'm not sure if she is even registered as one part or another.  She's done a reasonably good job and certainly knows the details of what's gone on in Anchorage.  I even interviewed for six or seven years ago when she was a first time candidate running for the Assembly.  She was pretty raw, but dedicated.  She's learned a lot over the years.  

But then Chris Tuck announced he was running. Tuck is a Democrat who has been on the Anchorage School Board, but then spent more time in Juneau as a representative - including stints as minority and majority leader.  I met him when I blogged the legislature in 2010 and he's a very personable guy and has a reputation of being able to work out compromises across party lines.  He's got strong labor connections, yet LaFrance has garnered a lot of union support.  I was told he voted for legislation that labor opposed (or vice versa) but I have no details.  

Tuck's entry into the race threw the liberal challenge against the incumbent mayor into confusion.  Both were good candidates.  LaFrance supporters started pointing out that Tuck was anti-abortion.  He's never denied that, but he's also said he votes for what his constituents want, and to my knowledge, as a politician has gone along with the other Democrats on abortion issues.

Then Bill Popp joined the race.  Popp has been head of the Economic Development Council for many years and says he's never registered in either party.  Before Trump hijacked the Republican party, Popp's interest in business and economics would have aligned him with more traditional Republicans, at least with the Chamber of Commerce,  though I do not know his stance on social issues.  He has good knowledge of Anchorage.  

This race requires a candidate to get at least 45% to win.  The sense I get is that those who follow politics closely don't expect any of the candidates to reach that number.  

The question then is who will be in the runoff.  An article in the Anchorage Daily News today says the candidates suspect that Mayor Bronson will face one of the above three in a runoff.  

So, who to vote for?  I think LaFrance and Tuck would both make good mayors.  They're both level headed and decent people.  I suspect the same could be said for Popp, but I don't know him really, and my perception of him as part of the Chamber of Commerce crowd takes him out of my top two.  (Lots of people join the Chamber of Commerce, not because they are politically aligned with their fairly conservative business view of the world, but because that's where many of the key players gather weekly.  My uninformed sense is Popp probably fits in with the Chamber crowd comfortably.)

So, LaFrance or Tuck?  

I was happy when LaFrance announced her candidacy.  I was thrown into a conundrum when Tuck announced his interest in the race.  LaFrance seemed to be more intimately knowledgeable of City dealings because of her position on the Assembly and dealing with all the issues for the last six years from there.  

Tuck seemed like an interloper, though he represents Anchorage and is an astute politician who has paid close attention to the city in which his district lies.  I'd note that when Elvi Gray Jackson announced her US Senate run in 2022, Tuck announced he would run for her Alaska State Senate seat.  That avoided a run against fellow Anchorage legislator Andy Josephson.  Both had been redistricted into the same district.  But when Gray-Jackson saw what was developing in the US Senate race, she pulled out and signed back on to run for her State Senate seat.  At this point, Tuck pulled out altogether - choosing not to run against either fellow Democrat.  I think that reflects positively on his moral compass and willingness to support his fellow Democratic legislators.  

It also suggests to me that he didn't make the decision to run against LaFrance for mayor lightly.  

As I watched the lists of people signing up to support LaFrance or Tuck, it appeared to me that people who knew LaFrance the Assembly member, supported her.  Those who knew Tuck from his rule in the State legislature supported him.  

I think they'd both do a good job.  My biggest concern is that they'll cancel each other out and Popp ends up in a runoff with Bronson.  And, again, I think Popp will be a competent mayor, but not necessarily someone aligned with a forward looking stance.  (By that I mean, someone who recognizes that Climate Change is the biggest challenge facing humanity and business has been a prime supporter of policies that have brought us to this climate crisis.)

I've picked one of the two.  My absentee ballot is still in the house.  I've got some time yet before I have to turn it in.  I'm on pause just in case something happens to sway me toward the other candidate.  I'm not expecting anything to change, but just in case.  

The only conclusion I have come to firmly is that Anchorage should switch to Ranked Choice Voting.  Then folks can vote for the first and second (etc.) choices.   

Mail-In Ballots And Moms For Liberty Candidates - Anchorage Elections

This was going to be a quick post just showing that we got our mail-in ballots for the Anchorage election coming up April 2, 2024.  

But then it got more complicated when I started writing about the School Board candidates challenging the three incumbents.  Two of them are Moms for Liberty candidates.  I had indications and an allegation of this in yesterday's draft.  But I got a bit more evidence today.  So keep scrolling down and do check the Moms for Liberty link which takes you to the Southern Poverty Law Offices listing of Moms for Liberty.  

These candidates have won elections because they hide their real objectives until they get elected.  Instead they spout generalities that we're all in favor of.  That's why I decided to make this more than simply a post on the ways to get your mail-in ballot in to election central to be counted.  

The Municipality of Anchorage moved to mail-in elections several years ago.  Basically that means that ballots are mailed to all registered voters about three weeks before the election and that on election day there aren't 100 or more polling places all over the Municipality where people can vote.

BUT, if you don't want to figure out and pay for postage, there are lots of drop boxes around town where you can take your ballot.  

And if you want to actually vote in a voting booth, there are places for that too - at City Hall, Loussac Library, or the Eagle River Town Center.

If you want more information, go to the Municipal Election website.  

School Board Alert

I'm trying to think back to how often I've actually recommended candidates on this blog.  My sense is that it's not normal, but that in times when I felt strongly, I probably have.  Or maybe I just did blog posts about candidates which gave factual information that made clear my preferences. 

We are in extremely perilous times in 2024.  Nationally, the Republican candidate for president has done so many things to signal that he will use the office of president to further his personal interests and abandon the Constitution.  He already tried, ineptly, the first time round, but he'll be better prepared the second time.  If you haven't looked at Project 2025  (you can start with the policy agenda, but every item is a blueprint for an authoritarian dictatorship), then you should, and share it with everyone you know.

But this is a Municipal election, so I won't dwell on national issues yet.  Except to say that the Republicans not only had a 30 year plan to take over the Supreme Court - which they have now accomplished - but also to take over state and local legislative bodies, including school boards.  

Are they doing that in Anchorage?  It appears so.

 Moms for Liberty has officially had their first meeting in Anchorage and has at least two school board members in Mat-Su.  

These candidates are not making it easy for people to see what they stand for.  

While I can't verify [actually, while writing this I did get verification, see below] that the candidates opposing the three incumbents are from Moms for Liberty, there are indications that one or more are.  But that's how they get elected - by speaking in generalities at forums and then when they get elected they push book banning and LGBTQ+ bashing, and erasing Blacks from history lessons.

There are three incumbents running for school board.  They all showed up for the Alaska Black Caucus candidate forum.  Only one of the challengers - Angela Frank - was there.  Frank answered a number of questions with "I don't know" and expressions of cluelessness on her face.  But I admire her for showing up and putting herself through this.  

The other two challengers - Chelsea Pohland and Kay Schuster - didn't show up before this audience at all.  You can also see, in the video below, that the three incumbents didn't answer in platitudes and generalities.  They answered in detailed specifics about programs, with numbers, and with programs they want to keep improving.  

Are the three challengers MAGA and Moms for Liberty?  It does appear that Chelsea Pohland and Kay Schuster are, at least, in agreement with Moms for Liberty ideas.

In terms of what they say about themselves, it's hard to tell.  Chelsea Pohland has a Facebook page for her campaign.  It doesn't really tell us what she's for, but it does have 

• pictures of her with Mayor Dave Bronson and fellow candidate challenger Kay Schuster
• fundraiser announcements which include Jamie Allard and Dave Stieren among the sponsors

The FB page also had a link to a campaign website (which I couldn't find via Google) which offers general platitudes that tell us nothing about her actual values or the programs she'd push for:

"My vision for the Anchorage School Board is built on a commitment to excellence, inclusivity, innovation, and transparency. I aim to bring my experience as a business owner and a community leader to bring together a collaborative approach to decision making, ensuring that our schools are equipped to offer every child a chance to thrive in an ever changing world. 

As we look to the future, my message and drive is clear, to be a champion to the cause of education in Anchorage with passion, integrity, and a solid foundation built on transparency. I am here to serve as a voice for our children, our families, and our community, advocating for a brighter, more inclusive future for all."

Inclusivity, transparency, and collaboration are NOT how Jamie Allard (a Pohland supporter) has operated as a State legislator.  

And here it is from an Anchorage Daily News story that was posted online a few hours ago:

"Two of the challengers — Pohland and Schuster — are supported by some prominent local conservatives, and Pohland said she is a member of Moms for Liberty, a national nonprofit focused on “parental rights” that has vowed to get more candidates onto school boards nationwide."

(I'd note that Governor Dunleavy has cited Parental Rights at least since 2015. See this post I wrote about his attempt to sabotage Erin's Law (a bill to require kids get taught how to avoid being victims of child abusers).  Dunleavy constantly cited parental rights as his reasons and that's when I discovered there was a national organization with that name whose goal is to move public money to spend on private schools. Knowing that helps one understand his continued cuts to public schools and his strong support of charter schools.) 

 I did have other such indicators that I had already in this post:

Anchorage needs well prepared school board members who will work for all students and not a MAGA / Moms for Liberty agenda. Chelsea Pohland has been endorsed by Jamie Allard, who has locked down the Ed Committee for the past 2 weeks and she received a donation from Judy Eledge pic.twitter.com/NGqI1JVOoU

— Alaska998 (@seinerak) March 11, 2024

And here's Blue Alaskan's post about Pohland supporter Jamie Allard.

So, I'm posting this information while people are just getting their mail-in ballots so that they know that:

• one of the challengers (Chelsea Pohland) has said she was a member of Moms for Liberty
• another's campaign (Kay Schuster) is closely aligned with Pohland's campaign 
• the third challenger (Angela Frank) really knows nothing about the school board based on her answers at the Black Caucus candidate forum (see video above), and she's supported by someone who supports the other two challengers. 

I thought I could add the Mayor's race in here too, but this got much longer than I expected.  (That happens often enough that probably I should start expecting it.)

Other Links about Moms for Liberty

• Wikipedia
• New Republic: Moms for Liberty Is Slowly Imploding, and That’s Bad for MAGA in 2024
• AP:  Moms for Liberty reports over $2 million in revenue, with bulk of contributions from two donors
• Wired:  Moms for Liberty Is Tearing Itself Apart

Coming Home On Part 1: Leaving Bainbridge

Time had come to bid our daughter's family goodbye for now.  I was taken aback by the price of Seattle-Anchorage tickets when I was booking our flight home.  I don't remember the details, but I just remember the 10 am flight was higher than normal and the later flights were even worse. 

Problem is we start off from Bainbridge Island.  That means you have a 35 minute ferry ride to downtown Seattle.  Then either a walk to the light rail and to the airport, or get a cab.  Cabs are $40 plus tip.  Light rail, for seniors, is $1 each.  So if there's time and it's not raining hard, we go light rail.  

This winter my daughter warned me about delays with the ferries and some ferries getting cancelled meaning you have to wait 50 minutes or more for the next one.  There were some problems with the ferries themselves, but mostly it's a staffing issue.  Lots of retirees recently and new people need special training and aren't as experienced. 

I even signed up for notifications when there was a delay or cancellation on the Seattle-Bainbridge ferry.  This was helpful to get a sense of how often there were delays and cancellations. I got fewer alerts as time went by and there were far fewer cancellations.

But that makes planning a trip to the airport a real pain. Especially when I think of the 10 minutes it takes to get to the Anchorage airport from our house. An 8am flight means getting up really early and hoping your ferry is close to on time.

On the Bainbridge Ferry page there's a link to get text message alerts on the left.  And a cool link is a real time map of where the ferries are - usually there are two ferries going between Bainbridge and Seattle.  

You can see the Tacoma is coming from Bainbridge to Seattle and the Chimacum is in the opposite direction.  There's also one coming toward Seattle from Bremerton.  

So rather than mess with the ferry early in the morning, we got a hotel room at the airport.  It was much cheaper than booking a later flight. An old high school friend who lives in Seattle, picked us up at the ferry Thursday afternoon and we had a great Ethiopian dinner (the special veggie combo at Delish) before he dropped us off at the hotel.  

One other tip I'll mention for people catching a flight from SEATAC (the Seattle Tacoma airport) is SPOTSAVER.   You can go on line and reserve a spot in the TSA line.  You tell them a time and you've got 15 minutes before and after and that gets you into a much shorter line.  I didn't think it would be necessary for an 8am flight but I signed up anyway.  Problem was they only offered appointments at 4:30am and 7am.  We wanted to arrive around 6:30 am.  So I booked 7am.  Good thing I did.  There was a long line.  I explained my 7am reservation and he let us go through.  SPOTSAVER was even shorter than the TSA precheck line.  

When we got to the gate, I was a little tempted to go to Gate 18 instead of 17, but I resisted.  

Sorry, it's out of focus, but you can read the destinations.  

This was originally going to be about how beautiful it was in Anchorage when we arrived, but it seemed like a better idea to make two posts.  Part II will be soon.  

On The Colorado Ballot Supreme Court Decision [UPDATED]

After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Colorado case and then the immunity case, I mused that the justices made an agreement to let Trump on the ballot in Colorado, but to not grant him immunity. 

It just seemed to me they were getting enough heat about losing the public's trust  - something Chief Justice Roberts has on occasion paid attention to - that maybe they decided to go in Trump's favor in one case and that they would decide against him in the other case.  This would make them look more 'objective.'

Today, they decided for Trump.  Not only did they decide for Trump, but they did so unanimously, sort of.  I haven't read the decision carefully enough, but I've read a few articles on the decision.  

Basically the five male justices not only decided the key point - whether Trump should stay on the ballot - but they went on to reach a few other conclusions.  

The women, starting with Amy Comey Barrett who wrote:

"I join Parts I and II–B of the Court’s opinion. I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that."

Sotomayor wrote what some legal scholars characterized as a dissenting opinion disguised as a concurring opinion.  

Some extra legal considerations:

I've checked the difference between a concurrent and dissenting opinion.  Basically, a concurrent opinion agrees with the decision, but not the reasoning.  A dissenting opinion disagrees with the decision and the reasoning.  I haven't tracked down what happens if there are more than one 'decisions' and someone agrees with one, but not the others.  Does that have to be a concurrent decision?  Or a dissenting decision?  Or could it be both?

A retired attorney friend told me to look up 'dicta.'  From

"Dicta in law refers to a comment, suggestion, or observation made by a judge in an opinion that is not necessary to resolve the case, and as such, it is not legally binding on other courts but may still be cited as persuasive authority in future litigation. Also referred to as dictum and judicial dicta.  A dissenting opinion is also generally considered obiter dictum."

Were the majority conclusions that Barrett criticized then dicta, because they weren't necessary to resolve the case?  Or are they legally binding?   

UNANIMOUS DECISION

SO, this was a unanimous decision.  It's important, and increasingly rare, for the Supreme Court to rule unanimously on such politically charged cases.  It's important to do so to show the court is in agreement to thwart backlash from the public.  

Chief Justice Earl Warren worked hard to get all the justices to agree on the controversial Brown v Board of Education, the landmark ruling that racially segregated public schools were not Constitutional.  From Wikipedia:

"By the early 1950s, Warren had become personally convinced that segregation was morally wrong and legally indefensible. Warren sought not only to overturn Plessy but also to have a unanimous verdict. Warren, Black, Douglas, Burton, and Minton supported overturning the precedent, but for different reasons, Robert H. Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark, and Stanley Forman Reed were reluctant to overturn Plessy.[112] Nonetheless, Warren won over Jackson, Frankfurter, and Clark, in part by allowing states and federal courts the flexibility to pursue desegregation of schools at different speeds. Warren extensively courted the last holdout, Reed, who finally agreed to join a unanimous verdict because he feared that a dissent would encourage resistance to the Court's holding. After the Supreme Court formally voted to hold that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, Warren drafted an eight-page outline from which his law clerks drafted an opinion, and the Court handed down its decision in May 1954.[113] In the Deep South at the time, people could view signs claiming "Impeach Earl Warren."[114]"

Why was today's decision unanimous?  Why didn't Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissent instead of concurring?  The obvious answer is that they agreed with the basic decision that Colorado didn't have the power to keep Trump off the ballot.  And that may well be true.  

But my hope is, as I said at the beginning, that Roberts got the Court to vote unanimously on this one in exchange for a unanimous decision on the immunity case.  Because Roberts sees two cases are so potentially explosive (though that didn't bother him with Dobbs), he wanted them to both be unanimous - one for Trump, one against him - to make the Court look less partisan at this time when the Court is under so much pressure because of precedent breaking cases like Dobbs and because of the corruption scandals surround Justice Thomas and others.  

But I also have some reservations.  

• I'm not sure Roberts could get such a commitment from the more conservative judges
• Even if he could, I'm not sure they will honor any such commitment, just as Mike Johnson didn't honor the commitment to pass the Ukrainian assistance if there was a border bill.

However, to grant a past president, even a sitting president, immunity is ludicrous.  "No man is above the law" is the "Treat your neighbor as you would have him treat you" of the US legal system.  It doesn't always happen, but it's the standard.   

Even if Roberts can't get a unanimous decision, he should minimally be able to pull Kavanaugh into such a decision along with the liberal justices and himself.  

I think the arguments for keeping Trump off the ballot in Colorado were compelling.  But Colorado has been voting Democratic presidential candidates since 2008.  So keeping him on the ballot is probably not going to change the election.  But the implications of the majority decision do seem to have long term effects.  But let's just hope we don't have any other presidential candidates who have plotted insurrection of the United States.

That's my thinking.  It's not a prediction, because in these perilous times, predictions are like throwing paper into the wind.  Treat this as wishful speculation.  

You can read the 20 page decision yourself below.  

Read Supreme Court decision... by kballuck1

[March 5, 2024 UPDATE:  This podcast by three attorneys - Leah Litman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray - takes a pretty dim view of the decision and probably makes my hypothesis seem like desperate wishful thinking.  It's worth listening to.  Just click on the link.]