So Nice To Be Home

A couple views as we got near Anchorage.

There was actually sun in other directions and when we were on the ground.  It doesn't really feel any colder than Seattle did - no wind helps.  And thanks to our house sitter for taken such good care.  I got to go chat with all the plants that seem to be enjoying the increasing light each day.  

No airplanes for a while.  Going to enjoy being home.  But we will miss the grandkids, and even their parents.  

Let's March

Seattle, where we've spent most of the month, had one of the coldest Februaries on record and including one of the snowiest.
San Francisco, where we spent part of the month, was rainy and February temps were well below normal.
And the LA Times says today that LA had its first February since they've been keeping records ( "at

least 132 years") when temperature never reached 70˚F.  The average was down from 68˚F to 61˚F.

Meanwhile Anchorage started February a little warmer than normal and ended a little colder than normal.

So, does this mean Trump is right and Climate Change is a hoax?  Weather is NOT Climate.  Weather is what happens short term.  Climate is the larger overall trends.  And Climate Change is about change.  That doesn't mean just getting warmer (though that's the overall trend).  It also means more extremes, more volatility, and changes that will affect how much water areas have, whether traditional crops will survive, whether heat and floods will change the landscapes.

Climate change is real and businesses know it and are concerned.   Only ideologues who reject science for vanity and ideology don't believe it.

But meanwhile, Let's March.  Let's enjoy this month.  Our last full day in the Seattle area is beautiful.  And I'm looking forward to getting some sunny wintertime in Anchorage tomorrow.

Working Conditions of Some Folks Who Feed Your Electronic Media Habits

Some pieces on the less visible side of our rapid adoption of electronic media.

Computer Games - From Real Life

"During a quarterly earnings call on February 11, Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard — one of the biggest companies in video games, publicly traded with a market cap of about $35 billion — announced excellent news for investors: His company had just completed a “record year” of revenue. But then he had even better news for them: Activision Blizzard was set to lay off 8 percent of their workforce, to further increase shareholder margins, meaning 800 employees would be losing their jobs.
The cycles of extreme crunch and job churn have meant that game employees often burn out after a few years in games: In 2017, the industry had the highest turnover rate of any in the country. Games companies are not troubled by this, because they bank on the aura that their products and their fan communities give them. The idealism and passion of the young people who come to games hoping to work in a field that inspires them and brings them joy end up making them ripe for exploitation, a pattern many young writers, actors, and musicians might recognize. At so-called triple-A studios like Rockstar or Ubisoft, they get chewed up and spit out in the name of creating an expensive few hours of pleasure for middle-class consumers."

Casey Newton's The Trauma Floor:  The Secret Lives of Facebook Moderators in America, tells the story of contract workers who screen FB posts to eliminate inappropriate posts.  It starts of at a training session:

"For this portion of her education, Chloe will have to moderate a Facebook post in front of her fellow trainees. When it’s her turn, she walks to the front of the room, where a monitor displays a video that has been posted to the world’s largest social network. None of the trainees have seen it before, Chloe included. She presses play.
The video depicts a man being murdered. Someone is stabbing him, dozens of times, while he screams and begs for his life. Chloe’s job is to tell the room whether this post should be removed. She knows that section 13 of the Facebook community standards prohibits videos that depict the murder of one or more people. When Chloe explains this to the class, she hears her voice shaking." 

The piece goes on to talk about how these employees are NOT really FB employees and their pay and working conditions are much different from those in Menlo Park. Interviews with a number of former and current employees reveals high mental health problems, with sex and drugs a common way to cope.  While there are counselors, they aren't there all the time.   A long section in the middle discusses the difficulty of interpreting the rules for what is allowable and what isn't.  As you can imagine there is a fine balancing act between not offending people and not being overly protective.

"In some cases, the company has been criticized for not doing enough — as when United Nations investigators found that it had been complicit in spreading hate speech during the genocide of the Rohingya community in Myanmar. In others, it has been criticized for overreach — as when a moderator removed a post that excerpted the Declaration of Independence. (Thomas Jefferson was ultimately granted a posthumous exemption to Facebook’s speech guidelines, which prohibit the use of the phrase 'Indian savages.')"

The scores employees get keeps track of their accuracy.

Eventually gets to tour the Phoenix workplace under controlled conditions where employees say things aren't as bad as he's been led to believe.


And finally (for this post anyway) (and a slightly different focus)  "AR Will Spark the Next Big Tech Platform—Call It Mirrorworld" in Wired, by Kevin Kelly.  This begins with a description of AR as experienced by Mythbusters' Adam Savage:

“I turned it on and I could hear a whale,” he says, “but I couldn’t see it. I’m looking around my office for it. And then it swims by my windows—on the outside of my building! So the glasses scanned my room and it knew that my windows were portals and it rendered the whale as if it were swimming down my street. I actually got choked up.” 

Kelly gives an overview.  (Wired assumes everyone knows what AR means and doesn't define it.  But I suspect not all my readers do.  It stands for Augmented Reality.)

"The first big technology platform was the web, which digitized information, subjecting knowledge to the power of algorithms; it came to be dominated by Google. The second great platform was social media, running primarily on mobile phones. It digitized people and subjected human behavior and relationships to the power of algorithms, and it is ruled by Facebook and WeChat.
We are now at the dawn of the third platform, which will digitize the rest of the world. On this platform, all things and places will be machine-­readable, subject to the power of algorithms. Whoever dominates this grand third platform will become among the wealthiest and most powerful people and companies in history, just as those who now dominate the first two platforms have. Also, like its predecessors, this new platform will unleash the prosperity of thousands more companies in its ecosystem, and a million new ideas—and problems—that weren’t possible before machines could read the world."

So what?

Every new technology inherently brings change to the society that adopts it.  I remember reading about an indigenous group of people's first contact with foreigners, who gave metal hatchets to people in the group.  The possession of tools like these had been restricted by tradition to village leaders.  Now everyone had such a tool and the whole social order of the community fell apart.

We've been on an incredible technology ride as we adopt one new technology after another with very little concern for how these technologies have and will impact us.  Digital imagery manipulation has destroyed the idea of photos and videos as reliable evidence of truth.  And the internet is currently being used to further destroy any notion of a provable truth.  Democracy requires a level of agreement on what is true.

But aside from the content of the internet and how it influences our world views, there is also the impact of how the technology is produced - the materials, the work settings, wealth redistribution.  And capitalism itself makes it hard to control the impacts of new technology.  Cloning and genetic modification of humans will happen (have happened?) despite strong ethical concerns.  Capitalists supply what they think they can profit from.  We know, for example, the free market plays a key role in the extinction of species - either because some part of them is valued like rhinoceros horns, or because their habitat is destroyed as a side-effect (externality) of resource development and the unregulated dumping of waste.

Before you give up because you think the problems are too great to solve, remember your own consumption and waste management strategies.  Talk about the side effects of computer games with your friends and relatives who made Activision Blizzard a $35 billion! company.

Cohen Testimony, Republican Response

Let's be clear.  Michael Cohen is NOT a nice guy.  He grew up with friends - like Felix Sater - whose parents were part of the Jewish-Russian mafia.  Here's Wikipedia's says about his personal life:

Cohen married Ukraine-born Laura Shusterman in 1994.[17][18][19] Laura Shusterman's father, Fima Shusterman, left Soviet Ukraine for New York in 1975.[19] Cohen has a daughter, Samantha, and a son, Jake.[20] Cohen's wife, according to the Wall Street Journal, is implicated in potential criminal activity, and Cohen's father-in-law is the one who introduced him to Trump according to a Trump biographer.[21][22] Cohen's uncle is a doctor who treated members of the Lucchese crime family.[19] The uncle owned "El Caribe Country Club," known to be frequented by individuals associated with the Russian mafia: Evsei Agron, Marat Balagula, and Boris Nayfeld.[23]
Before joining the Trump Organization, Cohen had purchased several homes in Trump's buildings.[13] A 2017 New York Times article reported that Cohen is known for having "a penchant for luxury"; he was married at The Pierre, drove a Porsche while attending college, and once owned a Bentley.[17]

He was surrounded by people who abused the law for their own benefit, including his boss for ten years, Donald J. Trump.

So, it's understandable that the Republicans on the House Oversight Committee today, have repeatedly hammered him over his reliability as a witness. He was called the first witness before Congress who'd ever been convicted of lying to Congress.  (That should probably be fact checked.) He was even called a pathological liar by one.

House Oversight Committee Rep. Stuebe of Florida complained about how Cohen lied to Congress (he didn't say "in defense of Trump.")  Did Stuebe or any of the Republicans complaining about that dishonest testimony today, raise serious questions about Cohen's truthfulness at the time?

I doubt any did.   I tried to find transcripts of the testimony but I can't.  [Anyone with a link or a copy, please send it to me.]  The closest I got was this:

NBC News report on the October 2017 testimony of Michael Cohen where he lied to defend the president:

"But Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, who is leading the committee’s Russia probe, said Cohen answered his questions to his satisfaction and saw no need to invite him back."
"A Democratic congressman asked Cohen if he had ever used an alias in the past, raising one in particular: Michael Hacking. Cohen explained it was related to a taxi company he had owned — hack in this case being a reference to New York’s yellow cabs.
“They really thought they had him, that this was an alias he used to hack into people’s phones. It was almost too good to be true,” said Republican Rep. Peter King, who as a New Yorker was one of the few present who immediately saw the humor in the exchange. 'It was a moment of levity. I don’t know if the Democrats found it as funny as I did.'”

So these are two cases of Republicans at the time who were 'satisfied' with Cohen's testimony or found levity in the fact that a Democrat was tripped up by a hacking reference.  No outrage though then, about Cohen's testimony, which today they declare to be a disqualifier for him as a witness.  They called this hearing a waste of time when they should be doing far more important stuff.

Considering that the Republicans are standing firm to defend the most prominent serial liar in the world, it's clear to me that their attacks on Cohen are not about his lying, but about his defecting from the Trump team.

Do they mean that everything he's said today is a lie?  What about when he said that Trump would never hit his wife?  What about when he refused to rule out selling his story in books and movies?  What about when he said he had no direct knowledge of collusion between Trump and Russia over the election?  Were those lies too?

All white collar crimes depend on insiders, people who have questionable if not terrible pasts.  It's because they are the people who know what happened.

The real irony in all this, is that the Republicans are furious at Cohen for once lying to protect Trump.  The same sort of loyalty to Trump they were demonstrating at the hearing themselves.  It's only when he stopped defending Trump that they got mad at him.

The afternoon session begins soon.  You can watch it live here:

Text of Michael Cohen's Testimony Before House Committee On Oversight And Reform [UPDATED]

At some point we will get to the tipping point and Trump's presidency will be understood by most to be doomed.  He's already done dozens of things that would have destroyed any previous president.  Part of his protective wall, has been the Republican controlled  US Senate.  Cohen's testimony makes it harder for them to plead lack of proof.  This is a very clear, "The emperor has no clothes" moment.

I don't know that Cohen's testimony will be that tipping point.  Part of me thinks the tipping point  will be something that is far less legally problematic, but will somehow strike a nerve in the US people like other outrages haven't.

But this - courtesy of Politico - is the kind of thing many have been expecting a long time.  Coming from Trump's own personal lawyer, who worked for him for ten years and saw him behind the scenes, it's very damning.

He says a lot here, but he also says he has no first hand evidence of collusion with Russia.

Basically, he calls Trump a racist, a conman, a cheat.  But read it yourself.  Tipping point?  I don't know.  It will be harder for Republicans to credibly maintain their denials.  Certainly this is landmark testimony.

John Dean was Nixon's white house lawyer.  He's the one whose Congressional Testimony changed the Watergate momentum.  It's interesting that Michael Cohen's middle name is Dean.

Micahel Cohen Statement by on Scribd

[UPDATE March 6, 2019: I just got this notice from SCRIBD: "This is a notification that Scribd’s BookID copyright protection system has disabled access to Micahel Cohen Statement (id: 400620375). This does not necessarily mean that an infringement has occurred, or that you have done anything wrong. BookID is part of Scribd's diverse efforts to reinforce the copyrights of authors and publishers. Like all automated systems, it will occasionally identify legitimate content as a possible infringement. Unfortunately, the volume of content in Scribd's library prohibits us from reaching out for verification before BookID disables content. Scribd frequently updates BookID in order to reduce false positives. Authors that publish to Scribd's subscription reading service through one of our publishing partners may also find that BookID may remove uploads of duplicate or similar content from personal Scribd accounts. If you believe that this removal is an error, please forward a copy of this notification to copyright@scribd.com along with a clear explanation of your issue. Our team will review your request and will restore content as deemed appropriate." I sent them a letter saying that this was a public document and I didn't need copyright permissions. But then I linked to find that I had found that someone else had already put the document up and so I saw no reason to duplicate it on SCRIBD. But apparently the entity that put it up is charging people to read it. So I'll try to find another copy and put it on my account. Sorry.]

[No sooner than I got my note up, it's working again.  Oh well, now people can read it again. Good.]

[Got an email - they fixed it.  And it turns out I had put it up.  Not sure why the link above sent me to someone else's post.  Now it goes to mine again.  They responded really quickly.]

So, What Exactly Is The Green New Deal? Here's A Copy Of The Resolution

Like a lot of people, I suspect, I liked the idea of a Green New Deal, but didn't really know much about the details.  So I looked online to find the document that spells it out.  What I got was the resolution that was introduced in Congress.  You can scroll down to find it all below.

Some thoughts:
1.  It's more a set of goals and priorities than a plan of things to do.  Though it does have some specific targets, like reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40-60% from 2010 levels by 2030
2.  It pulls together a whole range of issues that are normally dealt with (if at all) separately, and by the grouping of them here, makes the point that they are all related and must all be considered jointly.
3.  It sets out lots of important social/economic values - like protecting marginalized folks (a long list that goes from indigenous folks, to depopulated rural communities, low-income workers) - as needing to be protected from negative consequences of the changes.

The Right Wing Nay-Sayers have already begun attacking it for all sorts of reasons that boil down to demonizing it among the Right and splitting support on the Left.   I hope people are learning to see through such tricks.

FDR's New Deal was a series of bills all tied together by a common concept of getting people jobs, food, hope.  This could be the same.

I hope that a carbon fee and dividend bill - one has already been introduced in the House - will be one of the first successes of the Green New Deal.  All the analysis I've seen shows a Carbon Free and Dividend Bill is the most politically feasible and most effective way to quickly start reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.

I wanted to break it down and make it more consumable, but to do that right is going to take some time and creativity.  In the meantime, here's a copy of the resolution.

Green New Deal Resolution by on Scribd

Vampire Blood Offer, Anti-Semitic Comment, GND And Anti-AOC Tweeters, And "That Ain't Actually True"

There's so much to write about, but not nearly enough time to do it well.  So let me just offer some highlights.

On my post Vampire History Of Alaska, I got a comment from Leonard who has become a vampire and is offering vampire blood to others.  Is this like ISIS recruitment?  Just a joke?  A scam?

On a 2010 post Does Lisa Murkowski's Religious Preference Matter? I got a new comment that makes allegations about Jews that I really can't understand.  I do understand that part that suggests Murkowski is a secret Jew who's made her way into a power position.

Both of those comments force me to decide if I should just delete the comments, or leave them there to let people see how bizarre some people are.  I've responded, with some hesitation, to the anti-semitic one - because I think people should see the kinds of things people right, and to put them into context, though I couldn't commit to dealing with every allegation in detail.

Then there's the Green New Deal.  I've started a post on that, but I need to do more research.  As someone who has spent a lot of time finding out about climate change, I'm for the idea, but I realized I didn't know all the details.  What I have learned through my involvement with Citizens Climate Change is:

• Climate Change is real
• It's caused by humans
• 'Fighting' Climate Change isn't going to bring economic ruin, but rather will add jobs to the economy, and keep the US competitive as the world shifts to new sources of energy
• A carbon fee with dividend is a market based approach that is the most politically viable and technically effective way to go 

All the scare stuff is by those with vested interests in fossil fuel based energy, people who use it to stoke partisan enmity, or those who who just resist change in general.

And as I read about the GND, I've noticed an unusual number of attacks against it and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.  When she tweets, there are way more anti-AOC responses than there should be.  People who follow her only to attack her it would seem, or are getting sent to attack her tweets by others.  I have checked out a few of these people.  Like Forrest Cook.  His Twitter page says he signed up in July 2009, he's got a total of 13 Tweets and 6 followers.

Of those 6, three are clearly from Kansas (as is Cook). Four have 25 or fewer followers and aren't very active.  Two followers, including Shinobi Ninja, have lots of posts and followers.

Cook's first tweet was July 21, 2009.  
Cook's second tweet was Feb 19, 2019.  And 17 more since then - including today Feb 24, 2019.
He's following 45 Tweeters - including all the Democrats who have announced for President, AOC, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi.  (He's also following Trump, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Kevin McCarthy.

How many newly reactivated Tweeters are out there?  Was Forrest recruited to reactivate?  Was his Twitter handle taken over?  Or has just gotten back into this on his own?   I sent him a tweet asking what got him started again. Here's his response:

"I just never got into Twitter until recently...time to enter another fold of Social Media...although, no mater the venue, the message, the hate and the angst is still the same"

There's more:

Andrew Sullivan  reacts to a new book - Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.  Here's just a snippet.  You can read it all here.

"I’m no naïf when it comes to the gayness of the church. I’ve lived in it as a gay man for all my adult life, and my eyes are open. And so the book did not surprise me, as such, but it still stunned, shocked, and disgusted me. You simply cannot unread it, or banish what is quite obviously true from your mind. It helps explain more deeply the rants of Pope Francis about so many of his cardinals, especially his denunciations of “Pharisees” and “hypocrites,” with their sexual amorality and their vast wealth and power. “Behind rigidity something always lies hidden; in many cases, a double life,” he has said. He has excoriated “hypocrites” who live “hidden and often dissolute lives,” those who “put makeup on their soul and live off makeup”; he has exclaimed in public that “hypocrisy does a lot of harm: it’s a way of life.”
The only tiny consolation of the book is the knowledge that we now have a pope — with all his flaws — who knows what he’s dealing with, and has acted, quite ruthlessly at times, to demote, defrock, or reassign the most egregious cases to places where they have close to nothing to do. And if you want to understand the ferocity of the opposition to him on the Catholic right, this is the key. His most determined opponents are far-right closet cases, living in palaces, leading completely double lives, backed by the most vicious of reactionaries and bigots on the European and American far right, and often smarting at their demotions."

Finally, a very subtle and essay by a black Southerner on the difficulty of speaking honestly - Kiese Laymon's "That's Not Actually True."

"Weeks after I finish my audiobook, I will be interviewed on NPR by a much older white man from up north. I will imagine him sliding around his office in his socks. Near the end of our interview, he will sincerely ask me why I still talk to my mother. I will say, “Oh my god.” Then I will tell him the question should be why do we still talk to y’all when, northern or Southern, y’all refuse to critically engage with your investment in your belief that niggers ain’t shit. I will answer the question before the older white man from up north can answer and say, “If y’all ever paid us what we worked for, we wouldn’t talk to y’all. You know that right? We really wouldn’t. But we ain’t got no money so we talk to y’all. And we hope it makes our checks bigger.”
That’s not actually true."

Virginia Redistricting Reform, The First Big Step

The US Constitution requires a decennial census in order to determine the current population so that states can be allowed an appropriate number of representatives in Congress.  Once the number is set, states redraw the maps.  It's at this point that gerrymandering becomes a potential problem.

Since Alaska has only one House member, that part is moot.  But our redistricting board maps the districts for the State House and Senate.  Right now, the Governor gets to choose two members of the board, the Speaker of the House and Senate President each choose one, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court also gets to choose one.    That's a total of five.  And it's been a pretty partisan project in the past.

A number of states have made changes.  It would behoove Alaskans to look at what's all going on and think about a better system for us as well.


Virginia took a big step to ending partisan gerrymandering in redistricting.  From One Virginia 2021:

Here are key elements in the reform passed by the House of Delegates and the Senate on Saturday:

• ESTABLISHES A REDISTRICTING COMMISSION OF 8 LEGISLATORS AND 8 CITIZENS, WITH A CITIZEN SERVING AS CHAIR

• REQUIRES FULL TRANSPARENCY OF ALL MEETINGS, MINUTES AND DATA

• INCLUDES SPECIFIC PROTECTIONS FOR MINORITY COMMUNITIES

• INCLUDES IMPARTIAL REVIEW IN THE SELECTION OF CITIZEN MEMBERS OF THE COMMISSION

• EXCLUDES UNELECTED CONGRESSIONAL OR GENERAL ASSEMBLY EMPLOYEES FROM THE COMMISSION

• GUARDS AGAINST PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING BY REQUIRING A SUPERMAJORITY OF COMMISSIONERS FOR APPROVAL OF DISTRICT MAPS

• PROVIDES THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY ONLY UP-OR-DOWN VOTES ON THE COMMISSION’S MAPS, WITHOUT AMENDMENTS

• EXCLUDES THE GOVERNOR FROM THE APPROVAL PROCESS, WHICH WOULD THROW OFF THE BALANCE CREATED BY THE ABOVE FRAMEWORK

The post says it still has to be passed again by next year's Virginia General Assembly and by the voters in November 2020.   Here's a slightly different take from WTOP.

API Contract Awarded - NO BID - To Wellpath by Alaska Gov. Dunleavy

At the bottom of this post is a copy of the contract I found posted at DHSS today between the State of Alaska and Wellpath, for the latter to take over operations of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute.  Before we get there, I'll just highlight what I see in the contract.  There seems to be a fair amount of boiler plate (standard contract wording) and then specifics.

I see two phases:
Phase 1 - Startup  when they will figure out how they're going to pull this off

("contractor shall take all actions reasonably necessary for API to be in full operation and capable of serving patients by June 30, 2019. . .")   

It's not clear what's happening in the mean time.  Is the current state staff doing the work?  I haven't heard about the place being shut down and patients sent elsewhere.  But I would imagine staff is all looking for work somewhere else.  It does say that

"Wellpath shall provide sufficient staff to effect a transition of existing staff and all services to assume complete operation of API no later than July 1, 2019." (p. 6/21)

Phase II - Beginning July 1, 2019 is when they take over.

"Commencement of Phase 2 will begin on the Operations Date, upon acceptance of completion of Phase 1.  Upon commencement of Phase 2, Wellpath shall be authorized to manage and operate all aspects of API. . . "

Appendix C is Description of Services.

Then there are Exhibits:

Exhibit 1 - Staff Planning
Several pages listing positions and number of people to fill them.  Note there are only

12.5 positions listed under Healthcare
130 positions under Nursing
48.5 positions for "Treatment/Mental Health"
34 positions for "Safety"

28 of these are for "Therapeutic Safety Technicians."  When I looked up what that meant, I found a LinkedIn job announcement from Wellpath for this job posted 'one week ago."  They are no longer accepting applications.   It requires a minimum age of 19 and a high school diploma.

Here's the contract's summary of the Staffing Plan:

ARNP refers to Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners.

Appendix D:  Payment for Services

Phase 1 Startup Billing is for $1 million.   This is to figure out how they plan to take over operations. If this were a a competitively bid contract, it would seem to me this work would have been done by the companies doing the bid on their own dime.  I could be wrong, but I know companies put in a lot of prep work in their bids for contracts.

Phase 2 Operations Budget is for $1,383.82 per diem for 80 available beds.  Or $110,705.60 per day.  Or over $40 million for a year.
Phase 2 Estimated Annual Pass-Through Expenses:  $3,266.525.

So, as best as I can read this, the bill will be for about $43 million a year.
Looking back at previous budgets, I see API listed at around $33 million a year.

[NOTE:  Budgets were never my area of expertise.  I only occasionally try to get into them to find things, so I'm making preliminary observations here, waiting for others to jump in and clarify all this more accurately.]

0619-131 API HospitalAdminS... by on Scribd

[UPDATE Feb 22, 2019 9:00pm - I forgot to put up this image for people who would like to see who these people are who are now taking over API.  Wellpath CEO Jorge Dominicis, Correct Care Solutions co-founder Jerry Boyle, Wellpath President Kip Hallman.]

Image from Bizjournals.com

  

Alaska Politics From Afar

We'll be back in Anchorage in about a week.  Meanwhile gramping duties divert my blogging concentration.  I've been the healthiest adult for the last few days - my coughs much better, but others have it now.  So yesterday I dropped nieta at a program at the Kidimu and picked her up two hours later.  (No school this week.)  Later we went shopping for dinner with a stop at the library to drop off a book and get another.  Walking home with two bags of groceries - it was ok, but I should have thought about weight a bit more when I was shopping.  Then back to the library for READ to a dog a little later after preparing the veggie chili.  Today a friend comes over and we'll walk down to the Historical Museum after lunch here.  It's all good, but there is soooo much happening in Alaska, so let me try to at least mention some things.  I will say that I'm pleased with the much increased coverage of Juneau by the ADN and by AKLedger and Dermot Cole since I tried to blog the legislature in 2010.  

It was clear to me back in 2013 that Dunleavy was a danger to Alaska.  I watched in Anchorage as he chaired the special session of the Senate committee that was charged with moving the legislation (Erin's Law) out of committee to allow the full Senate to vote on it.  The bill was to require age appropriate lessons in schools on child molestation and teach kids how to report it.  Dunleavy took the clean, three page bill that had passed overwhelmingly in the House and added six pages that gutted much of the original bill and added a bunch of stuff on parental rights.  Parental Rights, I found out at the time, is code for things like home-school, anti-public school, and giving fathers more power in custody issues.  In the Erin's Law case it would mean giving abusive parents more control to keep their kids from finding out how to report sexual abuse.

So, it was clear that Dunleavy was working from some weird ideological place that allowed him to ignore the damage he was doing to kids in Alaska.

And that's my best guess about what's happening now.  After Dan Sullivan's family in Ohio bought him the Alaska US Senate seat over Mark Begich, Dunleavy's brother, also Outside, figured he could buy the Alaska Governorship the same way.  And he did.  And Mark Begich - the Alaskan born and raised Democrat - was the victim once again.  Along with his brother's money (and who else's we don't know) comes a crazy anti-government, libertarian opportunity to experiment by cutting money from Alaska education and everything else.

It's like, hey, if you guys help me get my brother get elected, you can then show the world how your ideas of cutting government will work.  But we already know this failed spectacularly in Kansas and Wisconsin and Michigan among other places.

And unlike those places, the Republicans in the Senate aren't as ideologically crazy as the ones in the other states.  Well, a few are.  And somehow - I still haven't figured it out - the Democrats have managed to get themselves into a bi-partisan majority in the State House.  So Dunleavy won't have it as easy getting his budget through in Alaska as the others did in their states.

But, if someone breaks into your house and lets the water overflow in the tubs and toilets, turns off the heat in the winter, and randomly destroys things, it's going to cost a lot to get it back into livable shape.

So I'm looking forward to being back in Alaska so I can get a better sense of how much damage we're going to incur from this ideologically-crazed governor and his (I need a gender neutral word for 'henchmen')

I'm also thinking about how democracy can survive if a majority of voters can be swayed by lies and nonsense, and another significant chunk thinks their participation is pointless.  We may not get our ideal candidate, but Trump and Dunleavy should have taught enough people that less than ideal is way better than horrible.  

That's the key question for me - how do we help citizens care enough to figure out what candidates will really do before they vote for them.  And to help other citizens to overcome their belief that their vote doesn't matter because all candidates are bad.

But the kinds of propaganda that the Nazis used to gain power has been perfected by Republican marketing geniuses with no morality.  We have Fox News as the most recognized example, and Putin's been using those techniques to wreak havoc in the US 2016 election, in Brexit, in the French election, in Ukraine, and in Italy.  He's showing the way to kill democracy is to kill truth.

Alaskans, let's not let our state Senate prop up Dunleavy the way the US Senate has been propping up Trump.  (And there are good signs they aren't.)  This guy has to go.  As fast as possible.

I realize this might sound like a rant to some, but I'm pretty sure my take here is accurate.  And I have two six year olds coming over for lunch in 30 minutes.  But I also wanted to mention the election board in North Carolina that invalidated a US House election because of a consultant who committed election fraud (note:  NOT voter fraud) by manipulating mail in ballots.   I'd note we had this same thing happen on what we believe to be a much smaller scale when Rep. LeDoux hired a California election consultant to get her Hmong constituents to vote.

"A subsequent count of absentee ballots gave LeDoux a 117-vote win. But state elections officials also said they found evidence of voter fraud among the absentee ballots, and they sent their findings to prosecutors for review.
Elections officials said they received absentee applications in the names of seven dead people. Those ballots were not mailed out, but officials also identified 26 suspicious ballots that were returned.
All 26 of those votes went to LeDoux."

That consultant died and it appears that ended deeper investigation into the issue.  But let's be vigilant.   Republican election fraud, voter suppression, and gerrymandering are  much bigger threats than Republican imagined voter fraud.