Don Young – King of CoronaDenial

TALL TALES from Juneau

Eyes on the Dunleavy Disaster

It’s Day 4,836 of the stay at home mandate. At least that’s what it feels like. We hope you are all staying well, taking good care of yourselves and each other, and following the stay-at-home direction from the state. We need you. Now, on to the usual shenanigans:

THE DC DELEGATION

Congressman Don “I call it the beer virus” Young has stopped backpedaling, and is now OUTRIGHT DENYING  that he poo-pooed this pandemic, urging high-risk seniors to go about their daily lives as though nothing was happening, just a few short weeks ago. Check it out in the Anchorage Press. And yes, they provide a recording. The Congressman has bragged about never having used a computer so he may not realize that the internet never forgets. If ever there was a litmus test for the bad judgment we don’t need from our only representative in the U.S. Congress, it’s this.

And I feel compelled to share this quote ^^ again, because the more time that passes, the sharper our hindsight becomes, and the scale of his incompetence, recklessness, and boorish ignorance is put into perspective. And that perspective is BAD.

Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski seem to be acknowledging there’s actually a virus problem, but are deftly tap dancing around the fact that earlier this year when faced with irrefutable facts on the corruption of this administration, chose to stick blindly with Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.  Now they own the responsibility for enabling and supporting this President who has now botched the response to a global pandemic that stands to cripple our already-deficient health care system – from Day 1 until right now.

ALASKA IS FINE

In one of his daily incoherent press-briefings mid-week, the President actually used Alaska as an example of states that should NOT have lockdowns in place. NOT have lockdowns in place. NOT.

Yes, Donald Trump said this:

Newsflash for President Trump: You may not think that 143 cases and growing by the day isn’t “a problem,” but Alaskans know it is. These are not some abstract numbers, these are our friends and neighbors and our communities. These are not “only 3 deaths.” We are not unimportant simply because our number of cases is smaller than more populated states. And second, we ARE closed down, which the President would know if he were paying less attention to his TV ratings, and more attention to people. </rant>

DON’T FALL FOR IT

And before you start getting all warm and gooey over the fact that Mike Dunleavy’s COVID-19 response does not mimic other red-state governors’ in degree of outright negligence, there was still plenty of skulduggery this week from the Tall One. Keep reading.

AND THEN THERE’S THIS GUY

Add another one to the long list of caustic, divisive right-wing ideologues to the Dunleavy administration. His name is Donn Liston. He’s just been appointed to a two-year term on the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education.

Here’s a handy compendium of his Facebook post musings. They contain all the ignorance, malice, and thinly-veiled racist remarks you’ve grown to expect from the “appointed by Dunleavy” crew.

Who better to sit on the Commission on Postsecondary Education than a guy who wants Syrian refugees to eat raw bacon to prove their Christianity before being let in to the United States; who uses misogynistic and racist epithets while scoffing at those who play the ‘race card’; who thinks Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman should be hanged; and believes that women have been controlling men since the beginning of time and that the whole “struggle” for equality is just a buncha BS?

#ThanksDunleavy  Our kids are in great hands.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE

Speaking of education, here’s a must-read article from Dermot Cole entitled: Dunleavy administration blindsides Alaska educators with surprise launch of $525,000 virtual school

That sums it up rather nicely.

From the article:

“For the past few weeks school leaders across Alaska have had daily conference calls with Alaska Education Commissioner Michael Johnson. These meetings were to help coordinate school planning to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and to allow school officials to make plans for expanded online learning. Teachers, principals and superintendents throughout the state have been focused on revamping plans for the rest of the school year. What didn’t come up at all is that the state was planning to create a new Alaska Statewide Virtual School, partnering with the Florida Virtual School, just as school districts were developing plans of their own. Here is the sole-source contract, which was signed March 25. It is technically not a sole-source contract or an effort that required a request for proposals, according to the education department, because the Florida school is a government entity.”

The Governor just loves him some sole-source contracts. And undermining public educators. And not letting a good pandemic go to waste.

[This article reposted with permission from the Alaska Democratic Party. To sign up for their email list, click HERE.]

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