Nothing makes democrats happier than being able to accuse a conservative – any conservative – of hate speech, racism, and abuse of women. Late last week, Representative David Eastman gave them an opening by a rather clumsy observation that there are those in the Bush that get themselves pregnant simply for the free plane ride to Anchorage for prenatal care. The response to this verbal stink bomb was immediate, gleeful, and completely expected.
An op-ed penned by democrat Ivy Spohnholtz and three other women went up in Alice Rogoff’s fish wrapper Saturday entitled “How we can make Alaska a more respectful and caring place.” It went after Eastman with gusto. The aggrieved ladies (self-appointed victims), went after him with gusto and the used all the current loaded terms. “Hate-based agenda” and “verbally abused” were used in the second paragraph. “Inflammatory statements” and “hate speech” in the third. And after that warm up, they pulled out their big gun “racism” in the fourth paragraph. At least they didn’t waste any time getting to the point of the discussion, at least from their standpoint. https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/05/07/how-we-can-make-alaska-a-more-respectful-and-caring-place/
So, what is really going on here?
There are a couple of things. One on Eastman’s part and one on the part of the left.
Eastman was really talking about Medicaid fraud, the notion that there are those that will use Medicaid paid travel to doctor’s appointments as free shopping trips in the Railbelt. There have been a lot of anecdotal evidence that this goes on and has been going on in the Bush for decades. To date, nobody has done an actual investigation (to the best of my knowledge) and nobody has gathered actual data or scoped the problem. Don’t expect Walker – Mallott democrats to conduct such an investigation any time soon.
This is what Eastman should have done, but hindsight is the only exact science.
On the other hand, Spohnholtz and her co-writers engaged in what has become a sadly predictable debate technique these days, to cloak themselves in the trappings of victimhood (female, Native and Bush in this instance), and accuse their target of being the functional equivalent of a Klan Grand Kleagle. They used all the necessary hot-button words.
These ladies (and I use that term in a qualified manner), don’t want a discussion. They don’t want a debate. They want Eastman to shut up and go away, if possible out of the Legislature completely, something they called for toward the end of their piece.
Do not discount the participation of Sponholtz’ partners in the House majority in this. If they can remove a conservative from office without holding an election, it would remove a vote against them and their agenda, as Governor Walker would get to appoint a replacement. If no appointment is made, they still eliminate a “no” vote against their agenda.
This little event reprises what we saw out of the Trump – Clinton presidential campaign last year, when any and everything that Trump said or had ever said was trotted out as an attack on women. It is where the democrats operate. It is their wheelhouse. It is what they do, gleefully and proudly so. As long as this is their starting point for any and all political debates, we will never get any problem solved, especially any of the myriad pathologies of Bush Alaska.
But this is not about solving anything in the Bush is it? It is about destroying this particular conservative utterly, completely and brutally as is humanly possible.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He is a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
