One of the (many) irritating things out of Alaska’s senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski has been her propensity to use her support for feminists to inform her support for nominations and candidates. Generally, all you have to be is a woman, regardless of what you believe, promise to do, or have done to get her unwavering support.
The latest example of this is US Federal Judge Sharon Gleason, who on August 18, with a 110-page opinion shut down Conoco-Phillips Willow Project for the winter. 160,000 barrels a day will remain in the ground over the winter and thousands of jobs in Alaska will not happen until the opinion is reversed. Gleason’s excuse was insufficient analysis on release of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and negative impact to polar bear populations and other spurious environmental concerns.
This is the same Judge Sharon Gleason who on Jan 5 refused to block a lease sale for ANWR. Perhaps the administration change on Jan 20 had something to do with her change of mind, as the arguments were identical. If so, we don’t have a federal judge in Gleason. We have yet another in a long line of political hacks Barack O’Bama appointed to the federal bench.
Gleason was appointed in 2011, with strong support from Lisa Murkowski because women. The press release is still on the Murkowski US Senate web site. Murkowski’s rationale was that Gleason was the first Alaska woman on the federal bench and has an “excellent outlook” and careful decision making. The vote was 87-8.
Lisa had similar high praise and support for the nomination of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the woman who is busily shutting down all resource development here in Alaska. Lisa’s excuse for supporting Haaland? She is a Native American woman, yet another “historic nomination.” Perhaps a simple look at what Haaland supported while a congress critter from New Mexico would have better informed her support. It would certainly been a better indicator of what she would do in office than the nominee’s sex and race.
Final example of this came in 2016 when NBC News released the infamous Billy Bush tape during the Trump campaign for president. Lisa self-righteously pops off with the following:
“I cannot and will not support Donald Trump for president. He has forfeited the right to be our party’s nominee.”
She managed to parlay this personal revulsion with Candidate Trump in 2016 into a 5-year long at best prickly relationship with the White House during his term as president. Imagine how much progress Alaska could have made if our senior US Senator actually decided to work with him rather than dip into her feminist informed inner “Orange Man Bad” every possible time.
Thanks to Lisa Murkowski, we have a pair of women, one a federal judge and one a cabinet secretary, who are busily warring on Alaska’s resource development – timber, oil, natural gas, coal, mining. While they haven’t gotten started on fishing as yet, it is only a matter of time. And Lisa’s rationale for her support of both of these “historic nominations” was mostly based on the sex of the nominee. There I thought that making hiring decisions based on sex and race was supposed to be a Bad Thing, illegal under federal law. Apparently not for the Sisterhood Lisa Murkowski wants so desperately to be a part of.
Perhaps it is time for a US Senator from Alaska that will quit putting the interests of one group of Alaskans above the interests of ALL Alaskans. Lisa is only interested in one group. And she has been sadly doing this for a long, long time.
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 was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
