This Week In-Sanity: May 8, 2021
Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anne Zink, has taken a lot of crap since the Coronavirus pandemic began. Critics of the good doctor bemoaned her refusal to call for a statewide mask mandate last year as transmission increased. Dr. Zink said at the time that the role of Alaska DHSS was to advise and make recommendations and that she didn’t have the authority to issue a mask mandate.
She has been referred to as a fake doctor by armchair Facebook scientists and publicly called out for not being an epidemiologist and, thereby, somehow incapable of understanding science.
Dr. Zink has always maintained a healthy sense of humor and never has minced words when confronted with criticism on social media, which makes her response criticizing her alleged non-mask compliance on a trip to Ketchikan all the more delicious.
The Dave Bronson for Mayor campaign hit another rough patch this week after Local 71 sent the campaign a strongly worded reminder that the union did not endorse his candidacy. Local 71’s letter and online statement came after a Bronson mailer was seen suggesting that the fringe candidate had the support of the union.
The union hasn’t endorsed either mayoral candidate but did donate $1,000.00 to Dunbar’s campaign — a perfect example of putting your money where your mouth is.
Interesting but not surprising news this week as the Bronson campaign appears to have punted its response to an APOC complaint filed against them by the Dunbar campaign. The Bronson campaign did not respond to specific allegations in the complaint but said they would respond after the APOC Staff Report was issued.
The Dunbar campaign alleges the Bronson campaign has engaged in “voluminous and serious alleged violations” of campaign finance regulations and has APOC to investigate, among other concerns, whether Bronson “may have accidentally incriminated his campaign as having received tens of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions through the backdoor network that connects the Recall Rivera campaign and the dark-money Save Anchorage group.”
Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like an allegation a campaign would want to address and put to bed immediately.
Progressive Anchorage school board candidates Dr. Kelly Lessens, Carl Jacobs, Pat Higgins, and Dora Wilson were sworn in as members of the school board this past Monday. For the first time in recent memory, school board races were closely watched, and candidates worked tirelessly for each vote.
On his Twitter account, Carl Jacobs says he will serve as Board Clerk and Chair of the Governance Committee, writing, “Now the real work begins!”
State Senator Lora Reinbold, cake designer, mask-hater extraordinaire, and part-time fake news aficionado, has caught the attention of Facebook. In a warning message shared by Reinbold, it appears Facebook has reduced its Facebook page distribution of her page for “repeated sharing of false news.”
This is Facebook’s polite way of telling Reinbold that her page is being shown to fewer people.
Reinbold didn’t share a full screenshot of all the page violations she has amassed since the Coronavirus pandemic began. Still, it would be interesting to see if only to gain insight into her online reading habits. I don’t think Reinbold has to worry about Facebook banning her from the platform - Facebook only does that with politicians who pat armed insurrectionists on the head.
