Unlike Her Republican Counterparts, Rep. Hannan Apologizes

Alaska House Representative Sara Hannan apologized on social media this afternoon for words she used on the House Floor yesterday.

Hannan's apology came a day after she said that Nazi medical experiments conducted on victims in concentration camps were “violations of human dignity, of scientific methodology, yet they produced results.” Hannan isn't the first Alaska politician to invoke the word Nazi, however, nor is she the first to draw questionable comparisons.

In June, Alaska Representative and "Save Anchorage" member Rep. Ron Gillham shared on social media a post that likened members of the media and medical professionals who provide information about COVID-19 vaccines to Nazis who were executed for war crimes, though the Republican later said he meant “nothing” by it.

Gillham later removed the post. When asked why by the Anchorage Daily News he responded: “No reason.” After removing the posts made to social media, Peninsula Clarion reporter Camille Botello shared Gillham's deleted posts to Twitter.

Some members of the "Save Anchorage" group Rep. Gillham and other members of the Legislature belong to have likened health data sharing to tattoos given to prisoners at the concentration camp Auschwitz.

In August, former Representative Les Gara called on Governor Dunleavy to apologize after Dunleavy compared encouraging and incentivizing vaccinations to medical experiments conducted by German doctors during World War II. Governor Dunleavy has not apologized.

Representative David Eastman said yesterday it was the sense of the House that "the Nuremberg Code adopted in 1947 following the prosecution of Nazi war crimes by the allies after World War II, remains just as valid today as when it was written in 1947." Assumably, Eastman believes forced infections, non-anesthetized surgeries, hypothermia, and other atrocities conducted by the Nazi's during World War 2 are comparative to COVID-19 vaccines.

This week I revealed a 2013 "article" written by Anchorage Mayor David Bronson in which he opined Adolph Hitler was not always a tyrant. Earlier this year, Eagle River Assembly Person Jamie Allard was removed from the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights after she defended Nazi terminology on an Alaska vanity license plate.

Clearly Representative Hannan recognized the words she used yesterday on the House Floor were wrong, insensitive and has since apologized for them. While we should expect more from our elected officials, let us not forget that right-wing Alaska politicians have been at the forefront of comparing mandated COVID vaccines to the Holocaust and have touted an individual's "personal choice" at a time when Alaska's hospitals are seeing a record number of patients flooding their emergency departments.