At the February 4, 2026 meeting of the Matanuska-Susitna School Board, Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani blasted the Galena City School District. Dr. Trani reported the tiny (population 456) city school district had just completed a $31 million new high school, which included a swimming pool, and would be hosting a national water polo tournament. Funding…
WC is a retired lawyer. WC knows lawyers; WC spent much of his professional career dealing with lawyers. WC has certainly met and dealt with scummy lawyers, attorneys who are an embarrassment to the profession and themselves. But, seriously, this couple, Mark and Patricia McCloskey, give scummy lawyers a bad name. Their moment of social…
WC had summer afternoons in junior high school that lasted longer than May 2020. But, regardless, it’s time for the end of the month look back at developments on stuff WC blogged about, other stuff WC almost blogged about and whatever else attracted WC’s Magpie Sensibility. Disclaimer: No journalism was committed in writing this post.…
Washington State Representative Matt Shea wrote a fatwa, a religious edict. Representative Shea’s fatwa calls for a religious war. In fact, it’s called “The Biblical Basis for War“. Here’s a sample: If you don’t agree to Rep. Shea’s vision of America, and are male, you will be killed. Murdered. That’s pretty righteous. Rep. Shea is unclear…
Alaska’s Governor Mike Dunleavy recently took time from the rigors of the governorship to go stateside and suck up to the national far right political action committees and their lackeys. Apparently he doesn’t believe Alaska AG Clarkson’s argument that the recall effort is unconstitutional either. Or maybe Dunleavy found time to look at Clarkson’s record…
An Idaho House of Representatives Committee has advanced a bill declaring that Idaho lawmakers can void federal laws and court decisions. The House State Affairs Committee voted to send the bill, HB 461, to the full House. As you read this, law firms are lining up for the lawsuits. WC has no objection to paying lawyers…
Roy Moore is a defrocked Alabama supreme court justice,1 a virulent racist and a Christianist. Oh, and the likely new U.S. Senator from Alabama, replacing Jeff Sessions. Moore is also a liar, and a tax cheat. He’s a liar, because he claimed he did not take a “regular salary” from the Foundation for Moral Law, a small…
Say it ain’t so, Joe.1 But, of course, it is. Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County Sheriff, was found guilty of criminal contempt on Monday. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton found Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt. For 24 years, he was the Sheriff of Maricopa County. He called himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” As many of…
The Donald has an economic plan for these United States if, Bog forbid, he is elected president. Tax cuts, especially tax cuts for the rich, reduced government spending – but growing the military – and, presto, abracadabra, 4% annual growth in the U.S. economy will follow. This very approach has been used in Kansas since…
While WC was chasing birds in Peru, the Bundy Boys‘ trial started in Portland, Oregon. Here’s an update of sorts for those who haven’t been paying attention. WC’s buddy David Backstrom, a retired public defender, used to write his closing argument for the jury before the trial even started. If things went right, he reasoned, it…
Rep. Tammie Wilson (R, Pure Selfishness) has staked out yet another outrageous, irrational political position. Once again, she has grossly overreacted to a constituent whinge and sabotaged an important government function. It’s a predictable, absolutely destructive pattern. This time, a constituent has complained that the Office of Children’s Services improperly acted against his or her kids,…
Here’s a handy guide to the 26 various Bundy defendants in the Malheur occupation, tracking the status of their cases. The focus here is the Malheur charges; there are some references to the Cliven Bundy Nevada cases as well. There’s a passel of Bundys and their camp followers; if you find an error drop WC…
WC and Mrs. WC headed over to Burns, Oregon and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. We could tell you that we went to check out the damage done by the criminals and vandals who attempted to take the Refuge over. But that was an incidental reason; mostly, we went to see and photography the birds. Here’s…
WC learned early in his legal career that it is a waste of time to try to understand the thought processes of an irrational person. It’s pointless to look for sanity in the insane, for logic in the illogical or reason in the unreasonable. But WC doesn’t take that understanding as a license to describe…
Back in May of 2015, WC posted a then-complete list of the 18 or so candidates for the republican nomination for president. WC updated the list in mid-September. After an Iowa caucus and a New Hampshire primary, it’s time to update that list. So as a service to his readers, WC provides the following updated handy…
One of the immediately noticeable differences between Alaska and the Lower 48 is the “No Trespassing” signs. In most of Alaska, you can drive miles and never see one; there are immense stretches of unposted lands, and tiny stretches with signs. In the Lower 48, you drive past miles and miles of posted property to…
The Portland Oregonian ran an article Sunday by Les Zaitz that, candidly, was nothing more than uncritical parroting of the Bundy Brothers’ shifting claims, demands and posturings. One of WC’s favorite authors, Ursula Le Guin, called the newspaper out in a letter to the editor: Federal land: The Oregonian’s A1 headline on Sunday, Jan. 17, “Effort to…
WC’s friend, and the co-owner of Tropical Birding, Inc. is a birder. He posted: New taxa described on refuge in Oregon. Red-necked Greed, Hooded Mercenary and Great Spotted Twat. Thanks to the USFWS for identifying them. Now if we could only get a type specimen for each. It’s great that Iain can keep his sense…
Have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks in the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side by side on your news reports,” he said in his address on the shooting. “We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws,…
WC notes that the arithmetically challenged Senator Mike Dunleavy (R, Wasilla, of course) plans his next futile effort to slash Alaska’s way to prosperity by hacking at educational funding. The Anchorage Dispatch News quotes Senator Dunleavy as saying, “We don’t have a choice but to cut — and you can use that quote. To seriously contemplate an income tax…
The Washington Post wrote in October, The 44-year-old Floridian missed 10 percent of Senate votes last year, worse than all but 12 other senators, and missed 34 of 68 Foreign Relations Committee hearings and meetings. A vote he cast last Tuesday was his first in 26 days. It seems that Rubio has basically given up on…
Back in 1964, Dr. Richard Hofstadter, then a professor of American History at Columbia University, wrote a seminal essay titled, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” In that essay, which is a pretty amazing read more than half a century later, he traced the recurring tendency of American voters to see enemies and conspiracies everywhere.…
Trump may be a narcissistic bully. Carson may be an opportunistic liar. Fiorina may be a serial failure. But Senator Ted Cruz (R, Teabaggers) is just flat, damned dangerous. Cruz pretends to be a conservative prairie populist. But he’s a Princeton graduate, and got his law degree from Harvard. It’s a quintessential blue blood preppie pedigree.…
WC has seen the aphorism, “He who would govern others must first learn to govern himself,” attributed to the Buddha, Confucius, Alexander the great and half a dozen others. For WC, it’s a self-evident precept. But to the Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, it seems to be a foreign concept. WC takes it…
Another month has slipped by. WC had summer afternoons in junior high school that lasted longer than the first 8 months of 2015. but we’ll have a quick look back in the interests of blogging credibility. As always, WC’s magpie sensibility applies. It’s the end of Shell games; at least for a long while. Royal…
Back in May of this year, WC posted a then-complete list of the 18 or so candidates for the republican nomination for president. It’s probably time to update that list. So as a service to his readers, WC provides the following updated handy guide Republican candidates.1 In alphabetical order. Changes are in red. Names of…
State Senator Pete Kelly (R, Arrogance) or one of his staff wrote an opinion piece for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner last week, claiming that Governor Walker should get Medicaid “fixed” before expanding it under the Affordable Care Act. He claims “total Medicaid sending” exceeded $1.6 billion in 2015. He claims it will grow to $2.8…
The Garbage Queen of Fairbanks is determined to attempt again to inflict her vision of local government on the citizens of the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Tammie Wilson is running for Borough Mayor. Again. Let’s be clear about Tammie Wilson’s vision: Government is bad. Individual rights are absolutely preeminent, even if it means burning your…
(With sincere apologies to William Shakespeare, WC here does mortal damage to Julius Caesar, specifically the funeral oration of Marc Antony at Act III, Scene 2.) Here, under leave of Senator Inhofe and the rest– For Senator Inhofe is an honourable man; So are they all, all those Republicans, honourable men– Comes WC to…
There’s few experiences more painful than watching an elderly uncle try to perform card tricks. If you’re going to stack a deck of cards, you have to have to have a certain amount of manual dexterity, a gift for the patter and a kind of charm. WC clearly remembers his Uncle Mac completely failing…
Wickersham's Conscience 
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