This story is really more interesting than just a fool being banned from an airline. It’s all part of a grandstanding blitz by a R from a very conservative, reactionary, largely evangelical district up a little north of Anchorage. Eagle River is between Anchorage and Wasilla, the town that gave us Sarah Palin. It’s home to a lot of people who are stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.
This woman has been stripped of her Judiciary Committee chairmanship, banned from much of the Capital in Juneau, and has had a field day touting her “right” to infect other people. Here’s a link to a couple of fairly recent stories about her and Senator Peter Micciche, the R president of the Alaska senate:
www.alaskapublic.org/…
www.alaskapublic.org/…
There are a lot more stories if you do a websearch on “Micciche Reinbold” but they are essentially the same story told many ways.
There is a fault line in Alaska’s R party. There are a bunch of hard-line right wingers who get really loud and sometimes dangerous when things don’t go their way. Those are the ones who forced Lisa Murkowski into a write-in campaign that she won, to the surprise of many, and who are presently campaigning to unseat her again. The less hard right has lately been working with D’s, who presently control the state House just barely.
I live in Senator Micciche’s district, and have always regarded him as kind of a party hack. I was surprised at his action in this matter. He was very tepid on masks until a close friend and aide came down with Covid and got very sick. Then he became a convert to masking, social distance, and vaccinations. Funny how a direct connection to someone who gets really ill from that disease can change even a R tiger’s stripes. In a nutshell, he has told her to play by the rules or go home.