El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has a mad on for Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) due to her stubborn insistence on staying sane despite his explicit instructions to the contrary. So, a week or so ago, he endorsed someone named Kelly Tshibaka, who has announced that she will run against Murkowski in the 2022 Republican senatorial primary. Being good little doggies, Alaska’s Republican state committee endorsed Tshibaka overwhelmingly over this past weekend. From the Anchorage Daily News:
Trump endorsed Tshibaka last month, calling her “MAGA all the way.” Trump said in a statement at the time that he would campaign for Tshibaka in Alaska. “We now move forward with a united front, determined to defend Alaska from the continued onslaught of the radical Biden administration,” Tshibaka said in the statement Saturday. “It is time for conservative leaders, with courage and common sense, to rise together across the nation.”
And in case you’re wondering, yes, Tshibaka is a family-sized bag of nuts. From CNN:
In an article unearthed by CNN's KFile, Tshibaka wrote that gay people can "work through the process of coming out of homosexuality" through Christianity and urged gay people to "not be controlled by the 'once-gay-always-gay' rhetoric used to advance political agendas" in a 2001 Harvard Law School student newspaper article.
In other blog posts found by KFile that have since been scrubbed from the internet, Tshibaka said that the "Twilight" book and movie series "is evil and we should not read or watch it" because "entertaining and participating in these kinds of activities leaves us spiritually vulnerable. It also leaves us open to the enemy's attacks.”
The Big Lie is very much her thing.
Tshibaka told CNN on Tuesday that "it's only logical that we apply the same standards that Democrats established in the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections. Allegations regarding voting integrity should be investigated and fully examined.”
Earlier this month, Tshibaka said, "We don't know the outcome of the 2020 election," despite Biden's victory in both the Electoral College and the popular vote. No evidence of widespread voter fraud has been proven.
Bear in mind. This is no hockey mom in mukluks shooting wolves from the sky. Tshibaka is more J.D. Vance than Sarah Palin. She is Harvard Law—and what in the hell goes on at that place, anyway?—and she’s spent most of her career in big government jobs.
Prior to launching her campaign, Tshibaka worked as a lawyer for the federal government in Washington, DC, for approximately 17 years in the offices of the inspector general for the US Postal Service, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice.
She most recently served as the Alaska Department of Administration commissioner for two years but has since resigned to run for Senate.
This is still a long-shot bid. Murkowski lost the last Republican primary and won re-election anyway as a write-in. However, it’s a legitimate, polysyllabic test of how deeply the prion disease has established itself in that party. If Murkowski can lose a primary twice, and then win re-election as a write-in, despite being named “Murkowski,” then there may be a glimmer of hope after all.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
