Alaskan Democrat Mary Peltola is under siege: a damning New York Times piece, quoting dozens of former aides, painted a toxic workplace that was Hell on Earth for any Hill staffer. Peltola won the 2022 special election for the state’s at-large congressional district after Rep. Don Young passed away. Her tenure on the Hill was marked by mayhem and abuse, leading to one of the highest staff turnover rates in Congress.
It allegedly got physical, with her shoving an aide, though her campaign has denied the context. Peltola also called her staffers “retards” and “faggots.” She admitted the former and apologized but denied dropping gay slurs. She also trashed Planned Parenthood behind the scenes. It’s a circus, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) made sure to give her some cover, for reasons that defy logic (via CNN):
Asked by CNN if she felt the Times report accurately described Peltola, Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “I think there are many parts of it that I find inflammatory.”
Murkowski, who supported Peltola in a past campaign but is siding with Sullivan in this race, also described the difficult situation the former congresswoman faced following the loss of her close family members. Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr., Mary Peltola’s husband, died in a 2023 plane crash in Alaska.
“I do acknowledge that while she was here in her first term, she was not only thrown into a very challenging situation immediately running for campaign, but then to lose her husband in that airplane crash and to deal with all of that. That’s pressure that is hard for anybody to bear,” she said.
Okay, to start, that’s not a denial from Mary. Second, Lisa, you’re supporting Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). What are you doing? Was this necessary? This is strictly a Democrat problem; you didn’t need to do this unless you wanted to prove to the base yet again that you’re unreliable and, even worse, a squishy traitor to the party.
Lisa has run into a Joe Biden-like problem: she doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.