Elise Sereni Patkotak

Watching the frightening idiocy coming out of the White House to the dead silence of the Republican Party, I have to wonder if they just accidentally lost their spines or had them surgically removed so they could make it through this presidency. This “family values” party, this party of “Christian conservatives”, this party of ” fiscal responsibility” is now sitting silent as their putative leader violates every tenet they ever claimed to hold sacred.

For me, one of the most outrageous actions is their attempt to pass another tax cut bill as federal employees are denied a pay raise due Continue reading →

Or maybe I do. Lisa Murkowski is apparently considering voting to give a man who has questioned Alaska Native rights a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. How is that even possible?

I thought I couldn’t get past her possible support of a man who thought birth control pills were pre-abortion pills. I mean – what century does this man come from? Possibly the same century that thought an all male priesthood was a good idea? That was a thousand years ago… yep, that’s about right.

But to betray some of her most devoted constituents by putting a man on Continue reading →

Anyone with any sense of decency should be totally offended by the charade playing out in the US Senate. Seriously, why even pretend to hold a fair hearing when it is so obviously a biased one. 42,000 pages of info released the night before the hearing started? A judge comparing birth control to abortion pills while pretending to believe that Roe v Wade is settled law? A candidate for the Supreme Court caught lying under oath about not knowing something that a memo he’d written shows he not only did know, but had a legal opinion on it? A candidate Continue reading →

Some days are worse than others with the POS currently sullying the White House. But today might take the cake. In the last twenty four hours he has tried to push for a policy that would allow them to separate immigrant children from their parents and keep them in cages indefinitely; suggested an op ed piece in the NYT might be treason; and the only person who has come to the defense of his stability is the crazed leader of North Korea.

I’ll give you a minute to absorb all that.

There was a time in America when detaining children Continue reading →

Don’t know how you feel about it, but the Kavanaugh hearings scare me a lot and POS’ tweet this weekend implying that justice should take off her blindfold and prosecute based on political affiliation REALLY scares me.

We may not be a banana republic yet, but we are being led by an idiot who would be very comfortable being the dictator of one. And he is clearly trying to turn this great country into a banana republic dictatorship in which he would rule supreme.

If you ever wondered about the greatness of our constitution and its checks and balances, now Continue reading →

I am blessed with both Medicare and State of Alaska retiree insurance as a secondary. When I have a health issue, I don’t think twice about going to a clinic or seeing a doctor.

Yesterday I managed to trip and totally mess up my left foot. Not necessarily broken but pretty gross and painful. Thanks to my insurance, I went to a doc this morning (the outside of my left foot was turning purple so it seemed appropriate), then I went for an xray and then I had a prescription filled for pain meds. And it all cost me a Continue reading →

You know those stories about people sneaking on to their neighbors’ porches in the middle of the night with bags of zucchini from their garden that they leave there? Well, in Alaska, those of us with raspberries growing in our back yard are tempted to do the same thing.

I was unaware of the ability of raspberries to pretty much take over every part of my yard in such a short time. When I moved here, I moved from Utqiagvik where no raspberries grow. My childhood was spent in a city where Mr. Letizia’s fig tree – which put out Continue reading →

POS’ disapproval rating soared to 60%. Clearly he is making America great again if only by forcing us to find our moral center and take a stand against his moral center.

Here’s the thing though. If all those people who disapprove of him don’t vote, they’ll be able to disapprove of him for a lot longer than most of us would wish. And if history is any guide, they won’t. The majority of Americans sit on their hands during most elections and then bitch after it’s over that they don’t like the results. They then use that fact to justify Continue reading →

Don’t know why anyone would be surprised that the current pope and his predecessor knew about, and participated in covering up, sexual abuse by Catholic clergy. The man didn’t spring up from nowhere to become pope. Before he got that job, he spent his life as part of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. And I honestly find it hard to believe that in all those years he never heard one rumor or complaint about abuse by clergy.

Once again, this is the Catholic Church saying it wants to resolve the issue while simultaneously slamming the doors shut and retreating Continue reading →

So one of the odder stories of the week concerns a parent who sent her 8 year old out to walk the dog in their suburban neighborhood only to have a neighbor call the police and social services because she was putting a child in danger by letting her out alone. Both the police and social services showed up to investigate. The caller had reported the child was 5 when, in fact, she was 8. But that didn’t seem to make a difference. An investigation had to happen.

Now I’m not sure what my mother’s reaction would have been if Continue reading →