Rep. Ben Carpenter, a Republican Member of the Alaska House of Representatives since 2019, on Friday sent an email message to 40 fellow members saying: “How about an arm band that won’t fall off like a sticker will?” Jeff Landfield of the Alaska Landmine reported Friday.
That was sarcastic enough, but then the lawmaker from Nikiski took his joke a step too far, when he asked: “If my sticker falls off, do I get a new one or do I get public shaming too? Are the stickers available as a yellow Star of David?”
Alaska House Member Grier Hayden Hopkins, a Democrat and a Jew, emailed back, cc’ing the entire House: “Ben, This is disgusting. Keep your Holocaust jokes to yourself.”
And Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, another Jewish lawmaker, said, “I don’t think a tag that we’re cleared to enter the building is akin to being shipped to a concentration camp. It’s more akin to needing a boarding pass when you get through TSA. This is that.”
Later, Carpenter was supported by fellow Republican Sarah Vance, of Homer, who wrote Hopkins: “We should all be concerned about the implications of being labeled as ‘non compliant’ or wearing a badge of ‘compliance.’”
Or, alternatively, we ahould all be concerned about not dying from a pandemic which by early June will have killed 100,000 Americans.
Finally, these are the regulations which moved the Alaskan lawmaker to suggest he was now a Jew living in Nazi Germany: