By GLEN BIEGEL
Aug. 29, 2026 – Every Italian family has an Uncle Vinny. He’s the guy who doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t make threats, and somehow you still walk out of the room understanding exactly what’s going to happen to you if you don’t cooperate. This week, Alaska Democrats got their own version of that meeting, and Tom Begich was the man sitting across the table.
Picture it. Tom Begich walks in thinking this is a negotiation. Maybe Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins steps aside instead. Maybe they split the difference somehow. But the man running the show isn’t Jonathan. It’s the head of the Alaska AFL-CIO, and he isn’t there to negotiate. He’s there to inform.
The message, stripped of the pleasantries, comes down to one sentence: You’re not splitting our money with Jonathan, Tom, you’re not getting any of it. Every union check, every phone bank, every mailer the labor movement was ever going to fund in this race has already been spoken for. Tom can stay in if he wants. He can stay in and watch JKT’s campaign get everything, and his own campaign get nothing, all the way to November. Or he can leave with his dignity, an endorsement to make it look mutual, and a nice quote about “shared values” for the cameras.
That’s not a coincidence of timing. That’s how these things work. And it’s exactly what happened.
Here’s what should worry moderate Democrats far more than losing Tom Begich: what they got instead. Kreiss-Tomkins spent three years at Yale before dropping out to run for the Legislature, and the company he’s kept ever since tells you where that education pointed him.
His endorsement list reads like a who’s who of Alaska’s farthest-left officials: state Sen. Forrest Dunbar and Rep. Zack Fields, Anchorage Assembly members Chris Constant, Erin Baldwin and Daniel Volland, and Fairbanks’ most progressive borough Assembly member Savannah Fletcher, among 30 hard-left validators total. Not one Republican made that list, and none was ever going to.
His record backs it up. He supported state-funded abortion. He backed LGBTQ legislation that religious liberty advocates warned would force people of faith to violate their conscience. His platform promises to keep fighting on both fronts as governor.
Compare that to Tom Begich, a Senate Minority Leader who spent his career in the institutional, deal-making wing of his party, the kind of Democrat Republicans could at least sit down with. That’s the Democrat the AFL-CIO just retired.
This wasn’t Alaska Democrats choosing their most electable candidate. It was organized labor picking its most obedient one, and making sure nobody else could afford to compete. Tom Begich didn’t lose an argument. He lost a shakedown, and he knew it well enough to take the deal.
The AFL-CIO didn’t just anoint a nominee this week. It told Alaska exactly who’s really in charge of the Democratic Party, and it isn’t the moderates.
Glen Biegel is a technology security professional, Catholic father of nine, husband to a saint, and politically active conservative.
12 thoughts on “Glen Biegel: Tom Begich, let me Introduce you to my uncle Vinny”
Glen, you’ve got about 70 days to go. Get back to the desk and grind out something that might move the needle. The LGBT angle has gotten stale. Assure us all that groceries and gasoline are cheap again just like President Trump says about every day. Tell us sweet little lies….
‘Stale,’ unless you have a 12 year old daughter in sports. Or you go to a gym. Or you are abused and need to go to a shelter. Look the problem with trans is that it pulls sexuality into public. It is a major change to our culture to agree to that. It also denies that there is such a thing as a woman.
We still have lower fuel prices than Biden. At least Trump is trying to pump every barrel of American oil from US soil as possible. Look, I don’t think these are your best arguments. Biden and Kamala were not going to move away from expensive oil/energy. Neither are you. That is the sweet little truth that folks need to keep in mind. This isn’t between Trump and Biden/Kamala any more. It’s between reality about our sexuality, and about cheap energy, expanding the reach of humans to new places, lands in Alaskan hands, and many other things. Looking forward to more distraction from your side, though. Don’t believe what the DSA says is coming. Forget what the policies of Biden and Kamala were. Woke 1.0 was crazy, right? Nice try, Damon, errr, AOC.
Every newsstand magazine, online news site, Facebook celebrates sex Glen. Bigger boobs, smaller butts, bigger abs, little blue pill. And you lament that the “problem with trans is that it pulls sexuality into public.”
There’s something about sex – someone else’s sexuality- that narrows your view of all Americans into righteous or evil.
Drop your bible into the bay and man up. Take a hit of low THC reality and see how it feels, see if it’s right for you.
Great article and insight. Thank you Mr. Biegel. With both Tom Begich and JKT on the ballot at least Dems and not so left Indies had a choice between the DSA communist or the blue dog Democrat(a dying breed). So will those same Begich voters follow their union masters and mark their ballot for the Alphabet Mafia communist? 🤔
Geez, I didn’t know our Uncle Vinny was so cruel. He did the same thing to me, Tom. I’ve already been to the top. I was sort of hoping you’ld stand up to him and sing him a song or something nice. Now we got this little queer guy JKT spreading around his KY jelly looking for more donors. So glad NB3 is straight and still calls us his favorite uncles.
Uncle Mark. Your closeted homosexuality is eating at you. Understandably, you struggle with an attraction to young men while feigning the opposite. Gotta be tough, emotionally. That kind of conflict is baked in to being trans or wanting to change your gender BTW. Good luck. And there are TONS of helpful groups, local service providers, online chat groups that can give you a place to start your journey. All these identity related options are brought to you by what Republicans deride as woke. 🎃
Moron comment from this dildo, singh.
They made me a deal I couldn’t refuse,
Mark. And they promised JKT a four-year supply of KY jelly, a deal he couldn’t refuse. They got lefty women running the unions now. JKT is their kind of slave.
Ooooo, Uncle Tom, are you related to Uncle Mark? Sorta think so with your KY jelly mention. My advice to Uncle Mark works just as well for you. Good luck on your journey!
Moron. Go somewhere else.
And we were told Rank voting was supposed to rid us of the extremists and it was supposed to elect moderate representatives…yet another lie in the rank voting scheme.
Democrats abhor democracy, they require their followers to blindly do as told, thinking and decision making are not allowed. If you are a disenfranchised Democrat that has been pushed to the margins by the extremists in your part, just know that reality still exists.
Isn’t Savannah Fletcher the left radical from up in Fairbanks who was censured by her own Assembly members? I remember reading about her. After her censure she got appointed to the Alaska Judicial Council by the Alaska Supreme Court chief Justice. What does that tell you about our courts and judges?