Stealing an Alaska Election, Part 1: Counting Ballots

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On November 10th, we gathered at a warehouse on the outskirts of Juneau to review more than one hundred thousand write-in ballots. The Division of Elections had initially set the count for November 18th, but the Lt. Governor suddenly moved the date up eight days, causing serious logistical challenges for the review team. We put more than a dozen volunteers on the ground, but when we arrived, found there were 15 review stations. Our organizers were still making contacts when the count began. We flew in more folks from Fairbanks that day.

There were other more technical challenges relating to our preparedness. We never had opportunity to meet with our lawyers until the evening of November 17, and many of the late comers were never trained at all before being thrown into the fray. We would try to give them a quick briefing as we were shuttling them into the counting area. It was by no means an optimal situation. There is no doubt that the Lt. Governor’s dubious decision to advance the vote count left us in the lurch.

In the beginning, some of the DOE employees seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. Evidently, the multi-million-dollar propaganda campaign waged by Murkowski and her minions had convinced some of the folks there that we were malevolent sociopaths. Some seemed surprised that we were actually human. But in time they warmed up when they realized that we had no evil designs. We were just concerned citizens who wanted to see an orderly and lawful outcome.

Among the attorneys assisting on the ground, there were five new faces, four of which the NRSC had apparently recruited and footed the bill for. The first couple days were somewhat erratic due to the fact that there really wasn’t time for any significant training, and the lawyers had some disagreements among themselves over what should and should not be challenged. Their standard for challenged ballots vacillated between challenging technical points to waiving ballots through that were challenged by volunteers and clearly misspelled. It didn’t help any that we had a revolving door at the top. Due to scheduling issues, there were three different lead attorneys designated within three days, thanks to the Lt. Governor’s rush to certification that was ultimately stayed by the Federal District Court.

As things went along, the first day was touch and go. We made some adjustments on the fly, altering an excessively strict decision that one of our lawyers decided to apply challenging name order. Our Alaskan attorney, John Tiemessen, took the lead for the first two days, but had to be back in Fairbanks for a court date on day three. Chip Gehrhardt, an attorney from Cincinatti, Ohio took over on day three and it seemed like we had reached equilibrium. However, when he left the following day to attend to family matters, we were left with yet another lead supervisor. This time things didn’t go so well. When I got back to the hotel, I got an ear full from several volunteers who believed the latest guy in charge was not acting in Joe’s best interest. I had seen some of the ballots he waived earlier and was mildly concerned, but after a volunteer revolt that night over his performance, I secured Joe’s authority to replace him. He had apparently waived numerous volunteer challenges throughout the day on ballots that multiple volunteers insisted were clearly misspelled.

In my view, the NRSC had screwed us once, and I stood idly by while they did it. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Joe Miller would get the benefit of the doubt on our activities in Juneau. Our “friend” assigned from Washington would just have to sit on the sidelines. I asked him not to even show up at the vote count location because I didn’t want the media talking to him about why he was no longer in charge. Before the day was over, he would convince the rest of the NRSC team to pack it in and go home. He reportedly told them that they weren’t needed or wanted there, a sentiment we never even considered or expressed. In fact, the whole scenario was not a little bit unsettling. Nonetheless, the whole group walked off the floor in the middle of the count that afternoon, leaving us in a scramble to fill their posts.

When I took over as the vote count supervisor and named Bill Peck as my assistant, it had angered our attorneys. But Bill was a known quantity, and I knew I could trust him to act in our interests. At that point, I set clear standards that were executed consistently for the duration. They weren’t new; it was just a matter of uniform application. I instructed the volunteers that if there was doubt about whether a ballot should be challenged, they should err on the side of Joe Miller. The lawyers could sort out the rest later. There had been numerous ballots challenged over the previous days that should not have been challenged, but there had also been an equal or greater number that had not been challenged and should have been.

My standard was to challenge a ballot under the following conditions:

• if the name written on the ballot was misspelled

• if there were extraneous marks or words on the ballot

• if it was an over-vote or under-vote counted by the Director, even if she counted it for Joe Miller; or

• if the name was written somewhere on the ballot other than the line provided as prescribed by statute

We made it abundantly clear, even to our counterparts on the Murkowski team, that we had no desire to steal an election. We simply wanted the law to be followed. It wasn’t long until anybody in the room could have predicted what we would or would not challenge. In fact, many of the Division of Election workers began setting them aside before we even issued a challenge. There was no ambiguity over what we were doing. Toward the end of the count, a Murkowski observer was quoted in the Anchorage Daily News affirming that the Miller team was not making frivolous challenges, as the Department of Law and the Division of Elections would later argue in court. As the count wound down, we knew we did not have enough challenged ballots to change the outcome. We could have picked up the pace, but we opted against it, challenging only the ballots we would have challenged had circumstances been otherwise. It was just the right thing to do.

Incredibly, the Division of Elections provided no orientation for ballot observers. They simply stated a few ground rules at the beginning of the count, but by the time the count was underway it had become evident that the rules were ad hoc, and could be changed on the fly at the slightest provocation. Over the first couple days, there was a constantly changing environment. For instance, at the outset the press was barred from the floor and had to watch from a distance. But after the review began and we started challenging ballots, the Director politicized the process by allowing the press to have free range inside the review area, and to take pictures of the challenged ballots. We, on the other hand, were prohibited from taking pictures of the ballots being counted by the Director, or the Murkowski team. It took days before I saw any of those ballots make their way into the press. As a result, by design, only one side of the story was getting out. But by that time, the narrative had spread far and wide that Joe Miller’s team was making frivolous challenges.

Of course, the press was primarily taking pictures of ballots in the box challenged by Miller volunteers. Many of those ballots, however, were never ultimately challenged, because they were waived by floor supervisors. For reasons I cannot explain, the attorneys raised no objection to the rule until the end of the fourth day of the vote count. As I watched the Department of Law take pictures of votes we had challenged, it dawned on me that they were building a case against us. I called our Anchorage attorney Tom Van Flein, and asked him about the legal grounds for an appeal based upon equal access. He thought it was a good point and gave me the green light. I subsequently appealed to the Director. Upon consultation with the Department of Law, they relented, and allowed us to take pictures on day five. But it didn’t matter. We had already lost in the court in public opinion.

Other protocols were fluid as well. For instance, many of the volunteers had to stand opposite DOE employees while they sorted the ballots, placing them in boxes facing away from the volunteer observers. I was initially at one of those tables. When I protested and asked that the boxes be turned so I didn’t have to review ballots upside down, the Murkowski observer immediately intervened. The DOE employee ruled against me. It was as though they were trying to keep us from seeing the ballots clearly. The practice was later overturned.

The Division of Elections was never forthcoming on its standard for counting misspelled or otherwise questionable ballots. We heard various standards articulated. Some Division of Election floor workers suggested it was a two letter standard, three would disqualify a ballot. Attorney Gary Kreep, in a sworn affidavit, reported the following:

“Gail Fenumiai came over to view the challenged ballots at my table. She took three of the ballots away from the table so that she could discuss them with her staff. While simply sitting there, I could overhear what they were discussing. The male attorney, Mike, told her that there were three syllables in Murkowski, and as long as two of the syllables were ok, she should over-rule the challenge. The spelling of Murkowski, according to the context of the comment, is meaningless to the DOE, as long as the sounds are there.”

The Lt. Governor came out publicly and affirmed that it would be a phonetic standard. But from the Director’s actual decisions, one could not discern any concrete pattern being followed. We were not alone in our bewilderment. “Even [the Murkowski team] seemed unsure of the exact standard Ms. Fenumiai was applying,” said New York Times reporter Bill Yardley in a Nov. 10, 2010 article. He went on to quote Murkowski spokesman John Tracy saying, “it appears to me that there’s about a three letter standard.” At the end of the day there were ballots counted that didn’t meet any of the standards. Anyone now suggesting that there was a clear and uniform standard for determining which votes would count is involved in some very creative revisionist history.

We watched as the Director huddled over and over again with Department of Law attorneys trying to decide whether to count a ballot. In the early stages, their attorney’s kept a list of acceptable spellings. In time, the Director quit consulting the list. We all knew she was just winging it. It was no longer a matter of measuring against some intelligible standard; it was “discretion” without parameters. In fact, it was so arbitrary that we joked that she was “divining” intent. To my great amusement, Becky Boher of the Associated Press later used the term in reference to a new statute passed by the legislature granting statutory authority to the same “discernment” process exercised during the Senate vote count.

Whatever the “standard” actually was, it is difficult in the extreme to figure out by any definition of “phonetic,” or its cognates, how the Director arrived at the decision to count the following ballots for Lisa Murkowski: “Muskisk,” “Moukoky,” “Murcosaga,” “Mulkalkie,” “McKoskie,” “McKowkie,” “Mucoskie,” “Murski,” “Murkusk,” “Muskieawe,” “Murkousi,” “Matkoski,” “Marceuski,” “Murkoshi,” “Maruski,” etc. Apparently, if it started with an M and had two or three letters in common with Murkowski, it was good to go. I even saw one that didn’t start with an M that was ostensibly counted.

These and many more of the ballots we saw counted by the Division of Elections could hardly be described, even with considerable license for embellishment, as “minor misspellings” or “penmanship issues,” as the Department of Law stated in court. It was simply not true. According to Miller volunteers, there were also a number of rather vulgar mutations and permutations not fit for polite company that the Director mysteriously divined to be intended for Murkowski. Many of them were obviously intended as protest votes, but intent was a one-way street.

On many occasions, the Director also counted over-votes (votes with more than one oval filled in). There were votes counted where the whole ballot was filled out in pencil, except the US Senate portion which was written in ink. Others had been filled out in one color of ink with US Senate votes cast for Joe Miller or Scott McAdams, only to have the oval crossed out and Lisa Murkowski written in in another color of ink. There were all kinds of variations on the theme, but the point is, generally such ballots would be disqualified, especially when there is an appearance that the ballot may have been tampered with. But apparently the Director could divine the motives of these voters as well. To be sure, on a few occasions over-votes were counted for Joe Miller too, but it was a much less frequent occurrence, and we challenged those ballots along with the others. I even saw the Director count an under-vote (a vote with no ovals filled in) for Murkowski on one occasion. It was a faxed ballot with the oval circled rather than filled in. At the end of the day “intent” turned out to be whatever the Director said it was.

One of the issues that would later be raised in court was that the write-in ballots were treated differently than those that were cast for candidates actually on the ballot. All the ballots were counted, but only the Murkowski ballots were hand-counted separately. The other ballots were counted together, but their individual totals came directly from the Diebold machine count and became the official tally. It would have taken little effort for the Joe Miller ballots to be segregated and counted separate from Scott McAdams’, ensuring that there were no inequities in the process. It is truly mystifying that this wasn’t done, and it defies common sense when one considers the notorious issues raised about the reliability of the Diebold Voting machines.

A later internal audit of 5% of precincts revealed 160 extra ballots. If those numbers were extrapolated out across the state and held out, there would be 3,200 extra ballots. Presumably they would have all gone to someone who was on the ballot, which means that Joe Miller may have made serious gains. At least enough to destroy the mootness argument later raised in court.

In spite of the way we were pummeled in the press by Alaska State government officials, then-Lt. Governor Craig Campbell told me during a private conversation that he didn’t blame Joe Miller for what he was doing. “If I was him, I’d probably do the same thing,” he said. I knew that was his way of telling me that it wasn’t personal. He was just doing what he had to do. But I found it rather disturbing that he didn’t appear to have any convictions about the decisions he was making. It was reminiscent of Groucho Marx’ quip, “Those are my principles, if you don’t like them I have others.”

In numerous precincts there were ballots that appeared to be filled out in the same hand. In some precincts it was only dozens, in others, it was hundreds. The Division of Elections dismissed it out of hand, insisting it was nothing to be concerned about. They claimed the Voter Rights Act provides for voter assistance to be offered to the disabled, and to speakers of other languages. But legally, the weight of evidence is on the Division of Elections to account for such anomalies. They never did.

Several other precincts came in with ballots pre-sorted by US Senate candidate with all the write-in ballots segregated. Some of them also lacked the requisite signatures over the seal from supervising election officials, a standard operating procedure to ensure that the seals are not tampered with, and the integrity of the ballots not violated.

What made this especially disturbing was the fact that Division of Elections had entrusted ballot security to a private firm, Goldbelt Security, whose parent corporation, Goldbelt, Inc., had ostensibly received hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of federal no-bid contracts under the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program. Joe Miller had openly challenged the 8(a) no-bid contracts, and had pledged to reform the system. The parent corporation was disciplined in 2008 by the SBA after an Inspector General’s report revealed they had failed to fully disclose the financial interests of their non-native partners, in violation of their Participation Agreement, information that may have affected their eligibility status for the contracts in the first place.

Goldbelt also had multiple board members who were employed by Sealaska Corp., another sworn enemy of Joe Miller. Sealaska directly contributed one hundred thousand dollars to Alaskans Standing Together, a Super-PAC that spent a reported $1.7 million, and whose sole reason for existence was the election of Lisa Murkowski, or perhaps more accurately, the defeat of Joe Miller. Further, Sealaska board member Byron Mallott was Lisa Murkowski’s campaign co-chair. Other prominent Murkowski backers also had ties to Sealaska, including Sealaska board member and State Senator Albert Kookesh, who was also Co-Chairman of the Alaska Federation of Natives, an organization that donated more than three hundred thousand dollars to the efforts of Alaskans Standing Together. Representative Bill Thomas, Co-Chair of the powerful House Finance Committee in the Alaska Legislature was also a Sealaska board member and prominent Murkowski supporter. The campaign manager for Alaskans Standing Together, Jerry Mackie, was Sealaska’s lobbyist.

Sealaska’s support for Murkowski was driven, not only by Joe Miller’s promise to reevaluate the 8(a) no-bid contracting scheme, but by the sitting senator’s pet legislation designed to give large tracts of land in the Tongass National Forest to the Sealaska Corporation. The old growth timber alone was worth untold millions, but it also included future hydroelectric sites that raised the stakes even higher. Again, DOE insisted it was much ado about nothing.

I personally witnessed ballots come in pre-sorted without DOE signatures during the first day of the count, notifying our lawyers and DOE officials alike. Initially I wasn’t going to make a scene, but when I noticed it was a precinct from the Murkowski’s hometown of Ketchikan it raised suspicion. It only heightened my concern when I overheard Murkowski campaign manager Kevin Sweeney tell his observer, “This could be a problem.” Our lawyers later called on me to write an affidavit to be presented at a press conference on site, alleging potential fraud.

I was unprepared for what came next. Bill Yardley from the New York Times openly questioned the veracity of the affidavit on national television, implying that my word was inherently unreliable because I worked for Miller. I was taken aback by his cynicism. Everybody who worked in that room had a stake in somebody’s cause, including the Division of Elections.

Later, as I walked back to my work station, I was accosted by Dan Springer of Fox News. He asked me if we had any evidence of fraud. I told him he needed to talk to our press people. Then he held up the affidavit, almost shouting, “This is garbage! This is garbage!” I just walked away. My attitude was that he was supposed to be a professional. If he didn’t believe what I said, then he didn’t have to report it. But I found his apparent emotional investment in Murkowski’s cause inappropriate for someone passing himself off as a news reporter. I stand by my story. It should raise questions for any impartial observer.

There were also reports of Murkowski intimidation both toward our volunteers, and most importantly, toward some of the Washington DC lawyers who had come to work on our behalf. One lawyer claimed that the Murkowski observer at his table had a dossier on him, which she revealed. That lawyer was later overheard telling the Murkowski observer that he hadn’t challenged very many of the write-in ballots. What could go wrong there? A Washington DC attorney who depends on work in the Capitol for his livelihood being sent the message that a powerful member of the United States Senate knew who he was, and where he lived? They ostensibly had even shown him information relating to his property holdings in his home state, and who knows what else. Perhaps the more disturbing question is how they knew that particular lawyer would be there. The only plausible explanation was that the NRSC, whose executive director had described it as “an incumbent retention organization,” had shared the information.

One night during the count, some of our folks happened to stop into the bar at the infamous Baranof Hotel. They reported seeing the Lt. Governor, DOE staff, Murkowski staff, and members of the press drinking together. Such incidents didn’t tend to make our folks feel any better about the situation. It only fed an overwhelming impression that something was badly amiss.

Notwithstanding our issues with DOE decisions and process, most of the workers were professionals and treated us very well. Before the week was over, we had even forged positive relationships with many of the Murkowski folks. After a long and bitter campaign, there was a surprising level of civility among the observers. It was a grand example of the spirit in which disputes ought to be settled in a free society.

For us, the whole process was never about stealing elections, disenfranchising voters, or fighting over hanging chads. There were foundational principles at stake that also happen to be at the core of Western Civilization: the rule of law, equal justice under the law, elections integrity, etc. It was a fact the press never acknowledged. But after all the salacious nonsense coming from our own press corps, there was one very unlikely voice of reason cutting through the white noise in Juneau. I was transfixed as I stood and listened to a reporter from Al Jezeera TV (of all people) tape his evening report on site. The narration began, “This is more than just a dispute over ballots. It is a battle of ideas.” And so it was; realism versus nominalism. It was the most trenchant analysis I heard during the whole debacle.

It is a sad commentary on the state of American journalism when we have to look to Al Jazeera for a word of truth. It bespeaks the insipid nature of American education. In ages to come, I suspect the story of Western Civilization will be told along such lines. The only question that remains is, “Will it end on our watch?”

(Click HERE for Part 2 of “Stealing an Alaska Election”)

Click HERE to review the dozens of affidavits sworn by Alaskan voters who directly observed the unprecedented 2010 Alaska election fraud and corruption of Alaska’s Division of Elections.

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Did Murkowski “Make History”? Or Did DC Republicans Fix the Game for Corruption?

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Within hours of Lisa Murkowski’s concession speech the evening of August 31, 2010, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had issued a Press Release congratulating Joe and pledging their “strong support.”  Senator John Cornyn, the titular head of the Committee, was quoted as saying “the NRSC is committed to doing everything that we can to ensure Joe Miller’s victory in November.”  Undoubtedly, the intent was to reassure Republican donors that everything was as it should be.

I’m not sure why we were so eager to take them at their word, but in retrospect, it was a lot like one of those “we’re here from the government, and we’re here to help” moments.  The very people who, just days earlier, had ostensibly sent operatives up in support of our opponent’s attempt to steal an election were now in our corner?

But times were tough. In the run-up to the primary we had spent everything we had, and then some.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  And the NRSC was promising to deliver on nearly $1 million to ensure Joe’s success, a sum that goes a long way in a small media market like Alaska.  After all, we had won the four month primary with just $300K., one-third of which was a loan from the candidate.

Within days, a senior operative from the NRSC was on the ground in Alaska.  I remember the day Terry Nelson arrived at campaign headquarters.  After a brief introduction, our new campaign manager, who had only been in Anchorage for a matter of days, kicked me out of my office in order to have a private place to meet with Nelson.  They spent the rest of the day, and part of the next, ostensibly hammering out details of how this whole thing was going to go down.  I found it incredibly odd that someone who had been there for the whole campaign and intimately involved with a winning strategy in the primary would just be summarily dismissed from involvement in planning the strategy  for the general election.  In retrospect, I should have refused to leave the room.  I know Joe would have backed me up.

In time, campaign staff would also meet with Alaska Republican Party officials.  They were not so savvy.  State Party Chair Randy Ruedrich didn’t even try to hide his contempt.  We listened as he told us all the ways the ARP could “help.”  Somehow I wasn’t buying his sudden conversion and his professions of sincerity.  It might have had something to do with the fact that he used the meeting as a platform to launch into a diatribe about how Joe Miller had lied to a party apparatchik.  When he revealed his evidence for the charge, it was based on a second or third-hand piece of gossip from some yenta in the Capitol City Republican Women’s group.  She alleged that Joe Miller had supposedly misled her on his intentions to run for US Senate back in April at the State Convention.  (When I followed up with Joe on the matter, I discovered that she had asked him whether he would declare his intentions at the Republican State Convention.  He answered that he would not, and he didn’t. Period.  Joe’s story was later corroborated by former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Rhonda Boyles who overheard the conversation.)

Our meeting with the ARP was such a smashing success that a clearly embarrassed Casey Reynolds, the Party spokesman, suggested that we meet again over lunch without the State Chairman present.  We obliged.  However, that meeting ended in similar fashion when Casey took umbrage at my suggestion that the Party was making no attempt to require anything of Murkowski.  Everything was on us.  He had essentially instructed us to grovel before the defeated Murkowski and meet all of her demands. I reminded him that we had won and it was her responsibility to bring her folks back into the fold.  But having said that, we would be happy to meet her half way.  Joe had spoken with both Senator Murkowski upon her concession, and her Senate Chief of Staff Karen Knutson, asking both for Murkowski’s phone number so he could follow up.  They both refused his requests.  I later placed a call in to Murkowski spokesman Steve Wackowski in an attempt to smooth things over.  He was cordial, but there was no reciprocity.  The Murkowski campaign had closed all lines of communication and the Party was apparently unwilling to solicit their cooperation.

Meanwhile, Joe was planning a trip to Washington DC to meet with Republican leaders and attend some fundraisers on the ground there.  I got bumped from the trip by a new staffer who had significant DC experience.  Michael Pauley went in my place.  I agreed to it, but it would have been a little more palatable if I had been asked before my spot was given away, instead of after the fact.  What was I supposed to say?  Not wanting to make a scene, I told Robert Campbell that it was ok and put it behind me. Michael was a good addition to the team, and by all accounts proved a valuable asset in the Capitol.

However, it was foolhardy to have other staff on the ground in Washington with zero political experience.  There was apparently a high level of credulity and a willingness to accommodate anything the Washington insiders wanted.  And in the end, we got played big time!

When the Millers arrived in Washington, they were greeted by a couple junior Senate staffers who were assigned to show them around.  Apparently, they were not being taken seriously by Senate leadership.  But after a couple of packed-out fundraisers, senior Senators began to take notice and decided it might be a good idea to get to know this guy.

At one meeting with several Republican Senators present, Joe was asked what he thought the proper course of action was on budget issues if the Republicans failed to win a majority in the Senate.  He answered that, given our current fiscal situation, making significant cuts was not something he was willing to negotiate over.  The Republicans would have to shut down the government, if necessary, to make it happen.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was livid and let Joe know in no uncertain terms that he would cease and desist on any talk of shutting down the government. Joe Miller, not one to be easily cowed, was having none of it. Little did he know to what lengths the Establishment would go in order to make sure it didn’t happen.  In time, it would become abundantly clear that Republican leadership did not want statesmen in the United States Senate.  They wanted people they could control, which is exactly why they so detested folks like Senator Jim DeMint.

As far as we know, Jim DeMint was the only member of the Senate Republican Conference to speak out against Senator Murkowski retaining her Committee assignments after she thumbed her nose at the Party and declared as a write-in candidate against the Party’s nominee.  The Senate Republican Conference’s inaction in this regard was shameful, and disastrous to our prospects. In fact, the failure of the Senate Republican Conference to strip Murkowski of leadership is the primary reason that powerful special interests, such as native corporations, unions, and federal contractors, committed millions toward her write-in effort.  If Murkowski had been stripped of Senate leadership, what could she offer her cronies?  It is not an understatement to say that the Senate Republican Conference’s decision was the most damaging action taken against us in the general election, and that is a mouthful.

Senator DeMint’s frustration came through loud and clear, “It was bad enough to watch my colleagues work to support her in the primary after she had built a record of betraying conservatives’ principles,” he said.  “But watching them back her after she left the party and launched a campaign against the Republican nominee was more than I could bear.”

What I found even more astounding was Senator Murkowski’s response when she was asked by a correspondent from TIME magazine if her colleagues had surprised her.  She said, “I’m not surprised.  This was an affirmation of the relationship that I’ve built over the past eight years with the people that I work with.  I think they recognize ‘she’s got a real shot at coming back here, and it only makes good sense that we would not want to be so punitive that she would be discouraged by the actions of her colleagues.’”  Senator Orrin Hatch seemed to confirm Murkowski’s sentiments when he was quoted in The Christian Science Monitor rationalizing the decision. “She’s still a senator until the end of this year and, regardless, she’s our friend,” he said.

Let me get this straight.  She already knew what was coming?  And her colleagues didn’t want to discourage her write-in bid?  And they were going to make decisions based upon membership in the Incumbent Club?  That is exactly the opposite of what most were saying publicly.  But their actions were confirming Murkowski’s words. Whether they realize it or not, the Senate Republicans’ unwillingness to exercise Party discipline has contributed to an atmosphere that constitutes an existential threat to the future viability of the Republican Party itself.  The fragile center-right coalition that has served the Party so well for so many years is fraying at the edges.  Conservatives no longer trust moderates, and for good reason.  When moderates lose, they abandon the Party.  Conservatives have held their nose for years and voted for what they considered to be the lesser of two evils.  There is no longer any reason to do so when it is assured that the center will not keep faith with the right when the ball doesn’t bounce their way.

The truth is, Senate Republicans could have ended Murkowski’s candidacy on the spot had they wished to do so.  Seniority was her only calling card; she had nothing else to offer Alaska.  Jim DeMint knew it, and he also knew the consequences of his colleagues’ decision.  DeMint was quoted in a Politico article the next day saying, “One senator after another stood up in favor of protecting her place on the committee – a position she will no doubt use in her campaign against Joe Miller, the conservative Republican nominee.”  And use it she did.  While the Party leadership continued to pay lip service to Miller, their actions betrayed them. In reality, Senate Republicans chose not stand by the Party nominee, siding instead with the turncoat Murkowski.  In his book The Great American Awakening, Senator Jim DeMint called their actions an implicit endorsement, stating that “It was not a question of electibility; with Republican support he would easily win the election. But Murkowski divided Republican support for our nominee and undermined the primary system established to give Republican voters the right to choose their candidates.”

However, the implicit endorsement of the Senate Republican Conference was only the beginning of the Washington establishment’s efforts to subvert Joe Miller’s candidacy.  In spite of the fact that internal polling showed Murkowski to be our primary threat, according to FEC records the NRSC spent more than quarter-million dollars in independent expenditures attacking Scott McAdams, and none attacking Lisa Murkowski.  In addition, I believe that much of the more than three hundred thousand dollars reported as being spent  in support of Joe Miller was also expended in opposition to Scott McAdams. In essence, they were running ads attacking McAdams with a tag line at the end telling voters to support Joe, and then reporting them to the FEC as ads run in support of Miller. Politico seemed to echo my sentiments in an article published before the final FEC disclosures even came out, indicating that they had inside information. That would mean it was more like a half-million dollar hit on McAdams, almost all spent in the last two weeks of the campaign.  It is absurd to suggest that associating Joe Miller with the attacks offered him support.  Chances of picking up votes from McAdams were remote in the extreme anyway, but the fact that Joe was associated with negative ads targeting a “nice guy” like Scott would have been insufferable for potential McAdams voters and ensured that Joe wouldn’t get their vote.  He was a liberal Democrat whose voters were simply not going to vote for someone he was calling an “extremist” anyway.

It should be patently obvious to anyone with even a modicum of political acumen that the NRSC’s independent expenditure campaign was designed to help Lisa Murkowski.  The most favorable poll we had on McAdams had him trailing Murkowski by more than thirteen points with two weeks to go. The poll also had McAdams ahead of Joe which, by the pollster’s own admission, wasn’t true.  The poll was intentionally skewed.  More than 60% of the respondents self-identified as either liberal or moderate, a sample not even approximating the electorate in Alaska.  I suspect it was engineered that way so the NRSC could justify their behavior. But it really only made their actions that much more outrageous, because it indicated that Murkowski was likely even farther ahead of McAdams than the poll reflected, which was indeed the case on election day.  I can only conclude that our “friends” in Washington never intended to help us defeat Murkowski.  They had their own agenda, and it didn’t include Joe Miller.

I remember the day I handed over Joe Miller’s logos and electronic signature to the NRSC’s point man, Robert Simms, so he could use them for fund-raising. Apparently the committee used Joe’s good name and signature to raise the very money they would deploy to defeat him. I don’t know if they did anything illegal, but it stinks to high heaven.  Where I come from in fly-over country, they call that fraud.

By the time the campaign was winding down, there had been a lot of speculation about what the NRSC’s designs were for weeks.  We could never quite understand why every decision they made seemed so counter-intuitive, or why they insisted that we not defend Joe from the relentless incoming attacks.  Nor did it ever make any sense that we were being held back from highlighting Murkowski’s duplicity and outright lies about Joe Miller.  Further, the strategy employed by Simms to pitch the whole direct mail campaign to the middle and target “soft Republicans” made no sense.  I knew from the start that if they really wanted to help Joe win, they were on a fool’s errand with that strategy, and I told them so.  All they were going to do was tick Murkowski supporters off and get them out to the polls.  As it turned out, I missed the point anyway.  They had no intention of helping Joe Miller.

Though I had had my suspicions, it all came into focus about two weeks before Election Day when I received a phone call from Alaska Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich.  He had the skinny on Scott McAdams he said, replete with several very damaging pieces of information. He recited them for me and said he would send me the file attachment via email and call back later to work with me on a way to break the news.  I never let on to him that I was anything but supportive of the idea, but as soon as we hung up I walked across the hall to Rob Simms’ office.  I told Rob that I didn’t think we should be attacking Scott.  It wasn’t in our best interest.  I asked him what he thought of the situation.  He concurred; we should not be attacking Scott McAdams.  But he added that the folks from National had probably already put the dirt out there.  As it turned out, they hadn’t, but that extra bit of information made it clear who was behind the effort.  And the fact that Randy Ruedrich never sent the information to me, didn’t call back like he said he would, and never mentioned word one about the scenario again made it abundantly clear that he and Simms were collaberating.  Simms had evidently calculated that given the fact that I was the only person on the campaign who seemed worried about having a McAdams ad in the hopper in case we needed it in the waning days, and that I was a strong advocate of using our TV and radio ads to hit Murkowski where it hurt, that I would approve of vicious personal attacks on Scott McAdams.  He was wrong on both counts.

Imagine my astonishment a few hours later when I jumped in my car and headed across town, only to hear not one, but two NRSC ads attacking Scott McAdams within the span of about ten minutes.  I immediately headed back to headquarters, marched straight in to Rob Simms’ office and grilled him about what the NRSC was up to.  His response?  He lied to me, saying that Scott McAdams was now ahead.  When I responded with incredulity, he assured me that there was new polling out showing McAdams to be in the lead.  I recounted to him the poll results I had reviewed and let him know I wasn’t buying it.  After a few minutes of questioning, Simms conceded that McAdams was, in fact, not ahead, but claimed he was surging.  I asked to see evidence and was told that was not possible because Joe Miller had not paid for the poll.  I returned a few minutes later to ask Simms if I could see his mythical poll if Joe paid for it.  He replied, “Theoretically.  We could probably do that.”  I knew at that point that the guy was not squaring with me.  I should have kicked his sorry butt out of the office on the spot.  In fact, it should have been done the day Senate Republicans voted to allow Murkowski to retain her committee assignments.  Besides, Simms had been like a cancer eating away at the inside of the campaign for weeks.

In retrospect, it appears that the whole point of the scheme was to cover for the NRSC’s independent expenditure campaign that would commence within hours. How else could one account for Ruedrich’s urgent phone call that morning?  The whole affair leaves one with a strong suspicion that there was illegal coordination between the NRSC’s supposed coordinated expenditures and their independent expenditure campaign.

In the waning days of the campaign, Rob Simms would repeatedly defend the media’s attacks on Joe, and in the final week leading up to election day praised Lisa Murkowski’s rash of direct mail attacks as “good politics.”  He told me she was “just delivering the knockout punch.” Then he added, “I would do the same thing.”  That is when I confronted him in front of several other staffers.  I asked, if it was such good politics and he would do the same thing, why he had obstructed us from attacking Murkowski for weeks, and refused to allow us to defend Joe’s honor.  Whatever he had to say for himself, the buck stopped with him.  He controlled almost all of the messaging for the direct mail campaign, radio, and television.  He had the final say on our interactions with the media.  He had been given a blank check. Why was he playing the role of pacifist in the middle of a firefight?

In the final week of the election, ABC news picked up on what was going on in Alaska.  Jon Karl had sniffed this thing out.  As far as I know, he wasn’t even on the ground here, and he knew it didn’t smell right.  He wrote, “If the NRSC really wanted to help Miller, it would be attacking Murkowski. Indeed, an anti-McAdams ad may be the last thing Miller needs right now.  At this point, what he really needs is for McAdams to siphon anti-Miller votes away from Murkowski.”

On the Sunday before the election, on THIS WEEK with Christiane Amanpour, the question was put to Senator Cornyn whether the Party had given up on Joe Miller, and whether the Senator thought he could win.  Cornyn again paid lip service to the NRSC’s support for the Republican nominee, but added that the race was close between Miller and Murkowski.  Then he tipped his hand, adding “what we want to make sure of is that the Democrat doesn’t win.”  That cut me to the quick.  It was no longer speculation.  I had it from the horse’s mouth.  Cornyn reiterated the point later in an MSNBC interview stressing that it “would be a disaster if the Democrat won Alaska.”  The reality is that he had to have known that wasn’t possible.  A Hellenthal poll in the final week showed McAdams twenty-one points behind.  Cornyn’s pledge to do “everything we can to ensure Joe Miller’s victory in November” was a lie.  He would later boast that the NRSC never attacked Murkowski, adding that she was a professional who knew the drill.  “But fortunately it all turned out well.  It had a happy ending,” he said.

The Real Story About Joe Miller’s Campaign Handcuffing a Reporter

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A major incident in the waning days of the 2010 campaign was the handcuffing of reporter Tony Hopfinger following a town hall meeting in Anchorage. In spite of the misinformation swirling around the situation (by all accounts other than that of his employer, the Alaska Dispatch), the security detail didn’t do anything inappropriate from a law enforcement perspective. But this wasn’t a law enforcement situation. It was a political event.

In time, there were various media accounts of what happened, most of them following the Dispatch line, and a few following Halcro and Murkowski’s lead in suggesting that Joe himself had ordered the arrest. The media wasn’t too interested in our perspective. They liked the persecuted journalist line, replete with First Amendment champion being handcuffed for asking Joe Miller questions. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

On that particular occasion, I happened to be home observing Sabbath as is my habit. But when I found out about the goings on I was appalled. My perspective was that there was no need to protect Joe Miller from anyone, unless we believed that his life was in danger, or he was at risk of great bodily harm. As cynical as it may sound, with apologies to Joe, I thought that nothing could have been better for our cause than for Joe Miller to have been roughed up.

My frustration led to a decision to launch my own investigation into what happened in order to find out just how the Drop Zone had wound up at the event in the first place, and why they had thought it necessary to do what they did. The Drop Zone was the security detail who handcuffed Hopfinger.

In the days leading up to the incident, our Events Coordinator, Adele Morgan, at the behest of the school district, was contractually required to have a security plan. So she called Dirk Moffatt and asked him to round up some folks who could carry out the required security plan. Dirk, in turn, began recruiting a few Joe Miller supporters and volunteers to stand by at the town hall in case they were needed. One of the folks he contacted was former local radio talk show host, and Republican candidate for Lt. Governor, Eddie Burke. When Dirk asked him to work security at the town hall event, he offered he could probably do one better. He would call Bill Fulton (who was later determined to be an FBI informant) over at Drop Zone and ask him to volunteer his guys for the event. Bill agreed to provide security on a volunteer basis, though we later paid him to avoid an FEC complaint when the donation-in-kind wasn’t reported in FEC filings.

When they arrived, according to Robert Campbell, they were told to be as inconspicuous as possible. He didn’t want any confrontations. Robert reportedly told them they weren’t to do anything. They just needed to be there as a presence.

However, the whole thing apparently got off on the wrong foot when Hopfinger followed Joe into the bathroom before the town hall began. When Tony began questioning Joe in the bathroom, it did not go over very well. A guy should at least be given enough room to do his business in private.

The town hall was said to have gone off without a hitch. Our folks were happy with the standing-room only turnout, and I was told Joe did a stellar job. Interestingly enough, Hopfinger never even attempted to ask a question during the open mic segment.

However, when the event was over Hopfinger decided it was time for a personal question-and-answer session while the candidate while he was trying to exit the building. According to several eyewitnesses, he cut Joe off in the hall and began sticking a microphone in his face, bumping into Joe and badgering him with questions. Joe turned and headed for another exit. As he did, the security detail blocked the hall so he could not be followed. Tony became irate and began to act out. Security tried to calm him down, and asked him to leave the premises. He refused. After a back and forth or two, Hopfinger tried to push his way through, at one point putting both hands on the chest of a bystander and shoving him up against a locker hard enough that the gentleman’s head slammed against the locker. Bill ordered him handcuffed, and the police were called.

Campaign Manager Robert Campbell witnessed the whole thing, calling his reticence to just step in and let Hopfinger go his “biggest mistake of the campaign.” But Campbell was also a former police officer and State prosecutor. He said from a law enforcement perspective, it was a slam dunk that Hopfinger’s behavior was a classical assault. But in retrospect, he also knew that the incident was a public relations nightmare that probably cost us a lot of votes. And in a race so close that losing five thousand votes to Murkowski was a game-changer, ballot issues notwithstanding, it probably was a major factor in the final outcome.

In my investigation of the incident, however, I came on to other information that is curious, if not outright suspicious. Anchorage talk radio host Glen Biegel recounted the next day seeing nine members of the Dispatch staff (or associates) at the event. This presence was unprecedented, as the Dispatch typically sent one or, at most, two reporters to any given event. The owner of the Dispatch even showed up for the festivities. Why would a putative statewide media outlet have virtually their whole staff at one event? And why would they not ask Miller questions while there was an open microphone on the floor if what they really wanted was information? I am convinced it was a staged event.

Before realizing what had gone on out in the hall with the handcuffing, Senior Adviser Walter Campbell remembered overhearing a young man he could not identify bragging that “this couldn’t have worked out any better for us.” He said at the time the comment struck him as strange. He didn’t know what the kid was talking about, but it all came into focus when he found out about the handcuffing.

When the police arrived on the scene, Mr. Hopfinger’s wife was overheard complaining that Miller security had taken a camera and erased the recording of the event. According to multiple witnesses, that never happened. And Mrs. Hopfinger (aka Amanda Coyne) declined an offer from APD, who overheard the conversation, to take the camera to the crime lab for recovery. They assured her that they could recover anything that might have been erased. We never heard another word about the allegation. Apparently, it was just a case of political theater gone bad. In truth, they knew what had happened and weren’t interested in video tape of the incident coming out.

Contrary to the narrative that went viral, Joe Miller did not himself hire Drop Zone, direct anyone else to hire them, or otherwise direct them to do any of the things that they did. In fact, he didn’t even know they were going to be there until he arrived. And by the time the handcuffing incident happened, Joe was already out of the building, or in the process of exiting the building, on the way to his next stop. He didn’t even witness the event. It was completely out of his control. The only thing he could have done differently was to throw Bill Fulton and the boys under the bus. Undoubtedly that would have been beneficial to Joe politically. But it wouldn’t have been right and Joe refused to do it.

In a riotous twist of irony, months after the campaign, multiple members of the Alaska Dispatch staff began peddling the theory of a federal conspiracy against Joe Miller to influence the outcome of the election. After Drop Zone Security Chief Bill Fulton disappeared and was named as a FBI informant in the case of a Fairbanks militia leader, Dispatch reporter Jill Burke openly speculated (as did the LA Times) about Bill’s possible role in a Federal conspiracy to bring about the handcuffing incident and therefore destroy Joe Miller’s electoral chances. Sounds like paranoia to me, but truth is stranger than fiction. And knowing what I know, I can only say that if such a thing did indeed happen, chances are, the Dispatch was in on it.

Exposing the Common Core Symposium

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Please join opponents of Common Core this Saturday at the BP Energy Center (SW corner of BP parking lot) in Anchorage for the “Exposing the Common Core Symposium”. For those who can’t make it the Call in number is 1-844-586-9085! Come listen to nationally recognized speakers to learn about the transformation of education going on NOW in Alaska.

How Then Shall We Die? Alaskans Making Effort to Legalize Assisted Suicide

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John Piper, a noted pastor, author, chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary among other accomplishments, has noted that “Death, by God’s design, is the physical mirror of the moral outrage of human rebellion against God.”

Predictably, an effort is underway across the country and again here in Alaska to legalize assisted suicide. As Alaska Family Council has noted previously, regardless of intentions, this is a dangerous and wrong path to take.

This coming Monday, January 11th at 5:30pm, Alaskans will have an opportunity to hear both sides of this issue at the second “Arguing Alaska” Debate Series. As was the case last time when I served on the debate panel regarding another issue, the event takes place at the Beartooth Theatre Pub and is being put on as a fundraiser for the nationally ranked University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolf Debate Team. I can personally attest to the quality of the program. It’s not something you want to miss.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchased HERE at the Arguing Alaska website.

The resolution being debated is “Alaska should allow terminally ill patients to end their lives with the assistance of a physician”

Again, if you are in a position to attend, I’d highly recommend it.

In the end, quite literally, as Christians, it boils down to the following question that Piper notes in his piece.

How Then Shall We Die?

“How then should we think about our rights with regard to death? Should life be in our control? Does it belong to us, to create or eliminate?

The apostle Paul did not leave us without help on this question. Whose are we? To whom do we belong? Who owns our body? He answers: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

These words were spoken to guide us in relation to our sexuality. But the principle holds for death. The more serious the consequences in regard to body and soul, the more firmly the principle holds. And death brings the greatest consequences to soul and body. It is the moment that sets the final destiny of both (Luke 16:26; Hebrews 9:27). Therefore, the principle holds at death: We are not our own.

Our bodies — their life, their death — belong to Christ. He bought them. They are not ours to dispose of as we will. They are his. And they exist for his will, and his glory.”

This life brings tremendous hardships at every stage of the journey but “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (Romans 8:18)

For those of us who have loved ones who have departed, there is no greater truth.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Bristol Palin Announces Birth of Second Child

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Bristol Palin is a mother for the second time.

Palin, who launched an abstinence campaign after giving birth as an unwed teenage mother, posted on Instagram Thursday that she gave birth to a girl, Sailor Grace, on Wednesday . . .

Palin announced her second pregnancy on her blog in June. She has not publicly identified the father of that child, but announced she was pregnant shortly after her engagement to Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer was broken off last spring. (Read more from “Bristol Palin Announces Birth of Second Child” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Gov. Walker’s “Bah Humbug” Christmas Gift to Alaska’s Children: Stealing Your Permanent Fund to Permanently Fund Socialistic State Government

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EVERY ALASKAN OWNS A SHARE OF VAST NATURAL RESOURCES

ALL revenue from development of AK Natural resources (not just the Permanent Fund (PF)) is ultimately ‘owned’ by Alaskans who are ‘shareholders’. The legislature (not the Governor) has the sole constitutional responsibility to use, develop, and conserve natural resources for the maximum benefit of the people (Art. 8 AK Const.) This unique constitutional structure creates common property that in a socialistic government would be controlled and used for maximum benefit of whomever is politically in control of the government. Because Alaska is a constitutional republic, with all the benefits of the US Constitution, we value the inalienable right to own and protect property. “Ownership” of common property in a republic has not been thoroughly defined because the Alaska Constitution created this novel concept, and it is a product of legislation and history. The Constitution is clear the use, development and management of natural resources natural is for the “maximum benefit” of Alaskans as determined by the legislature, but “maximum benefit” could be defined as all ‘cradle to grave’ government programs on the one hand, or cash dividends on the other.

OUR BUDGET SHORTFALL IS FORCING US TO CLARIFY THE MEANING OF “OWNERSHIP”

Due to the current budget crisis, the legislature must further define the balance between socialism and personal property ownership of natural resource revenue. Constitutionally, most natural resource revenue goes directly into the General fund (GF) (the state ‘checkbook’) to be appropriated by the legislature subject to the budgetary process. This is a unique (radical?) creation. Uniquely, we also constitutionally put a smaller portion of natural resource revenue into an account that cannot be spent directly by the legislature, the Permanent Fund (PF). (Art 9 AK Cons.) The legislature, in turn has appropriated a dividend (PFD) and this becomes individual personal property with all the constitutional property ownership protections. It is important to note that the PF is created by the highest law (the Constitution) while the PFD is subsequently created by the legislature, under constitutional authority. The PFD changes common property (PF) to individually owned property where we understand better what the rights of ownership are.

DEFINITION OF ‘Taxes’

The differences between traditional taxes and ‘taxes’ on commonly owned property is also unclear. We do not commonly call the oil money going directly into the GF ‘taxes’, but rather just “oil revenue”, a habit which unfortunately clouds the source (Alaskans). In Alaska a full 90% of our GF comes from this ‘tax’ on commonly owned property. In Alaska, we do not have an array of broad base state taxes like other states because of this unique constitutionally authorized ‘tax’. Alaska has taken in about $112,825,000,000 (~113 billion) dollars from the sale of oil in the era of TAPS (Trans Alaska Pipeline) This 113 Billion dollars is comparable to the billions of tax dollars collected by other states as conventional taxes. A common fallacy is that Alaskans get a ‘free ride’ because we don’t pay a State income, sales, or property tax. In reality, our ‘tax’ contribution is collected out of our share of natural resources and is based on the success of production as opposed to, in other states, the citizen’s tolerance of taxes. We tolerate this comparatively huge ‘tax’ partly because we find it difficult to believe state residency could possibly include such a massive individual asset and responsibility. Nonetheless, it is true. Our response is similar to getting an “easy” inheritance and not believing it. We had better believe it, because we have the responsibility and the means to manage it for our children and grandchildren.

REAL RETURNS TO ALASKAN SHAREHOLDERS

Only the legislature, under authority of the Constitution, can codify the meaning of “maximum benefit” as it appropriates GF dollars each year by way of the annual budget process. Again, the only money NOT available to the legislature to appropriate is the constitutionally separate PF (Permanent Fund). The earnings from investment of the PF are not in the PF and are placed in an account in the GF (as prescribed in the constitution). That account is called the “Earnings Reserve Account” and it’s balance reflects the success of the investment board and the amount available for PFD checks. It is a very significant fact that for over 40 years, over the lifetime of the PF, the legislature has treated the Earning Reserve Savings Account with the same deference as it does other personal private property. The Earning Reserves Account has only been used to appropriate PFDs or to fatten the PF corpus. This is consistent with common sense! “Ownership” of any investment includes ownership of returns on that investment.

THE ‘HOT BUTTON’ DECISION ALASKANS MUST MAKE

The Governor’s recent budget proposal includes spending a portion of the Earnings Reserve as if it were lumped in with the revenue from the ‘taxes on common property’ (oil revenue) to be appropriated in the normal budget process. This is in the legislature’s constitutional authority, but it would be a very significant step toward defining “ownership” and “maximum benefit” that will take careful consideration. The scope of possibilities range from preference for a ‘nanny state’ on one end of the scale, to potentially huge PFD checks, limited government and free market dynamics on the other. The Governor proposes using only part of the Earnings, but the principles are the same no matter what the percentage; 0% to 100%. Trying to find an appropriate level may be a ‘fools errand’. This legislative decision on whether to spend ANY of the earnings MUST reflect a decision of Alaskans knowing their rights and responsibilities regarding their common property.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE DEFENSE OF THE PFD.

Because many reasons are being offered to support the Governor’s plan, please consider the following points favoring the historic legislative approach.

* Once a PFD check is written by the state, it is personal private property. The owner’s right to spend, invest, and protect it is defended by anyone who has sworn to uphold the constitution.

* Without a PFD, Alaska is arguably a socialistic state where the elite govern without the typical checks and balances related to the power to tax.

* The PFD is taxable, just like any other property. It is federally and would be in Alaska if we had an income tax.

* Our Alaska History has shown that when there is ample ‘common property tax’ revenue ( 75% of Alaska’s oil revenue), we overspend! Alaskans pay more per capita for state government than any other state.

* A little known fact is that in 2011 Alaska got less money back from the federal government per capita than any other state. Alaskan’s are paying our own at a level that is not generally understood or appreciated.

SHORT TERM EMERGENCY OPTIONS

We must cut spending. It is the only way out of this crisis. Simply adding revenue streams will only enable the addiction. A pilot’s analogy would be that we are not out of fuel YET, but we are not going to make it unless we jettison some cargo! (spending). If we fail to jettison spending real soon, we are not projected to make it! (“unsustainable”) It is not rational for the legislature to add more cargo (taxes) at this time. IF we ultimately have to resort to more taxes, they will make the situation even worse, and they would need to be approved by majority of Alaskans through their legislators. I believe that time is at least 2-3 years in the future with lots of jettison work to do before that time. The Governor’s spending and revenue proposal is not acceptable.

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Remembering Nicole Leman

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Nicole Catherine Leman, 24, died Dec. 9, 2015 (Dec. 8 in Alaska) from a fall while hiking in a mountainous region and traversing the face of a challenging slope at Matukituki Waterfall near Wanaka, New Zealand. She was the youngest child of former Alaska Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman and his wife Carolyn. (Editor’s note: the full video of the memorial service may be found at the end of this article)

A lifelong Alaskan, Nicole was born in Anchorage on December 28, 1990. She was introduced to Alaska politics early when her mother brought her with her two siblings to the House gallery to watch and listen to Governor Wally Hickel deliver his State of the State speech to the Alaska Legislature in joint session. Her father was then starting his second term in the Alaska House.

Nicole attended Turnagain Elementary School through the 4th grade, then Grace Christian School, graduating in 2009. During high school, Nicole was class president twice, played volleyball on very competitive teams, was track team captain and ran on two State championship 4×800 relay teams at Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, setting a new personal record in her last race.

She learned Spanish and used it when she served on a mission trip to Mexico. Nicole represented Alaska as Miss Alaska Junior National Teenager in 2006 at the national pageant in Nashville. Two years later, as Miss Alaska Senior National Teenager, she won first place in talent playing piano at the pageant in Nashville. She also learned more about Alaska politics when she attended Alaska Girls State in Wasilla. In a high school paper she wrote her senior year, she said, “I at first was reticent about my father’s encouragement that I attend, but on arriving I immediately met some great gals, and learned so much at Girls State that I consider that one of the best weeks of my life.”

Since earliest childhood Nicole fished for salmon each summer at her family’s setnet sites near Ninilchik, where she was as comfortable in boots and raingear as she was in pageant dresses. She enjoyed picking and cleaning fish, digging clams, giving ATV rides, helping with cooking, and many of the other chores that go with this hard work.

Following high school, Nicole attended LeTourneau University, graduating summa cum laude with a B.S. degree in kinesiology in 2013. In college she played intercollegiate volleyball, ran cross-country, won conference as a senior, ran at the national championship race, and was named LeTourneau’s Female Athlete of the Year. Nicole served on student missions to Mexico, Utah and Austria. She also researched wheelchair design for third world use and went on a mission trip to Kenya to confirm findings.

After returning home, Nicole worked as a personal trainer at the Alaska Club, coach, aide for people with disabilities, and counselor at Tanalian Bible Camp on Lake Clark. She ran in several Anchorage community races, the Lost Lake Run, and an ultra-marathon (50 miles) through the mountains from Cooper Landing to Hope. She loved backpacking in the Chugach Mountains, biking, berry picking, gardening, and baking.

Nicole planned her trip in detail and spent a year in New Zealand, where she hiked nearly every trail, likely covering 2,000 miles or more, stayed in more than 200 cabins, and worked on organic farms in exchange for room and board. Before leaving Alaska she had said, “…I believe God is using my gifts and talents through this journey. He is leading me, using me as a tool in His kingdom.” Since her death, hundreds of Facebook posts and other media coverage attest that she made an impact. The owner of a farm near Otaki wrote, “My wife and I have hosted hundreds of young people at our property during the past 15 years. Nicole Leman is the most special we have ever had. Her generosity, kindness, gentleness, and work ethic can be summed up in one word—LOVE. She talked about her family in Alaska who loves her—and of her love for Jesus. And she confided to him, “When I’m up in the mountains, I feel so close to Heaven.”

In the blur and numbness of the first night after we got the call from the U.S. Embassy in Auckland about Nicole’s death, God reminded us of His Word in Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” We believe that through her life and words, our dear Nicole was bringing the good news that brings real peace.

The Lemans say, “The pain of losing Nicole is immense, but we know that she lived to glorify God. We look forward to seeing her again. We are blessed to have her in our family and are comforted by our faith that she is now safely home.” In addition to her parents, Nicole is survived by her brother Joseph and wife Erica; sister Rachel Brandt and husband Joel; five nieces and nephews; grandmother Margaret Bratvold (89); and many aunts, uncles, and cousins.

A memorial service will be held Saturday, December 19 at 11 am at Anchorage Grace Church at 12407 Pintail St. Memorial contributions may be made to the Nicole Leman Scholarship at Grace Christian School, 12407 Pintail St, Anchorage, AK 99516 (www.gracechristianalaska.org) for student missions; or the Nicole Leman Endowment at LeTourneau University, PO Box 7001, Longview, TX 75607-7001 (www.letu.edu) for assistive technology, student missions, and athletics support.

(Editor’s note: the absolutely amazing video tribute to Nicole starts at 1:30:30 below)

Nicole Leman Memorial Service FULL from Anchorage Grace Church on Vimeo.

Memories, messages of encouragement, pictures of Nicole, and condolences can be sent to the Lemans at PO Box 190773, Anchorage, AK 99519-0773; [email protected]; or [email protected].

Written by Nicole’s father, with tearful input and editing from all family members.

In the Long Run, Low Oil Prices are Not Bad for Alaska

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Okay now I have your attention because Alaska’s current fiscal crisis was predicted and solved over 39 years ago with low oil prices leading to Alaska’s economic deliverance and not necessarily our bane. Let me explain.

Over at least the last half-century, commodity prices (one of the biggest being oil) and the stock market have been inversely proportional- meaning as one goes up, the other goes down. U.S. manufacturing and distribution requires inexpensive raw materials and energy for substantial economic growth. When commodity prices spike, industrial states and the resultant stock market languish while oil producing states like Alaska boom- and tend to grow huge public sectors (ours has doubled since 2005).

In 1976, Alaska Governor Jay Hammond established the Permanent Fund to fund state government when oil ran out. Imagine it like a huge investment pool worth over $50 Billion where ¼ of all state oil revenue is invested. This pool has three statutory outlets in which to distribute the substantial interest income it generates. The first outlet is to pay out our annual dividend checks. The second outlet is used to inflation proof the principal- which was very necessary during the high inflation years of the 1970s. Lastly, and most importantly, the third outlet is to fund state government via the Earnings Reserve (ER). Today, there is around $7 Billion in the ER- Alaska’s annuity that was designed to fund the majority of state government in perpetuity as Governor Hammond envisioned. As the British might say, there is no bloody reason to cap the PFD check, raise state fees, or worse, establish a state income tax as has been proposed by the hard campaigning fiscal conservative turncoat Governor Bill Walker. None.

“I wanted to transform oil wells pumping oil for a finite period, into money wells pumping money for infinity.” – Governor Jay Hammond, father of the Alaska Permanent Fund and the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend

The state legislature has not followed the Alaska State Constitution and tapped a penny out of the ER to fund our hemorrhaging $3 to 4 Billion annual state deficits. Why? Politics of course! The Democratic minority in the Alaska State House enjoys incredible leverage by diverting public attention for using the ER to fund state government – which only needs a simple majority vote to access, to instead first depleting the $5 Billion out of the Constitutional Budget Reserve (CBR) – which takes a larger 2/3’s majority vote to access. A few cross-dressing Republicans like Representatives Jim Colver (Mat-Su), Gabrielle LeDoux (Anchorage), Paul Seaton (Homer), and Louise Stutes (Kodiak) have joined Democrats in forming a “Muscox Coalition” in refusing to access the ER because of the minority’s threat of tar and feathering them in the media during the upcoming 2016 election campaign for “spending the people’s PFD”- an outright lie of course. This gives the house minority tremendous leverage in extorting additional state spending to get to the necessary 2/3s vote threshold to pass a state budget- as what happened during the last interminable session.

Historically, when commodity prices such as oil plummet, the general economy is stimulated to grow rapidly and the stock market rises. Real estate prices along with interest rates also go up as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen just indicated. It happened during the late 1960s as well as the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Low oil prices lower the price of everything. That is good for the U.S. economy and now Alaska because we now have an over $50 Billion Permanent Fund that should produce substantial investment returns to fund state government. It’s good for Republicans because there is no reason for a state income tax or potential industry killing new oil production tax. It’s good for Democrats who will see the majority of state government funded by financial investment returns rather than that dirty black carbon producing oil pumped out of the tundra by evil Big Oil. Public unions will also come around when they realize they can’t spend everything in sight and having a stable government funding source to rely on benefits them as well. Low oil prices will once and for all force Juneau to streamline our bloated state government and end automatic formula driven growth programs that threaten our entire state economy. Low oil prices will also allow Juneau to reduce hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel subsidies in areas such as the Power Cost Equalization (PCE) program which subsidizes energy in the bush and the Alaska Marine Ferry which consumes nearly half the state’s transportation budget.

Lastly but not insignificantly, on a national, state, and city security basis, low oil prices starve our biggest antagonists on the geopolitical stage. Oil funds ISIS and terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East and puts our sons and daughters that serve in the military at great risk. It also could indirectly lead to Syrian refuges being forcibly resettled in the Anchorage Bowl and all around rural Alaska- the majority of which cannot be vetted to see whether they are radicalized or not. The recent December 2nd terrorist attack in San Bernardino California that left at least 14 dead and scores more wounded attests to this fact because it was carried out by a least one recent immigrant.

I’m very supportive of maximum natural resource development in Alaska- it’s what we do. However if we are smart and run a lean and efficient state government, we now have a financial mechanism to ride out the low oil price cycle with economic stability and security. It’s now time for our Republican leadership in Juneau to shine.

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Lisa Murkowski: Planned Parenthood’s Poster Child

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Last night the news broke that the US House AND Senate had voted to defund Planned Parenthood. This came as part of the Reconciliation Act and really only defers *some* funding to Planned Parenthood for one year (it leaves funding in place to kill rape conceived babies), redirecting those funds to legitimate health-care organizations. That is if, by some miracle, President Obama doesn’t use his veto power to override the law.

While we celebrate what seems to be an apparent victory, we are outraged that one of Alaska’s own delegation was part of an effort to strip even no-brainer language from the legislation. Senator Murkowski joined two other Republican Senators to add an amendment to the Reconciliation Act that would protect Planned Parenthood funds.

Though this has come as no surprise to us (after all, Murkowski has pledged her allegiance to Planned Parenthood on multiple occasions), we are still her constituents and we still have an obligation to hold her accountable.

Senator Murkowski continues to show her true colors on the issues that matter most. Her support for Planned Parenthood is something that absolutely cannot be overlooked in the next election. Here’s hoping (and praying!) that a god-fearing person would rise up to take her place in the US Senate.

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