Joe Miller Says Begich Should Release Correspondence with IRS

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocrats

Responding to reports that the IRS is continuing to refuse disclosure of communications with Mark Begich relating to its discrimination against tea party and other conservative groups, Joe Miller is calling on the senator to release any and all correspondence or documents (electronic or otherwise) exchanged between himself, his staff and top IRS officials between 2009 and the present.

“I would think in an election year, especially, Mark Begich would want to clear his name of any wrong-doing with respect to IRS profiling,” Miller said. “He should see this as an opportunity to show Alaskans that there really is a difference between his mode of operation and that of the White House with respect to transparency.”

At issue is a FOIA request submitted a year ago that the IRS has still not complied with. In the request, the National Republican Senatorial Committee reportedly asked for all correspondence and documents that passed between Mark Begich’s office and top IRS officials between 2009-2013.

The IRS appears to be stonewalling, having asked no less than six times for more time to compile and go through the information, clearly implying that such documents exists. A FOIA request is supposed to be responded to within 30 days of receipt.

Earlier this year, Begich joined New York Senator Chuck Schumer and other vulnerable Democrats in calling for more scrutiny of certain issue advocacy groups that claim tax exempt status. He has suggested the tax code is being used for cover to engage in political activities.

Just this week, the junior senator boasted of calling the IRS Commissioner to his office, alleging unfair targeting of Alaska’s airline industry. Yet he has been strangely silent regarding blatant political profiling of Tea Party and conservative groups by the IRS, leading some to speculate on his personal involvement in encouraging potentially criminal activity.

Miller concluded, “I think Alaskans have a right to know if Mark Begich played a role in illegal activities at the IRS during the course of his public duties. If he didn’t, it should be a small matter to provide the records his office has of correspondence and other documents exchanged with top officials at the IRS.”

Miller: VA Scandal Part of ‘Pattern of Deceit’

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Photo credit: APJoe Miller today stated that the VA scandal is just the latest in a pattern of deceit emanating from the Obama Administration, and that U.S. Senator Mark Begich is part of the problem.

Reports recently surfaced revealing that certain Veterans Administration medical facilities around the country have been “gaming” the system to give the appearance that veterans are receiving better and more timely care than they are. Tragically, while VA officials have been propagating this false information, veterans have been denied the critical care they need, which, in several known instances, resulted in the loss of life.

“What we have learned over the last days and weeks about the unfolding scandal at the VA, fits a pattern of deceit that has permeated the Obama Presidency,” said Miller. “As a veteran who has used VA services and as a citizen, I am outraged that once again the actions of this Administration have cost American lives.”

The VA scandal does not reflect well on this President or Senator Begich, who want us to trust the federal government to continue to oversee the healthcare of our entire nation through ObamaCare.

From the IRS, to Benghazi, to the NSA, to Fast and Furious, to the AP wiretapping scandals, the President who promised to lead the “most transparent” Administration has instead led one that operates in the shadows.

Where has Begich been during the trail of scandals that have plagued the Obama Presidency? He has carried the water for the most lawless Administration in United States history, voting with the President 97 percent of the time last year. What is Begich’s answer to making the executive branch more accountable to the people? He voted for the “nuclear option” with Harry Reid and the Democrats, taking away a century-and-a-half precedent of the right of the minority to check overweening executive power.

“President Obama and Mark Begich’s five years in office have undermined the Constitution and further eroded the faith and trust of the American people in their government. As Alaska’s next United States senator, I will do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of the VA scandal and support my fellow veterans. It is imperative that the next Congress begins the hard work of restoring the faith and trust of the people in their government,” said Miller.

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

If You Are Pro-Family, Pro-Life, This Alaska GOP Candidate Is Deceiving You

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Ever wonder why so-called pro-life, pro-family candidates never lift a finger for family values once they get to Washington? Maybe if the pro-family community did a better job of vetting their pro-family candidates, this wouldn’t happen.

This weekend, Alaska’s Lt Governor Mead Treadwell (right in photo above) is in Washington DC seeking the support of the pro-family movement for his campaign to become Alaska’s new US Senator. I doubt he will tell the gathered conservative leaders what some simple research exposed about his true core beliefs.

Mead is like many GOP candidates who in every election cycle tout so-called “Family Values” while campaigning to win Republican primaries; but for them, it is an exercise of guile and deceit.

Treadwell is running for the Republican nomination in Alaska as a pro-life, traditional values kind of guy. The only problem is, as it turns out, he’s been working for the other side too.

As recently as 2010, Treadwell supported liberal pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage Republican Lisa Murkowski, who was defeated in the Republican primary by a Joe Miller, a staunch supporter of the pro-life cause and advocate for traditional marriage.

Treadwell let the proverbial cat out of the bag in a March 2013 article with Politico Magazine.

“I voted for Lisa Murkowski in the primary and in the general, and I think Alaskans made the right decision,” Treadwell said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sealaska Posts Huge Financial Loss in 2013

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Photo Credit: MATT WOOLBRIGHT | JUNEAU EMPIRESoutheast’s regional Native corporation announced $35 million in losses Thursday from 2013 while directing blame at a pair of Hawaii projects that cost the company about $26 million. A closer look at the annual financial report revealed even bigger losses.

Much bigger.

“When I read the report this morning it made me sick to my stomach,” said Carlton Smith, a City and Borough of Juneau Assemblyman. “The results for 2013 were far worse than I thought they would be initially. It’s pretty amazing.”

Smith and three others are pointing to the losses as they run for election to the Sealaska board of directors. That election is scheduled for late June.

When each of the company’s five revenue-generating categories are added up, the total amount lost is about $56.7 million. If the interest gained on the company’s investments — about $16.6 million — is not considered, the business operations of Sealaska lost nearly $73 million last year.

As of December 31, the company had about $32.9 million in cash, another $47.3 million in short-term investments and access to $41.5 million in credit. The company’s longer-term funds add up to about $127.8 million.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Man Shoots Self in the Head and Treats with Ointment

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Photo Credit: ShutterstockA 43-year-old Alaska man is expected to make a full recovery after initially treating his own gunshot wound to the head for five days with an antibiotic ointment.

A gun went off as James Doppler was handling it last weekend, state troopers say. His girlfriend urged him to go the hospital but he refused, believing at the time he didn’t need help.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sullivan, Begich Funding Sources Raise Red Flags

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US Senate Candidate Joe Miller warned today of dire consequences should Alaskans reward powerful outside special interests by cooperating with their designs to buy Alaska’s senate seat.  

“It is instructive to look at where the money is coming from,” Miller said. “If money talks, as they say, Alaskans should be concerned. Any time you have powerful outside special interests lining up to give millions of dollars to candidates who claim to disagree with them, there ought to be some red flags going up.”

Both Democrat Mark Begich and Republican Dan Sullivan have donors and Independent Expenditure groups supporting them that have policy objectives contradicting the candidates’ rhetoric.

Dan Sullivan is running as a small-government fiscal and social conservative. In fact, last Friday on Anchorage talk radio, he went so far as to claim an allegiance to Tea Party principles. Yet many of his most prominent donors are card-carrying members of the Republican Establishment and long-time advocates of big government crony capitalism and socially liberal policies. 

For instance: 

•    Dan Sullivan has claimed to support traditional family values, yet his campaign is funded by Paul Singer and Friends for an American Majority to the tune of more than $150K to date. Singer has openly pushed for fundamental changes to the Republican Party, to include embracing gay marriage and amnesty for illegal aliens. He is reported to have funded LGBT efforts with more than 10 million dollars in recent years. In addition, three of the corporate executives numbered among Sullivan’s personal donors put their names to an amicus brief submitted in a February case before the Supreme Court advocating for gay marriage. Are we to believe that these folks are supporting Sullivan because he will be an advocate for traditional family values?
•    Sullivan claims to stand firmly against the Surveillance State, yet one of its architects is a personal donor – John Negroponte, George W. Bush’s first National Intelligence Director, who oversaw the integration of all sixteen intelligence agencies (both military and civilian, foreign and domestic), inclusive of the modern-day NSA.
•    Sullivan claims to be aligned with the Tea Party, yet he is endorsed by the US Chamber of Commerce that has pledged no less than 50 million dollars to defeat Tea Party candidates across the country. He is also backed by Karl Rove’s American Crossroads SuperPAC, and has the strong backing of Lindsey Graham and John McCain’s Political Action Committees. In Alaska, he counts among his supporters infamous former ARP Chair Randy Ruedrich and current Party Vice-Chair Frank McQueary, both of whom have been at war with the conservative wing of the state party for years. 

•    Sullivan claims to be a fiscal conservative, yet counts among his personal donors many of the architects of the bailouts – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Big Banks, Wall Street and the IMF – and numerous other magnates of international finance. These include: former President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick; President and CEO of the Institute of International Finance, Timothy Adams; Goldman Sachs Executive, Faryar Shizad; former Chairman of the Board of the New York Federal Reserve, Stephan Friedman; Rockefeller and Co. CEO, Reuben Jeffrey III; the wife of former Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson; and former Bush Chief of Staff Josh Bolton of Rock Creek Global. 
•    Sullivan claims to want to “fight for Alaska,” but his campaign is funded in large part by lobbyists, attorneys and executives from multinational corporations such as General Electric, Time Warner Cable, Facebook, Abercrombie and Fitch, Exxon Mobile, BP, Rio Tinto, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, The World Bank, The Institute of International Finance, JH Whitney and Co., Boeing, Microsoft, IMB, and more. When tough choices come regarding America’s financial future, who do you think he’ll listen to?

Senator Mark Begich, on the other hand, is circulating a petition on social media decrying the effects of the Citizens United decision on politics. 

However, just this week “Put Alaska First PAC,” a “dark money” group working for Begich’s re-election, transacted a $4 million media buy, a unprecedented amount for a small market like Alaska. The very next day, the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee announced that it had bought $3.5 million in advertising. When combined with Begich’s reported $2.8 million on hand, the junior senator already has more than $10 million dollars committed to his re-election.

Mark Begich’s hypocrisy in this regard is staggering. 

He has taken millions in PAC money from multinational corporations and big labor already, and it’s only May. Undoubtedly there will be more independent expenditures to come, as Barack Obama and Harry Reid pull out all the stops in an attempt to hold a Democrat Majority in the US Senate.

Joe Miller concluded, “There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance out there. But at the end of the day, whether one is propped up by big multinational corporations, big government crony capitalists, big labor, or other Washington special interests, what Alaskans want to know is who will stand and fight for their Constitutional liberties. It is apparent that the big-monied Washington interests believe they can buy Alaska’s senate seat. The consequences of that would be catastrophic. I don’t believe Alaskans will cooperate.”

Miller: Sullivan and Treadwell’s LOST History ‘Deeply Troubling’

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Republican US Senate Candidate Joe Miller today addressed his primary opponents’ history of support for the United Nations’ Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

“I find my opponents’ history of support for this naked power grab by our would-be global governors at the United Nations deeply troubling,” Miller said. “It is simply not enough that Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan are running from their records during a hotly contested senate election.” 

Miller continued, “I could never support a treaty that surrenders the sovereignty of the people of the United States and empowers the United Nations, for the first time, to directly tax and regulate our citizens. Freedom from the arbitrary decrees of unaccountable rulers is the very reason we fought the Revolutionary War. Why should we voluntarily submit to such a regime in our time?”

Dan Sullivan has been described in the Anchorage Daily News as “a strong advocate in government meetings, congressional testimony and public speeches on the importance of U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

In a speech delivered at the 2007 Arctic Energy Summit in Anchorage, Sullivan praised Senator Murkowski for her “leadership on [Arctic] issues, particularly the Law of the Sea ratification.” He further stressed that “updating our Arctic policy will involve working closely with Congress on a variety of issues, including U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention.”

Sullivan went on to say that “avoiding nationalistic policies and sovereignty conflicts” should be a high priority, and stressed the need for “a global community working toward common global interests.”

Mead Treadwell also has a long history of support for ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

In a speech before the Juneau World Affairs Council in 2011, Treadwell stated unequivocally that “international cooperation in the Arctic must be strengthened — with the force of both international law and ratification of the Law of the Sea.”

The Alaska Dispatch described Treadwell’s advocacy for LOST in a 2012 story: 

“Lt. Governor Mead Treadwell is doing his part to keep it on the table. Although he says he has concerns about the treaty, Treadwell, who has a long history of working for the treaty and for Arctic issues, has worked diligently toward passage. He has testified repeatedly in front of Congress, regularly partakes in the State Department-chaired monthly Arctic Policy Group meeting, attends conferences where the treaty is discussed, and leads Alaska in its representation to the Arctic Council, where the Law of the Sea is the agreed-upon legal framework for resolving Arctic issues.”

Joe Miller concluded, “Both candidates’ meager efforts to back away from their past, hardline backing of LOST are likely to be seen by increasingly skeptical Alaskan voters as election-year pandering.”

Sarah Palin’s ‘AR-15 Makes a Great Gift’ Tweet Sends Social Media in Tizzy

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Photo Credit: AP / Carolyn KasterIn case you’re wondering, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has some gift-giving advice: Give them an AR-15.

In a tweet, she wrote: “Innovation found only in the USA! You know, an AR-15 makes a great gift — what more says, “I love you”? Eh, you …” and then she included a link to her new Sportsman Channel show, “Amazing America with Sarah Palin,” airing Thursdays at 8 p.m.

Predictably perhaps, social media took to trouncing her tweet.

Read more from this story HERE.

Climate Change: Mead Treadwell and Dan Sullivan’s Inconvenient Truth

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Photo Credit: usarmyalaskaJoe Miller today is calling on Republican challengers Dan Sullivan and Mead Treadwell to come clean with voters on their history of support for the man-made ‘global warming’ agenda.

“Clearly, both of my primary opponents have joined with climate change alarmists to push for top-down federal regulation,” Miller said. “It’s unclear how empowering the federal government to control even more of our economy, on the authority of dubious scientific claims, comports with free-market economics and Constitutional liberty. Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan have either had an election-induced conversion, or they’re conveniently side-stepping this issue that could have a profound impact on the lives of ordinary Alaskans.”

A recent study conducted by the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks concluded that the average temperature in Alaska declined by 2.34 degrees between 2000-2010, and a Fox News story last fall cited a National Snow and Ice Data Center report that found a 60% increase in Arctic sea ice between 2012-2013.

During his time at the State Department, Mr. Sullivan gave numerous speeches and interviews addressing the so-called ‘climate change’ problem. In them, he unequivocally accepted the premise that climate change is man-caused and embraced numerous mitigation strategies: including a national goal of steep reductions in the consumption of fossil fuels, an aggressive regime to increase the use of economically non-viable bio-fuels, billions in grants for government research to develop new environmentally friendly technologies, and subsidies and tax breaks for unsustainable “green energy” projects.

Mr. Sullivan’s views can be summed up in the following excerpts taken from his speeches:

Our energy challenges and climate change challenges stem primarily from a common source—an over-reliance on hydrocarbons as the world’s primary form of energy.

On the climate issue . . . we want to underscore . . . the seriousness with which we take this initiative. It will be the beginning of a process by which we hope to work with the major economies to achieve . . . [our] greenhouse gas reduction goal.

Mr. Treadwell has also voiced support for a similar agenda, testifying before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2009:

In the global dialogue on climate change . . . Arctic research is warning us now that Arctic ‘feedbacks,’ already observed from the loss of sea ice, the release of stored carbon, and the acidification of the ocean are dramatically ‘raising the bar’ for the global climate mitigation strategy the world seeks to agree upon in Copenhagen later this year.

Mankind cannot build an effective regime to limit its own emissions without understanding emissions coming natural sources in the Arctic. The U.S. is committed, with other Arctic nations, to build a sustainable Arctic Observing Network, known as SAON. Further, because the Arctic region is one of the largest terrestrial storage zones of carbon on earth, research could help us find ways that the Arctic can be part of the global mitigation solution. Forest and fire management, carbon sequestration, development of new energy sources in the Arctic, and other products of research, including so called methods of ‘geoengineering,’ may ultimately add to an effective global mitigation strategy.

Research underway aims at using cleaner fuels and methods to avoid emissions of soot, black carbon which promotes Arctic warming.

Both Mr. Treadwell and Mr. Sullivan also supported Lisa Murkowski’s campaign against the Republican nominee in the state’s last US Senate election. Their support came after the senator had co-sponsored Cap and Trade legislation that, according to Fox News, would have cost the private economy as much as $1 trillion. She has also entertained a carbon tax, something for which Mr. Sullivan, ironically, has sharply criticized Democrat Senator Mark Begich during this election cycle.

Miller concluded, “It never ceases to amaze me how during election time everyone’s a champion of liberty. It is vitally important to weigh what candidates say against what they’ve actually done.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

Murdered Alaska Troopers Remembered in Memorial

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Photo Credit: AP / THE FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER

Photo Credit: AP / THE FAIRBANKS DAILY NEWS-MINER

Law enforcement officers from as far away as Florida on Saturday mourned the loss of two Alaska state troopers killed earlier this month in a remote village while trying to make an arrest.

A memorial for Sgt. Scott Johnson and Trooper Gabe Rich began with a procession and a drum cadence at the Carlson Center in Fairbanks.

Col. James Cockrell, head of the Alaska State Troopers, said Johnson and Rich touched many lives during their careers, and their deaths will strengthen the bonds between officers.

“This is a time to begin the healing process and come together as a community to provide strength to those who are still feeling the pain of their loss,” Cockrell said. “For in times like this, true Alaskans stand together.” The Anchorage Daily News said some 4,000 people attended the memorial.

A Fairbanks grand jury on Thursday indicted Nathanial “Satch” Kangas, 20, on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths May 1 of Johnson and Rich. The two were assigned to rural law enforcement in 23 remote communities and were occasionally featured on the National Geographic Channel show “Alaska State Troopers,” which shows officers patrolling the state’s wild terrain.

Read more from this story HERE.