Sen. Mark Begich Vows Obamacare Will Never Be Repealed (+video)

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Photo Credit: SenateDemocrats

Photo Credit: SenateDemocrats

Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) held two town hall meetings in Anchorage earlier this week and pledged his unwavering support for the unpopular Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare.”) The Obamacare raiment will prove a heavy weight to bear as he enters the re-election season of 2014.

A question regarding the measure at the first town hall held Wednesday night at Campbell Elementary School drew the most lively response from the crowd. Despite the strong sentiment expressed against the law, Senator Begich emphatically promised those in attendance, “If you’re thinking it’s going to get repealed. Whoever tells you that ain’t giving you the truth. It’s not going to get repealed.”

Begich went on to state he would work to repair or replace unpopular portions of the ACA such as the tax on “Cadillac” plans and that he had already voted to repeal a tax on manufacturers of medical devices.

The Senator will have his work cut out for him taking this approach however because the Affordable Care Act itself is very unpopular. A recent CBS News poll found 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the law, while only 36 percent approve.

Begich sought to identify with those in attendance saying, “Just as you do, I [will] join the exchange come October 1st. I have to join it just like everyone else.” What he failed to mention is that members of Congress and their staffs have generous healthcare premium support plans already in place covering much of the cost, thereby exempting themselves from the rate shock most Americans will feel.

The overall estimated cost of Affordable Care Act to American taxpayers over the first 10 years has ballooned from the $0.9 trillion promised by President Obama in 2009 to a CBO projected cost of $2.6 trillion earlier this year.

The high cost is not the only thing causing grave misgivings about Obamacare among the American people. At a second town hall event at the Anchorage Senior Center, a grandmother expressed a concern many have regarding the ACA’s employer mandate, which dictates that businesses with fifty or more employees must fulfill all the law’s requirements. She believes Obamacare will make it harder for her grandchildren and others to find full-time employment.

The evidence appears to be on her side. A CNBC poll of small business owners earlier this summer found 41 percent have frozen hiring because of the law and 38 percent indicated they have pulled back on plans to expand. Begich admitted at the town hall that the ACA incentivizes underemployment by moving people from full to part-time.

At both town hall events, Begich took great pains to point out he is doing everything he can to fix what ails Obamacare. He ballyhooed legislation he introduced last month to delay the employer mandate for two years rather than the one year promised by the President. In other words, the Senator wants to pass legislation to save Alaskans (temporarily) from the ill-effects of the law he voted whole-heartedly to pass. Of course, this magnanimous gesture by the first-term senator would conveniently push the job-killing effects of the ACA until after next year’s re-election cycle.

Senator Begich knows he is vulnerable in 2014. His seat is among those judged to be in-play. A recent survey by the liberal leaning Public Policy Polling showed his job approval at a paltry 42 percent, down from 49 percent in February. This precipitous drop comes in spite of a statewide paid media push over the last several months and before the first salvo of the 2014 campaign has even been fired.

A vital measure of congressional leadership must be foresight: the ability to see a train wreck before it happens. By this standard, Senator Begich misses the mark. Rather than accepting the Senator’s small gestures of Affordable Care Act relief, Alaskans would do well to relieve themselves entirely of his services come next November.

7.0 Earthquake Strikes Near Adak, Alaska

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250px-Adak_-_Adak_IslandA substantial earthquake registering 7.0 magnitude, according to USGS, struck just 56 miles from Adak, Alaska, this morning. The depth of the quake was about 21 miles.

Adak, a small Aleutian community of a little over 300 people, is the westernmost municipality in the United States.

According to the Alaska Tsunami Center, there is no tsunami watch, warning or advisory in effect.

Update: A 6.1 magnitude aftershock hit 62 miles south-southwest of Adak this evening. There are no reports of damage.

GOP Targets Alaska’s Mark Begich Over Carbon Tax

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The National Republican Senatorial Committee Wednesday will launch a robo-call campaign in Alaska targeting Sen. Mark Begich for his support of a carbon tax.

NRSC plans to call nearly 70,000 households statewide about what it calls the Alaska Democrat’s “steadfast support for the costly carbon tax,” according to a script of the calls provided to POLITICO. A carbon tax means “more EPA red tape regulation,” says the script, which cites National Association of Manufacturers’ data to contend it would increase electricity, natural gas and gasoline prices and hurt Alaskan jobs.

“Sen. Begich didn’t paint that picture for you did he?” says the script. “Higher taxes, higher energy costs and Sen. Begich just don’t work for Alaska.”

The NRSC is aiming the calls at all female voters and likely male swing voters across the state.

The claims are based on Begich’s support for a non-binding amendment to this year’s budget resolution by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) that would have called for any revenue generated by a carbon tax to be “returned to the American people in the form of federal deficit reduction, reduced federal tax rates, cost savings or other direct benefits.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Will EPA ‘Force’ Another Decision on Alaska’s Native Communities?

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Lary Hill grew up in a crowded house surrounded by generations of family deep in the Alaska bush country.

In Iliamna, some 180 air miles southwest of Anchorage, communities hunted and fished to survive.

Hill, 68 and an elder of the community of 120 residents, said his family had no idea they were poor until the federal government told them.

“We always had enough food to eat and a warm place to live, with family all around. We had no understanding of what poor meant,” he said.

Then, through years of government-administered programs in which “being poor meant you could get free stuff,” the destiny of the region’s people seemed to be in the hands of bureaucrats.

Hill knows all too well, though, what the government giveth, it can taketh away.

“There’s been a pattern here for so many years where the federal government once they start giving us all these things, once they do that we pretty much lose control over our own life, our own society,” he said. “If we don’t behave, the government will take the benefits away.”

Poverty prevails in Iliamna and the region, where at least a quarter of the population is unemployed.

Now there is opportunity in Iliamna, and the potential for so much more.

Hill and several others in his community are employees of the Pebble Limited Partnership. The development initiative of London-based Anglo American and British Columbia’s Northern Dynasty Minerals, proposes developing the mine, a multibillion-dollar capital investment that would create thousands of good paying, short-and long-term jobs, according to PLP.

In conversations with Watchdog.org, Hill and other community members on the PLP payroll say they are not yet sold on the project. They want to know more about it. If the large-scale copper and gold mine can’t co-exist with Alaska’s salmon fishing industry — if a mine can’t operate without destroying their tribe’s native land — they don’t want it.

But they also don’t want the government and environmental groups with an ax to grind telling them — again — what’s good or bad for them.

That’s what it feels like to Iliamna community members who worry that the EPA could drop a regulatory hydrogen bomb on the town’s potential — 404(c) of the Clean Water Act, which could pre-emptively kill the mine project before a plan is submitted.

“People aren’t asking us, they are just pushing things on us,” said Lisa Reimers, CEO of the Iliamna Development Corp.

There are a number of residents of Iliamna, many more outside the region, asking the EPA to veto the project. They fear a large-scale mine would ruin the Bristol Bay Watershed, which feeds 50 percent of the world’s sockeye salmon population, critical to the region’s economy.

But critics vehemently opposed to large-scale mining in Anchorage and elsewhere also expressed their dismay that the project may not have the opportunity to be heard and that EPA has the power to strip basic due process.

You’ll have to excuse Pebble officials for feeling a little anxious with the arrival on Tuesday of the EPA’s new administrator, Gina McCarthy.

The last time an EPA administrator came to Alaska to talk about the Pebble project, in late July 2010, then-EPA chief Lisa Jackson apparently forgot to mention to PLP that some Alaska communities and tribes had submitted a petition asking the EPA to impose the pre-emptive veto provision. In February 2011, EPA opted to perform a Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment that predicted massive damage but was criticized by many of the document’s peer reviewers for faulty, hypothetical science.

An EPA official told Watchdog.org that McCarthy is not expected to make any announcements regarding the Pebble project during her stop Tuesday in Alaska.

Mike Heatwole, vice president of public affairs for Pebble Partnership, said Pebble officials are more optimistic about this EPA visit this time around, that the tone of the new administrator seems more open to a “transparent effort.”

The past is problematic, however.

Reimers and other community members say they had tried on several occasions to meet with the former EPA administrator, to no avail. At the same time, Jackson opened her door on several occasions to opponents of the mine proposal.

So, community members like Sue Anelon, who also works for Pebble, have a lot to say to the new EPA administrator.

“We don’t want this regulation (404(c)) enforced upon us,” Anelon said. “We’ll make that decision, not somebody else forcing it on us. We’re going to tell her, this is not fair to our communities.”

Hill said he wants to know just what another outside agency will decide for his community.

“If she invokes the power of the Clean Water Act, that might rob our area of the chance to have an industry that would allow us to do more than survive, but thrive,” Hill said.

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Courtesy of The Franklin Center’s Watchdog Wire

Man Mauled by Grizzly in Alaska Recounts Attack

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Photo credit: Marshmallow

Photo credit: Marshmallow

A man who recently was mauled by a grizzly bear near northern Alaska’s remote Brooks Range said he recognized the animal that left him with broken teeth and a deep gash in his arm from his guide trips.

Jim Tuttle said he and the hunters he guided often spotted the bear, nicknamed Buddy. But the animal was never aggressive toward them until two weeks ago, when Tuttle was walking along a creek and saw it charging.

Tuttle said 16 years of guiding in the area had dulled him to the risks of working in bear country. When the incident occurred earlier this month, he was walking to a caribou carcass by himself, armed only with a pair of trekking poles.

“I am partly to blame. I got complacent, and I paid for it,” he told the Anchorage Daily News. “I guess I should have had a gun in my hand, safety off, ready to shoot.”

He said the attack northwest of Anaktuvuk Pass lasted less than 15 seconds. When it was over, Tuttle was spitting out broken teeth and needed a tourniquet on his left arm. One of his cheekbones was cracked.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska May Make Gay Partners ‘Family’

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Photo Credit: Wonderlane

Photo Credit: Wonderlane

The Alaska State Personnel Board is considering including same-sex partners of state employees in the definition of “immediate family” for purposes of leave.

A proposed change in rules also would allow state employees to take leave due to a serious health condition of a same-sex partner.

Same-sex marriage is not legal in Alaska because of a state constitutional amendment. Nancy Sutch, a deputy director within the state Division of Personnel and Labor Relations, said by email that the proposed change in rules stems from a recent review of a 2005 Alaska Supreme Court decision.

That decision, in a case over health insurance and other benefits, found it is unconstitutional to offer valuable benefits to the spouses of public employees but not to same-sex domestic partners.

Sutch said the proposed regulations will set out requirements that are similar to those for insurance coverage, which have been in effect since 2006. Fuller descriptions of the proposed changes were not immediately available.

Read more from this story HERE.

FAA OKs Drones Over Alaska Oil Area

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drones_The FAA has cleared the way for unmanned aircraft, or drones, to fly for the Alaskan oil industry.

The Petroleum News reports approval for two remote-controlled aircraft to fly over the Arctic Ocean is an aviation milestone.

ConocoPhillips requested permission for the drone flights. But the company says it’s not quite ready to put them to use.

Read more from this story HERE.

Joe Miller Returns from Kenya (+videos)

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KenyaThis past week my wife and I visited Kenya for a mission’s trip with the Christian missionary organization, International Commissions. The purpose of the trip was to visit with small churches in rural villages near the town Sultan Hamud and evangelize to locals with the assistance of their respective churches. During the course of this mission, my wife and I met some amazing people, witnessed to the lost and experienced the power of Christ as we had never seen before.

Upon arriving in Kenya, my wife and I were assigned to assist the local church of Kawawakata. After visiting with our church, we established a plan of action and set out with our national pastor from Mombasa and our local interpreter, Anton, to make visits. Although it was an arduous task, my wife and I worked to witness to all the villagers in the rural and mountainous region near Nunguni and disciple members of Kawawakata church. Our interactions with the local church members were enlightening to the way Kenyan culture operates and also many of the misconceptions present amongst Kenyan Christians.

Some of the misconceptions present among church members were disheartening, to say the least. Most of the villagers did not know what true salvation was, as described by Romans 10:9-13. Most people thought that simply attending church, tithing, doing occasional “good deeds” or even baptism alone were ways to be saved. With testimonies and witnessing materials in hand, my wife and I determined to change the false notions of salvation and spread the message of Christ and His salvation to as many people as possible.

I believe that many of the misconceptions were caused by the complete absence of bibles in the community. Fortunately, we were equipped with a few bibles in both English and Swahili to disseminate to schools and churches. The locals were more than grateful for the bibles and were eager to read them. This was particularly true of the young-adults (teenagers) who were overjoyed to have bibles to read and share.

Over the week of our mission, we were able to clarify the concept of salvation and personally lead 253 people to Christ, while the unofficial total commitments to Christ reported by all members of our group was nearly 5,890. We hiked many miles to visit schools, homes and other churches to speak with people and pray for them. I also had the opportunity to preach to and worship with our church daily. During this mission, the presence of the Holy Spirit was so great at times that full grown men were moved to tears.

I will never forget the words spoken to us by our church as we parted ways. As we were saying goodbye, our interpreter made a statement on the behalf of the church. He said, “Before you came to our church, we were like a baby, we couldn’t stand on our own two legs. We lacked strength and nourishment. But, now that you have come to us and fellow-shipped with us, we are strong and we can continue to carry the word of Christ to all who need him.”

My wife and I intend to continue to do mission work with IC. If you would like to donate to our efforts, please follow this link.

Also, many of the children in the surrounding villages had not seen white people before. This video shows their initial reaction to seeing white people, my wife and I, for the first time ever. While children in other areas went into hysterics after seeing us, due in part to old ghost stories, most children found it a very novel experience:

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Joseph Andrew Miller is the oldest son of Joe Miller. He went on his first mission trip with his dad to the Philippines in 2005 and has been hooked ever since. Joseph Andrew is currently studying at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks with his wife Katrina. They are both in their last year of studies.

Rescind AO 261 to Preserve Alaska’s Privacy

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Janet Napolitano will soon be arriving at the University of California system office to take over the Presidency of the University of California System. What many Alaskans may not realize is that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia, that testing service that Alaska has joined for Common Core testing, is housed in the University of California system through the UCLA campus. As part of that agreement, Alaska’s Governor also agreed to comply with all data requests and provide them with access to Alaska’s P20 database. For those unaware of the governing document, it is in the document section of Stop Alaska Common Core.

Unlike most states, construction of Alaska’s P20 database occurred independently of the Common Core standards. P20 is an “ultra-secure” file type that will be in cloud storage that goes from Pre-Kindergarten to grade 20 and includes 400 data points. Due to the availability of a $4 million dollar grant, the state of Alaska applied for and received this grant to create a P20 database in 2011. It is maintained at the moment by the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education. The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (AK DEED) served as the fiscal agent on the grant, and the database will be used extensively in “evidence based” education according to Alaska’s 2013 waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Thus, little Susie’s teacher will know Susie’s bus stop times, parent’s voting preferences, religious affiliation, gun ownership, and all sorts of other details essential to educating little Susie. As little Susie grows, her professors and future employers will have access to not so little Susie’s data too, as well as any other tidbits contributed by teachers and other school personnel along the way as Little Susie grows to be a woman.

In order to merge the data, Governor Parnell issued Administrative Order (AO 261) in December 2011. Now at the time, it may have seem like a good idea to remove the firewalls and integrate the Permanent Fund Data, Alaska Housing Finance Authority data, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development data, and the University of Alaska data, and all other state agencies’ data into one large data set on the “unit” (or person) level. It may have sounded like a good idea at the time, and as someone trained as an econometrician, I get the “desire for data” to do research to make better public policy choices.

However, I don’t think it is such a good idea anymore. It is time for the Governor, and other Alaskans, to rethink this Administrative Order, and Alaska’s membership in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in light of recent developments.


First, let’s note that Janet Napolitano is not a big fan of civilians owning guns. Let’s also recognize that through the Smarter Balanced agreement, she will have access to Alaskan data at through the via Smarter Balanced Affiliation with the University of California. Let’s also recognize that Smarter
Balanced and the University of California system may do with this data whatever they wish under the new changes for privacy laws. This is unit level data on everyone in Alaska. Does anyone in this state really trust this dataset in the hands of Janet Napolitano?

Second, there is this strange little provision in ObamaCare that allows for home visits if a student scores poorly on tests. There are also other provisions like smoking, being a veteran, and some other variables that can trigger these visits, but poor test results is one that clearly triggers a home wellness visit through ObamaCare. These test scores will be part of the P20 database. Let’s not forget that this database includes the Permanent Fund Dividend data, so even if you do not have a child in school, you appear in the database. Have you ever signed to be able to pick up a niece or grandchild after school? Any adult associated with a child who performs poorly on a test could get a wellness visit.

Remember, the PFD data and the Alaska Housing Finance Data includes banking information, mailing address, physical address, and easily reveals the names of all family members through sponsorship.

The above is disconcerting. Why should the school needs data on people who do not have children in school?

We are heading into an era where our rights and privacy are in a precarious state of affairs with respect to the Federal Government. Governor Parnell says he is against ObamaCare and the Common Core. If this is true, then certainly he will see the wisdom of protecting Alaskans privacy by undertaking the following actions:

A) Rescind AO 261. Put the firewalls between the data sets back in place.

B) Withdraw Alaska from the Smarter Balanced Agreement immediately.

Note:

The page referenced on Obama Care and test scores can be accessed here.

AO

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Dr. Barbara Haney is an economist, political activist, and social media consultant in Alaska. She has previously served as a program director and faculty member at University of Alaska, Eastern Illinois University, University of Notre Dame, and other colleges and research institutions. In addition to her university experience, Dr. Haney has served as an ABE educator and a home school educator. She has served as a district chairman, national delegate, and campaign volunteer in various Republican campaigns. Dr. Haney receives mail at [email protected]

Hunter Rescued after Bear Attack in Alaska

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A hunter mauled by a brown bear survived more than 36 hours in the Alaskan wilderness until he was rescued by the state’s air national guard.

The man was part of a group on a guided hunting trip about 30 miles north of Anaktuvuk Pass, a tiny Nunamiut Eskimo village in the Gates of the Arctic national park.

Initial rescue efforts by local search teams and state troopers were turned back because of dense fog. The 11th Air Force rescue co-ordination centre learned of the man’s plight on Thursday about 36 hours after the attack, and dispatched a search-and-rescue crew equipped with night-vision goggles and flares.

The man had suffered severe blood loss and other injuries, but a medical professional in a nearby hunting party reached him soon after the attack. Officials credited the medic with saving the man’s life.

Read more from this story HERE.