ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller and his wife were embarking on an extensive remodel of their recently purchased home in 1995 when they applied for indigent fish-and-game licenses, the Anchorage Daily News reported Saturday.
Public records obtained by the newspaper show that three months before getting the low-income licenses, the Millers applied for a building permit. The permit was issued in May for an $800 fee plus $520 for plan reviews. The value of the addition, which was like a new two-story home with a bedroom, two offices and a family room, was listed at just over $110,000.
In 1995, residents who qualified for the low-income license paid $5 instead of the regular $55 fee.
Miller was a law student at the time, and he spent much of 1994 working as an intern at an Anchorage law firm and at the state Law Department. He graduated from Yale Law School in May 1995, and flew between Connecticut and Alaska several times that semester.
A month after graduating he began a $70,000-a-year job at an Anchorage law firm.
Campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto has insisted he qualified for the low-income license, and that family expenses were paid with loans while Miller was in school.
To qualify for an indigent license, the state Fish and Game Department says a person needs to have lived in Alaska for the previous 12 months and either been on welfare or had an annual family gross income of less than $8,200 for the year prior to applying.
Joe and Kathleen Miller bought a modest home on an acre lot in Anchorage in 1994 when they moved to Alaska; it was appraised at $98,500.
DeSoto said they used proceeds from the sale of farmland that Miller owned in Kansas, his home state, to pay for it, but the public records also show Miller and his wife took out a $92,000 mortgage from Countrywide.
The property's assessed value jumped from $93,100 in 1997 to $201,800 in 1998 after the remodel was finished.
Miller became a state magistrate in Tok in 1998. The couple sold the home in 2003, about a year after they had moved to Fairbanks. He never again purchased a low-income fish and game license, though his wife did one more time, in 1996, according to state records.
Too bad they aren't smart enough to figure out the income is based on the PRIOR year.
DNM, why are you printing any stories of what Murkowski was doing the last two weeks of the Senate's session, she wasn't at work (where we paid her to be). How about Dermot Cole doing an article on it?
Get over it. The people chose Miller. Enough is enough! Murkowski is throwing a temper tantrum like a little child.
Lisa, your just like every other politician change your mind to suit you. You conceded, GET OVER YOURSELF!!! AND GO AWAY!
Petty petty petty I bet he wet a dipper when he was 6 mo hold..
I recall Lesa got caught in a Keni land scam deal popular among Senators and Congressmen at the time.
Do I care? Nope!
Look up Strom Trumond Democrat SC --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strom_Thurmond
Read his history! and note how long and how well he did in elections.
AP smear? Like they do to Sarah, yes -sir- ree!
Every see any AP stories about Obama's cocaine usage?
Nope Wonder why?
Any thing about Lesa's drinking habits?
Not from the AP.
Deception by omission. Because it is directed at or away from SELECTED people according the AP's political agenda which is to promote Democrats, their causes, running down the United States to overseas readers, Telaban, environmentalism, global warming, and promoting the homosexual agenda.
Clip and save the AP's articles.
From now till the election. Look to see what they harp on and which candidates get the smear treatment vs those who do not.
Then you can ID their agenda, which is far more than "reporting" the news.
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By the way a 70,000 dollar job back then when you have wife, 8 ? kids, house, car, utility payments, dr bills, and what ever in not much of an income by Alaska standards
then or now because the cost of living is 2 times what it is out side.
Which means 70,000 he had the purchasing power of someone living elsewhere with 35,000 income in 1995.
"I'm sure that the mans integrity is not totally bad,"
Well, that's the question now, isn't it! It is starting to look like he has a complete lack of integrity.
"you know some people just think that some of the laws are questionable, maybe most of us do"
Ahhh... So it is OK to violate any law that you personally feel is questionable. More over, it is OK with you that our State Senator, a former lawyer, violate any laws that *he* feels is questionable or inconvenient?
This way lies dragons, and governments like Fidel Castro's and Iatola Komani's.
"So where is the story? A college student living off of student loans got a reduced-rate fishing license. Where is the wrong-doing?"
Well, firstly, he was not a resident at the time ("He graduated from Yale Law School in May 1995, and flew between Connecticut and Alaska several times that semester.") The fish and game requirement to be a resident is to be living in the state continuously for the past 12 months continuously.
How many college students do you know who buy a house and then immediately start building another ("the addition, which was like a new two-story home"). He had a bunch of money coming in from *someplace*
And remember, he got the indigent license *after* starting work in a $70,000 a year job.
The wrong-doing is called Fraud. And most Lawyers know about it... (although Joe Miller seems confused by the idea)
In 1995, residents who qualified for the low-income license paid $5 instead of the regular $55 fee.
Miller was a law student at the time, and he spent much of 1994 working as an intern at an Anchorage law firm and at the state Law Department.
Campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto has insisted he qualified for the low-income license, and that family expenses were paid with loans while Miller was in school.
So where is the story? A college student living off of student loans got a reduced-rate fishing license. Where is the wrong-doing?
It's disturbing to me that many N-M readers would minimize and deny the problems here, in a state where so many legislators and officials were indicted and convicted in the past four years.
Here's the bottom line:
Miller perjured himself on his subsistence hunting application, receiving a benefit for which he clearly did not qualify. There is also fraud involved. Had his crime, a Class A misdemeanor, been discovered at the time, he would have lost his law license and sustained a criminal conviction.
Miller's campaign called Lisa a "prostitute." Ask yourself, if a Spenard or Third Street prostitute told a judge she shouldn't be convicted because she "only" charged "$5," she'd be sitting in the pokey. But Miller is saying that it's all over "$5.00." It isn't. It's about theft and perjury.
His wife also perjured herself on her application. They're a perfect match, apparently.
He lied about receiving farm subsidies, claiming that he was essentially forced to do so. My wife has owned a working farm in that same state for 15 years and has never applied for a dime in subsidies. Of course, he also claims that such subsidies are "unconstitutional."
He complains as well that unemployment insurance is "unconstitutional." But he illegally hires his wife, putting her on the government payroll with himself as her supervisor, then when he gets caught for nepotism, he fires her so she can go on unemployment.
I can see why Palin likes him so much that she is ready to trash working people as "union thugs." I have known a great many union activists in Fairbanks for over 20 years and none of them are "thugs." Palin and Miller are two peas in a pod.
Of course, Palin owed him one for his filing a suit to stop the "Troopergate" investigation. And he owed her one for appointing his wife to the Judicial Council, where she claimed that she was a "teacher."
So they both clearly are unapologetic liars, cheats and thieves. They proclaim their supposed "Christian" values, while ignoring something as fundamental as the Ten Commandments, are unwilling to confess their transgressions.
I submit that those who have supported them with those lame arguments, because they want a supposed "Christian" in the Senate, are no better than the Millers.
There was the land deal in Kenai that only went away after the media highlighted the inappropriateness of it. Had enough of your politicians accepting (or attempting to accept) gifts from influential self-ionterested parties?
Then there was that whole "standing for the constitution" thing re. the USA PATRIOT ACT, all the while voting to extend it, including unconstitutional aspects. And the votes to immunize the telephone carriers who'd knowingly violated federal law... thus essentially legalizing warrantless wire-tapping of U.S. telecommunications... All the while talking the talk about the sacred nature of the Bill of Rights and liberty... Uh huh...
Not to mention the process of her landing the job in the first place, and who gave it to her.
Other than being somewhat more silk-tongued than her father when it comes to engaging in actions that betray her oath and/or constituency, and not being the drunkard her daddy was, there's not enough difference to write home about.
Saying spam's bad doesn't necessarily make braunswagger good. Or does it??
No, if McAdams doesn't look decent to me after I hear back from S.E. later on, I'd say this race is a good one in which to write in any number of random persons possessing integrity, and if nothing else, indirectly tell the established group of entitlement-oriented, silver-spoon-sucking politicos to pound sand and -work- for their living..
The state has a program for people with low income (in this case a student) to apply for and legally obtain a fishing license. He (reportedly)met the income requirements because he had no significant income the prior year - which is when the income requirement is based upon.
Regardless of his income the year he was renovating his home and the year he actually obtained the license, it is a state program and it was legally obtained... can we drop this and get onto something actually newsworthy???
But they -all- have their own version of special interests; bank on it.
Few who've grown accustomed to sucking the revenue yolks, and having that 'special access' see security in any changing of the guard in the legislative or political theatres. Onl;y a handful of entities are guaranteed that access no matter who's in that seat, office, etc.
For example, the crowd of bi-partisan Lisa supporters in the television ads are, in great part, some of the folks who've done well for themselves or for their causes with Lisa's hands on the purse strings, and rump in that senate chair.
This isn't something specific to Lisa, but rather a reality within the political game. But it indeed goes well beyond partisan politics, and enters the landscape of what politics has really become; a matter of who will guarantee me access to funds for my pet projects, causes, or personal well-being.
This is what politics in this country has, in large part, devolved to ove rthelast 200 years plus. And yes, the chance that the new administration or elected official may have their own group of cronies to benefit, distinctly separate from the old group, scares the previous conries a whole bunch.
But it makes for some entertaining sniping in the media if nothing else, doesn't it??
Surely the newspaper has spent more in labor than the $50 break Miller got on a hunting license 15 years ago.
I'm sorry, but this REALLY appears to be harassment, more then substantial news fact reporting.
It would seems as though the reporter, as well as those approving the print of this inconsequential nonsense, are furthering an agenda and promoting their bias.
What you express might be a good subject for an editorial, but not daily news article after daily news article. News is supposed to be facts. Did he break a law? Which one? Why? Not this constant speculation that maybe he did something that was hypocritical.
The DNM should either put it on the line, and state factually that Joe Miller broke the law, or put it on the editorial page. This daily rumor spreading and speculation is crap. They know it. Lisa knows it. You know it. I know it.
A new newspaper term should be "Palinizing". It's an updated media version of "Borking".