There's me thinking that Alaskan politics just couldn't get any funnier, what with Grandma Grizzly and her stupid tweets.
Oh boy as I wrong.
Joe Miller, Republican nominee for the Senate has been caught out as the hypocrite that he is.
Lisa Murkowski, the wannabe write in candidate apparently can't spell her own name. Not an auspicious start for a write in campaign.
Follow me for the hilarious details............
It started off, as far as I can gather, with the wonderful Mudflats blog questioning Joe Miller's farming background.
http://www.themudflats.net/...
But life as a farmer/ivy league attorney is tough. Sometimes a feller could use a helping hand. Maybe something like a nice check from... the Federal government! Joe’s misguided intellectual and philosophical purity about how we shouldn’t rely on the federal government for anything did not keep him from making a little extra cash on the side thanks to you the taxpayer. That’s right, Mr. ’Who Needs the Feds?’ may have collected more than $14,000 in federal farm subsidies between 1995 and 2003, including barley and conservation subsidies.
Joe reminds us all the time about all those bad things that the feds spend their money on – (like more than a third of the economy of the state he wants to represent in the United States Senate). And before you go blaming two giant unnecessary wars and George W. Bush for our financial hardships, Mr. Miller is quick to give us a reality check on his website.
Joe's Website
Direct Payments:
The 1996 Freedom to Farm Act envisioned a move away from subsidized farming and into a free-market system. As a transition, the 1996 farm bill established a direct payment program to wean farmers off the government dole. Payments are based on a formula involving the historic production on a given plot of land in 1986. This set payment goes to the current landowner or farm operator every year. The program has been maintained beyond its intended lifetime and now is a federal entitlement program for farmers that costs the government about $5 billion per year. These payments are usually included in land value estimate, driving up land prices and rents and making it harder for small farmers to expand and new farmers to enter the business.
The Alaska Dispatch Newspaper decided to follow up the story and used the freedom of information act to find out what was what.
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/...
Alaska Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller, an outspoken critic of federal funding, has in the past obtained federal farm subsidies in the amount of more than $7,000 for Kansas farmland, an Alaska Dispatch investigation has revealed.
After Alaska Dispatch received Miller's farm subsidy records under the Freedom of Information Act and told the Miller campaign about them on Monday, Miller's staff confirmed he received federal payments for 140 acres of cropland he owned in Kansas between 1990 and 1998.
The Miller campaign had tried to duck the question of whether the Sarah Palin- and Tea Party Express-backed candidate ever received any such payments. On Monday afternoon, DeSoto continued to evade the issue. Asked whether Miller had ever gotten any federal money in the form of farm subsidies, DeSoto repeated neither Miller nor anyone in his family has ever received any farm subsidies for their land in Alaska. Pressed about land in Kansas, he said he did not know if Miller ever received farm subsidies for land he owned there. DeSoto said he would try to find out.
Mudflats has an update
http://www.themudflats.net/...
Somehow, this answer just seemed a little hinky. Could there really be two Joe Millers who own farm land in Delta Junction, Alaska? Was the Joseph W. Miller who received subsidies from farmland in Kansas as reported in the same article our Joe Miller? When he said "no federal farm subsidies for it" was he parsing words? Did he receive subsidies for something, but just not THAT?
So, Farmer Joe decided not to share that little detail when asked about subsidies in Delta Junction, even though presumably he knew that Freedom of Information Act requests were pending on the Kansas land. His answer was quite lawyer-like for a farmer.
So, what does the Miller camp have to say now that they’ve been caught with their hand in the federal cookie jar?
According the the Anchorage Daily News, they said this
http://community.adn.com/...
DeSoto said that it was standard practice for farmers to receive the subsidies in Kansas and that the nation was in a much better financial situation at the time that Miller received the funds.
"This was back in the 90’s, the situation the country was in was far different than now," he said.
To find out how entirely unimpressed locals are, all one has to do is look into the comment sections of these two local newspapers.
Example of the most recommended comments.
Hahaha! Hilarious!! Oh Joe! Say it ain't so! (Oh wait...you already DID say it wasn't so...) Um hmmm..
I'll bet his campaign will be up all night trying to figure out how to "spin" this one....
Now for Lisa Murkowski
http://hotair.com/...
Video: Murkowski write-in campaign begins with terrible new ad
Update: Almost forgot: At the very end of the clip, her name in her website address is ... misspelled. The perfect capper to an amateurish spot aimed at a write-in campaign
Damn, the Murkowski camp have already removed the video, shame for them that Politico screen captured it, (sorry for linking to them)
http://www.politico.com/...
Just a little reminder that there is an alternative in Alaska :)
http://www.actblue.com/...