Is unemployment insurance still unconstitutional when it's all in the family? That's the question for Joe Miller, who considers the program--along with Medicare, Social Security, the minimum wage (no word yet on how he feels about child labor prohibition)--unconstitutional. But when his wife took the benefits after she left a job working for him?
U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller confirmed Monday night that his wife -- once hired to work as a part-time clerk for the same Alaska court in which he was serving as a U.S. magistrate judge -- went on unemployment after she left the job....
Miller held the magistrate position for the District Court out of Fairbanks from June 21, 2002 through June 1, 2004, earning a total of $71,418. Kathleen Miller worked as a part-time clerk for him from June 2002 to December 2002, according to a resume she submitted to the state last year when she pursued an appointment to the Alaska Judicial Council.
Unemployment benefits are paid to workers who are laid off or fired, so did Joe Miller lay off his own wife? Or did she have to stop working for him because the U.S. District Court frowned upon nepotism in hiring for court positions? That's what a pro-Murkowski blogger, Andrew Halcro, seems to be contending. Which opens up another line of attack for Miller on Murkowski, which he immediately deployed.
"I welcome any and all discussion on nepotism when it pertains to all of the candidates of the U.S. Senate race," he said in his statement.
Murkowski came under fire for nepotism in 2002 when her father, Frank Murkowski, appointed her to fill his U.S. Senate seat, which he left after being elected Alaska's governor.
Meow.
Miller might contend that this is neither an ethical problem or a problem with his principles, but Alaska voters who are all excited by his teabagger rhetoric might start to get disenchanted as these issues pile up. Remember, he's taken government farm subsidies, or welfare as many of his cohorts would call it, and gamed the state system to get a cheap hunting and fishing license, an "entitlement" the state of Alaska provides to low-income residents for subsistence.
He's a hypocritical grifter, and the official Republican candidate for Senate. That's today's GOP, folks.
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