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With another hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, the so-called “bridge to nowhere,” championed by Alaska’s Congressional delegation on behalf of the people of Ketchikan, just won’t go away. Three years ago, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the plan to spend hundreds of millions to connect Ketchikan with its airport on Gravina Island became a national symbol of Congressional excess, much to the dismay of Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young. Sen. John McCain has made it a habit to ridicule the bridge project during his presidential campaign. McCain has promised to veto any bill sent to...

And the war has begun!!!! Am I allowed to link to AP??

In July, federal authorities indicted Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, on corruption charges on the grounds that Alaska's Prince of Earmarks concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars of gifts and improvements to his Alaska home provided by a powerful oil services company. Also this summer, amid the mortgage meltdown, newspapers reported that a number of senators -- including Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.; Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; and Barack Obama, D.-Ill. -- were the beneficiaries of sweetheart home loans. In June, the Senate Ethics Committee began an initial look into Dodd's and Conrad's discounted Countrywide Financial VIP loans, as is...

The battle for the Senate has been overshadowed by the presidential race, but just as important as who will reside in the White House is whether Democrats can get 60 seats in the Senate. The "Magic 60" would give Democrats a filibuster-proof majority, and the keys to true power in the Senate. Assuming that their party leaders could keep Democratic senators in line, 60 votes would mean a fast track for their agenda, prevent Republicans from blocking it and a clear path for their nominations for the federal bench.

Looking for a metric on how much the indictment of Ted Stevens has affected the Alaska Senate race? Alaska pollster Ivan Moore has an answer, thanks to a well-timed poll and an equally fast follow-up. The answer, as one might imagine, is that Stevens now looks even more damaged than he was just a week ago. The polls, conducted by Ivan Moore Research, were conducted 7/18-22 among 504 likely voters for a margin of error +/- 4.4% and 7/30-31, after the indictment, among 413 likely voters for a margin of error of +/- 4.8%. Stevens was tested against former State...

This week's exhaustively detailed indictment of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens for allegedly failing to disclose $250,000 in gifts from an oil magnate in his home state of Alaska is dismaying enough. But the stench is hardly limited to Stevens and San Diego's own convicted congressman – Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Rancho Santa Fe. There are abundant signs that corruption in Congress goes beyond just trading votes for contributions to actual bribery. Yet public outrage remains disturbingly muted. Unfortunately, this indifference is also the norm in California. Consider the case of Senate President Don Perata. The Oakland Democrat is the focus of...

The fallout from the federal corruption indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens, the once-powerful Alaska Republican who helped the state snag millions in pork-barrel projects, is being felt from Anchorage to Washington. A third of Alaska's jobs can be traced to federal spending, according to the latest study by the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research, and many spring from military expenditures that Stevens encouraged during decades of service on the appropriations subcommittee that oversees defense spending, The Post's Karl Vick reports today.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman said Wednesday he would give away $20,000 in campaign contributions because they came from a political action committee tied to indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens. The decision comes as Coleman's Democratic challenger, Al Franken, began airing a statewide radio ad highlighting ties between Coleman and Stevens. Coleman's campaign manager Cullen Sheehan said the senator will donate the money to childhood cancer research. The specific recipients haven't been selected, a campaign official said. His decision follows that of at least five other Republican senators who are shedding contributions from Stevens' Northern Lights PAC. "The senator believes firmly...

Chuck Todd has some advice for John McCain: embrace Ted Stevens' demise. The NBC News political director made his suggestion in the course of kibitzing McCain campaign strategy with Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. CHUCK TODD: Joe, why isn't McCain jumping on this Ted Stevens thing? He hated Ted Stevens. JOE SCARBOROUGH: He did! TODD: He should be dancing on this guy's political grave today. This is the John McCain Republican party versus the Ted Stevens Republican party. And he ought to be, he ought to be gloating today. And he's not touched it. View video here.

July 29, 2008, 4:37 p.m. From Bridge to Troubled Water By the Editors One of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’s most memorable moments of the last few years came during the Senate fight over the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.� In 2005, when Sen. Tom Coburn introduced a measure that would have redirected the money Stevens had earmarked for the bridge to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, Stevens gave an apoplectic speech on the Senate floor in which he threatened to resign if the Senate passed the measure. It was the nation’s loss that the Senate voted the measure down, simultaneously missing two...

I have proudly served this nation and Alaska for over 50 years. My public service began when I served in World War II. It saddens me to learn that these charges have been brought against me. I have never knowingly submitted a false disclosure form required by law as a U.S. Senator. In accordance with Senate Republican Conference rules, I have temporarily relinquished my vice-chairmanship and ranking positions until I am absolved of these charges. The impact of these charges on my family disturbs me greatly. I am innocent of these charges and intend to prove that.

Fox News is reporting that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (rep-Bridge To Nowhere) has been indicted, 7 counts, something to do with holding an office. More news to follow.

<p>Foxnews alert.. on 7 counts related to holding a public office...</p>

Alaska’s U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Ted Stevens and Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich has been a toss-up for several months now, but the Democratic challenger is now ahead 50% to 41%. When “leaners” are included, Begich leads 52%to 44%. Begich began running his first television ads of the campaign on July 8 and the survey was conducted nine days later. For each of the last three months, the candidates have been within two points of each other. Last month, Stevens was up two, 46% to 44%. In May, it the incumbent trailed by two. The month before, Stevens had...

US SENATE. The latest independent polls for US Senate races. ALASKA (Research 2000): Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) - 47%, US Senator Ted Stevens (R) - 45%. CONGRESS. The new independent polls for the US House contests. ALASKA CD-1 (Research 2000): Former State House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz (D) - 51%, Congressman Don Young (R) - 40%..

Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska has narrowly regained the advantage in his bid for a seventh term against Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, as the numbers seesaw again in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate contests. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate, leads his Democratic opponent 46% to 44%. A month ago, it was Begich with an equally insignificant advantage, 47% to 45%. This is the third straight poll where the candidates have been within two points of each other.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Republican Senator Ted Stevens is trailing by two percentage points in his bid for re-election. Stevens attracts 45% of the vote while Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) earns 47%. A month ago, it was Stevens with 46% support and Begich at 45%. Any incumbent who polls below 50% is considered potentially vulnerable, especially when they trail a challenger early in the campaign season. Stevens is supported by just 68% of those who plan to vote for John McCain. Twenty-four percent (24%) of McCain voters say they’ll be splitting the ticket to vote...

BUTTE, Alaska (AP) - For decades, Alaskans have contentedly called Ted Stevens senator, and Don Young congressman, their Republicans in far-off Washington. Now other, less flattering names are creeping into conversation. Crook, for example. Or jerk. Or old, washed up. And because of it, Democrats sense opportunity even in the Last Frontier, a state that has dealt them mostly defeat for a generation. "I've been voting for Ted and Don all my life," says Scott Frank, 45, a blue-collar Republican sipping coffee at the Butte Cafe, "but they've really screwed up." Shoulder-to-shoulder around a slab-wood table, Frank and his pals...

The Senate moved yesterday toward asking the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of a $10 million legislative earmark whose provisions were mysteriously altered after Congress gave final approval to a huge 2005 highway funding bill.

In a difficult year for Republicans, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is providing GOP leaders with yet another headache. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that Stevens is essentially even with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Stevens currently attracts 46% of the vote while Begich earns 45%. Four percent (4%) say they’d vote for a third party option while 5% are not sure. Any incumbent who polls below 50% is considered potentially vulnerable and that label certainly applies to Stevens.

Newly uncovered documents show a generous earmark in 2005 by Sen. Ted Stevens was manipulated to lead to the purchase of property owned by his former aide, Trevor McCabe, now an Anchorage fisheries lobbyist. The Anchorage Daily News reports that the arrangement appeared to ensure that McCabe would be bailed out of a money-losing real estate venture by U.S. taxpayers. The money came in the form of a $1.6 million grant to the SeaLife Center in Seward. The center later bought McCabe’s property for $558,000 in 2006. The Seward land sale is under investigation by the FBI and inspectors general...

Nineteen American senators are urging their government to scrap a new rule that will require travellers to show proof of citizenship and a photo identification card when entering the United States by car, boat, or on foot. The new rule takes effect on Thursday. The senators wrote a letter to Michael Chertoff, the U.S. secretary of Homeland Security, asking him to continue to allow travellers to cross land and sea borders with an official government-issued photo I.D., such as a driver's licence. As has always been practice, travellers would have to verbally state their citizenship, but would not have to...

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism -- nearly $15 billion a month -- came last week from one of the Senate's leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. "This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008...

A pair of ethically-embattled GOP lawmakers from Alaska are finding themselves viewed unfavorably by a growing number of the state’s voters, according to a newly-conducted poll from Hays Research Group. Only 44 percent of Alaska voters said they approved of Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) performance in office, while 38 percent disapprove. Stevens has been a stalwart in Alaska politics since first elected in 1968, and the six-point net approval rating is one of his lowest levels of support since first elected. Stevens has faced little re-election difficulties since first elected, never winning less than 66 percent of the vote. But...

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, blasted Democrats last week for blocking an effort to add $70 billion to the military spending bill for the war in Iraq. Congress sent President Bush a $471 billion Defense Department spending bill on Thursday. But Democrats rejected Republican attempts to tack on so-called “bridge” funding to pay for operations overseas. The additional funds would cover operations in Iraq and Afghanistan until Congress responded to President Bush’s request for $196 billion in supplemental war funding. A continuing resolution providing temporary funding for all government agencies through Dec. 14 was attached the defense appropriation bill. Congress...

Federal authorities investigating Sen. Ted Stevens are trolling the Alaska fishing industry for evidence of whether the powerful Republican pushed seafood legislation that benefited his lobbyist son. So far, the most public aspect of the investigation was the FBI raid on Stevens' home in July, with agents seeking evidence of the senator's relationship with a corrupt Alaska oil contractor. But authorities have also quietly amassed evidence about fishing. After serving subpoenas throughout the industry last year, investigators recently returned to Seattle, home to many of the boats and processors that bring Alaska's seafood to market. Industry officials and attorneys involved...

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate John Binkley agrees with Palin that the public is upset. "They don't like the back room deals that have been cut. I think there have been errors in judgment in people as they've dealt with people like Bill Allen, and what that's caused for our state, for our delegation. And they want a change. They don't want to see that business as usual," Binkley said. Like Binkley, former Lt. Gov. Loren Leman says he's not planning to run against Young or Stevens, but also says that's subject to change. "And if nothing changes that would suggest,...

Some called it a bridge to the future. Others called it the bridge to nowhere. The bridge is going nowhere. On Friday, the state abandoned the controversial project in Ketchikan that became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. It closes a chapter that has brought the state reams of ridicule, but it also leaves open wounds in a community that fought for decades to get federal help. "We went through political hot water -- tons of it -- and not just nationally but internationally," said Ketchikan-Gateway Borough Mayor Joe Williams. "We have nothing to show for it." The $398...

The state of Alaska on Friday officially abandoned the controversial "bridge to nowhere" project in Ketchikan that became symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. The $398 million bridge would have connected Ketchikan to its airport on a nearby island. "Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," Gov. Sarah Palin said in a prepared statement. She directed the state transportation department to find the most "fiscally responsible" alternative for access to the airport. Republicans U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young championed the project through Congress two years ago,...

Former Veco executive Rick Smith just said he bribed former Sen. Ben Stevens and sitting Anchorage Sen. John Cowdery. His comment came as prosecutor Nicholas Marsh asked Smith who he’d plead guilty to bribing. Smith said Reps. Pete Kott, Bruce Weyhrauch and Vic Kohring

Former Veco chairman Bill Allen might have been on the witness stand to present bribery evidence against a state legislator, but the biggest shock of the day -- perhaps the entire trial -- was his assertion Friday that he or his company financed a substantial portion of the remodeling of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' Girdwood home. As he testified for the third day in the bribery, extortion and conspiracy trial of former House Speaker Pete Kott, R-Eagle River, gasps emerged around the crowded courtroom when Allen admitted he provided workers and some material for the 2000 building project that doubled...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The former head of an oil field services company admitted Friday that he had employees work for several months on remodeling the home of Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. Ex-VECO Corp. CEO Bill Allen discussed the work while testifying in the corruption trial of former state House Speaker Pete Kott. Allen and former VECO Vice President Rick Smith pleaded guilty in May to extortion, conspiracy and bribery of legislators. Under cross-examination by Kott's defense attorney James Wendt, Allen acknowledged that the more than $400,000 he admitted spending in the bribery charge was for other legislators—and for...

One of the most conservative members of the Alaska Legislature called for some of the state's most prominent Republican politicians to step aside. Sound off on the important issues at In a letter to the Fairbanks News-Miner, published Sunday, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Fairbanks, said he'd like to see both U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and U.S. Rep. Don Young announce their intent to retire and not run for re-election

Republicans faced a time for choosing last week, when Senate Democrats brought to the floor an ethics "reform" bill that may make it easier for Congress to dole out pork-barrel spending. In the words of GOP Sen. Tom Coburn, the bill "not only failed to drain the swamp, but gave the alligators new rights." Rather than block the legislation and insist on better reforms, image-sensitive Republicans largely backed the bill. Have they learned anything? They lost control of Congress last year in no small measure because the GOP had become identified with the culture of pork-barrel spending, frittering away the...

They say celebrity scandals are about "integrity." Where do you get that? Two eternal puzzles: What came first, the chicken or the egg? What came second, Barry Bonds or numbskull celebrities? Much as we'd prefer to ponder the miracles of the egg, life insists that we instead decipher Mr. Bonds, Mr. Vick, Ms. Lohan, Mr. Donaghy's NBA and the drug-addled messieurs of the Tour de France. Wall Street Journal style prefers the prefix "Mr." for all but famous men of history, an admirable but perhaps quaint bow to an era when the world was not filling so fast with individuals...

WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator’s house, federal law enforcement officials said. The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency. The businessman, Bill J. Allen, the founder of an oil fields service company that has won tens of millions of dollars...

Federal law enforcement agents are currently searching the Girdwood home of Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, an FBI agent said. "All I can say is that agents from the FBI and IRS are currently conducting a search at that residence," said Dave Heller, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Anchorage office. The search began this afternoon, he said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents searched the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens on Monday. Investigative sources told FOX News that the FBI

Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator and once the chief power broker for dispensing federal dollars, says he's worried that a corruption investigation "could cause me some trouble" in running for re-election next year. ADVERTISEMENT The 83-year-old Alaska Republican has drawn Justice Department scrutiny over a renovation project in 2000 that more than doubled the size of his home in a resort town surrounded by glaciers. The remodeling was overseen by Bill Allen, a contractor who has pleaded guilty to bribing Alaska state legislators. Allen is founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has...

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and the state’s sole U.S. House member Don Young, both Republicans, have dominated their elections, and have done so over an extraordinary length of time. Stevens was first elected in 1970 after receiving a Senate appointment in 1968 — a tenure that in April made him the chamber’s longest-serving Republican ever. Young was first sent to the House in a 1973 special election. But the 83-year-old Stevens, a former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the 74-year-old Young, who has chaired both what is now the House Natural Resources Committee and the Committee on Transportation...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Veteran Sen. Ted Stevens has hired lawyers and been instructed by the FBI to preserve records relevant to a burgeoning federal investigation into corruption in Alaska, The Washington Post reported Thursday. As part of a larger probe, federal agents are investigating the remodeling of Stevens' Alaska home in 2000. The investigation is linked to the VECO Corp. bribery case that last month produced guilty pleas from two of the oil-field service company's top executives, according to law enforcement officials. "They put me on notice to preserve some records," Stevens, 83, told the Post, declining to say what...

Two aging incumbents thought to be likely retirement candidates -- US Senators Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Pete Domenici (R-NM) -- announced Thursday they will both seek re-election in 2008. Stevens, a seven-term incumbent, will be 84 in 2008. Domenici, a six-term incumbent, will be 76 in 2008...

JUNEAU, Alaska -- The offices of at least six Alaska legislators, including Ben Stevens, the son of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, were raided by federal agents searching for possible ties between lawmakers and VECO Corp., an oil field services company. One search warrant links the probe to a new production-tax law signed by Gov. Frank Murkowski and a draft natural gas pipeline contract he and the three oil companies negotiated.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Stevens is enduring no end of ridicule in the blogosphere for his recent explanation, in a Commerce Committee debate, of how the Internet works. "The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes," he said during a June 28 committee session. "And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled. And if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of...

by Mark Finkelstein July 7, 2006 If you're a Republican senator who makes a remark with insensitive racial connotations, you're toast. Ask Trent Lott. But if you're a Democrat? Hey, no problem! Then again, woe betide the Republican senator who offers an awkward description of the workings of the internet. That's the world according to Time reporter Ana Marie Cox, who appeared on last evening's Scarborough Country. For those who might have missed the Biden flap, on a recent campaign swing to New Hampshire, Biden told an Indian political activist: “You cannot go into a Dunkin Donuts or a 7-Eleven...

Iowahawk Guest Commentaryby Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)Everybody on my Senate staff tells me that these new internets are important. But it is equally important that non-Senate Americans be alerted to the dangers of internets, before they fall prey to their wily furniture-moving trickery. I have been told there's one company now you can sign up and you can get a talkie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box, you thread it into your projector and synchronize the Victorola, and wing zang zowie, you're watching a...

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is filing a formal complaint with chamber officials regarding what he considers an “unethical” broadcast of an interview with him by a CNN reporter Tuesday. ROLL CALL reports: In an incident that could have repercussions for TV journalists’ access to the chamber, Stevens is furious with CNN correspondent Joe Johns for an interview conducted outside the weekly GOP policy luncheons, but far away from the usual bank of TV cameras set up for such interviews next to the storied Ohio Clock.

Hearts of darkness By: RICK REISS - For The Californian Avid readers of the classics know the works of Joseph Conrad. In 1898 Conrad penned the novella "Heart of Darkness" and coined the phrase "going native." This phrase has not lost any of its relevance in the 21st century. The disgraced and convicted former Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham now stands as a modern-day icon of the dark-hearted politician who betrays his people. As a former constituent of Cunningham's, I feel betrayed by a man who swore to represent me but chose instead to serve himself. As a Navy veteran I...

ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - Alaska's Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, vowed on Monday to remain in office until the chamber agrees to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling. Stevens, 82, last month threw the Senate into chaos when he threatened to keep lawmakers in session over the Christmas holiday unless members approved drilling in ANWR, a wilderness area about the size of South Carolina. He eventually conceded defeat after trying to attach the drilling language to a must-pass Pentagon funding bill. On Monday, he said he would not give up the fight. "I'm...

S14240 December 21, 2005 Did you see that? Did you see how it devastated the land, and all the plant life is now dying because it was inundated in saltwater? The earthquake in my State did that. I saw one town disappear. I saw a third of my city, Anchorage, disappear. You have to have had that experience to understand how I felt when I went to New Orleans. You people didn’t believe it. Many of you said I did this for political reasons, just a crass thing, pick up some money and give it away for votes. I never...