Ray Metcalfe writes at the Alaska Report that the state is the victim of "institutionalized corruption" on the part of its legislators that has put money in the pockets of a few, at the expense of honest public servants. The Goodfellas poster mock-up is pretty funny.

More bad news for Senator Ted Stevens. The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that he set up an earmark to finance a real estate bailout for a longtime aid. The $1.6 million earmark to the SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska was used to buy half a million in property from a former aide, Trevor McCabe.

You think you have trouble getting Congress to pay attention to your problems? Try being a polar bear. Yeah, polar bears are cute and if a bear has the good fortune to be born in a Berlin zoo lots of teenage girls will line up to take his picture and purchase t-shirts bearing his likeness but for the average bear hunting seals in Alaska, the outlook is grim. And his congressional representation isn’t helping.

With rumors circulating suggesting he may have traded legislative influence for personal favors and campaign contributions, Alaska's long-serving Senator Ted Stevens (R) will no doubt face a tougher-than-usual fight for re-election.  Certainly he's drawn an interesting opponent in Ray Metcalfe, a former state legislator who's declared his candidacy in the Democratic primary. Metcalfe made his name as a source for the FBI on the investigation into the VECO bribery scandal.

Taxpayers for Common Sense just came out with tallies for the members of Congress who've collected the most earmarks and right near the top of the list are both Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), both of whom are in the middle of corruption investigations.

I am shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that concerns have been raised that an obscure earmark Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) inserted into a fishery regulation bill was designed to benefit three of his campaign contributors. Three fishing companies, Yardarm Knot, Blue Dutch, and Trident Seafoods may turn a handy profit off the earmark that gives them new crabbing rights in the Bering Sea.