Cross//Post: NYT on the massive bogus AK cash in the Transportation Bill

[Nothing Without Hope]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2021361#2022507
Thread title: NYT op/ed on Republican PORK - PORK - PORK in Alaska - YOU'RE paying!

Please come and read the articles, join the discussion! We are currently trying to figure out what has been happening in recent Alaska elections - has Murkowski Inc. been helped by election fraud? Judging from the massive bogus cash inflow from the Transportation Bill, the Bushies REALLY want him and his doings there. Maybe related to the oil drilling? They do like oil profits.

Interestingly, the Wikipedia article on Murkowski indicates that he is one of the least popular politicians in the country - that's in the opening post too - yet there he is in the AK statehouse with his daughter appointed to the Senate for his unexpired term.

[wli]

1. I guess we have to wait for the indictments n/t

[Blue_In_AK]

2. They can't come soon enough...

Frank Murkowski is running roughshod over the Alaskan people, and even our Republican majority state legislature. He's really out of control.

[Heman]

3. How can Alaska help ?

Nobody, however, made out on the highway bill quite like the state of Alaska and its ravenous political class. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, bragged to his constituents that the transportation bill (which Young loves so much he named it after his wife) was "stuffed like a turkey" with handouts for his state, and he was not exaggerating. The $721 million in tundra spending includes: a $2 23 million "bridge to "nowhere," connecting the 8,900-person town of Ketchikan to an airport on Gravina Island, whose population is 50; a $200 million bridge connecting Anchorage to a rural port so insignificant even the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce tried to block the project; and $15 million in seed money for a 68-mile, $284 million access road to Juneau. (This last one is opposed by not only the Environmental Protection Agency but a majority of the area's residents.)

As more Americans notice the disparity in federal welfare, Alaskans have begun to get defensive, bellyaching that Louisiana has taken a lot of federal money too.

http://www.reason.com/links/links090205.shtml