So Long Ted Stevens, It’s Been Good to Know You: The Pork King’s finest moments

By Ken Silverstein

From Taxpayers for Common Sense:

Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) earned his status as longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate by keeping not only his home renovator well-fed from the pork barrel, but his constituents as well. As former head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he perfected his legendary ability to bring home federal dollars. Among the several senior committee positions Stevens relinquished yesterday after being indicted by a federal grand jury on corruption charges was ranking membership of the defense appropriations subcommittee, where he helped mark up the mammoth defense appropriations bill…

Taxpayers reports that Stevens “sponsored 159 defense earmarks worth $1.3 billion in the last four years.” Among the highlights:

• Four earmarks for the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), “originally designed to capture energy from the aurora borealis.”

• Three earmarks for Hibernation Genomics, a “program that aims to ‘hibernate’ people by slowing down their metabolisms while keeping them alive long enough to treat illnesses.”

• Multiple earmarks for the Alaska Land Mobile Radio, which an Alaskan state audit criticized for “cost overruns, shoddy accounting and budget planning.”