Ted Stevens Spends Your Tax Dollars

Ted Stevens secured $29 million in federal funding to the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board. $500,000 of that money went to airbrush an Alaska Airlines to look like a salmon.

The fishy paint job was done on a grand scale, company spokesmen said. A team of 30 painters and airbrush artists used more than 140 gallons of paint and took 24 days to render the lifelike chinook -- triple the time normally needed to coat an airliner.

"There's no question, at least in my mind, that this is the finest airline art ever conceived," said Bill MacKay, the company's Anchorage-based senior vice president. "People will just be amazed at the detail."

You may be wondering what exactly is the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board. The members of the board were Stevens and his son Ben. The earmarked money went to Ben's clients. Lindsay Beyerstein blogs about the corrupt the AFMB setup.

The AFMB also gave $300,000 to Arctic Paws, a dog treat company owned by Duane Gibson, a former Stevens aide who went on to work for Jack Abramoff.

My question is how did Stevens get away with this for long?