The center says the Thursday evening quake was felt through the central Aleutians and as far east as Dutch Harbor and Unalaska. There are no immediate reports of damage.

The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center posted a tsunami warning for certain coastal areas of Alaska, but canceled the warning about an hour after the quake. The warning covered an area from 80 miles northeast of Dutch Harbor to about 125 miles west of Adak.

In Dutch Harbor, longshoreman Jim Paulin said warning sirens caused hundreds of people to begin climbing up a nearby hill.

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The emails were first requested during the 2008 White House race by citizens and news organizations, including The Associated Press, as they vetted a vice presidential nominee whose political experience included less than one term as governor of Alaska and a term as mayor of the small town of Wasilla. The nearly three-year delay has been attributed largely to the sheer volume of the release and the flood of requests.

Alaska is releasing the thousands of emails in paper form only and asking news organizations to pick up several boxes worth of documents in Alaska’s capital city, accessible by only air or water. Reporters from several news organizations have already begun arriving in Juneau and are making various plans to disseminate the emails to the public.

Palin told Fox News Sunday that she was unfazed by the release of emails, saying there are no more rocks that could be turned over about her life or time as governor. But she also said “a lot of those emails obviously weren’t meant for public consumption” and that she expected people might seek to take some of the messages “out of context.”

There may not be any surprises to Palin in the emails, however. Once the state reviewed the records, it gave Palin’s attorneys an opportunity to see if they had any privacy concerns with what was being released. No emails were withheld or redacted as a result of that, said Linda Perez, the administrative director for Gov. Sean Parnell who has been coordinating the release.

The voluminous nature of the release, the isolation of Juneau and the limited bandwidth in the city of 30,000 people has forced media outlets to come up with creative ways to transmit the information. The Washington Post is looking for “100 organized and diligent readers” to work with reporters to “analyze, contextualize, and research the e-mails.” The New York Times is employing a similar system.

Mother Jones, ProPublica and msnbc.com are working with Crivella West Inc., to create a searchable database of the emails. The Associated Press also plans to scan the paper copies to make searchable files available to its members and clients. The state said it was not practical to provide electronic versions of the emails.

It’s not clear yet whether the 24,199 pages being released will contain any major revelations. They will cover the period from the time she took office in December 2006 to her ascension to vice presidential nominee in September 2008. Requests have been made for emails from her final 10 months in office. The state hasn’t begun the process of reviewing those yet. Palin resigned partway through her term, in July 2009.

Prior records requests have shed light on the Palin administration’s efforts to advance a natural gas pipeline project and the role played by Palin’s husband in state business.

The email release adds another dimension to the vetting of Palin that began in 2008 and comes as she has become a prominent national political figure, attracting large crowds during a recent bus tour across the Northeast. Palin’s attorney referred questions about the emails to the treasurer of her political action committee, who did not immediately respond Thursday.

The emails were sent and received by Palin’s personal and state email accounts, and the ones being released were deemed to be related to state business.

She and top aides were known to communicate using private email accounts. Perez said Palin gave the state a CD with emails from her Yahoo account, and other employees were asked to review their private accounts for emails related to state business and to send those to their state accounts.

Another 2,275 pages are being withheld for reasons including attorney-client, work product or executive privilege; an additional 140 pages were deemed to be “non-records,” or unrelated to state business.

Some emails may have been previously reviewed in other, earlier public records requests, such as in the Troopergate investigation, in which Palin was accused of putting pressure on public safety officials to fire her brother-in-law, an Alaska State Trooper who was going through a bitter divorce from Palin’s sister.

Clive Thomas, a long-time Palin observer who’s writing a book on Alaska politics, said he’s not sure what the emails will contain – or whether their contents will affect people’s perceptions of Palin.

“I guess most people, I think, who don’t like Sarah Palin are hoping there’s something in there that will deliver the final sort of blow to her (politically),” he said. As for Palin’s supporters, he said he doesn’t think their opinion of her will be changed regardless of what comes out.

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Palin’s politics of grievance and group identity, according to these critics, is a betrayal of conservative principles. For decades, it was a standard line of the right that liberals cynically promoted victimhood to achieve their goals and that they practiced the politics of identity — race, sex and class—over ideas

Matt Labash, a longtime writer for the Weekly Standard, said that because of Palin’s frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance, “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.”

Read The Whole Story

When asked about the article, Sharpton told NY Mag that the GOP has lost control of Sarah Palin.

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Gawker reports:

In this one, Paoletti—who, as an Alaskan of Italian heritage, is stupendously white—recontextualizes the painful history of racial terror in this country by bravely appropriating the oppressor’s language and calling his bros “nigga.”

And here is family-friendly Paoletti in a delightfully witty back-and-forth with a compatriot about whether or not his pal Joby Higgins would have sex with with a hypothetical “future gf” who is “250 and has down sindrome” (we assume that’s 250 pounds, because fat chicks are funny!). Paoletti judged the prospect to be likely: “hahahaha joby would slayyyy that.” Yes! Joby would totally have sex with a 250-pound mentally and physically challenged lady! Hilarious.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A producer of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” reality series is listed in an application seeking film production tax credits from the state.

The heavily redacted 2010 document names Maria Baltazzi as executive producer of the unidentified production.

The Alaska Film Office does not disclose specifics about productions seeking tax credits until final approval. The Palin show, which debuted in November, is not among those listed as approved by the office.

If the Palin series tapped into the tax credit program, it would mean the show would retroactively be subsidized by the state.

Baltazzi is credited in filmographies as a producer of three episodes in the eight-part TLC show featuring Palin, a former Alaska governor and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee. The series was produced by Mark Burnett of “Survivor” reality TV show fame. The series concluded in January, and a representative for the cable channel has said it was always intended to air for a single season only.

Baltazzi told The Associated Press on Thursday that she worked on the series, and said it was the first time in years she’s worked in Alaska. But she referred all other questions to Burnett’s office, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The series attracted an average of more than 3 million viewers per episode and debuted with an audience of nearly 5 million people – a record premiere for TLC. The show concluded in early January.

The series showed Palin and her family having various adventures in their home state.

It also generated some controversy.

In one episode, Palin shot a caribou, prompting screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to call her a “witless bully.” In another episode, Palin and her family commented about author Joe McGinniss, a temporary next-door neighbor who the Palins said intruded on their privacy to work on a book.

Palin also was criticized for allowing her family to fish close to bears and for presenting the 49th state in a way only the wealthy could experience.

Alaska’s fairly new film office offers incentives including a 30 percent tax credit to qualifying productions filming in the state. Added incentives for Alaska hires, as well as offseason and rural shoots, boost credits to a maximum of 44 percent. The program is open to any production that spends at least $100,000 in Alaska.

The History Channel’s “Ice Road Truckers,” for example, spent nearly $3.9 million in the state for two seasons, earning almost $1.3 million in incentives, according to film office figures.

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Tye Nero’s career plan was simple: become a professional basketball player.

“I was just interested in playing ball. I didn’t care about grades,” said Nero (pictured above, far left), a 12-year-old 7th grader at Tanana Middle School in Fairbanks, Alaska.

But then he heard about the Black Role Model Initiative. The program consisted of black men coming to his school twice a month to mentor African-American boys.

Text continues after gallery …

Nero said the program piqued his interest, because he was interested in learning more about African-American history.

He got that and a lot more.

At one of the meetings, Nero was introduced to former NBA players and coaches. He learned how important an education was regardless of your career plans, and he learned that he had more options for earning money than playing in the NBA.

“I realized basketball is not the only thing I can do. I can make good grades. I realized you need good grades to play basketball,” Nero told Aol Black Voices. “My grades are better now. The mentors are really cool. They didn’t say don’t try to do sports. They said go for your dream but make sure you keep your options open.”

That’s the response that Bernard Gatewood, a Fairbanks council member and superintendent of the Fairbanks Youth Facility, and Bob Sawyer, a retired Army sergeant major, were hoping for when they spearheaded the launch of the group in 2007. Both were speakers on a panel at an annual leadership summit, when the topic of the achievement gap among black males came up.

Click here to read more.

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From HuffingtonPost.com:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin faces major electoral limitations if she chooses to mount a 2012 bid, despite a slight increase in the country’s opinion of her, according to a new public opinion survey.

Public Policy Polling released a study on Thursday revealing that, one year after bursting onto the national scene, Palin still has not made inroads among a variety of key demographic groups. Most significantly, among women the Alaska Republican has only a 37 percent favorable rating compared to a 51 percent unfavorable.

“She has had a reverse gender gap in her numbers since about two weeks since John McCain picked her as her running mate,” explained PPP pollster Tom Jensen. “I think that women voters pretty much decided quickly since she went on the national spotlight that they didn’t like her much and that hasn’t really changed.”

It isn’t just a gender gap that hampers Palin. Only five percent of African-American voters said they had a favorable rating of the former Alaska Governor. Meanwhile, only 37 percent of Hispanics offered a favorable view — which would seem small if not for the fact that only 31 percent of Hispanics voted for McCain in 2008.

Click here to read more.

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Even for a nonconformist, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has defied political logic with her sudden, stunning announcement to leave office more than a year early.

Supporters and critics alike say the former GOP vice presidential candidate’s resignation, announced Friday afternoon and effective July 26, is an inexplicable move for a high profile Republican widely seen as a contender for a White House run in 2012. A half-term governor campaigning for president?

“If she is thinking that leaving her term 16 months early is going to help her prepare to maybe go on to bigger and better things on the political stage, I think she’s sadly mistaken. You just can’t quit,” said Andrew Halcro, a Palin critic who lost the 2006 gubernatorial race to her.

Palin’s abrupt announcement Friday rattled the Republican Party but left open the possibility of a presidential run. She and her staff are keeping mum on her future plans.

Palin’s spokesman, David Murrow, said the governor didn’t say anything to him about this being her “political finale.”

“She’s looking forward to serving the public outside the governor’s chair,” he said.

And Pam Pryor, a spokeswoman for Palin’s political action committee, said the group continues to accept donations on its Web site, which saw an uptick in contributions Friday afternoon.

The announcement caught even current and former Palin advisers by surprise. Former members of Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign team, now dispersed across the country, traded perplexed e-mails and phone calls about the vice presidential nominee’s decision to step down.

In a hastily arranged news conference at her home in Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage, Palin said she had decided against running for re-election as Alaska’s governor, and believed it was best to leave office even though she had 1.5 years left to her term. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will take her place.

“Many just accept that lame duck status, and they hit that road,” Palin said. “They draw a paycheck. They kind of milk it. And I’m not going to put Alaskans through that.”

Palin has proven formidable among the party’s base. But the last week brought a highly critical piece in Vanity Fair magazine, with unnamed campaign aides questioning if Palin was really prepared for the presidency.

The backbiting continued with follow-up articles elsewhere recounting the nasty infighting that plagued her failed bid. Her advisers sniped with other Republicans, underscoring the deeply divided GOP looking for its next standard bearer.

Meghan Stapleton, Palin’s personal spokeswoman, shot down speculation that ranged wildly from Palin dropping out of politics altogether to eyeing runs against fellow Alaska Republicans Rep. Don Young and Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Palin’s comment about serving outside government refers to the present, she said.

Stapleton, however, said it’s too early to say whether Palin would seek the presidency. In the meantime, the governor will continue to work to bring “positive change as a citizen without a title right now,” she said.

“Her vision is what’s best for Alaska, which translates into what’s best for America,” Stapleton said.

Murkowski, whose father was the governor when he lost to Palin in the 2006 Republican primary, was dismissive of the announcement.

“I am deeply disappointed that the governor has decided to abandon the state and her constituents before her term has concluded,” she said in a one-sentence statement.

At the news conference, Palin alluded to how she could help change the country and help military members — an indication that she didn’t think her time on the national stage was over.

On her Twitter page Friday evening, Palin wrote that she was remembering America’s service members on the eve of Fourth of July.

“Thinking of our vets who kept us free & our troops keeping us free today: THANK YOU!” she wrote on the social-networking Web site.

Palin’s decision not to seek re-election is a familiar one for those considering a presidential campaign. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney chose not to seek another term as he geared up for an unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty has announced he won’t seek another term, giving him plenty of free time ahead of a potential 2012 bid. But Romney completed his term and Pawlenty plans to finish his.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said the announcement left many confused. “I think it eliminates her from serious consideration for the presidency in 2012,” he said.

Palin, 45, also has the potential to make far more money in the private sector than the $125,000 or so she has been making as governor. She already had a deal with publisher HarperCollins to produce her memoirs, with publication planned for next spring. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Six-figure book deals are common for high-profile political figures.

Palin emerged from relative obscurity nearly a year ago when she was tapped as then Republican presidential candidate McCain’s running mate.

She was a controversial figure from the start and soon became the butt of talk-show jokes. Comedian Tina Fey famously imitated her elaborate updo and folksy “You betcha!” on “Saturday Night Live.”

In Alaska, she saw her popularity wane this year after returning from the presidential campaign. She’s become a polarizing figure, and multiple ethics complaints have been filed against her with the state personnel board.

All but two of the 15 complaints have been dismissed with no findings of wrongdoing, although one complaint led to Palin’s agreement to reimburse the state about $8,100 for costs associated with trips taken with her children. The state says it has spent nearly $300,000 to investigate the complaints, and Palin says she has racked up more than $500,000 in legal fees fighting them.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used her first out-of-state trip on a partisan agenda since the presidential campaign ended to challenge the idea that unplanned pregnancies are a nuisance that can be solved by abortion.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, spoke to an overflow crowd that organizers said numbered 3,000 at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet Thursday night in Evansville.

Some in the crowd wore white “Palin 2012″ T-shirts. Earlier, GOP National Chairman Michael Steele had described her as one of the party’s current standard bearers, though he said it was too early to judge what her standing would be in three years.

Palin said the challenges she went through during her pregnancy with her son Trig, who was born with Down syndrome, gave her an opportunity to live out her anti-abortion beliefs.

She said she prayed often during her pregnancy, especially after tests revealed that her son, whose first birthday will be on Saturday, would be born with abnormalities.

“The moment he was born, I knew that moment my prayers had been answered,” she said. “Trig is a miracle. He is the best thing that ever happened to me, and I want other women to have that opportunity.”

She challenged the notion that children must be born perfect and that unplanned pregnancies are inconvenient and can be ended by abortion. “I know for sure my son is perfect just as he is, made in the image of God,” she said.

She asked the crowd to keep working for the “culture of life” in America.

“Life is ordained, life is precious,” she said.

She also said that like Steele’s adopted mother, women who can’t give birth to their own children should have the opportunity to adopt children who might otherwise have been aborted.

She mentioned that her daughter, Bristol, became pregnant as an unmarried teen and has since given birth to a son.

Palin also took President Barack Obama to task for his support of abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.

She said deciding when babies get human rights isn’t above her pay grade, a reference to Obama’s response to a question from the Rev. Rick Warren last year. Obama said such questions were above his pay grade.

She received at least two standing ovations. After the speech, she addressed an overflow crowd in another room and thanked them for their support.

During a news conference earlier, Steele said Palin is among a crowd of current GOP standard bearers that also includes fellow governors Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

“I don’t know about 2012. I think she is a standard bearer right now. She and Mitt Romney and Governor Pawlenty, Governor Sanford, Rudy Giuliani, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence. We have a significant number of men and women in our party who are in a very good position right now to carry forward the standard of the GOP,” Steele said.

Pence of Indiana and Cantor of Virginia are congressmen. Many in the party also look to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal as a presidential favorite in 2012.

Palin hasn’t ruled out a presidential run in 2012.

Palin was cheered wildly by supporters as she entered the banquet hall with her husband, Todd. She stopped to sign autographs before taking her seat at a table.

Palin and her husband also were expected to attend a breakfast this morning with S.M.I.L.E., a nonprofit support organization for people with family members who have Down syndrome.

From Marcus Baram at The Huffington Post:

Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin whose pregnancy during the presidential campaign made headlines, taped an interview for Greta Van Susteren’s “On The Record” on Monday night.

Both Bristol, appearing with her 2-month old baby Tripp for the first time, and her mother expressed skepticism about abstinence-only programs which her mother backed when running for governor in 2006.

Click here to read more. VIDEO OF INTERVIEW!

From The Anchorage Daily News:

A 42-year-old Wasilla woman was arrested Thursday at her home by Alaska State Troopers with a search warrant in an undercover drug investigation.

Sherry L. Johnston was charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor’s father, Chuck Heath.

Click here for full story.

In a series of interviews in the wake of last Tuesday’s elections, Palin said she had no problem with Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but that she resents rumors she said were spread about her and her family by the Arizona Republican’s aides. She emphatically denied that she was a drag on the GOP ticket.

“I think the economic collapse had a heckuva lot more to do with the campaign’s collapse than me personally,” the governor said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show.

Palin also said “There were a lot of times I wanted to shout out, ‘Hey, wait a minute, it’s not true.’ It’s pretty brutal.”

Nevertheless, the relatively obscure governor of Alaska, whose selection for the ticket by McCain last August brought excitement — and controversy — to the 2008 campaign, said she would be eager to do it all again under the right circumstances.

“I’m like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door,” Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. “And if there is an open door in ’12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plow through that door.”

In the wide-ranging interview, Palin said she neither wanted nor asked for the $150,000-plus wardrobe the Republican Party bankrolled, and thought the issue was an odd one at the end of the campaign, considering “what is going on in the world today.”

“I did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes,” Palin said. “I would have been happy to have worn my own clothes from Day One. But that is kind of an odd issue, an odd campaign issue as things were wrapping up there as to who ordered what and who demanded what.”

“It’s amazing that we did as well as we did,” the governor said of the election in a separate interview with the Anchorage Daily News.

“I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we’re talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing,” Palin said in a story published Sunday.

Palin has scheduled a series of national interviews this week with Fox, NBC’s “Today” show and CNN. She also plans to attend the Republican Governors Association conference in Florida this week.

Palin has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2012. She also could seek re-election in 2010 or challenge Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Still uncertain is the fate of Sen. Ted Stevens, who is leading in his bid for another term but could be ousted by the Senate for his conviction on seven felony counts of failing to report more than $250,000 in gifts, mostly renovations on his home. If Stevens loses his seat, Palin could run for it in a special election.

Palin and McCain’s campaign faced a storm of criticism over the tens of thousands of dollars spent at such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to dress the nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest.

Everything has changed: Palin’s personal horizon, her relations with the state’s other elected officials, the public’s sense of who she is.

Palin returned to her office Friday amid a brutal crossfire between detractors and defenders in the McCain camp. At the same time, however, a new national poll said 64 percent of Republicans consider her their top choice to run for president in 2012.

Does Palin really want to run for president in four years? And if she does, would it be best to find a way to the U.S. Senate, where she could acquire some of the big-time political and foreign-policy luster lacking in her first national campaign?

Or should she run again for governor in 2010, maintaining her “Washington-outsider” status by taking what one Republican strategist calls “the Hillary Clinton model,” rolling up her sleeves and re-establishing herself as a local hero?

So many questions, so many strategic choices, so many complications that didn’t exist a few short months ago.

What will all this mean to Alaska?

Time to take a deep breath and consider some of the key challenges that lie ahead for Sarah Palin.

1 Federal relations

Gov. Palin spent the last two months questioning the patriotism of the new president. She accused him of hanging out with terrorists. Palin now says it was just the rough-and-tumble of party politics. But how is that going to play when she goes to Washington looking for help with gas line construction or military base protection or exemption from environmental rules?

Is it going to be any better when she goes to Congress? Democrats may not want to polish the star of a future Republican rival. And Alaska’s veteran Republicans, assuming they make it back, are weakened by scandal and not on the best terms with Palin. The governor surprised Young when she endorsed his primary rival this year, and she called for Stevens to resign. Awkward.

Beyond that, Palin campaigned with Sen. John McCain as the scourge of earmarks, and Young and Stevens are the earmarking champs. Everybody has heard by now of our Permanent Fund and those $1,200 checks. Remember when Palin said if Alaskans want to build those bridges, we’d pay for them ourselves?

2 Eternal suspicion

For the rest of her career in Alaska, every move Palin makes will be second-guessed for ulterior motives. Is she taking on this or that priority because it’s good for the state or because it looks good on her resume?

If she travels to New Hampshire to meet with Republicans, is the state paying for her long-distance calls home? Who decided to put the governor’s photo on that tourism brochure? Imagine the snarkiness that will erupt if she flies off to meet industrialists in China or oil ministers in Geneva (never mind that Frank Murkowski spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel his last two years as governor and was gone 112 days over that time).

Alaskans might choose to shrug off some of Palin’s future efforts as legitimate state business. But the national press and bloggers, keeping Alaska under close surveillance, will be jostling one another for fresh angles.

Click here for the full post.

A separate legislative investigation recently concluded that Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, abused her office by allowing her husband and staffers to pressure the public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who went through a nasty divorce from Palin’s sister.

Palin fired Walter Monegan, but denies his dismissal was related to the trooper.

Alaska Personnel Board investigations are normally secret, but the three-member board decided to release this report, citing public interest in the matter given Palin’s status as a candidate for national office. Election Day is Tuesday.

Palin had earlier waived her privacy rights, but others in her administration did not and Petumenos sought to keep the matter from playing out in the media.

Petumenos said documents to be released Monday would not include transcripts of separate depositions given by Palin and her husband, Todd.

That deposition was the only one given by Sarah Palin. She was not subpoenaed to answer questions in the Legislature’s investigation, though her husband, Todd, gave an affidavit in that probe.

Palin initially said she would cooperate with the Legislature’s probe. But after she became John McCain’s running mate, she said the investigation had become too partisan and filed an ethics grievance against herself with the personnel board.

Telephone messages left with state Sens. Hollis French, who led the legislative investigation, and Sen. Kim Elton, chairman of the Legislative Council, were not immediately returned.

Black folks in Alaska? How did they get there? Who would they be voting for? See the cold truth as Smokey flies to America’s Icebox to find them.

Now, the premiere episode of the BlackPlanet Universe Video Exclusive, “On The Road with Smokey Fontaine.”

Click here to see Smokey’s PHOTO GALLERY of pictures from his quest to find the 32 Black people in Wasilla, Alaska!

But Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is not like most politicians. After his conviction Monday on charges that he lied about free home renovations and other gifts from a wealthy oil contractor, the 84-year-old Stevens refused to drop out of his re-election race against Democrat Mark Begich.

And while he faces long odds in a contest where polls showed a close race even before the verdict, few in Alaska were willing to count Stevens out. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority in the Senate.

“It’s very possible that (Stevens) is going to win the election,” said Carl Shepro, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska in Anchorage.

While Begich has run a strong campaign, “Stevens has been blanketing the airwaves too,” Shepro said. “Even though he’s not here, he’s had a lot of air time.”

Many Alaskans believe that Stevens — a 40-year senator and a legend in Alaska politics — is being unjustly attacked and that the charges against him don’t amount to real corruption, Shepro said.

“A lot of people feel the senator is completely innocent and that there are people who have been doing favors for him without him being aware of it,” Shepro said. “The senator is very popular in Alaska.”

But Anchorage-based pollster Ivan Moore said Stevens is almost certain to lose.

“I think it’s pretty much inconceivable that Ted will be able to pull it out from this point,” said Moore, who has been polling on the Alaska Senate race for more than a year. Moore’s latest poll, completed last week as trial testimony was wrapping up, showed the Senate race essentially tied.

Many voters said they were waiting for a verdict to make up their minds, and most of them are likely to be convinced that as a convicted felon Stevens must be ousted from the Senate, Moore said. A Washington jury found Stevens guilty of seven felony corruption charges of accepting home renovations and other gifts from an oil executive and then lying about it.

The verdict “is going to hurt him to the point where he can’t win,” Moore said of Stevens.

Moore predicted a relatively close race, even with the conviction.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, virtually conceded the race in the wake of the guilty verdict.

“Ted Stevens served his constituents for over 40 years, and I am disappointed to see his career end in disgrace,” Ensign said. “Sen. Stevens had his day in court, and the jury found he violated the public’s trust — as a result he is properly being held accountable. This is a reminder that no one is above the law.”

The veteran senator was in no mood for accommodation Monday night.

In a statement issued by his Senate office, Stevens said he was disappointed but not surprised at the verdict, “given the repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct in this case.”

Stevens proclaimed his innocence and said, “I will fight this unjust verdict with every ounce of energy I have.”

He asked Alaskans and his Senate colleagues to stand with him as he pursues his legal rights and his re-election campaign.

One of the most prominent of those colleagues, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, called Tuesday for Stevens to step down because he “has broken his trust with the people.” The verdict, McCain said in a statement issued by his campaign, was “a sign of the corruption and insider-dealing that has become so pervasive in our nation’s capital.”

Begich, the mayor of Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, did not address the verdict directly.

“This has been a very difficult year for Alaskans, and a long year,” Begich said in a statement. “I believe Alaskans will move forward because we have many critical issues and challenges ahead of us to deal with.”

Patti Higgins, chairwoman of the Alaska Democratic Party, said Stevens should resign from the Senate. “Alaskans deserve better from their public officials. It’s time for us to elect an ethical and honest senator who will move this state forward,” she said.

McHugh Pierre, a spokesman for the Alaska Republican Party, said the party continued to support Stevens, calling him a conservative who best represents the interests and beliefs of Alaskans.

Rep. Don Young, a veteran Alaska Republican who faces a tough re-election fight amid questions about his own ethics, said he still thinks Stevens can win.

“He’s the best thing for the Senate. Alaskans know this: This is a trumped-up charge,” Young said.

In a note to the judge, jurors asked that one of their panel be sent home. The note described the female juror as rude, disrespectful and unreasonable.

“She has had violent outbursts with other jurors, and that’s not helping anyone,” the note read, according to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan.

Sullivan refused to excuse the juror, fearing it would interfere with the deliberations.

The note arrived on the second day of deliberations in the senator’s trial. Hours after receiving the case Wednesday, jurors told the judge that things had become stressful and asked to go home. The latest note said “jurors are getting off course.”

Stevens, the longest-serving Senate Republican, is charged with lying for years on Senate financial disclosure documents to conceal $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from his friend, millionaire oil contractor Bill Allen.

Tension in the jury room is normally viewed as good for a defendant. It increases the likelihood that jurors won’t reach the unanimous decision needed for a verdict. Without a unanimous vote, a trial ends in a mistrial and prosecutors must decide whether to start over.

Sullivan said he was concerned by the claims of violence and he considered questioning the jury foreman about what was going on. But judges are loath to do anything that might steer jurors to one outcome.

Stevens’ attorneys urged caution.

“It cannot be the law that 11 people on a jury can ask that one person be removed,” attorney Robert Cary said.

“If they’re being violent they can,” Sullivan responded.

The middle-aged juror said during jury selection that she worked in the National Guard’s property office and had a background in accounting.

Worried about disrupting the process, Sullivan opted not to remove the woman. He spoke with jurors, told them how important their job was, urged them to be civil and sent them back to continue deliberating.

“No one appeared to be agitated at all,” to be sent back to the jury room, Sullivan said.

Stevens has maintained his innocence amid a tight re-election campaign. Democrats have spent heavily in an effort to seize control of a seat Stevens has held for 40 years.

Russia!  I found it already!!

That, and the big stuffed polar bear staring at me from behind a glass case, and I definitely feel a long long way from home…

sdf

My flight takes me to Phoenix first (92 degrees) then goes to Anchorage (34 degrees). I have a thick Carhatt sweatshirt and black parka for protection.

I wonder if I should have rocked my North Face like I do when in Harlem in the snow?

11 people of color on this flight including the male steward with dreadlocks. Let me see how long I can keep the numbers of folks above 10.

I know my old friend DMX is in AZ so we’ll see…

sdf

According to The Enquirer, one of the charges that has emerged from the Palin family drama is that Palin, a mother of five, had an affair with a former business associate of her fisherman husband, Todd.

‘Todd discovered the affair and quickly dissolved his friendship and his business associations with the guy. Many people in Alaska are talking about the rumor and say Todd swept it under the rug.’

Although the McCain camp has sent lawyers to the magazine, they are sticking to their guns.

‘Following our John Edwards exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign’s vetting process.’

Despite the McCain camp’s attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, the Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum.

The National Enquirer also reported that Palin had planned to have a shotgun wedding after the RNC, after which she would announce the pregnancy. The Enquirer says that Palin was working frantically to get Bristol and Levi married before the pregnancy was revealed. She even went as far as to make arrangements for a small wedding ceremony but Bristol refused. This resulted in a nasty fight between Bristol and Sarah Palin.

The Enquirer reported that a family source said that Sarah Palin has had a stormy relationship with her daughter. The source said ‘Sarah has a hard time controlling her…she is so busy with her political career that it seems she doesn’t have time for Bristol.’

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