This morning I found a disturbing new ad from Defender’s of Wildlife Actionfund in my inbox describing Palin’s enthusiasm for the activity.

According to the accompanying press release, the ad will air in swing states to let voters know about her “extreme” side. The ad includes a mention of Palin’s bizarre bounty plan to award wolf hunters $150 for every severed left foreleg they bring in.

Presumably the bleeding paw wouldn’t be slapped on the governor’s desk, but judging by her office decor, who knows.

Here’s the ad:

Palin, however, tried to claim this is not a new stand for her. She insisted: “Show me where I have ever said that there’s absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change.”

The Associated Press is on it. Here we go:

She has told the Internet news site Newsmax, “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. … I’m not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made.”

And again, here:

In an interview with a Fairbanks newspaper within the last year, Palin said: “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.”

Clearly the GOP memo hadn’t made it all the way up to Alaska on this. Even President George W. Bush has given up questioning the science on this one. Though, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency is doing everything he can to drag his feet on the issue.

Alaska’s Board of Game is a seven-member body that meets throughout the year for purposes of “conservation and development of game resources.” Hunting is an important part of the local culture and attracts tourists. You’d think Palin would find the most qualified people to sit on that board.

In Palin’s judgment, one of the most qualified people she could find was her retired middle-school basketball coach, Lewis D. Bradley.

Palin — known these days by her high school basketball nickname, “Sarah Barracuda” — has frequently described her childhood sports career as a formative experience.

To be fair, on Bradley’s resume (here), he notes that hunting, fishing and carving antlers are special interests of his. He also points out that he is working on a sheep hunting guide book, though the writing progress has stalled since he started remodeling his house.

I checked out the payscale for Board of Game members. It looks like there is an hourly rate of $31, for a job that meets 20-25 times a year, according to the description. Travel expenses are also covered, including a per diem — not that it’s possible to abuse that.

Here’s the paragraph that started it in The Times:

[Wasilla is] a small, unkempt-looking place, defined by a series of out-of-town stores, a huge lumber yard, a ramshackle bar named the Mug-Shot Saloon with Harley Davidsons parked outside and a lake, by the side of which is Palin’s house….

The Frontiersman, which — good for them! — has some home-town pride, hits back:

It’s as inaccurate and unfair as it would be for anyone else to define England by a stereotypical lack of dental hygiene.

I think the problem here, as several locals have pointed out to me, is that Wasilla is not really about it’s main highway drag of fast-food chains and big-box stores that visiting national reporters have been covering.

Most residents live nestled among trees and nature and spend free time enjoying the many outdoor activities Alaska has to offer. One source cancelled on me yesterday morning because he heard the moose hunting was particularly good right now! So, I see the Frontiersman’s point that painting the place as a dump is unfair.

However, the press, national and international, isn’t here to write travel columns. We made the trek to take a look at the city that Palin ran as mayor. The McCain campaign has cited her time as mayor as one of her qualifications for the vice presidency.

The Times is “defining” Wasilla in terms of what Palin could control. Perhaps they should have mentioned the beautiful mountain views to the south of town. Still, it’s fair to evaluate the look and feel of a downtown that clearly didn’t have much planning or zoning restrictions put in place by its mayor.

It’s a harsh world.

As Mike noted, most of this stuff is mundane. We’re talking sewage-project proposals, road-paving measures and resolutions to recognize winners of local snow mobile races. Here and there, we’ve found some interesting tidbits. Here’s one more, caught by Aaron. Resolution No. 02-16, which, passed unanimously in July 2002, calls on the city council to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before council meetings – “especially the words ‘one nation, under God.’”

Consider that one month before the resolution passed the six-member, part-time city council, in June 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Michael Newdow — ruling that the pledge’s language violated the First Amendment, which says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Newdow had sued his daughter’s school district over reciting the “under God” phrase in classrooms, claiming it injured his daughter by listening to teachers assert there is a god.

Palin, a pro-life Christian who ran for mayor on her conservative values, wasn’t going to stand for that. An ardent supporter of the phrase, she defended it again four years later when running for governor.

The Huffington Post has found a story from 2006, where Palin told The Anchorage Daily News that if the pledge of allegiance was good enough for the founding fathers it was good enough for her. Of course, the pledge was first written in 1892. The “under God” language was added during the McCarthy era.

I didn’t check Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s claim in her acceptance speech for the GOP vice presidential nomination on Wednesday night that she had sold the governor’s “luxury” jet on eBay.

Luckily, The Los Angeles Times is on the case.

It turns out Palin did put the 23-year-old jet on eBay. But it didn’t sell.

A local entrepreneur ultimately bought it for $2.1 million — $300,000 below asking price.

What was this luxury 10-seater’s main use? To ferry convicts to a prison in Arizona. From The Times:

Because Alaska does not have adequate prison capacity, it contracts for space with a private facility near Phoenix. On Thursday, 24 percent of the 4,546 Alaskans in jail or prison were serving their time at Arizona’s Red Rock Correctional Center, said Richard Schmitz, spokesman for the Alaska Dept. of Corrections.

When the state began using the plane in November 2005, prisoner transport accounted for 58 percent of the jet’s use, and Murkowski’s office used it 23 percent of the time. Over time, Murkowski’s usage increased.

Today, without the jet, the U.S. Marshals Service transports 90 percent of Alaska prisoners to Arizona, with Alaska Airlines taking the rest on commercial flights.

Maybe someone should check just what happened to that private chef. Just kidding!

Mike Lillis and Matt DeLong are pitching in to help me comb through everything. One of the interesting documents we’ve come across so far is the memorandum from 2000 (available here) outlining why the town should hire a federal lobbyist. According to the document and accompanying contract, it looks like the lobbyist started about four and a half months sooner than previously disclosed. The city council approved a $15,000 initial budget for the plan without much fanfare. The item passed unanimously and without public discussion, along with a list of other more mundane city politics business, according to meeting minutes from Feb. 14, 2000.

The resolution explains that the firm, Robertson, Monagle & Eastbaugh, had been successful in getting money federal money for a neighboring city. As The Washington Post reported this week, the lobbyist from the firm eventually assigned to Wasilla, Steven Silver, had worked on Sen. Ted Stevens’ staff. I just spoke with the city’s current mayor, Dianne M. Keller, who confirmed that Silver is still the town’s federal lobbyist.

In 2000, the city wanted money for a variety of public works and safety projects, plus “weapons” for its small police force:

The city could use the assistance of a lobbyist to receive appropriations with a number of projects including: $6.6 million for Wasilla Water Utility Improvements, two 12-inch wells, well pump houses, 3-million-gallon reservoir and transmission mains; $3.2 million Urban Storm Retention and Lake Water Quality Improvements, three lift stations, oversizing for pipes (Parks Hwy), side road connections; and $90K for various Wasilla Police Department safety equipment, communication needs and weapons.

The hire was a smart move. Between 2000 and 2003, Wasilla received $11.9 million in federal money, plus another $15.9 million in money specifically for transportation improvements. During that time, Sen. John McCain, a strong opponent of the earmarking system, complained three times about specific earmark projects heading for Wasilla, The Los Angeles Times reports today.

Palin has positioned herself as a reformer, announcing how she killed the infamous “bridget nowhere earmark” — without mentioning her initial support for the project. She’s got some serious repositioning to do to pull off the fiscal-reformer image.

I photocopied one story, from December 1996, about Palin’s run-in with Wasilla’s director of libraries, Mary Ellen Emmons. The article is in line with what several commenters mentioned here a few days ago. Emmons says that in October and December, 1996, the year Palin took office, the new mayor asked her if she would tolerate censorship of library books.

According to the article, Palin’s response to the accusation was to say that the discussions were “in the context of a professional question being asked in regards to library policy.”

The next month Palin left a letter on Emmons desk asking her to resign. It said, ”I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment ….”

The Anchorage Daily News reported at the time, as did the Frontiersman, that the conflict was over whether to restructure the local library and museum operations. After some discussions, Palin seems to have decided Emmons was willing to toe the line. She kept her job as library director.

I’m reading an article from October 1996, in which a reporter named Laura Mitchell Harris asks Palin about her intentions for a shake up. How would she effectively run a city without experienced leaders? “”It’s not rocket science,” Palin said, “It’s $6 million and 53 employees.”

Note: A big thank you to the Frontiersman for opening their newsroom to me!

Update: Internet access is a bit tough to come by here, so I update frequently on twitter via phone.

No, that would be the pseudo-Democrat-Independent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who once served in that same role for Al Gore on the 2000 Democratic ticket. In a way, McCain being pulled back by his advisers and the more conservative base of the party is a shame. There’s something that happens to McCain when he’s around Lieberman. There’s a mutual admiration that beams through when McCain speaks with Lieberman at his side.

Perhaps it’s the shared experience of being shunned by the base of your party. Perhaps its just that they like each other. Whatever the reason, the result is always the same: the shedding of the meaner McCain, who many (including myself) have written about during this campaign; and the re-emergence of the friendlier, even boyish maverick, whom we got to know during his 2000 GOP primary bid.

McCain, of course, can put on his best face for Palin — whom he hardly knows, and whom the evangelical base simply loooooves. But one has to wonder about the residual effects this non-choice of Lieberman will have for McCain going forward. The two played off each other like brothers, bringing out the best in one another. Of course, Lieberman will continue to be a surrogate. But it seems unlikely that he will fight in the same way had McCain chosen to have him on his ticket. No. Now the old soldier must go forward alone.