Why the polar bears hate us
By I have an article on Palin’s environmental record at the MI.
There was a lot that I didn’t have time or space to explore with respect to Palin’s environmental record, but I did come across one interesting detail connected to the state’s recent polar bear lawsuit. Among the several pro-development/free market groups that have joined Palin’s efforts to block the polar bear listing, we find the Pacific Legal Foundation, a renowned right-wing legal firm founded in California during the early 1970s with money from the Scaife Foundation. Among its other accomplishments, the PLF rebooted its sagging fortunes in the early 1990s by accepting a massive wad of financial assistance from Phillip Morris, which paid the firm to help make the case that the EPA had been wrong to rule that tobacco smoke was a carcinogen. More recently, the PLF has been waging a non-stop campaign to dismantle affirmative action; among other things, they were heavily involved in the Seattle and Louisville integration cases.
In Alaska, the PLF led the campaign five years ago on behalf of Robert Hale — otherwise known as “Papa Pilgrim” — who wanted to plow a road into Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, where his family of 17 lived on old mining land. Hale lost every round, but the case wound its way to the Supreme Court, which ultimately refused to hear an appeal on Hale’s behalf. Meantime, Hale had been been sentenced to fourteen years in prison for incest and sexual assault; he croaked in prison earlier this year.