Sarah Palin’s political action committee “brought in just over $460,000 during the first half of 2013, well short of its fundraising totals for the same period in previous years,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Palin’s SarahPAC ended June with about $1.1 million in cash available.

However, National Journal reports that of the $496,505.68 spent by SarahPAC in the first six months of the year, just $5,000 actually went to political candidates.

Mitt Romney is building a new home in Utah, the Deseret News reports.

“The two-time GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor plans to split his time ‘pretty evenly’ between Salt Lake City and his homes in San Diego and a resort community in New Hampshire. He will also spend time in his Boston apartment, located at his son Tagg’s home there.”

Politico: “Once as polarizing as a 1990s-era Hillary Clinton, she can still rouse the conservative base and create headline ripples, and has instincts for picking candidates in a primary battle that other Republicans follow. She is getting the most speaking time at CPAC when she takes the stage Saturday at the Gaylord National hotel in Maryland, and her speech is among the most anticipated.”

“But as a force within the party, Palin has gone from sixty to zero within the span of a single presidential cycle.”

“An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin planned to contribute to the Al Jazeera America news network.”

— Washington Post

Donald Trump sued comedian Bill Maher after saying he proved that he was not “the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan,” Entertainment Weekly reports.

“During a guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno last month, Maher quipped that Trump must be ‘the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan’ (Exhibit A: his orange hair). In a riff off of Trump’s own offer to give $5 million to the charity of Barack Obama’s choice if the President released his college paperwork, Maher said he would do the same for Trump if the real estate mogul supplied proof that he is not descended from an ape.”

The New York Post reports that a hedge fund manager “who began buying unclaimed storage lockers as a hobby has uncovered a treasure trove of artifacts from the estate of late Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione… The possessions, still being cataloged, even include a pic of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger engaged in what appears to be a sex act, as well as boxes of home movies.”

The Fix says that Sarah Palin “was that rare politician about whom there was no gray area in terms of how people regarded her. If you loved her, you LOVED her. And if you hated her, well, you HATED her. That division of opinion made Palin perhaps the single most compelling Republican politician over these past four years. No matter what you thought of her, you wanted to see what she would do next. In that way, Palin had as much in common with a celebrity as she did a politician.”

“Palin had as much natural ability as anyone this side of Barack Obama or John Edwards but was unable to translate that talent into results once the bright lights came on. That she never made good on her remarkable natural talents is a sign of how the political process can chew up and spit out those who aren’t ready for it.”

Marc Ambinder: “Sarah Palin won’t be able to make a political comeback until she decides to put in the work necessary to make Sarah Palin mean something other than it now does.”

Ann Romney rejected an invitation to appear on the “Dancing with the Stars” television show, TMZ reports.

“You may recall, Ann showed up at last season’s finale and gushed that she was a big, big fan.  Our sources say Ann and producers had several meetings to try to hash out the details, but Ann ultimately decided against it.”

Donald Trump tells Extra he will sue comedian Bill Maher if he doesn’t pay up on a bet.

Maher told Jay Leno earlier this week he would offer to donate $5 million to the charity of Trump’s choice if the New York businessman would release his own birth certificate to prove he was not the “spawn of his mother having sex with orangutan.”

Trump says his lawyer provided the proof and now wants the $5 million.

Actor Charlie Sheen called out Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa “claiming he was flat-out lying when he said he spent only 3 minutes with the actor in Cabo,” TMZ reports.

Instead, he says the Mayor “hung with him for hours, chatting it up and drinking with a bunch of hot chicks.”

Sarah Palin sends an email to People magazine:

“Our family is writing a book on fitness and self-discipline focusing on where we get our energy and balance as we still eat our beloved homemade comfort foods!”

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) writes in his new autobiography, Total Recall, that “he had decided against running to recall Gov. Gray Davis after his wife implored him not to for the sake of their family,” the AP reports.

But when Maria Shriver told her mother, Eunice Shriver, about her efforts to thwart Schwarzenegger’s political ambitions, Eunice told her daughter that women in their family “always support the men when they want to do something.”

Maria Shriver then “softened her stance, paving the way for Schwarzenegger to announce his candidacy.”

HBO’s Game Change nearly swept the miniseries categories during the Emmy awards, “and the presence of parodied Sarah Palin was felt in the speeches and the winners’ reactions backstage,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Said actress Julianne Moore: “I feel so validated since Sarah Palin gave me a big thumbs down.”

Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), who left office nearly two years ago, launches a think tank this week at the University of Southern California called the Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, the AP reports.

It marks “a sudden public re-emergence” for Schwarzenegger. His new book, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story, is out next month, he has “a couple of new movies in post-production and a forthcoming appearance scheduled for CBS’ 60 Minutes.”

Michael Moore: “The footage of Eastwood rambling and mumbling to his ‘Harvey’–President Obama–will be played to audiences a hundred years from now as the Most Bizarre Convention Moment Ever. The people of the future will know nothing about Dirty Harry or Josey Wales or Million Dollar Baby. They will know about the night a crazy old man hijacked a national party’s most important gathering so he could literally tell the president to go do something to himself (i.e. fuck himself). In those few moments (and these days, it only takes a few moments–see Anthony Weiner), he completely upended and redefined how he’ll be remembered by younger and future generations.”

The Atlantic: “Chris Christie is, even in moments of tranquility — of which, in his life, there seem to be none — a torqued-up, joyously belligerent, easily baited, and preternaturally exuberant son of New Jersey, so bringing him to a Bruce Springsteen concert is an exercise in volcano management. Christie, in the presence of Springsteen — whom he would marry if he were gay and if gay people were allowed to marry in the state he governs — loses himself. He is, as is well known, a very large man — twice the width of Mitt Romney — but he is a very large man who dances at Springsteen concerts in front of many thousands of people without giving a damn what they think.”

“This concert is the 129th the governor has attended… The depth of Christie’s love is noteworthy in part because most politicians — certainly most politicians of national stature — are either too dull or too monomaniacally careerist to maintain fervent emotional relationships with artists. And when they do, the objects of their affection resemble them ideologically or dispositionally — think of the loyalty that Pat Leahy, the liberal senator from Vermont, has for the Grateful Dead. Christie’s passionate attachment to Bruce Springsteen is something different, and much more complicated.”

Frank Rich: “There is no more naked celebrity in America than Donald Trump. He doesn’t do subtlety. He doesn’t do ‘thought.’ To say he has a political calculus is a wild overstatement. His strategy amounts to no more than junior high school algebra. The equation is: Trump + infantile public statement x infinite repetitions on TV and Twitter = maximum publicity for flailing Trump products and insatiable Trump ego.”

Levi Johnston, father to Sarah Palin’s grandson, “has been forced to move in with his mother after reportedly squandering his $1 million earnings,” the Daily Mail reports.

“The 22-year-old wasted the eye-watering sum on ‘guns, boats and four-wheelers’… The spending has left him penniless and he has now moved in with his mother, a convicted prescription drug dealer, at her home in Alaska.”