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FBI, IRS Raid Home of Sen. Ted Stevens

Posted by kdawson on Mon Jul 30, 2007 08:07 PM
from the longest-serving-republican dept.
Slashback Government Republicans Politics
A while back we discussed the corruption investigation aimed at Alaska Sen. Ted "series of tubes" Stevens. A number of readers sent us word that the home of Sen. Stevens was raided earlier today by agents of the FBI and the IRS. The focus of the raid was a remodeling project at Stevens's home and the involvement of VECO, an oil company.
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[+] Politics: "Tubes" Senator Being Investigated For Corruption 613 comments
DragonTHC writes "Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, is being investigated in a federal corruption probe that has implicated his son Ben. Part of the case involves a fishing co-op whose members allegedly paid Ben Stevens $500,000 to get a federal bailout from his father." The other Alaskan senator, also a Republican, is under a cloud as well.
[+] Politics: Sen. Ted "Tubes" Stevens Is Indicted 553 comments
Many readers are letting us know about the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens on seven counts of making false statements on his financial disclosure forms. We discussed the raid on the senator's house a while back. Everyone's favorite technologically challenged senator is the longest-serving Republican in the history of the upper house. An Alaskan paper gives deep background on the probe that has ensnared Stevens and a number of other Alaska political figures.
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  • The same man... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Bananatree3 (872975) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:09PM (#20051137)
    who had the bridge to nowheres built. But since this article doesn't pertain to that, I won't go there...

        • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Nephilium (684559) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:34PM (#20052037) Homepage

          Then why not build it with your own/your wife's family/the city's money instead of mine?

          Nephilium

          • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2007, @10:05PM (#20052391)
            And by the way, do you know why it is going to cost $315 million for a bridge going across a 2000 ft waterway? Because the people didn't want it to affect cruise ships using the waterway (even though it would only cause them to go about 30 miles to circumnavigate the island) and because the planners refuse to use the shortest path to the airport. In any reasonable place they wouldn't decide to build a suspension bridge. They would use a truss bridge or a cantilever bridge with narrow spans for $5-$10 million and tell the damn cruise ships to go around. That is, unless the federal government was paying for it.

            • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by phossie (118421) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @07:15AM (#20055659)

              On one hand, you're right. On the other, you clearly don't know much about the realities of economic development in Alaska. Most of Alaska is wilderness. To develop modern local economies, modern "conveniences" like roads and docks and harbors are required. And in a wilderness those projects are incredibly expensive. Count the number of towns in Alaska. Then count the number of towns with roads connecting them.

              Yes, Alaska receives many barrels filled with pig meat. Yes, that kind of investment is the deciding factor in the future sustainability of the state (and all the people in it). Everyone knows the oil and gas won't last forever. By the time that money is gone, Alaska either needs to have a sustainable economy or a population that still knows all the old subsistence ways. Halfway between the two will be a disaster.

              Cruise ships make or break communities. If the ships come, you win. If the ships don't come, you lose. The cruise companies wield that power in ways that would make you cringe even if your business didn't rely on them. In this and other ways, Alaska *isn't* a reasonable place - it's a strange sort of modern frontier. That's not just marketing jargon. Go visit the Bush.

              I went to a tiny bush village in Alaska with a big chip on my shoulder against Ted Stevens. I lived there for three years. I saw why people keep voting for him. It's not usually greed. Sometimes it's self-preservation.
      • Hey! Confusion is a quite relevant state.

      • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dircha (893383) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:45PM (#20052169)
        "...the other would have connected a city of 300,000 people and skyrocketing property prices to a large area of undeveloped land."

        I see. And this second bridge, unlike the first, is a not a bridge to "nowhere" because it connects to a large area of ...undeveloped, unoccupied land?

        Thanks for clarifying.

        We wouldn't want the real estate developers to have to finance their own development. Nosiree! That's what hard working american men and women are for... to finance real estate development that they'd never be able to afford themselves.

        Go to hell, much? Thanks, bye.

        • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Solandri (704621) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @12:19AM (#20053393)

          I see. And this second bridge, unlike the first, is a not a bridge to "nowhere" because it connects to a large area of ...undeveloped, unoccupied land?
          Infrastructure is generally the responsibility of government, not private enterprise. If a city feels that it is becoming overcrowded and needs to expand into adjacent lands, it will plan and fund infrastructure to support that expansion.

          That said, it is common for developers to offer to pay for part or all of the infrastructure. They have a financial incentive for the development to proceed, and infrastructure costs are often the biggest disincentive for city governments. So developers do what they can to minimize or eliminate that cost for cities.

          We wouldn't want the real estate developers to have to finance their own development. Nosiree! That's what hard working american men and women are for... to finance real estate development that they'd never be able to afford themselves.
          While it may make one feel better to "stick it to the developers" by making them pay for the additional infrastructure, the truth is that they don't pay for it. The people buying the new housing or office space do. The costs just get passed onto them in the form of increased prices, home association fees, property taxes, and/or mello-roos [wikipedia.org].

          So since the people are going to be paying for it anyway, the question then becomes how do you apportion the cost. One line of reasoning is that the people buying in the new development should pay for it since they are the primary beneficiaries. Another line of reasoning is that everyone should pay because the people in the currently existing city are secondary beneficiaries (less crowding, access to facilities in the new development, more choice in living/working area, etc). The fairest solution is probably a combination of the two. But the point is that making taxpayers pay for it isn't as ludicrous as you're making it out to be; taxpayers are the eventual beneficiaries and they end up paying for it in the end anyway. The logistics of how you make them pay for it is just a matter of shifting responsibility for obtaining the funding.

          • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Informative)

            by khallow (566160) on Monday July 30 2007, @11:50PM (#20053253)
            Oh, this is stupid. The airport is on the Anchorage side, ie, the developed side. People already have access. And there's nothing on the other side. See this map [google.com]. If there is a need for people to cross that river, then put in a ferry or a cheaper bridge. It definitely is a bridge to nowhere.

      • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ucblockhead (63650) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:49PM (#20052235) Homepage Journal
        The first transcontinental railroad was never a "railroad to nowhere". It was built twenty years after millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.

        • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Informative)

          by CrimsonAvenger (580665) on Monday July 30 2007, @11:26PM (#20053127)

          The first transcontinental railroad was never a "railroad to nowhere". It was built twenty years after millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.

          I agree that the transcontinental railroad wasn't a "railroad to nowhere". But it wasn't built 20 years after "millions of people had already moved to the west coast of the United States.". Fewer than half a million people moved to the West Coast during the emigration period from about 1840-1860.

          • The difference is... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Moraelin (679338) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @04:33AM (#20054719) Journal
            The difference is that:

            A) Early railroad made its big bucks less from transporting people, and more by transporting goods and raw materials for the industry. In fact passengers were often the necessary evil: you wouldn't get a permit to build a railroad if you didn't haul the people too.

            Hence just counting how many people were there, is highly misleading. The west was by and large the captive market and source of cheap raw materials for the east coast, in much the same way as India was to England. Building a railroad there made sense.

            B) Railroads were a _major_ strategic asset for the army. I don't think these bridges to nowhere count as that.

            B) More importantly, railroads were built by private capital, because they were profitable. That's a freakin' huge difference between that and pork barrel contracts to at most please a village on an island.

            The laissez faire capitalism of the 19'th century was pretty vehemently against using government money on something that competed with private initiative. Plus, the government didn't even have that kind of money anyway.

            I must admit, though: That doctrine was often taken to absurd extremes, such as in England where, when they _had_ to support their own population in a crisis or famine... because they couldn't just give money to people (they thought it would compete with the employment market) or build something useful (it would have competed with private industry), they paid the people to build some useless stuff like roads from nowhere to nowhere (literally, unconnected, in the middle of a field) or useless towers or such. But even then, it must be said that it was only in times of extreme necessity, instead of social security. And it was openly useless stuff. Even in its stupidity, it just wasn't the same thing.

      • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by syzler (748241) <david AT syzdek DOT net> on Monday July 30 2007, @09:49PM (#20052239)
        One of the bridges in question was probably a pointless waste of money, the other would have connected a city of 300,000 people and skyrocketing property prices to a large area of undeveloped land.

        I would also like to point out that even though this may be an insignificant number to people accustomed to the over crowded cities of the lower 48, this city's population is half the population of the state. Alaska [wikipedia.org] may be 2.5 times larger than Texas, however our largest population center is land locked by military bases, the Cook Inlet [wikipedia.org], and the Chugach State Park. The bridge to nowhere [wikipedia.org] would reduce a two hour one way commute to just a few minutes from the currently under developed land to downtown Anchorage.
         
        I saw a few posts that talked about the state paying Alaskans every year. The one to two grand paid by the state PFD [wikipedia.org] does not provide much help to a middle income family trying to buy a home when a vacant 1.5 acre lot in Anchorage sells for about $750,000 (just went on the market a few days ago).

        • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Informative)

          by TheGreatDonkey (779189) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @05:55AM (#20055111)
          And why would a family starting out need 1.5 acre tract of land in an urban area of 260k people (http://anchorage.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm)? I don't claim to know anything about the geography of the area, but a quick search of realtor.com shows that anyone can buy a .25 acre piece of land for an average of $25k, or half an acre for $22k-$50k. As a middle income family, you can apparently get yourself a starter home of 1200sq feet for around $180k ($100k for a starter condo). If you want to consider moving to the 'burbs, just like any other city, it of course gets much cheaper.

          Now lets compare this to say, many other American cities. Anchorage has an "Owner-occupied housing units" rate of 60%, which is among the highest in the country (again, areaconnect.com/statistics.htm says that Tucson is 53%, Oklahoma City is close at 59%, Las Vegas is also 59%, Orlando is 40.7%, Boston is 32%, Syracuse is 40%, Dallas is 43%, Los Angeles is 38%, Manchester NH is 46%). So this tells me that people are having less of a hard time achieving home ownership in Anchorage than just about any other part of the country.

          I'm not trying to flame you as I am sure many people there go through the same struggles as elsewhere, but just trying to put everything into a bit of perspective. Anchorage isn't the $40k housing market some people in the lower 48 might expect, but it seems easier to achieve personal home ownership there than most other urban cities in the country. I suspect if you start to consider suburbs, just like any other city, the numbers skew much differently.

        • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by SnapShot (171582) on Monday July 30 2007, @10:21PM (#20052529)
          Wait a minute. Why is it flamebait to declare that Republicans are opposed to taxes but still want to spend tax money on their pet projects. Am I wrong? Since WWII the U.S. debt has increased 3.2% per year under Democratic presidents and 9.7% per year under Republican administrations.

          • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2007, @01:01AM (#20053597)

            Since WWII the U.S. debt has increased 3.2% per year under Democratic presidents and 9.7% per year under Republican administrations.
            Here's a cool fact you can use to impress your friends:

            It's actually Congress that is in charge of determining the federal budget, not the president!!

            • Re:The same man... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Jazon Bladen (938809) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @01:23AM (#20053735) Homepage
              Not only that, but you can attribute Clinton's "Cutting the federal deficit" to the Republican-controlled Congress as well. It's unfortunate that today's Republican party has forgotten those lessons.

                • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Insightful)

                  by d3ac0n (715594) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @08:10AM (#20056207)
                  Um... No.

                  You see, it's not a matter of who was President and who was in Congress, it's a matter of who sponsred and pushed for tax reductions and fiscal restraint.

                  In the 80's, Ronald Reagan and the GOP Minority pushed for overall tax reductions and reductions in spending. Reagan was able to successfully use the Presidential Bully Pulpit to push through some tax reform and reduction, leading to an economic boom in the mid to late eighties. Unfortunately, the spending reductions he wanted were largely not implemented, as Congress controls the purse strings in the Federal Government. Because spending was still so high in the early nineties when Bush Sr. (a fiscally liberal republican) came to office, the economy took a downturn when we fought the first Iraq war and he broke a campaign promise by raising taxes.

                  After Bush was voted out in the early nineties and Clinton was voted in during the post Iraq-war years, the economy slowly recovered. However, Clinton and the Democrat controlled congress enacted the single largest tax increase in American history shortly after the beginning of his term, further slowing economic improvement. This (along with Clinton's failed intervention in Somalia) caused a major turnover in the makeup of Congress in the 1994 elections, resulting in a Republican Congress and a Democrat President. The GOP in Congress immediately set about reversing and eliminating all the tax and spending increases set in place by Bush Sr., Clinton and the Dems. Clinton was beginning to be embroiled in scandal already at this point, and so was too politically weak to oppose the GOP. The tax reductions passed, and within 2 years the economy was booming. At about the same time the Dot Com bubble was happening, and this only served to accelerate the economy even more.

                  Oddly, despite his public opposition to the tax and spending reductions, Clinton still got the credit for a booming economy he had basically nothing to do with. By the time the economy was really rolling along, Clinton was so embroiled in scandal that he had taken to bombing "terrorists" (read, aspirin factories) in Africa to try and take some of the public scrutiny off himself. He was basically signing anything that came across his desk, as he was hardly involved at all in the political process.

                  The slump at the end of the nineties and into the early 2000's was caused by the Dot-Com bubble bursting, and the recovery since then has been largely the result of GWB's and the GOP's economic policies. However, there are many who think that both GWB and the GOP have largely abandoned their conservative economic roots in favor of liberal style big-government spending. This is what cost the GOP the 2006 elections, and has seriously slowed our economic recovery since then. While overall we are doing well, we could have been much further ahead had GWB and the GOP acted more Reagan-esqe, and less Clinton-esqe in their fiscal policy.

                  So credit belongs to those who push for economic reform. Reagan rightly deserves the credit for the 80's, Bush Sr., Clinton and the Dems deserve the credit for the slump in the early nineties, and the GOP deserves the credit for the boom in the mid to late nineties.

            • Re:The same man... (Score:4, Funny)

              by Dragonslicer (991472) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @06:35AM (#20055365)

              It's actually Congress that is in charge of determining the federal budget, not the president!!
              You must be old here.

  • You explain technology to the masses... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2007, @08:11PM (#20051153)
    ...and this is the thanks you get.

  • Hey Ted (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cracked Pottery (947450) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:12PM (#20051169)
    Just think of a men's Federal prison as a bunch of tubes.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by rob1980 (941751)
      Born November 18, 1923 (1923-11-18) (age 83)

      Somehow, assuming he doesn't simply die of old age before this case were to work its way through the system, appeals, and all that jazz, I think they'll end up playing the health card to keep him out of prison.

    • Please don't joke about prison ass-rape. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2007, @08:20PM (#20051279)
      I know a lot of people think it's a funny idea, but prison sodomy is actually not very funny at all. It can lead to the transmission of AIDS, HIV, or other diseases. It can lead to a destroyed psyche. There is, of course, the brutal physical damage it causes. So it's really not humorous at all.

        • Re:That's why its called Prison... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by feed_me_cereal (452042) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:52PM (#20051603)
          ...soooo, a guy who steals a tv should be ass-raped for it?

        • Re:That's why its called Prison... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by eric76 (679787) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:56PM (#20051643)
          I think it depends on what kind of person you want to come back from prison after his term is over. The way we generally do it, it is a wonder that the recividism rate is not much, much higher because the prisoners aren't rehabilitated much at all.

          If you want a prisoner to come out who is neither predator nor preyed upon and who is ready to rejoin society in a responsible manner, then their prison sentences need to be spent in a way that furthers that goal. That means that their prison life needs to be as close to normal as possible. That includes education and job training to enable them to live productively on the outside.

          I really don't think anyone should be released from jail or prison until they at least have a GED.

          Make prison life reasonably normal instead of a concrete jungle with life threatening dangers at every turn and you will save a lot of money as well because of the reduction in the costs of keeping a prisoner there and because of a lower recividsm rate afterwards.

          People are sent to prison as punishment, not for punishment.

          • Re:That's why its called Prison... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by CastrTroy (595695) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:09PM (#20051773) Homepage
            But jails are a private enterprise, and by lowering the recidivism rate, they are getting rid of their cash flow. The prisons aren't interested in rehabilitating people, and the health insurance companies aren't interested in providing health care. That's what happens when things that should be socially funded get turned into a money making scheme.

      • Re:Hey Ted (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Yusaku Godai (546058) <hyuga@@@guardian-hyuga...net> on Monday July 30 2007, @09:00PM (#20051683) Homepage
        He was screwing up more than just the jargon. He was screwing up the entire explanation of how the internet works. At any rate, that little rant of his is just what made him funny. That doesn't change the fact that, in spite of having now idea what he was talking about, he was the one spearheading legislation capitualiting to big telecoms on getting rid of net neutrality. I think that's what has most slashdotters angry at him, and given the audience it's pretty expected and reasonable.
      • Yeah it isn't as though it mattered whether he understood the issues he was debating. I mean it's not like he has some sort of responsibility for having a basic understanding of the internet when the entire debate revolved around understanding it's principles.

        The lingo part was jokable, but the implications that he had no idea what he was talking about and still debating it in a political arena as a politician was the part that was disturbing and not defendable.

      • Re:Hey Ted (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Quarters (18322) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:13PM (#20051827)
        What's he done for your state other than spend decades loading down bills with pork barrel amendments that do nothing but funnel our tax dollars up to you in the form of subsidies for just living in Alaska? Oh yeah, he built his multi-million dollar bridge to an island with a total population of 40. He got the government to lighten up wildlife protection laws so big oil can drill holes all over your state, and he....well, what else *has* he done?

        There is no logical reason he is the head of the telecommunications committee. One would think the head of a technologically based committee would at least understand the technology. Instead we get a corrupt old fool who can't even function as an effective mouthpiece for the various industries who pay to keep their parrot in power. So instead of a technologically advanced telecommunications infrastructure in this country we're stuck with crap like tubes & trucks analogies, Sen. Ted wanting to be able to port his landline # to his cell phone with the flip of a switch so he can answer calls to that number while riding his motorcycle and him calling for full internet filtering to ban child pornography so the kids don't get targeted by pedophiles.

        Let's break those three gems from your corrupt hero, shall we?

        No, the internet isn't a truck. It isn't a series of tubes, either. It's a distributed packet switched network. That's not too hard to say, now is it?

        Who in the hell would ask for a landline switch so he could talk on his cell phone using his home number while riding his motorcycle? Last time I checked it took two hands to control a motorcycle...you know that whole steering, braking, throttle, and clutch system motorcycles have. Who cares if Teddy runs over a bunch of innocent kids as long as he can talk on his phone!

        Speaking of those innocent kids, explain to me how blocking pictures of child pornography is going to keep predators from trying to solicit children online? The two items aren't directly related. There's also those sticky issues of a nationwide internet filter being both simultaneously uninforceable and UNCONSTITUIONAL. Of course the legality of the idea and the fact that it's been shot down on numerous other occasions (COPA I and II, anyone?) won't stop pork-barrel Ted from wasting our tax dollars in an ultimately failed attempt to get the thing to a vote.

        And now, on top of this it turns out he got the square footage of his house doubled as a bribe from an oil industry insider who was convicted of bribing officials. Who cares about laws and regulations when it means a bigger rumpus room?!

        Seriously, how can you respect that man? He's as corrupt as the day is long. Or, do you just respect the money he's been taking away from the national interest and funneling to you all these years?

          • Re:Hey Ted (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Dhalka226 (559740) on Monday July 30 2007, @11:26PM (#20053121)

            Why do you think they forbid sexual preitors from having porn in their homes?

            Because America has become a very conservative and frankly sexually repressed nation, and pedophiles are the boogeyman that government uses to justify absolutely anything they want. Terrorism is another.

            I mean lets call that unconsitutional too and let the pervert down the street have picture of little kids on his computer after he gets early release for violating your neighbors daughter just to see your son about the right age to attract his attention.

            Sounds good to me. Sex offenders should be permitted to have porn with no restrictions that any other group of adults (and frankly, probably even groups of children) do. We should not be legislating morality, and we should not be treating different groups of people worse than any others--even if they are the dreaded p-word. If you're complaining about early release, then you have a problem with the parole system and it has nothing at all to do with constitutionality, pedophilia or whether or not pictures of little kids should be illegal. (I presume you mean sexually explicit pictures--though you never say that, which I think just goes to show exactly how effective this particular boogeyman is.)

            While we're at it, I think sex offender registries should be unconstitutional. I think the "sex offenders can't live within 100 miles of a school, library or park" laws should be unconstitutional as well. When you get out of jail, your punishment should be OVER. You've served your debt to society. If that's not true, then let's simply never release these people to begin with--though I think you're going to be hard-pressed to explain why they shouldn't be released when sex offenders' rate of recidivism isn't very high.

            I don't want to see children abused sexually, so you can put the brakes on that particular ad hominem retort right now. I'm simply not willing to single out groups of people for harsher, increasingly worse and unending punishment because society happens to think their crimes are particularly bad, and I am not willing to trample anybody's rights after their release AT ALL, much less in a vain attempt to prevent recidivism.

            More than anything we, as a society, need to figure out what the hell prison is for. Punishment and deterrence are well and good, but since the majority of criminals DO end up getting out eventually there needs to be much more focus on rehabilitation. And politicians need to stop throwing people under the bus to show they're "tough on crime."

  • Nice Line from Stevens (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak (669689) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:12PM (#20051183) Journal

    "As a practical matter, I will tell you. We paid every bill that was given to us," Stevens told reporters. "Every bill that was sent to us has been paid, personally, with our own money, and that's all there is to it. It's our own money."
    My BS detector just went off the charts.

    The obvious question is: What about the bills that weren't sent to you?
    To me, that seems to be the heart of the investigation.

  • Taxes (Score:5, Funny)

    by Saint Stephen (19450) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:14PM (#20051201) Homepage Journal
    People in Alaksa don't pay taxes. The government PAYS people that live in Alaksa to live there. I'm moving to Alaksa, along with all the other losers.

    I don't think I'll make it as far as Alaksa. Probably stop in British Columbia.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Myopic (18616)
      Incorrect. The people of Alaska pay taxes. We have various kinds of taxes including property taxes and sales taxes (no state sales tax, but some municipalities). We also have taxes on many specific things, such as hotel taxes, gasoline taxes, and cruise ship taxes, among others.

      The government doesn't "pay" us to live here (I live in Juneau, Alaska). The people receive a portion of the proceeds from the exploitation of our primary natural resource, oil; which is only fair, considering it's our resource. Fran

      • Re:Taxes (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2007, @09:31PM (#20052015)
        The government doesn't "pay" us to live here (I live in Juneau, Alaska). The people receive a portion of the proceeds from the exploitation of our primary natural resource, oil; which is only fair, considering it's our resource.

        But as an Inuit, don't you get upset that the other Americans call it "their" resource?

      • Re:Taxes (Score:4, Informative)

        by gEvil (beta) (945888) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:27PM (#20051357)
        Alaskans get an annual dividend payout that's usually about a thousand bucks. The state also doesn't collect sales tax or income tax (although some cities do, IIRC).

      • Seriously! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Ungrounded Lightning (62228) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:43PM (#20051521) Journal
        The government PAYS people that live in Alaksa to live there.

        Seriously ?

        Seriously.

        The money collected from other sources (notably north slope oil pumping and transport) are far more than the state government needs for its own function.

        Rather than finding new ways to waste it, the more-than-slightly libertarian-leaning politicians decided to do away with other taxes - notably income and property tax.

        But they still had a big surplus. So they decided to distribute it to the citizens. Even a libertarian can support this as a move in the right direction, since most of the money comes from selling off a resource "owned in common by the citizens of the state". If the government sells it, the citizen-owners should each get their share of the proceeds, right?

  • He's the victim. (Score:5, Funny)

    by a_nonamiss (743253) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:15PM (#20051203)
    You can't blame Ted Stevens here. If his understanding of federal corruption laws is anything like his understanding of Net Neutrality, he probably thought all those free upgrades to his house were perfectly legal.

    /sarcasm

  • It's not a truck! ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by boster (124383) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:38PM (#20051471)
    ... It's a series of frauds!

  • Need to change campaign laws (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schwit1 (797399) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:53PM (#20051611)
    The Ted Steven's type politician will not go away until campaign contributions are permitted only from registered voters from a candidate's district. I should be permitted to give money to only those candidates I am allowed to vote for.

  • how funny (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne (631190) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:02PM (#20051713) Journal
    They give the 2 republicans notice that they were under investigation, and then several weeks later do a "surprise" raid. What do you bet that all evidence had LONG disappeared. I would not be the least bit surprised to find out that the senator (and shortly the congressman), got notice of when and where the "surprise" raid would occur. Just imagine if they had done this with the Lousiana congressman jefferson. All that bribe money would have disappeared.
  • As a career choice. People who want to be in politics are probably the last people you want in charge. I say we double the pay for every single elected position in the country, halve the term periods, and appoint people (meeting certain criteria, 25 years old, HS diploma, US citizen) to every single position based on a lottery system at whatever level (local, state, federal) the position is for. Power corrupts, absolutely, and those seeking power are probably already corrupt. Things would be a lot more effective if average people whose friends and neighbors have a vested interest in whats going on were in power. And with shorter term limits, even if someone terrible got appointed, they wouldnt be there for long enough to do all the much damage. Not to mention they would probably focus more on the job at hand. How much time do politicos spend on their re-election campaigns vs actual work?

              • because without giving specifics we have no way in hell knowing
                Read a newspaper. Graft and corruption between big business and government comes up in Section A or the Business section at least once/month.

                Mod this down. I'm killing this account anyway. I'll just use one of the several dozen others.

          • Re:Conspiracy nutjob Ron Paul was Re:Power corrupt (Score:5, Insightful)

            by db32 (862117) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:30PM (#20052005) Journal
            Yeah...damn the fact that he made his career as a successful doctor before his run in politics. Oh and there is that whole retired veteran thing...then there is that pesky business of being a fiscal conservative. But he says we hold some responsibility for the attacks (go read your history book please, we have been screwing with the governments of the middle east for AGES) and that criminal scum Ghouliani (worth $7k at divorce but $30 million after 9/11) says he hates America and receives rounds of applause from moron kneejerk "towelhead" hating nutjobs.

            It is depressing to me that the media spins him as some psycho conspiracy nut and even more that people believe it. In the meantime we readily cheer on our warhawks who dodged the service and then vote for war, and then call those who served a full 20 cowards for voting against it.

        • Re:Power corrupts (Score:5, Insightful)

          by AuMatar (183847) on Monday July 30 2007, @10:53PM (#20052865)
          I have taken econ 101. I've also taken history 101. And more advanced econ classes. Ronald Regan's tickle down theory is absolute garbage. Money just doesn't trickle down- it accumulates. Trickle down has been tried twice in the history of the US. The first time was in the 20s, under Coolidge and Hoover. The result- the Great Depression. The second was under Regan. The result- a massive stock crash, followed by the 2nd biggest depression of the 20th century. Trickle down has 1 and only 1 purpose- to amass more wealth and power for the already wealthy.

    • Re:News for Nerds? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CryBaby (679336) on Monday July 30 2007, @10:16PM (#20052487)
      So you're suggesting that it's illogical to support Al Gore but to condemn Ted Stevens? That's interesting.

      On the one hand, you have an old, corrupt fool who doesn't even understand what the word "internet" means and on the other hand you have a guy who may reasonably be called one of the most visionary mainstream politicians of our time, given his proactive, leading-edge involvement in both the internet and environmental issues.

      Thanks for getting that infamous Gore quote straight. Here's a little more info from Snopes:

      It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term "information superhighway" in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).

      I think the worst you can say about Gore's involvement with the internet is that he played an instrumental role in transforming it from an academic/military tool into the thing that you and I are arguing on right now. However you want to describe it, it's no small accomplishment.

      Now compare that to Ted Stevens' accomplishments. ...chirp... ...chirp... ...chirp...

      By the way, since Gore was "involved in plenty of scandals", you should have no problem citing them and recounting whether or not he was vindicated.

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