Sen. Ted "Tubes" Stevens Is Indicted

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.

tee-hee

There's a joke here about federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison and clogged tubes but I'm just going to savor the indictment instead.

Re:tee-hee

People like Ted Stevens don't go to pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

Some pigs are more equal than others.

Re:tee-hee

Unsolicited male in his tubes?

Re:tee-hee

the senator will be learning a new line;

You've got Male!

Re:tee-hee

At the moment it's only his finances that are being probed.

Re:tee-hee

Leavenworth is a federal prison. If you have bothered to watch the news there have been more than a few murder/rapist types that have been going there. I don't know where you get the idea that Federal prison is soft or how you managed to get modded informative for that patently false nonsense.

I can only assume that you are confused by Alcatraz being a recreational area now. Alcatraz was not a pleasant place when it was a federal prison. Back then the tour of the place lasted a bit longer than an afternoon.

Re:tee-hee

Federal prison is mainly big-time drug users and drug dealers.

State prison is mainly small-time drug users and drug dealers.

A friend's brother down in the St Louis area went to federal prison for loaning a cocaine dealer a thousand dollars; the charge was conspiracy to deliver cocaine (the dealer had been busted and was setting up innocent guys to lessen his own sentence; most of his high school graduating class went to Maximum Security Club Fed for twice as long as he did).

Violent criminals usually don't get caught. When they do, it depends on who they attacked.

A woman I know went to Dwight Correctional (Illinois hardcore women'sprison) for 4 months for nonviolent drug posession, while a guy I know and intensly dislike broke into a man's home and tried to kill him with a butcher knife. He spent two weeks in the county jail - but the man he attacked was a poor black man.

That is American justice.

Down the tubes..

It's not just a truck you can dump things on....

It's a house, that you can add things to...apparently for free.

Well, there goes another political career...

down the...ummm...drain.

Re:Well, there goes another political career...

Will be interesting to see, as the ultimate act of hypocrisy, if the next President pardons him ala Clinton's forgiveness of bigtime Chicago Machine Dem Dan Rostenkowski, who now collects his congressional pension despite similar acts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rostenkowski). Sen Stevens likely won't be convicted in time for President Bush to possibly react.

Tubes dance mix

Enjoy:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_cZC67wXUTs [youtube.com]

The indictment (pdf)

text of the indictment [adn.com] is now available.

It was a part of the scheme that STEVENS, while during that same time period that he was concealing his continuing receipt of things of value from ALLEN and VECO from 1999 to 2006, received and accepted solicitations for multiple official actions from ALLEN and other VECO employees, and knowing that STEVENS could and did use his official position and his office on behalf of VECO during that same time period.

That sounds like good old-fashioned bribery to me, but with our screwed-up laws it's probably a lot easier to convict a politician for lying about the bribes than for taking the bribes.

As a lifelong Alaskan...

Let me be the first to shout:

"Yeee-hawww!!!"

Good riddence! The coming Alaska senate race is going to be one of the most interesting in history. I suggest everyone look into it. On the democratic front, we've got popular Anchorage city mayor, Mark Beigich, who's taken the election scene by storm in just the last month or so. And Stevens, being a long time incombant, is running virtually unopposed on the republican front.

In the house, rep. Don ("I'll beat you over the head with a walrus penis") Young is having even more trouble, due to falling public perception and the VICO scandal. This long-time incumbent may be KOed in the primary by our Lt. Governor.

The republicans only star runners, at this point, are Gov. Sarah Palin and Lt Gov. Sean Parnel. Parnel is running against Young in the house, and Sarah just had a child and is busy fighting some of her own battles.

Translation: the alaska republican party is FUCKED. Before the year is out, there's a very good chance we'll see our one house seat filled by a Dem, one of our Senate seats filled by a Dem, and the state's electoral votes go to Barak Obama (currently a very close race). AK is one of the most conservative and republican states in the country, btw.

For Old Time's Sake

Let's revisit what Senator Stevens said, laugh at his imbecility, and shake our heads at the fragility of what little is left of net neutrality, and how it is in the hands of such clueless and ethically challenged people.

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) offered up this bizarre explanation for why he voted against net neutrality laws. In it, he explains how the internet works...

"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discriminate against those people [...]

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time.

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

[...]

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a violation of net neutrality that hits you and me."

RS

Re:For Old Time's Sake

When I'm too old to understand what the fuck I'm talking about, I'll resign from congress and not try to legislate it.

If he's too old to get it, it's time to get out. I wouldn't be angry about some other old man not understanding new technology, but he has power over it. That's dangerous.

Time to clean house

And when will Dodd and the Democratic senators who got their mortgages personally handed to them by bank CEOs receive the same treatment? I'm not a partisan in this, and I do enjoy seeing Stevens go down, but this guy is just the tip of the iceberg. I suspect that most of Congress would have to be indicted if a sweeping investigation were done.

Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve...

Honestly, I don't see this devolving into partisan bickering because everyone hates congress and the senate and everyone knows that people on both sides of the aisle are corrupt. I'm a republican and I freakin' hate this guy. Everyone I know hates corruption in the government, and this guy was one of the most corrupt out there.

Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve...

Everyone hates congress...until election time when 95% of them get reelected.

Re:And watch the "discussion" devolve...

Term limits would solve that problem both by definition and by addressing a core problem - length of time served equals power in both houses. Then there's the problem that races tend to involve two absolutely shitty choices. Even with some pretty blatant gerrymandering, Utah republicans can't oust democrat Jim Matheson from congress because they keep nominating idiots to run against him.

The consequence of this system is that corruption never gets rooted out and a bunch of old men are deciding the future of a country that's changing very rapidly. I'll vote against incumbents when they give me a good alternative, and that doesn't happen too often.

Re:So what I want to know

"How did he stay in office so long if there was already evidence of corruption in 2003 and 2004?"

The same way Dan Rostenkowski did and Marion Barry and Murtha after Abscam:

"He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he's OUR son-of-a-bitch"

Also keep in mind that he has brought home a lot of bacon to the residents of Alaska, and they probably view such minor corruption as a cross they just have to bear to get the goodies. Remember, the "bridge to nowhere" ALMOST got approved.

Re:So what I want to know

How did he stay in office so long if there was already evidence of corruption in 2003 [pqarchiver.com] and 2004 [thehill.com]?

The same way that William Jefferson [cnn.com] of New Orleans did (and still is).

(Who, BTW, in response to the AC that also responded to your post, is NOT white)

Re:Series of Tubes

Actually, no, clueless asshats don't laugh at it, people who know about the subject laugh at it. The analogy is simple to the point of being useless and is only useful for those who don't have any clue at all about how the internet works, which is a quickly shrinking minority. That someone in such a position is a member of that minority is embarrassing.

Re:Series of Tubes

While the series of tubes analogy works, its the speech that surrounds that quote that is hilarious. for example:

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

Re:An alaskan perspective...

What he is charged with is so petty compared to the greater good he has done that will be a crying shame.

So, you're saying... as long as he keeps the money flowing to you, you are willing to overlook lies and deception? Do you think he's clean as a whistle in all his other dealings, too?

Re:An alaskan perspective...

Perhaps i'm an idiot, but I still don't quite get how precisely it is in the interest of the greater good (or benefit the state) that the esteemed senator from Alaska goes un-prosecuted and the light of day never shines on his actions. If you wouldn't mind clarifying I would greatly appreciate it. Additionally, would it really be impossible to imagine someone from a different political party (D, or even perhaps an I?) who would

explore and develop our natural resources like oil, gold and copper

? Really? The letter next to your name determines whether you will allow things to be dug out of the ground? Or perhaps its just that adhering to environmental regulations already in place might cut into profits a little?