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"Tubes" Senator Being Investigated For Corruption
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.
"also a Republican,"
Well, I foresee this ending well... heh.
A cheerful little bird is sitting here singing.
right down the tubes!
A politician, corrupt. - I am flabergasted.
The only unbelievable thing about this is the number of people who will claim that "this politician can't have done anything wrong, he is a good man", despite the fact he *is* a politician.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Buys a series of big trucks!
The 500 million dollar bridge to an uninhabited island? Why does this not surprise me?
Enjoy Every Sandwich
We would have heard of this earlier but it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
he couldn't get anywhere on the interweb... the tubes were clogged with cash.
The corruption goes way higher than that. But THAT is a state secret.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"Earmarks are good for the country and good for the people you represent. That is the role of a congressman. If you can't get money for your district, you shouldn't be in Congress."
This is a quote FTA from Republican representative, Don Young.
This is the "party of smaller government?"
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Better unclog your tubes so your internets don't get discovered!
Bwahahahahahahhahaha!
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Corruption seeps in from the top down ("The fish starts to stink at the head", as other languages might put it). If you find someone at a certain level who is corrupt, it's safe to assume that corruption is already well established at the higher levels.
If your regular street cop is corrupt
The other Congressman under a cloud is Rep. Don Young (R), not the other Alaskan senator (Lisa Murkowski (R)), who isn't yet being investigated for corruption.
If you're going to post this, where are the stories about Senator Feinstein directing more than a billion dollars toward a company her husband controls? Or how about Harry Reid's son's and son in law all being lobbyists, one even lobbying him?
How about slashdot go back to, oh, I dunno... technology instead of hiring editors who are nothing but partisan shills?
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/ 03/0643238
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
I first heard of this craziness on the TWiT podcast ~1 year ago.
Could someone please explain to a non-US resident why these two politicans are of interest to Geeks & Nerds.
Reading the article would suggest that the two in question are beyond what would be considered a normal retirement age.
ZombieEngineer
Slashdot summary: He's a Republican.
Linked article: He's a Republican with many years of experience who is running for reelection.
Slashdot summary: Senator is being investigated in a federal corruption probe
Linked article: Senator is "facing scrutiny" from federal investigators. He is thriving on the setbacks, and political analysts say nothing has happened that would cause him to "lose his perch" yet.
Slashdot summary: The investigation has implicated his son, Ben.
Linked article: Ben's office was raided by the FBI in an entirely separate incident over a year ago, and he hasn't been charged with a crime. (Sounds like something Slashdotters would condemn...like when accused software/music pirates get raided, but are never charged with a crime.)
Slashdot summary: A fishing co-op allegedly paid $500,000 to get a federal bailout from Ben and his father.
Linked article: No mention of anything about a fishing co-op or a federal bailout.
Slashdot summary: The other Alaskan senator is also "under a cloud". It doesn't mention what this cloud is, or even give her name, but it's sure to mention that she's a Republican.
Linked article: The only mention of the other Alaskan senator is that her party welcomes the challenge from Democrats, who were unable to unseat her. There is no mention of her being under any kind of "cloud" in either this article, or her Wikipedia article.
As an Alaskan, this does not surprise me... It may be useful to note that "the other Republican senator" is Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed as Senator by her FATHER, Frank Murkowski, when he was elected Governor (after being Senator himself). His administration had, to my recollection, the lowest approval rating in the history of Alaska, and was notorious for its almost unfathomable corruption. No, I didn't vote for any of these people.
Must be because of all the commercial activity.. enormous amounts of material.
As I posted earlier:/ 03/0643238
http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE
It's scary that such ignoramuses are part of making policy for the US, esp. technology related policy. So, to the OP, do you have politicians making policy who are so ignorant about the subject matter?
It's the same when they say "we believe in religious freedom!" -- what they mean is "We believe in the right of Christians to discriminate against non-Christians in hiring, housing, and so on," NOT "people should be free to practice their own religion." The phrase you're looking for is "glittering generalities." No one is going to argue against freedom, just as few will argue for big government. When you actually get down to what they really believe, it's pretty repugnant at times. These phrases get thrown around because they sound good and they build a false sense of consensus.
Why do we investigate politicians for corruption *AFTER* they fuck things up, instead of investigating politicians for competence *BEFORE* they fuck things up?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Did they use dumptrucks full of cash, or a series of money tubes?
Democrats say all Republicans are liars. Republicans say all Democrats are liars. And this is the only time both of them speak the truth.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=11989055
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Sorry for being just a dumb European, but what's out of the ordinary here? Isn't this how politics always work in the US?
Didn't Disney Corp pay for the Micky Mouse Act, and the RIAA and/or MPAA for the DMCA?
The Senate is a series of brown envelopes.
How is that news ????
..then we can see how quickly his 'series of tubes' gets blocked.
News at 11.
But is an example of that fact going to lead to an interesting discussion on Slashdot?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Aside of snide tube jokes and I'm pretty sure the "down the tubes" comment I read wasn't the only one, do you really think this is funny?
I mean, it may be selective journalism (ya know, you only hear about the bad ones), but why do we have corrupt politicians? Hell, don't we pay them more than enough? Why the corruption? I can see why a politician in Roman times had to be corrupt. Politics was a sport for the upper class because it was unpaid.
Today we're far from that. They usually have paychecks that make the average person go green in envy. Still that's appearantly not enough and they want more, more, more. And don't think it's an US phenomenon, you have the same greedy, bribable bastards all over the planet.
Why, I ask? Are politicians getting worse or do we just hear about it more often today?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
why is this article here?
Jail is like a series of tubes. The bars are those tubes, and those "tubes" keep you from escaping. It is like a firewall, if you will, to protect the rest of society from you doing them harm.
Hmmmmm... an article about two corrupt Republicans, but your joke "i don't hate all republicans. just the corrupt ones" is somehow modded Offtopic? Was funny for me anyway :-)
As for Poor Senator 'Tubes', seek inspiration. Ask yourself, "Now what would Scooter do?"
It is a bloody series of tubes. Or at elast it's a perfectly adeqaute metaphor.
Why do people seem to pick up on the most meaningful part of a largely ignorant an ill-informed speech?
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" -- Lord Acton
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
When I want to read about corrupt politicians, I'll read CNN.
How is this of interest to the Slashdot community?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Both parties are kind of two sides of the same coin. They are both for big government, just different big government. Republicans are for big government in things like military and infrastructure spending (needed or not). Democrats are for big government in things like entitlement payments. Likewise neither party is really for personal freedom. They both want to you be free to do things they like and prevented from doing things they do. Democrats are all about the freedom for things like gay marriage, but want to make it illegal to say things that hurt others feelings (hate speech laws). Republicans are happy to protect your right to be a bigot, but like hell they want to let gays get married.
Now of course there are exceptions to these rules, and if you are voting for someone in the major parties that's what you have to look at, is their politics not the party politics because BOTH parties are for big government and BOTH are for restricting personal freedom. You can also vote libertarian, at least assuming they'll run a candidate that isn't a complete nutjob in your area.
What does this have to do with what most /.ers are interested in? Or did I miss it when /. declared itself just another tool of the political left. We already know that it is, but you don't have to be as obvious about you bias as FOX or the NY Times (which is where I go to read this kind of crap; and I never go there; hence, I don't read this kind of crap).
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
On a side note, I'd agree that the Democrats are probably just as corrupt, on average. Just as unresponsive to voter desires. But it wasn't a Democratic president that signed off on torture, gutted habeus corpus, claims to be exempt from any laws he doesn't like, put Americans under surveillance in direct violation of written law, and started an open-ended war with no clearly defined objectives that, and which became a terrorist recruiter's wet dream. So the Republican party has the standard complement of corruption and hubris, true, but then you add in all this other stuff, and the "just as bad" warning rings a bit false. Corruption + "we have to redefine torture so what we're doing isn't torture" is not the same thing as corruption alone.
we've been hearing about zero tolerance in schools and the workplace. and even in law enforcement.
why not POLITICS?!
really, they (the ominous 'they') need to taste a dose of their own medicine. see how it feels to make one mistake and be out on your arse.
I think this would be great to see - you get 1 chance as a politician (or law enforcement person) and once you screw up, you're out - period. and your record is permanently ruined (like what happens to normal regular people).
do you think that if the guys in office are NOT above the law, they'd maybe start following them better? or maybe make BETTER laws if they, themselves, are held to the same standards?
lets also include widespread wiretapping and 'tube monitoring' (ha!) in that, for all folks in office. afterall, they all work for US - we should see and hear how they run their jobs, down to the tiniest details of their lives. just like they are trying to do to us.
you think that would go over well? no? really? (why is that?)
the fact that our gov goes unchecked for so long before something bubbles up means we are not watching them enough. we should install cams in their offices and tap their lines, just so we can ensure we have an honest politician.
(yeah, I expect a LOT of support on this idea. yeah.)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
While it's trendy to bash mr Stevens for his "tubes" remark on such a technology-minded website, it's far from bring his only or even most notable act of incompetence. Here is a Senator who routinely votes on pork-laden bills that give kickbacks to himself and local Alaskan contractors - liek the inafmous "Bridge to Nowhere" that would have costmillions and allowed a small town (can you even call it a town when there's not even 1000 people lviing there? I'd say a village) to save itself a bit of travelling by crossing the river directly.
Stevens' case is not particularly odd either; it's symptomatic of Congress' Culture of Corruption (if you want it to be catchier, replace them with "Edgy" Ks) wherein a bunch of fatcats scratch each otheR's back. I know its a cliché - but damn it, it's true and casesd like these and Tom Delay's just shove it down our throats day after day after day. What will it take for the ystem to change, or BE changed (forcefully)?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Oh. I didn't RTFA, so I hoped it was Lisa Murkowski, the other senator. That woulda been sweet.
Maybe we can go for a perfect troika?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The evidence I've seen so far (the TP Muckraker article in another post and the AP story in the original post) is pretty damning. It doesn't surprise me at all that our elected officials are using their positions to their advantage, and even selling us out.
I'm no fan of Ted Stevens. However, with monitoring by government agencies increasing in recent years, I'd say "being investigated" means less than it may have at one time. I am personally inclined to believe that Stevens is all manner of corrupt, and therefore I try to be cautious about presuming guilt. I was pulled over recently because I wasn't displaying a front license plate. It had been stolen and the replacements were on the way. That didn't stop some of my colleagues from wondering what I had done when I saw them at work the next day.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
There's an easier way to tell. They're lying whenever their lips move.
You can't count on that as a perfect indicator.
They also lie when their pens move, or they type things on the computer. They also lie when they give you a significant look.
The only time they don't lie is when they say they want more money.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Looks like old Senator Stevens might get to find out that prison is full of tubes, too. Unfortunately they might dump heavy loads into his "truck" and cause some gridlock, but that's to be expected.
Yeah, but he might be a prostitute in need of representation and 'clientèle' right now?
"the inafmous "Bridge to Nowhere" that would have costmillions and allowed a small town (can you even call it a town when there's not even 1000 people lviing there? I'd say a village) to save itself a bit of travelling by crossing the river directly."
Sorry, Ted Stevens may be a cranky old man, but you dissapoint me by blatantly lying.
The city the bridge is being built at has over 7,000 people. The reason it does not have more is there is a land shortage. Much land is available on the island (OCEAN, NOT RIVER). However, understandably, not being able to drive to work in the morning tends to make people not want to live there. There are many locations in many states where development could only take off once a bridge was built so people could drive around. A ferry just isn't the same, and you know it.
replacing it with NEW Folger's Crystals! (lets see if they notice the difference)
Ketchikan has about 7500 fulltime residents, and many transients from the local area. (Here, "transient" means workers, as in loggers and fisherfolk.)
It'd cost *way* more tha $500M to move the town. And there's nothing on Gravina-- no good source of water, no good sites to build a city, etc.
$500M isn't that much, you know. We spend that for three days in Iraq.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Ah, relax, the "we're the persecuted minority" is the new racist/religious/sexist/whatever bigotry propaganda. Saying "dammit, I want to have an advantage of group X" doesn't gain much traction in this day and age, so the way it _invariably_ gets presented is, "auugh, they're persecuting us by not staying our slaves! we're the oppressed minority! help! Someone stop group X now!"
You can see it applied verbatim to almost any kind of bigotry. The white supremacists say they're oppressed by the blacks. The most mysoginist nuts say they're oppressed by any woman who even tries to have more perspectives in life than cooking, washing and raising kids. The religious nuts say they're oppressed by anyone who refuses to listen to their preaching, or, god forbid, manages to get a job without giving endless thanks to the Jesus for it. Rabid homophobes say they're oppressed by homosexuals. Etc.
It's pretty much the standard recipe for begging for some attention and compassion to what otherwise would be an abject and repulsive appeal to discriminate against someone else for personal advantages. Just fill in the details and you have your very own propaganda piece: Group X wants equal Y (rights, pay, education oportunities, etc). From there, you can:
A) Pretend that they were already equal, if not outright advantaged there. Statistics be damned. (Why, they already had more jobs as janitors, receptionists and nurses than us.) Hence any asking for more must be some unashamed grab for more power over the rest of us.
B) Find some disadvantaged low-pay/low-power/low-whatever niche into which that minority has been pushed, pretend that it's some enviable position and they're there just for the sake of pushing out poor white/christian/male/whatever folks who always wanted that job. (E.g., surely the only reason why women are nurses while guys are high paid doctors is that those evil women pushed off all the guys who wanted to be nurses.) Present it as some beach head and some trend that will obviously continue until none of us whites/christians/males/whatever have no place left.
C) If you somehow can't deny that they _are_ at a disadvantage and just want to become more equal, present it as some kind of slippery slope or a thing where the brakes don't exist. Once we start moving in that direction, surely there is no stopping until they've become hideously more advantaged than us! And they know it! That's their whole agenda in fact!
D) All the above.
So basically it's not as much that someone genuinely believes they're persecuted. (Unless they're paranoid schizophrenic, but then there's no point in arguing with someone driven by delusions anyway.) It's that they think they're extra smart if they present it as persecution instead of the "give me power over someone else" appeal that it really is. Surely noone will figure it out.
In other words, to put it nastier, that's your clue that they're not only bigotted fucks, but dishonest as well.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I for one welcome our new corrupt, bridge building, tube riding, overlords.
If I went around claiming I was an emperor...they'd put me away!
It's a big dump truck. Full of money. And hookers.
Sorry, Ted Stevens may be a cranky old man, but you dissapoint me by blatantly lying.
The city the bridge is being built at has over 7,000 people... Paraphrasing of course mine
All I can work out from this is that a village has less 1000 people and a city has more than 7000!
If this were really happening, what would you think?
For more information, there's a decent Wikipedia page on this. Of course, it's Wikipedia, so it's taken with a grain of salt.
"The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
What cloud does the other Republican Senator from Alaska reside under? Her father appointed her to fulfill his term when he was elected Gov'ner, but she has done reasonably well for a Republican.
It's pretty close to the actual number, according to The American Religious Identification Survey which pegged the number at 88% in 1990 and 81% in 2001.
You're right that it's a straw man argument he's making, but it's pretty darned close to my experience with my fellow Christians who think that we're a persecuted minority. It's frankly a delusional mindset, but it's a tool used by various leaders to get us to rally together on various topics. Nothing makes people willing to accept a combative worldview and to ignore flaws within in favor of the flaws of others better than to tell them they are under attack. It's a story as old as time.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
There is no way that any kind of growth stimulus among a population of 7000 justifies spending $315 million.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
If he does, and Haliburton gets contracts from the US government, then those shares go up in value, increasing Cheney's wealth.
If Cheney owns no shares, then point that out, I'll concede that you're right, and we'll quit now. If he does own shares, and you're using a technically true statement(Cheney "doesn't get paid by Haliburton" vs "Cheney stands to make no money from Haliburton contracts") to deliberately mislead. That would mean that you lack the integrity to have an honest debate.
So this isn't complicated. If Cheney owns shares, then he stands to profit, and you're deliberately muddying the waters--i.e. lying. If he doesn't own shares, then he doesn't stand to profit, and there is no conflict of interest. I don't mind being wrong--if he doesn't own shares, then he doesn't own shares. But if he does, then there is a conflict of interest, and no claim of liberal bias can muddy the waters enough to obscure that obvious fact.
- show me how to turn off the politics section in the RSS feeds, you miscreant
I wouldn't expect anything less from the comrades at /.
/. ?
/.'s bias is very clear. Almost like the Washingotn Post and New York Times claiming that they are "totally objective" in their reporting, when to anyone with a brain, they are clearly not.
When are the stories of democratic corruption coming to
BTW - Stevens is scum and should be tarred and feathered. But then again, so should a lot of politicians. All I know is that
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
I hear complaints of persecution against Christians all the time--I saw a clip of Benny Hinn just a few days ago as he stood in a huge stadium filled with tens of thousands of people, shaking his fist mightily at the camera and bellowing "We are not ashamed of Christ!" as if he and his audience were making a brave stand against the secular powers of evil.
Was this a secret meeting? Were the authorities about to crash in the doors and cart off the believers? Oh wait--this was televised, well-publicized, and well-attended. Hinn is a millionaire. So... what's the strawman argument? I didn't say Christians are bad, only that I frequently hear laments of persecution for being Christian, which I find silly. What is the strawman argument in that?
But we agree on the usefulness of the seige mindset. It's a great tool to build group coherence and loyalty. Us vs. them, all the way. They hate us, and want to wipe us out. Pretty soon they'll start rounding us up and putting us in camps. How brave we are to stand up to them! Not everyone has this much integrity! It has the dual function of scaring the wits out of everyone and assuaging their vanity at their own courage and inherent goodness. No wonder people use it.
The area I live in will soon stop growing if a major interstate isn't around the city, currently there is interstate access only on one side of town and that side can't grow much because of mountains. With an interstate on the east side of town the city could get around a LOT better and growth would continue at the current rapid rate which would be good for the local and state economy. This loop will cost less than $300 million and will help an area of 500,000+ people, how can you say that this city of 7,000 is more deserving? I'm sure there are many areas in this country far more deserving than ours as well.
"The reason it does not have more is there is a land shortage."
We're talking about Alaska, right?
"There are many locations in many states where development could only take off once a bridge was built so people could drive around."
And this makes it a federal issue why? If Juneau paid back slightly less in their Permanent Fund, they could have paid for their own bridge themselves (maybe even two or three) without having to get a pork earmark in Washington.
muntz Ha ha!!! /muntz
Perhaps what needs to happen first is that government classes need to stop teaching that it is a good thing. I am not sure about any other slashdotters, but my AP Government class taught that while overall it is morally questionable, things that need to get done get done because of it. There was a specific emphasis on pork being good overall.
No, a Democrat didn't do any of that... ... yet. I'm sure if we give them the chance, it will happen though. Corruption and thirst for power are bipartisan affairs.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
You are saying "We should be free to do what I like, but not what I don't like." That's fine, it's ok to think that certain freedoms should be limited, but don't try and pretend that there's some difference. A large part of freedom of speech is freedom of unpopular speech. It's the right to say things that offend people, that many people don't want to hear. Restricting it can lead to a whole lot of speech being restricted. For example we have a lot of honour that is done at the expense of religion, particularly Christianity since we have such heavy Christian roots in our society and thus it is something that people will get (Buddhist humour wouldn't work so well, nobody would understand it). However often it offends a large amount of people. Well, you can start running afoul of hate speech laws in cases like that. Even worse you can do it simply through expressing an opinion. Perhaps you think Christianity is a retarded superstition, one that has lead to amazing genocides in its name. However if that opinion is expressed in a manner that is offensive, and such a thing is illegal, you could wind up in jail for it.
Now you may consider that all ok. We don't have unlimited personal freedoms, and indeed can't since personal freedoms must be balanced against having those infringe upon the freedoms of others. However don't pretend that your particular side of politics (whatever that may be) does it out of some special moral righteousness. It's the same deal all the way around: They want to restrict you from doing what they don't like, allow you to do what they do. What falls in to those categories varies depending on the political group, but it's the same shit.
For most issues, there are plenty go good arguments both ways. Yes, believe it or not there are good arguments against gay marriage. Doesn't mean you have to buy them (I don't) but they are valid argument, not just someone screaming about "God says it's evil!" Same thing with hate speech laws. You clearly have sold yourself on the arguments for them, you'd do well to consider the arguments against them. It's never a situation of "This is good, there is no harm." All action has harm, the question is does the benefits outweigh the harm.
There may be things that Steven's has done wrong or that you don't like but the "BILLIONS of dollars to bridges to nowhere" bit is a commonly parroted bit of misinformation. Do you even know where the "bridge to nowhere" even is? What is the name of the city?
t chikan+Gateway,+Alaska,+United+States&ie=UTF8&cd=1 &sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.509065,59.765625&m pnum=0&ll=55.360966,-131.691055&spn=0.088206,0.233 459&z=12&om=1
Anyone who has been to the area of the proposed bridge will agree that it needs to be built. It is in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan is completely out of space. Land prices have skyrocketed because there is no land. On the other side of the proposed bridge is land just waiting to be developed. Oh, and the AIRPORT is on the other side of the "bridge to nowhere". Do you think it might be nice if they could drive to the airport instead of having to take a ferry?
Look at it on a map...
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=Ketchikan,+Ke
The project is totally reasonable and makes sense to anyone with even a small portion of the facts. Quit parroting the stupid rantings of national media "pundit" (read as a-hole with an axe to grind...) and come up with you own opinion.
Oh, and who cares what the politicians do on their own time. I really think the news media's constant need to entertain us and invent news stories has killed the political process in this country.
(At least they are protecting the corporations!)
It's very simple. Our system positively selects for corruption, and it always will so long as the support of a few wealthy men is necessary to successfully compete in an election. I volunteered in the finance office of a campaign for governor, and you have no idea just how expensive a campaign is and just how much that money hinges on a short list of generous donors until you've gone over the public finance disclosures of your candidate and their opponents. Only the super, super rich can self-finance.
With that sort of pressure, corruption is inevitable. With the exception of a few wealthy ideologues, nobody gives money to a campaign without expecting some sort of favorable legislation passed for them. No candidate can survive without this sort of favor swapping. The best you can do is to decide who you're willing to compromise yourself to.
Take Hillary Clinton for example. Back when her husband was President, she was instrumental in getting the White House back away from that horrible bankruptcy reform bill that would eventually get passed in 2005. You can read more about this in "The Two-Income Trap" because the author of the book was instrumental in convincing her it was a bad idea. The bill contains such gems as prioritizing the repayment of credit card debt before child support and alimony payments. Clinton was horrified by the bill originally and promised to defeat "that awful bill" which was "unfair to women and children."
Now a few years later after successfully running for the Senate after receiving $140,000 of campaign contributions from banking executives, Senator Clinton voted in favor of the bill when it came up unchanged in 2001 and in every other year it was introduced until its passage in 2005. This is what corruption is all about -- bills for bills.
Even the most principled politician has to hold their nose and do something terrible in exchange for getting to prioritize the issues that really matter to them. For some politicians, this eventually eats away at everything they did care about until nothing is left but the matters of power and money. For other politicians, pork spending, anti-consumer legislation, and corporate welfare were their highest principles to begin with.
This sort of thing happens constantly, and it will happen until we can somehow kill the relationship between big donations and a successful bid for office. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court is dead set on the idea that money equals free speech and forgets that the point of free speech is to give all citizens a chance to air their views. With big money being thrown around like this, the voices and opinions of the little guy mean absolutely jack outside of the voting booth. This means that some issues will never be properly examined (like copyright extension) because the few powerful interests have well bribed both sides on the issue.
This is why almost all of our elections are about "culture war" nonsense. It's a distraction from the real issues about government power and the spending of our tax dollars are decided with phone calls, industry drafted bills, and big fat checks. You just wave gay marriage or video game violence and the voters look that way while the other hand is busy digging in the graft.
I'm in favor of the latest raft of public election financing draft bills. You agree not to accept any money from private individuals, and in exchange the government matches what your opponent spends. The best part is that since they're voluntary, the Supreme Court can't knock them down without extremely tortured logic. To qualify, all you have to do is get a certain critical mass of signatures, and then you spend the entire election trying to speak to the people instead of spending (literally) 70-90% of your time begging for money. Trust me; this is what an election is really like -- candidates are just panhandlers trading dignity for much larger sums of cash than a homeless person. It's disheartening to watch.
Unti
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The biggest strawman part of your argument was the following:
The guy was griping about being allowed to sing some religious songs in his school but not Christmas carols and not being allowed to critique Islam. This whole block I quoted is a rant against fundamentalists in an attempt to tar people who complain about Christianity being singled out with the brush of flat-earthers and young-Earth creationists. Classic strawman -- you were bring up things that had nothing to do with what he was talking about in an attempt to make people who hold his views look bad as a group.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
But if I recall correctly, Cheney does have stock options which were originally valued at 8 million, so he has benefited greatly from administration energy and war policy. It's a clear conflict of interest: the more government policies and contracting favor Halliburton, the more money he takes out of the deal when he exercises his options.
Cheney also is accruing deferred salary, but as this is not affected by policy one way or the other it is not a concern.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, you're both right!... the island has under 1,000 people the town across the water has over 7,000.
The arguments for building the bridge are:
1) The city doesn't have much adjacent developable land because it's all too mountainous... the nearby island has a lot of flat developable land...
2) The airport is on the island. And most importantly...
3) Senator Stevens is on the appropriations committee.
The arguments against spending federal money to build the bridge are:
1) It's classic pork-barrel spending on a local, not federal issue. The state of Alaska, and the city involved have their own money to spend on their own issues. And most importantly...
2) Because of the large amount of money and the tiny population of the island it provides plenty of good sound-bites to imply it's particularly frivolous pork. Especially when it was introduced right after Hurricane Katrina and there were a lot of bridges in need of repair there getting a lot less (or no) money.
Ted Stevens should certainly be held responsible for this. But if we're going to start seeing claims that republicans under "clouds" I think it would only be fair, and unbiased, to start running stories on democrats under similar situations. Because this problem of family members getting cushy jobs in government is a common problem in both parties.
Even worse than that, a shocking number of close relatives to politicians are lobbyists. I heard the figures the other day, but I don't recall them now. But this problem goes right across party lines.
The problem is inevitably that people call out the republicans for this sort of thing, but then are always making excuses when the democrats do the same. Case in point: Dianne Feinstein's husband is a defense contractor. In early 2003 his company won a contract that could earn the company $3.1 billion over the following 8 years. I certain heard nothing about this. But people did go nuts over the thing with Cheney and the company he was no longer working for.
Even worse, I've seen numerous blogs trying to excuse democrats or come up with ways to somehow explain away the problem. But when a republican gets accused of the same damn thing suddenly their actions are inexcusable. The guy might as well be Satan incarnate.
Look, I think the republicans need to be held to task for all of this. It all is inexcusable and frankly I think many of them are scumbags trying to profit from their position in as many ways as possible. But enough with this double standards bullshit. The democrats are just as guilty as the republicans and it's time we say unbiased coverage of both parties.
When fundamentalists are criticized, the defense is "you hate Christians! You're a bigot!" rather than recognizing that Christianity at large is allowing the subset of loonies to co-opt what the word "Christian" means. I know who I do and don't have scorn for, and I don't have scorn for people just because they believe in Christ.
And I agreed with him about some schools going too far. I was just giving some context as to how I think this came about. If you're complaining about racial profiling against Middle Eastern men in the USA, pointing out the 9/11 attackers doesn't justify it, but it does help explain how it came about. That I understand how we ruled part of our history off-limits for school discussion does not mean that I approve of that exclusion.
That's also a cost difference of $45,000/person vs $630/person, assuming both projects were to cost the same $315,000,000. At $630/person, knowing it is going to stimulate an economy where the tax return is likely to easily exceed $630/person in short order, it makes lots of sense. Imagine how long it would take for a return on $45,000/person in a location where the economy, aside from the initial construction, is unlikely to change much.
That same amount of money would have a much greater return on investment if used for other things
Yeah, such as not having been taken from the people that earned it in the first place.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
I don't care when they don't bother.
Hypocrisy should not be tolerated.
You can't take the sky from me...
That's not a straw man argument at all. If anything, it's a appeal of reconciliation between sides, saying that misanthrope101 understands what this person is saying and agrees somewhat. There should be more posts like that one.
A ferry just isn't the same, and you know it.
Lots of people commute by ferry to Boston, NYC, SF, and Seattle. Are we to believe that these 7000 in Ketchikan are so special that a ferry is unacceptable for them? The bridges are pork, plain and simple. Alaska already gets a disproportionate share of highway funding despite having a budget surplus thanks to the oil fund.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I think people need to put that into perspective. Possibly:
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" -- The Management
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
"So we're already footing the bill for it, why don't we see if maybe we can cut out the bullshit and provide preventative/managed care up front with that money?"
Because governments are stupid, corrupt, and wasteful, and handing them control of my health care is an idea that scares the hell out of me. What happens when they make health care contingent upon a citizen doing _______? Go ahead and try to pretend it couldn't happen, that's how all those things that can't happen do happen.
"Are minorities over-represented in these programs? Sure. Are they over-represented in the population that these programs are intended to serve? Sure."
Great, thanks for admitting that. At least you're not too stupid to see that these programs are bribes for minorities that guarantee votes in the future. "REPUBLICANS HATE BLACK PEOPLE" means "REPUBLICANS DON'T WANT TO PAY US TO VOTE FOR THEM".
"People call liberals "impractical". Kettle, it's Pot. You're black."
Oooh a stupid third grade witticism. I had no idea I was talking to a ten year old girl.
Here's one for you that's not moronic and overdone, and even more importantly, ACCURATE
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
YOU want that. That is what YOU are advocating. It's no surprise to me of course, but as someone who tried to speak about long term consequences, it sure looks like you're not smart enough to take your own advice.
But you're a liberal, so you and smart rarely travel together.
Wrong numbers. The federal contribution would be $223 million for the bridge to the airport, which serves 14,000 people in the Ketchikan borough. The "bridge to nowhere" moniker is a farce, but this bridge is an even bigger farce for the cost.
Ooooo... seven thousand! Wow, that sure is a heck of a lot of people!
Oh, wait, no it's not -- even my university has more people than that, even if you only count students! You don't see us whining about a billion-dollar bridge (paid for by other people, of course), now do you?!
A bridge that big and expensive might -- might -- be justified for a real city like Fairbanks or Anchorage, but it sure as hell isn't justified for a podunk little shithole like that!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Land shortage? Look at the satellite image of the city on google maps. What the fuck is all that green stuff on THREE SIDES of the city? This is the second post making that outrageous claim, and modded up as insightful. And that's not even the point. The point is, if those 7,000 people are going to benefit from this, maybe they should pay for it themselves. Why should I have to pay for a bridge that will benefit a minuscule minority of US citizens? Why should the bridge be that big and expensive if it serves all of 7,000? And you know what? The narrows there look to be all of 1,500 feet wide. How long of a ferry ride are we talking here? I can't believe you are actually trying to defend this boondoggle. Do you live in Ketchikan?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
What will it take? As a start, how about voting the bastards out? Oh, unless they are a Democrat that were caught with $90k in their freezer, then vote them back in.
As I recall, there were actually TWO bridges to nowhere. One was to the island with the airport that (generally) makes sense. The other is to a small nowhere island where his wife has property.
I remember a story somewhere about how confused the bridges have become.
The next time a Democrat in Congress passes a bill offering a government buyout to a fishing co-op, in order to artificially restrict the market and thus drive up prices, at the behest of a son who is getting paid $10k/month to lobby on it's behalf... Especially if said Democrat had made ludicruous and funny statements about the nature of the internet. I'm quite certainly slashdot will report on the story.
But it seems what you really want is to defend the Republicans with the "They're all bad" defense. I mean look at this shit:
I read the primary Democratic blogs routinely. dailyKos, Talkingpointsmemo, atrios and so on. Not once have I ever seen this. It was a blogswarm from these blogs who got William Jefferson stripped of his leadership post, and then later his committee positions when he was eventually indicted. Hell, the blogs put a *LOT* of effort to try to get William Jefferson replaced in the primary before the last election.
Now that's something you won't see from Republican blogs. Instead they sit there whining about how the media is biased against Republicans, and how we should be talking about all the Democrats who steal lollipops from children as being comparable to Duke Cunningham taking $2.4 million in bribes.
You're right, what's considered "oppression" (and I don't know any Christian who calls it that, but they're probably on a radio program I don't listen to) is the attempt to censor any public mention of religion. The other part would be having to put up with assholes who think that atheism gives them license to be a jerk to anyone they disagree with.
That said, please remember that there's real, actual, deadly persecution of Christians still going on. Just not in America. Anyone who worships outside of a state controlled church in China, for example, can easily wind up dead. Falun Gong makes all the news, but the problem isn't limited to them. And I haven't even begun to mention all the other countries where you can end up dead for being a Christian, let alone drag Islam and its apostasy laws into this.
Sorry, I was using numbers from the previous posters and the links they provided.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Ted Stevens is corrupt as hell
William Jefferson is corrupt as hell
I don't care what letter is after their name I want them out of politics and into jail. I want them both in PMINTA hard time prisons. If possible I want them taking big rocks and breaking them into little rocks. The only way this will happen is if there is a completely independent investigative group who spends all of their time investigating every and I mean every member of the house and the senate, and prosecuting as much as is humanly possible.
Honor will not keep them honest, honor has not kept them honest. The only thing that will keep the politicians in line is knowing that if they step out of line they will be caught. They need to be held to a higher standard than the rest of the population because they are in a position to cause much greater harm.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Check my Slashdot ID. 4 digits. I'm a computer programmer. I know C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, bash, csh, C#, etc. I use Linux at home. Okay, have I established my creds? I worked for Eazel. I spoke once at an O'Reilly Conference.
I'm a Democrat. I can't stand Ted Stevens. But, seriously, why is everyone so upset over his comparing the Internet to a series of tubes?
I refer to my Internet connection as a "pipe". I really, really don't believe the Internet is at all like a truck. I agree that there is a limited amount of data that can fit on an internet pipe. I would like it if someone pointed out the vast amounts of dark fiber to Mr. Stevens (compare it to a really huge tube with only a trickle of water running through it, if you think it'd help), but his analogy was *correct*.
But, I think it's a bit ridiculous to be making fun of him for using "tubes" instead of "pipes". Are we really upset with him because he's uncomfortable and bad with words? Isn't our problem with him that he's nerdy?
Bad news: so am I.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
The latest thing from the Republicans has been trying to define anti-Christian statements as hate speech.
There's this whole sub-cult, which is kind of funny, they like to promote books about the War on Christmas and such.
Unfortunately voting for the loonietarian is generally a waste.
It's better to be strategic, and kick the bastards out when they overreach. I don't care where they come from, I think going back and forth is good, but even better is a nice gridlock.
It is prudent to point out that the Permanent Fund Dividend, of which every Alaskan receives every year, belongs to the people and not the State Government. In Alaska, if you even sneeze about touching the PFD, the whole of Alaska will turn against you as a politician. The PFD was established for the people who live in Alaska to benefit from the rich natural resources that they export, as such, the gubment is disallowed from laying their grubby, grimy hands on that money. And believe me, they TRY to do so ALL the time... arguing for the sake of bettering the state with using the funds. In the past there has even been talk of providing all Alaskans with a Lump Sum payment so that they can cancel the fund and use the profits for State Spending. Considering practically every Alaskan owns an armory in their closet, the day that happens is the day I expect some people in Juneau get shot in the face a few dozen times.
Corrupt politicians? In MY Government?!
Well....duh.
Great, the city should have held a bond referendum. Or even the state.
But the Federal Govt? We have better places to spend $500 million. We've got existing bridges which are actually used that could be fixed for far less and benefit far more people.
The time to drive from town to the island right across the way is greater over the proposed bridge than just taking the ferry. The one and only one reason for the bridge to nowhere is that Ted (the guy accused of doing illegal things in this story) has friends with land. The bridge would go a few miles south of town, cross into his friends and family's land, then back up to the airport. Lots of land would be bought up at inflated prices. The land right on the other side of the bridge is private holdings of the friends and family so they would have the most attractive real estate deals after. It was all about Ted being old and dying soon, so he's pushing through things to give money back to the people that helped/supported him. Unethical? Sure. But he's a politician...
Learn to love Alaska
Just a question, out of curiosity.
...If I knew for sure that there was going to be a bridge, followed by immediate demand for land, I would start buying land while it's still cheap and wait for prices to rise.
Who owns the land on this island ?
(And are they good chums of Sen. Stevens ?)
(Profit!)
"And the HMOs are like that, but worse."
Yeah, and if you don't like how they operate, they come to your house and put a gun in your face.
Oh, wait, no they don't, that's the government.
Worse my ass, you're a fucking moron for even trying that stupid argument.
We're talking about Alaska, right?
Alaska has a land shortage. The government (federal, state and local) own nearly everything. They won't sell any of it. That leaves the small percentage that is privately held to be traded around. The housing prices in Alaska are much more than people think. Also, the places in question are on isalnds that are essentially the sides of mountains that poke out of the ocean. It isn't like there is a lot of flat land in that area to build on. So yes, Alaska has a serious land shortage. The "fix" of course, is to have the government sell off its land and then people will buy it and start paying texes on it. They'll get income from the sale and more from the taxes. But that's not happening for any more than a few token areas at very low volumes.
If Juneau paid back slightly less in their Permanent Fund, they could have paid for their own bridge themselves (maybe even two or three) without having to get a pork earmark in Washington.
Alaska receives the least funding per-area of any state. Yes, more comes to Alaska than is paid by the residents, but that's how it is in most red states. The low population density makes it look like Alaska is an offender if you look at per-capita, but look like they are getting screwed if you look per-area. Feel free to pick the one for the side you like and pretend the other doesn't exist. That's much easier than trying to have a reasonable look at the big picture.
Learn to love Alaska
Why should the Federal government pay for the bridges in the city of Ketchikan? If these people want to live in the middle of nowhere, they should have to bear the full cost of their choice. The Federal government should have no interest in supporting such an inefficient lifestyle choice.
The irony of the Republican mantra of self-reliance is that it is primarily the rural, Republican areas that receive financial support from the rich, urban, Democratic areas. If you want to look at the biggest Federal welfare recipients, look at the rural areas in the US.
The city the bridge is being built at has over 7,000 people.
Well, I have a better idea. Rather than spending $315 million on building these people a bridge, let's pay each of them $45000 in order to move to a bigger city. That way, we won't have to support their apparently very expensive lifestyle with federal tax dollars in the future.
Come to think of it, let's not pay them anything, let's let them just build their own bridge, OK? Then, we can apply the $315 million to, oh, say the federal deficit.
Isn't "republican in name only" practically the definition of a Republican?
Any more insight and this would be flame bait!
The reason it does not have more is there is a land shortage.
I hear they have the same problem in New York City and in San Fransisco.
Maybe they should move 60 minutes into the suburbs like everyone else in the states or enjoy the ferry like they still run in NYC.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Since "the market" is the Republican answer to the funding of health care and affordable housing, shouldn't it be the answer to funding this bridge too?
From the original appropriations bill;
"the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900)
with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50)"
$320 million well spent. . .
But the bridge isn't a "bridge to nowhere". It's a bridge to the island with the Ketchikan Airport. Sure, almost nobody lives on the island, but the reason for building it wasn't just to spend $300M to benefit the few people who do or to make it easier to go fishing there or give lots of pork to Teddy's friends in the construction business. It's so the 8000 people who live in Ketchikan don't have to take a ferry-boat across the river to get to the airport, which can take half an hour and cost $6 and occasionally gets delayed by weather (but so do the airplanes.) And the bridge needs to be that expensive not only because it's Alaska but because it needs to be tall enough for shipping to get through, and a drawbridge simply wouldn't do.
Of course, for a small fraction of that $300M, the Feds could fund a free helicopter taxi service to get people across even faster, but it's so obvious that that's a subsidy, and it's easy to cancel, even if you've built some sort of Helicopter Trust Fund to stash the money in. When you've nailed down the pork by building it into a bridge, other people can't walk off with it and give it to their own buddies.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Another alternative (if they want the money) is to give all 8000 residents $40,000 each - it might feel embarassingly like welfare, but it would cause a lot more economic development for the community because people would spend the money on things that were more useful than the bridge. Even if they gave it to the city council to spend instead of the residents, they'd probably find more useful things to spend it on - better school buildings or a Monorail or road repair or whatever. You'd probably get stuck with a new city hall edifice like most of the new-development towns around here in California. But even if it all went to construction, more of the money would stay around Ketchikan, because it would be more within the capabilities of the local construction industry, as opposed to a bridge which is more of a specialized mega-engineering project that would be mostly non-local suppliers.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I live in the Washington DC area. We are currently replacing the Wilson Bridge, which is the crossing of the Potomac River by 95, the primary north/south interstate of the east coast (which at this bridge is also part of the Washington Beltway). It was two spans of 3 lanes each; the new bridge(s) will be two spans of 6 lanes each. In addition, the project includes the complete reconstruction of four high-volume interchanges: highway 295, Route 1, the George Washington Parkway, and Maryland state highway 210.
Here are some points of comparison with the Ketchikan Bridge:
- The population of the Washington DC metro area is about 5 million people - Ketchikan has a population of 7,500
- The entire Wilson Bridge project, including interchanges, costs $2.5 billion, of which the feds are paying $1.5 billion. That's about $300 per local resident. In comparison the Ketchikan Bridge would cost $350 million, which comes out to over $46,000 per local resident!
Now do you see what people objected to spending this much money on this particular project? In addition:
- The Wilson Bridge crosses from one state to another - the Ketchikan bridge would not
- The Wilson Bridge supports a federal interstate highway - the Ketchikan bridge would not
There really was no reason for the federal government to pay for this bridge.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
as to build their airport across the river from the town, when they didn't already have a bridge or a firm commitment that a bridge be built. There is ton's of land out there, why don't they put the airport just a little bit more north byt Shoreline Drive or along the banks of Ward Cove?
"The government (federal, state and local) own nearly everything. They won't sell any of it."
Your state's government, your state's problem.
"but that's how it is in most red states."
And this forgives things how?
"The low population density makes it look like Alaska is an offender if you look at per-capita, but look like they are getting screwed if you look per-area."
As numerous Supreme Court decisions have pointed out, we are supposed to be a government of people, not of parcels of land. It doesn't matter how much land is in question, there's no reason to look at things in any other light than in terms of per capita/voter/citizen. Or are you now going to argue that Alaska should have more members of Congress than California?
it's crazy enough to work: http://akrobotics.com/films/buy-back-alaska
I live in Washington, and you are full of shit. Ferries are part of the daily commute for a lot of people in the Seattle area, even though there is also a bridge some ways to the south across the Tacoma Narrows. (Two bridges, now.)
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Pork is institutionalized corruption. You want me to vote for your bill? What's in it for me? Pork makes the entirety of US politics corrupt to its core. The "Tubes" senator being investigated for corruption is laughable, as all politicians are demonstrateably corrupt. All due to pork.
That's funny, you calling someone else a liar and a hypocrite, and being serious about it.
You're not very happy with how pathetic your life is are you? Have you considered suicide? You should, everyone would finally be happy with you.
Listen, it's not your fault you're a loser, but why make it so obvious by proving it with your opinions?
Now go ahead and prove you're a loser by replying. I'm sure you'll insist you're not a liar and a hypocrite just like a lying hypocrite would.
Or are you now going to argue that Alaska should have more members of Congress than California?
No, I'm going to argue that they should have the same number of senators. Oh wait, the framers of the Constitution and a large number of people smarter than you agree with me and not you.
Learn to love Alaska
No Ted, it's a series of bars. And make sure to say hi to Rep William Jefferson when you are behind them so the partisans around here realize that power attracts corrupt men in both parties. The gloating over a perceived victory is unseemly. Every American loses every time a politician goes bad.
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Alaska receives the least funding per-area of any state.
What a shocker! You're telling me all that tundra, mountains, and forest doesn't require substantial upkeep? Looking at Alaska's federal funding on a per-area basis is something that only a moron or an Alaskan would do.
"Or are you now going to argue that Alaska should have more members of Congress than California?"
Well, arguably they should have more Senators than Rhode Island. Humboldt County Nevada (I used to live there) is larger than Massachusetts. It should have it's own two senators too.
Or, even better, take RI, Connecticut, and MA, and roll them up into one state for Senate purposes. Combine Delaware with Maryland, and maybe NJ with PA, (have to look at the area numbers.) And split Alaska into two or three states, given it's size. That would fix a lot of inequities.
If you want to make me really happy, then create Districts for the Senators, so we don't have the problem we have in Washinton state. Both Senators are from Seattle. Now Cantwell actually can find the East Side and is not completely hopeless at representing the issues here, but Murray only interests in the East Side are cheap food, cheap labor, and cheap, high quality vacations.
Give me the above, and I'll let you kill off the Electoral College.
And remember we are supposed to avoid a Tyranny of the Majority, which is what you get with pure majority rule.
is that you?
China food safety head executed. In America, he'd get two years at a country club.
Not all members of Congress are Senators. There is that other chamber, the one where spending bills are required to start in.
And one of the reasons that spending bills are required to start in the chamber designed to represent the people rather than the states is that is where the money both comes from and should be going. To argue that one should focus on money spent on hectares rather than persons is only a stone's throw away from talking about a landed gentry.
And I still haven't seen anything about why this should be paid for by the other 49 rather than tapping into the Permanent Fund other than "other red states do it too!" Or does the state you're so proud of that you put it in your handle lack even that much dignity and self-respect?
"If you want to make me really happy, then create Districts for the Senators, so we don't have the problem we have in Washinton state."
If you want your own Senators to represent your precious tracts of land, ask Olympia and DC to let you form your own state (e. g. Maine). But I suggest you consider that then you'd have to go through DC to get money from the Seattle you loathe so much.
Even the Senate wasn't intended to represent hectares, rather Senators represent sovereign republics. If you think eastern Washington can figure out a working state constitution, let alone fund the workings of the government it'd create, more power to you.
"Give me the above, and I'll let you kill off the Electoral College."
The Electoral College wasn't intended to represent parcels of land. A state's electors were supposed to form a deliberative body with each member having an independent vote. It's only with the introduction of political parties combined with the dinosaur of at-large elections (the kind that you complain about in your Senate elections) that have people such as yourself claiming the presidential election system was supposed to balance rural versus urban interests rather than the original federalism versus republicanism balance that was intended.
"And remember we are supposed to avoid a Tyranny of the Majority, which is what you get with pure majority rule."
And yet the only solutions you propose is re-drawing district lines to create your own majorities from smaller constituencies, favorable to your own opinions. What will be your solution once the "kinder, gentler" majority you've drawn for yourself starts to disagree with you, balkanize the district further?
is where wikipedia is the weakest, and most prone to being jacked.
Even without viewing the stub, I recommend that any who visit the link take a long hard look at the history versioning, but even that feature can no longer be fully trusted, as methods have been implemented which allow for the removal of versioning entries by just a few of wikipedia's elites.
Of course they promise to only use that memory hole for good, not evil, and only sparingly, when the data carries with it a taint of defamation or slander, which is extra-especially sensitive when it comes to biographical data of persons living.
I immediately wonder how this could possibly apply to information regarding potential conflicts of interests between a sitting vice-president, who has a known predilection to engage in over the top vindictiveness(he may even roll your wife!), and large international corporations, who have skimmed the top of the classes from America's first-tier Law Universities for their law departments' staff.
,p>Then there is the newest trend in abuse of international tort law being played in a despicably unamerican fashion. It gives one great leverage to those whose have at their beck and call as a staff member, a retained English barrister. Contemporary Conservatism whiny relativism offers illuminative irony though, as it seems the Perles were cast a wee bit before the other swine got into the act.
The Wikimedia Foundation, in their vested survival interests, can do little else but fold. Whitewash by any other name is just a blinding.
and we have always been at war against {fill in blank}...
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Typically, a city uses FREE ENTERPRISE to prove the need for a bridge. Seattle, a city of over a MILLION residents still uses ferries (in many cases) to transport citizens from across the Puget Sound. Where traffic demand warrants, a bridge might be constructed (I-90 and WA 520), using tax base generated by the thousands of commuters who would use it every day. If the need was marginal, a toll bridge might be constructed (Tacoma Narrows).
"Build it and they will come..." played well in Field of Dreams (A MOVIE), but this case was simply a thin excuse to line someone's pockets at MY EXPENSE. Perhaps the millions would have been better spent to explore sustainable high-density housing...
is pervasive within their political leveraging of these topics. In both instances, sworn Federal Law Enforcement Officers were serving what they in good faith believed to be lawful warrants issued by a Federal Court of the United States Government, and came under deadly attack in the course of fulfilling their duty. On top of that, the facts indicate that in both instances, these persons had not reacted out of passion, but had conspired to to use deadly force, and were well-prepared with practise to do so.
The legitimacy of warrants can be rightfully contested in a court of law without violence, without attempting to murder other citizens who are only acting in what they believe to be in a manner consistent with upholding their honourably sworn duty.
Whether or not the warrants were issued wrongfully, aided by an overreaching prosecutor, is not the issue. What is the issue is that these individuals chose insurrection over an appeal to justice under American Constitutional Law.
As is far too often the case, the right does not believe that their stated public positions, in this instance support for law and order, are applicable to them. It is all just moral relativism's smoke and mirrors of wafting mendacity.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Virginia Postrel, who as long-term editor of Reason, sought to take libertarianism into mainstream, down into the mud with the republicans and democrats, by equivocating about core issues of personal liberty, while she championed her vision of proper libertarian economic theory. An agent in the right-siding of American Libertarianism.
Warning to those who disagree: might want to explain this search result first.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
This is an offensive rationalisation, which cuts to the chase regarding the inherent evils of the two-party system. Sadly it also seems to indicate, that while a vote for the lesser of evils, should as a matter of principle, be generally be avoided, because it is, after all, an affirmative vote for evil; the reality of modern American politics makes a choice even more difficult, because it involves:
The Lamer of Two Evils,
and arguably, a lamer evil is a wiser choice. This is an argument, which upon application to contemporary politics, tends to work against the right-side of the political bipolarity.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
as Mr. Stevens is one of the reprehensible nine senators who in a manner wholly antithetical to the Dreamtime America voted against the McCain anti-torture amendment to the 2006 FY Military Appropriations Act on October 5, 2005.
For this reason alone, he should be taken down, without mercy, and his future headstone be appropriately utilised as a public urinal.
I am a reprobate American son, who stands and resists. There will be no negotiation, no bargaining on this. The acquiescence to a governmental imprimatur upon acts of torture, for any reason under heaven or hell, is an obscenity to human liberty. If we do not as a people renounce it, America is lost.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
I challenge the rectitude of your stated libertarian intents on just this sig alone, for it implies that you beleive in foreign intervention, and are not willing to squarely face the reality of the enemies' visage which you view every morning in the mirror upon awakening.
It was The Reagancomics, who escalated straight in through the gates of hell, Brzezinski's bloodfeud in the name of his original motherland against the Soviet for the damage they had caused it, that gave the bastard sons issued from the congress between Saudi Princes and their concuibines their opportunity to become educated in the dark arts of insurgency.
The famed pitchman for a soap additive, Ronald Reagan, deceitfully provided an aura of mysticism around these 'freedom fighters', with his lies to the public:
What Reagan failed to mention was the amount of weaponry, funding for training and intelligence data that had been directly funneled into this bloody wa
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
I think it's not realy morality, but rather politics.
It's only bad, if they can blame a Democrat. Otherwise, it was a good thing. The point being, they aren't using a moral compass to determine this, but rather base politics.
The Ruby Ridge wingnuttery is a prime example of this. Even when it's clear it happened under a Republican administration, they work hard to blame Clinton. But if the same thing happened today with GW Bush, they ignore it.
There was an incident just a year or two ago, where the DEA served a no-knock warrant on the wrong house. The elderly woman inside the house put up a fight, fired at the officers, and was killed herself.
But you don't hear them yelling and screaming about this.
Hell, actually, I suspect they'll probably blame it on the Democratic President who takes office in 2009.
More likely the Penis of the President Past
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Looking at Alaska's federal funding on a per-area basis is something that only a moron or an Alaskan would do.
And looking at it solely on a per-capita basis is just as stupid. But I guess the subtlety of that was lost on you.
Learn to love Alaska
And I still haven't seen anything about why this should be paid for by the other 49 rather than tapping into the Permanent Fund other than "other red states do it too!"
Because there is a federal fund for roads, and these are roads.
Learn to love Alaska
Campaigning on "THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE" and then hiring a hooker once he gets to DC, that's why he deserves the new asshole he's getting torn.
Of course, the whole Vitter situation is completely unrelated to Stevens and his corruption charge.WTF? Apparently AK Marc has been feeding at the federal teat for so long, he doesn't realize that it is possible to build roads without Congress paying for it. Ted Stevens and your other fellow Republicans should be so proud of you.
"Because there is a federal fund for roads, and these are roads."
Yeah, and my driveway needs repaving. Should DC pay for that as well?
Yeah, and my driveway needs repaving. Should DC pay for that as well?
Since there is not a federal driveway fund, I'd say no.
Learn to love Alaska
"If you want your own Senators to represent your precious tracts of land, ask Olympia and DC to let you form your own state (e. g. Maine). "
That has been tried. The West-siders shot it down cold. It's odd that they keep complaining about how much we cost them, then they won't let us go. So I suspect the financial situation is either not as they (and you) claim, or they have other motives to keep us "dragging them down." Interesting aside, Congress must also approve the division of a state; I wonder how it would fare their?
"If you want your own Senators to represent your precious tracts of land.."
Senators represent people who live in an area, not land. You didn't say where you live, but Washington is divided by a mountain range creating two distinct climate zones. Therefore, the East and the West are very different in, well, everything. And one government and one set of rules does not seem to work very well when there is that big of a difference. What makes perfect sense in Seattle in ludicrous in , say, Lind. Seattle rams through the laws anyway, and then Lind ignores them. A workable solution until some Seattleite on vacation sees you blowing off the law and sics the cops on you. The fact you harmed no-one and nothing except the visitor's sensibilities helps at sentencing, but you are still guilty under the law.
"If you think eastern Washington can figure out a working state constitution, let alone fund the workings of the government it'd create, more power to you."
Well, gee, you're right. No one has EVER written a State constitution before... Oh wait, This argument is beneath response, with 50 examples of prior art.
I disagree with your assessment of the purpose of the Electoral College, but it is a worthy topic for discussion. In my view It wouldn't exist unless the Founding Fathers actually were worried about the more populous states running over the smaller ones.
As for your last point, where to stop does pose a good question. I would point out that geography sets some limits that are not likely to change a lot over time. See Joel Gerreau's "The Nine Nations of North America." Eastern WA is in the Empty Quarter, and Western WA is in Ectopia. It was obvious then (1981) they are different places. North Idaho and Southern Idaho (yes that is how they refer to themselves, I used to live there too, in both sections at different times) are always yelling at each other too. They are connected by one road that both sides refer to as "the goat trail". Should they be two states? Maybe, maybe not. In the end it should be their decision.
If Rhode Island is considered "sufficiently different" from MA to warrant being it's own state, then why not Eastern and Western WA? You can look out the window and tell which one you are in; can you say the same for RI and MA? (honest question, never been there)
Well, my philosophy education says that the ends do not justify the means. Therefore, doing something unethical to get a good result is still unethical.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
(Junior ROTC == "the military") in your mind? WTFH?!?!? *JUINOR* ROTC??? Kids who aren't even old to enlist or go to college pretending they're in a college program where slightly older kids pretend they they're in the military, some with hopes of eventually becoming second-rate commissioned officers (The military really prefers graduates of its own service academies.) has about as much to do with the military as the high school marching band in which I participated!
A quick googling shows that 1... USF, UCSF, and SFSU all have real RTOC programs, and 2... the high school JROTC programs got themselves de-funded because the screwballs running them set the program up as a hate group, very much in violation of non-discrimination policies of the board of education and city law.
The Iowa is also not "the military". It's not even an active warship. It's a sixty year old heap that the Navy doesn't even want for itself, and has been trying to dump on various cities as a "floating museum" so it doesn't have to eat the expense of maintaining or scrapping the thing itself.
> However the FACT that at least ONE person tried to stop it is at
> least evidence of the ANTI military bias in SF.
First off, you can find ONE person in pretty much any sizable group with pretty much any screwball opinion. And plenty of people here will readily admit that Daly is a screwball. Second, yes there is an anti-military bias here. What do you expect? It pretty much goes along with the place being a progressive city with many people opposing bush and his war.
But that's not what you claimed. You claimed that SF had: "KICKED OUT THE MILITARY" (demonstrably untrue), that there was no ROTC here (also a lie), and that we'd kick out every vestige we could, given the chance (also demonstrably untrue... Chris Daly speaks for neither the entire city, nor the entire board. And Fleet Week is scheduled to go ahead as planned.).
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
Even though I'm sure some Senator somewhere could make the case that a personal driveway is a road (and the bridge in question is not far removed), I'll ask this instead: All that is required is "federal allotment for X?" No requirement that federal spending "provide for the... general Welfare" rather than the "welfare" of a small handful of people with little connection to the rest of their own state, let alone the Union?
Well, the the place in question is one of the largest fish ports in the world, and I'm assuming that supplying a good portion of the "Alaska fish" as sold in the rest of the US would be a commerce issue. Contributing to the infrastructure to facilitate interstate commerce is no different in this case than an interstate from Dallas to Houston. Your strict interpretation with allowances would seem to be indicating that the road from the Oklahoma border to Dallas could be federal, and the road from Houston to the Louisiana border be federal as well, but leave it to the state of TX to complete the section between Dallas and Houston, since the majority of the traffic on that road is obviously Texan only. However, the federal government has set the standard that Texas-only traffic would receive federal funds. So how would that current existing policy exclude an important national and international fishing port from federal funds?
Learn to love Alaska
If you are a Republican and have a problem with that, maybe you should take some responsibility and do your part to clean up the cesspool that is your party.
I guess you never heard of Congressman William Jefferson, 2nd District of Louisana.
I guess you hadn't heard that he was stripped of his committee assignments and seniority as soon as he was indited. As opposed to when Republicans in the House forced through new ethics rules allowing Tom Delay to remain as majority leader when the Bugman was facing inditement. There isn't equal coverage of Democrat corruption because the is no equality between the parties on this issue. Absolutely non whatsoever. Delay. Gengrich. Hassert. Cunningham. The Steven family. Foley. Abramoff. Mcconnell. Just about the entire Bush administration. And that's just off the top of my head.
Forty years ago, Republicans were ready to impeach Nixon for his actions. George Bush and other Republicans have made the worst of Nixon's excesses look like Sunday School pranks, yet they are still defended after apologizing to a communist government for an air crash clearly caused by their pilot, after My Pet Goat, after the Iraq debacle, after Katrina, after NSA wiretapping, after Dubai Ports, etc etc etc etc etc etc. If you are a Republican and you aren't pissed off at the actions of your politicians, then you are a part of the corruption.
Nice bs article. Too bad it's bs. Republicans in Congress and Ken Starr didn't investigate and re-investigate William Jefferson Clinton because they were sure there were hidden crimes to uncover, they did it to undo the 1992 and 1996 elections.
In both instances, sworn Federal Law Enforcement Officers were serving what they in good faith believed to be lawful warrants issued by a Federal Court of the United States Government, and came under deadly attack in the course of fulfilling their duty.
They might have been "lawful" warrants in the Ruby Ridge case, but that's as far as it goes. An undercover law enforcement officer entrapped Randy Weaver by asking him to make some sawed-off shotguns, even supplying the guns to be cut down. The confrontation was started when the court sent him a summons with the wrong date and the judge issued a warrant anyway when he failed to appear.