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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.
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?
The 500 million dollar bridge to an uninhabited island? Why does this not surprise me?
Enjoy Every Sandwich
"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.
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.
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.
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?
Also, I think you need to double-check your math. The proposed bridge, which has not been built, is to cost about $350 million.
Oh, it's only $350 million instead of $500 million? That's OK then!
$350 million for a bridge that will service an island, Gravina, that only has 50 or so residents. That's only, what, $7 million per resident who'll use it? A veritable bargain!
Yep, one heck of a good deal, especially when you consider the incredible inconvenience of a seven minute ferry ride that the residents currently have to endure.
I wonder how much of that $350 million would find its way back to the Senator and his friends in terms of campaign donations and other kickbacks?
Here's an idea. Take that $350 million, give the 50 Gravina residents $100,000 each to put a smile as big as the Joker's on their faces and then spend the other $345 million on something more worthwhile.
It's people like this guy who'll hammer the poor and the infirm for every possible penny, denounce their political opponents for wasteful spending plans and then spend 9-figure sums on white elephants like this bridge.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Why not mention Slashdot's favorite Congressman, Rick Boucher, co-sponsored legislation to make it legal for corporations to pass off spyware. Yeah, the story actually got covered but the hit piece on Boucher was missing. kdawson posted that story as well. Was Boucher given a pass because kdawson was hired despite not reading Slashdot and thus not knowing it's history (I mean, he posted a story about whether people should have a right to broadband under the Enlightenment topic (since been changed corrected)). Is it because, before slashdot, he had a fairly partisan liberal blog and thus gets to use slashdot as a much larger soapbox to push his political agenda?
Why isn't Al Gore covered more given his connection with the nerd community if that is the standard? Where is the story on the indictment Congressman Jefferson's bribes involving telecommunications in Nigeria if the standard is hit pieces on Congressmen who've said/done something regarding technology?
Is this really what Slashdot wants to become, just another group think site that promotes the propaganda of one political party? The National Enquirer of tech news? I stopped going to kuroshin when it turned more into a political group think site than a site about technology. I've never used digg or reddit but I've heard they've gone that route as well. How I miss the old Slashdot way, way back before it was sold to Andover and then passed to VA Research. It actually used to be a site about computers, technology, Linux and the internet. Kdawson even makes me miss Jon Katz, michael, etc.
My working theory: Slashdot is really a political discussion forum. The whole "News for Nerds" thing is just here to scare away the unwanted.
Oh dammit I gave it away... Somebody silence me next time.
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.
What matters is not really his personal life, but that he was a hypocrite. On one hand he visited prostitutes and on the other, he championed the cause of many "family"-oriented laws. It shows him as a basically dishonest person, and that's what bothers people (including me).
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
"If I had to choose between a Senator who hires prostitutes or one who was elected by dead people, I'd choose the former."
I choose the latter. I will be dead one day, and I would like someone to represent me.
Personally, I find your lack of sensitivity towards the special needs of the metabolically interrupted people... Disturbing.
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.
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
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.
$350 million for a bridge that will service an island, Gravina, that only has 50 or so residents
The bridge would service Ketchikan, population 7,500 or thereabouts. It would also service tens of thousands of tourists each year.
The bridge is to connect Ketchikan with its airport, which is on Gravina island. Ketchikan has been trying to get enough money to build the bridge for as long as I can remember (at least 30 years). Right now, transport to and from the airport is via a couple of small ferries. There *is* a valid reason for this bridge. It's *not* a bridge to nowhere.
It's still a farce that the federal government porked up the money, though.
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.
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
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!"
Nonsense. That's like saying that people who advocate morality are hypocrites unless they themselves are perfect. If he believed that prostitution was a good thing, but tried to outlaw it anyway, he would be a hypocrite. If he thought it was a bad thing, and tried to outlaw it anyway, but succumbed to it anyway, he would not be a hypocrite. But he probably never expressed an opinion on prostitution, as it's not really the subject of federal law. The idea that someone is a hypocrite because they hire a prostitute while simultaneously being against prenatal murder and homosexual marriage is convoluted at best.
The human mind is fortunately so divided that it can contemplate the ideal and the true before it itself embodies those things.
"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.
How about if he got elected by deluding a specific segment of voters into thinking he stood with them on "family values"?
Actually, the word is not hypocrite but demagogue -- a man who promotes principles he considers false to people he considers fools.
rj
Well, my liberal side ends at the personal level. Because I'm very much for state influence in certain other areas, like health care, wellfare, education, and even the socializing of certain core basic production means (power, gas, water, phone, sewage, public transport, etc) and certain basic food and shelter needs.
The reason is, oddly, very free market. I've seen it more than once that large corporations can have a decisive edge over startups because they can negotiate better terms for those basic production resources (yes, even public transport), thus crippling rising competition.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That sort of thing has absolutely no basis in the federal government. Unless it was a bridge from one state or country to another, the federal government should stay the fuck away. This was an Alaskan issue that should have been dealt with and paid for by the Alaskan government. Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the authority to construct such a bridge in just Alaska? Don't cite the state commerce clause because that is in between states, not just a single state.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
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?
... pretty soon it adds up to real money!
I was using "bridges to nowhere" as a metaphor for pork barrel spending in general.
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?
Oh, I'm sure it would be nice. I'm sure the people there would LOVE it. It would also be nice if we had a great new museum in Poughkeepsie, or a soil enrichment program in Hicksville, Alabama, or the job traning center in Bethesda. Everyone thinks their own little pork project is ABSOLUTELY vital to the health of the nation. I heard the military thinks we need more military spending too. I'm sure it would make sense to ANYONE with a remote understanding of the facts.
But it's because everyone has their little corner of the world that NEEDS more free money that spending gets out of control.
A billion here, a billion there
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
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?
Based on your post, I now know that Ketchikan, Alaska has a local land development problem of their own making that they need to solve with their own money. Thanks for clearing that up.
Classic failure modes of the free market, including imbalance of information, natural monopoly, and externalities are all exploited by large and powerful players in the market. Regulation is necessary to keep the market free. An unregulated market is quickly dominated by the most ruthless and powerful players, becoming unfree.
Even without considering the failure modes of the free market, Pareto efficiency is a regressive measurement. One person owning everything and the rest of us owning nothing is still Pareto optimal. And that is the limit towards which all unregulated free markets tend. The more money one has, the more power one has to influence the workings of the market, allowing one to acquire more money, and more power in an unregulated positive feedback loop. Government operates as a negative feedback loop, keeping the market from becoming dominated by the largest players.
Libertarianism is merely disguised propaganda for the status quo. Libertarians do not want a free, fair, and equitable world, they want an oligarchy or feudal state with themselves as the landed gentry.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So, how "free market" is it to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on a bridge to nowhere? :) I love how Republicans are treated as defenders of the free market, and do so... only when it suits them. Look at our government's policies as a whole. We ram free trade agreements down the throats of other nations, but only agreements that cover industrial products and government services. Agriculture? Nope! We have to protect our subsidies at all cost, because we couldn't compete with the low labor costs of many nations. Look at how we treat sugar, for example; it's just embarrassing. Even with the demand for cane sugar in ethanol production raising prices on the open market, it *still* costs twice as much in the US as it does on the open market.
More often than not, talk of "free trade" seems to be cover for little more than "protect what I support, but not what you support."
When I saw this article, my first thought was, "again"? This is the same guy who is already under investigation for bribes on the remodelling of his home. This guy is one big ball of scandal and jokes. Threatening to resign over the Bridge to Nowhere money being diverted to Katrina relief, the Series of Tubes comment, bribes, kickbacks, you name it. He crashed a jet at an airport and got the airport named after him. He runs the Ted Stevens Foundation, a "nonpartisan and nonpolitical" nonprofit run by his campaign treasurer whose purpose is " to assist in educating and informing the public about Senator Ted Stevens". He even plugs the Incredible Hulk for Marvel.
It goes on and on.
The yellowcake is a lie.
Even among supporters of the project, though, few really believe in the urgent need for a bridge. Mostly what the supporters believe in is the need for an infusion of construction dollars in Ketchikan. Try asking the community to tax itself to pay for 5% of the bridge costs and you will see how tenuous support for the bridge project really is. If you're not willing to buy something even when it's marked down 95%, it's hardly a necessity now, is it?