Slashdot Mirror
Ted "A Series of Tubes" Stevens Found Guilty
techmuse writes "According to a series of tubes sites, Senator Ted Stevens has been found guilty of lying about free home renovations that he received from an oil contractor. He faces up to 5 years in jail, and the outcome of his current reelection bid is now in doubt. 'The conviction came after a tumultuous week in the jury room. First there were complaints about an unruly juror, then another had to be replaced when she left Washington following the death of her father. Finally, jurors on Monday discovered a discrepancy in the indictment that had been overlooked by prosecutors. Jury deliberations in this historic trial have at times been as contentious as some of the proceedings The Justice Department indicted Stevens on July 29, and the Alaska Republican took a huge legal gamble and asked for a speedy trial in order to resolve the charges before Election Day. Judge Emmet Sullivan complied with Stevens' request, and in less than three months from the time of his indictment, Stevens was found guilty.'"
Prison, it's not like a big building, it's more like a series of cubes.
I can forsee the senator saying that his jailtime will be much like living normal life, but behind a series of bars connected together. I look forward to his jailing, so I can enjoy more humorous remarks about the particular "Series of Bars" he is behind at any given time.
Dubya will pardon him on his way out
Scooter will get a full pardon too (in addition to the sentence commutation he already got)
'pubs will take care of their own, don't you worry
I would celebrate, but I know in my heart he'll be replaced by someone just as bad. Our body politic is rotten to the core.
So your a Senator of one of the largest oil producing states, an you hire an oil services company to renovate your house, instead of say, a home builder.
Yea that doesn't look odd at all.
He faces up to five years for each count. Although most seem to agree he won't serve anywhere near that much time.
for his own rape kit?
I hope he does the proper thing and resigns. Although the Republicans cannot afford a single loss of Senate seats, he needs to immediately show respect to the people of Alaska. Of course, I'm still waiting for William Jefferson (D - LA) to do the right thing too ...
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
The summary indicates that he faces up to 5 years in jail. This is incorrect. He faces up to 5 years in jail *per count*. Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/27/stevens.jurors/index.html
The truely sad thing is that if he is reelected then he can serve. Forgetting there being no law against a felon holding office. Shouldn't there be some law to protect the American people from legislators who commit felonies relating to their position?
Another bad apple is fine. We will send him to prison just like Stevens. Eventually America will get pissed enough to start hanging these crooks in the street.....then it will stop.
This pretty much ruined Ted's shot of being reelected, but will this hurt the image of political figures from Alaska? So close to election day, could this affect Sarah Palin's image? Morality? (Which has already been questioned).
So what could this do to John McCain's campaign?
(Probably already missed first post)
OTOH, one has to think that a guy that can't control his household might be over the edges. That he is so much a part of the Washington Elite, that he might not distinguish between what is done to benefit the country and what is done to enrich himself. It really speaks to the accumulation of power, and the corruption that accompanies it. One can imagine that a dictator might not be such a bad thing, except eventually the accumulated power and privilege ends up warping the sense of reality to a mentally deformed image. It is kind of the story of this election, can a guy with 8 houses and 13 cars and a corporate jet and a young rich second wife really represent the bulk of the people who do not have any of these. I don't know. It will be a change in Alaska, and we will see if they can make it. If they have been broken from their benevolent benefactor, or freed from their father figure. I sure he did good, but perhaps did not get out when the good he did was not overwhelming.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Despite being a convicted felon, he is not required to drop out of the race or resign from the Senate. If he wins re-election, he can continue to hold his seat because there is no rule barring felons from serving in Congress. The Senate could vote to expel Stevens on a two-thirds vote. Article here
WTF?!?! Seriously?
From same article, when asked about stepping down: "Put this down: That will never happen - ever, OK?" Stevens said in the weeks leading up to his trial. "I am not stepping down. I'm going to run through and I'm going to win this election.
What an absolutely arrogant bastard! It's good to know what the rule of law really means to the men in charge of this country.
Agreed. Maybe he can join Stevens in the pen, someday.
A Senator in the Fed Pen? he's going to come face to face with a whole new series of tubes!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
...a presidential pardon in 85 days.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
232 years and counting, and that still hasn't happened. But sure, the next one will do the trick.
Many Alaskans would vote for a Sled dog if it had a R next its name on the ballot. It wouldn't suprise me if they reelect Stevens - then Sarah Palin would appoint his successor. Sarah may be going to Washington after all. Somehow I just don't see her appointing Cathy Murkowski ...
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3975103&IDComment=45754482#c45754482
You owe Decados an apology!
Corruption is a problem of availability, not so much moral strength.
Separate temptation from politicians and you will see fewer troubles. It would be far cheaper to grant politicians in key positions generous allowances for the rest of their lives and to clear all expenses over certain through some sort of oversight board forbidden to have any contact with the people they are overseeing. They should be very well taken care of and at the same time, isolated from their keepers. Then let the special interests make their arguments for legislation and let it be balanced against public interest groups and may legislators then make fair and balanced choices, actions and decisions.
No more revolving doors. No more contributions from special interests. Once a politician enters public service, he should never again need to consider private sector life and would therefore have less tempting him now and in the future.
Alright, I'm certainly happy to see Ted Stevens convicted. He probably deserves it. I am in fact a far left winger. I'm always happy to see any Republican convicted of anything.
With that said:
Give Ted Stevens a break on the "series of tubes" analogy. He was trying to describe saturation of available bandwidth in terms of water going through a pipe. It is a particularly good analogy given that educational metaphor for electrical systems are usually in terms of water in a pipe (or tube). All the snickering about "tubes" makes us look stupid to the community that knows about these things. Among the slashdot community it is just self-degrading. We should know better and attack him with points of merit.
To sum up...Ted Steven's tubes refer to capacity of bandwidth to carry data. He does not seem to think that the internet is a bunch of vacuum tube technology. To persist with this insult makes the critic look stupid, not the target.
From here:
" Among the articles of faith of "progressivism" is the theory - which never yields to experience - that you can fill the sea with enormous quantities of fresh red meat and then, Moses-like, successfully command the sharks not to devour it."
"As long as Uncle Sam continues to stock the Potomac by ripping from the body politic such enormous quantities of flesh and muscle - now more than three trillion dollars worth annually - sharks and vultures will inevitably swarm throughout Washington in a competitive struggle to gorge themselves on this unfortunate feast."
It would be far cheaper to grant politicians in key positions generous allowances for the rest of their lives
Indeed. Instead, we have many people (including many on Slashdot) advocating for term limits, which force those politicians to immediately start thinking about their income post-service, and what they can do now to ensure it.
I've always thought that being a lifetime public servant, if your constituents allow it, is far better than being another revolving door politician heading from a law degree into a cushy PR position at a company paying for the laws you gave them.
Obviously Ted Stevens decided he could keep the office and get the payback, too; he should have retired six years ago, after which time he could have gotten all the house upgrades he desired for the work he'd already performed for the oil industry.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Stevens: Allen didn't have permission to remove the furniture, we didn't want it, and it was tasteless furniture.
Prosecution: After Allen removed the furniture, Stevens didn't get back his old furniture but kept the new furniture, and didn't report Allen to the police. More importantly he didn't report this furniture among other things to the Senate. Also Senator Stevens reportedly wanted to gift this "tasteless" furniture to his newly married son.
Stevens: It was not a gift. It was a loan, and we hardly used it.
Prosecution: A loan for 7 years, interest free? Also Stevens sent a note thanking Persons for his "gift" and that he (Stevens) used it all the time.
Stevens:"Ms. Morris, I have not died yet."
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What you read is correct: Only a 2/3 vote of the Senate can expel a member. This might seem unreasonable in the case of a felony conviction fro corruption like this. But the drafters of the constitution (rightly, IMO) wanted to make it very difficult for one branch of government to pull dirty tricks on another, or for anyone to override the will of the voters.
Based on my moderate understanding of Alaskan politics, the smart money says Stevens will lose the election now. It was already close, and corruption amongst the old-guard republicans is a big campaign issue. Stevens had put a lot on being exonerated here.
Even if he does win, resignation seems certain. None of his Republican "friends" are going to want him around generating press, and if he decides to ignore them and hang on just because he can, they might get pissed off, which is the only way you'll see 67 votes for expulsion.
So the election looks like the popular mayor of the states largest city vs. an unspecified Republican to be named by Sarah Palin. Hard to think there won't be an enthusiasm gap there.
Yes there have always been corrupt politicians from all parties. The difference is Tom Delay and the K street project institutionalized corruption. That's why the Republican party is going down so hard in this election.
Either that or the government is in worse condition than we know and and the republicans want to make sure there are no republicans anywhere near government for the next four years. I don't know how else to explain the terrible campaigns being run by all republicans this year.
you sound like a cubs fan
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
This may be news to you, but Bill Clinton hasn't been news or powerful since 20 January 2001, and you only make yourself pathetic by excusing Bush's actions by saying "but Clinton!".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
So he's going to be having a problem with a series of pubes, huh?
So, when did it become possible to sell mortgage-backed securities, and why did it go into overdrive around 2002, 2003?
Modern US incarnations started in 1938 with the creation of Fannie Mae.
There are a LOT of reasons why they went into overdrive lately. Low interest rates, hedge funds, deregulation, policies to encourage home ownership gone awry, big profits in securitization, lack of transparency into exotic securities, inadequate risk management policies at banks, and several other reasons come to mind.
It isn't a simple situation with a simple solution unfortunately. Any solution that does come however will need to come from regulation requiring disclosure of exotic security positions and limits on the ability to endlessly bundle and transfer risk through securitization. A better term for sub-prime is high risk. But everyone thought they could just transfer the risk to someone else and eventually there was so much high risk debt that it clogged up the credit markets.
I got modded down for pointing out that Colin Powell made a 1 hour speech of known lies to the UN to make our case for going to war with Iraq? I guess now that he endorsed Obama he must be a great guy again!
That speech he gave was from a paper written by a post-graduate student in 1990. He and others knew it but he gave the speech anyway. Without that speech there would have been a lot more people against the war from the beginning.
It really is too bad I didn't make i to a +5 troll. that would have made my day :)
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
The Real Deal on the Current Economic Crisis
So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working home owners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.
The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.