The Washington Post headline blares: “Sen. Stevens Indicted On 7 Corruption Counts.” The New York Times is equally direct: “Senator Charged in Scheme to Hide Oil Firm Gifts.” Even the Anchorage Daily News is concise, if perhaps a bit too obvious in stretching to achieve balance: “Alaska Sen. Stevens indicted; ‘I am innocent’.” (Like Stevens is going to claim anything but innocence?)
So how does the Seattle Times, the largest daily in the “Gateway to Alaska” report this story on the 7 count indictment handed down against the US Senate’s longest serving Republican?
“Friend’s gifts cold be Stevens’ downfall” …? Jesus, guys… could you soften that headline a little bit? That’s kinda like saying “friend’s war could be Hess’s downfall” (you know… if only he hadn’t hung around so much with that nasty boy, Adolph).
Yeah, we all occasionally get gifts from friends, and few if any of us think to report it as income. Why just the other day, a close personal friend of mine jacked up my house and added a new first floor in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts. That’s just the kinda stuff friends do for each other.
Uncle Ted and Friends
No actually the fact that the lying fuck took gifs from these friends and didn’t report them – because they look like bribery and probably are – he got indicted. Republicans seem genuinely shocked when they find out the rules actually apply to them too.
BTW that dick lick Rove is about to find that out too as he’s held in Contempt. But I hope we wait to prosecute him when President Obama is in office. That way Monkeyface and his band of crooks and traitors can’t pardon the asshole.
All his GOP buddies in the Senate are scrambling to say, “innocent until proven guilty.” Note they’ve never seen fit to apply this principle to anyone they felt like torturing. But in Stevens’ case, the presumption of innocence is merely a technicality, anyway. After all — he’s a Republican, isn’t he? Have you ever met a Republican who isn’t a crook?
By the way, the nature of this “remodel” leaves little doubt that Stevens knew he needed to conceal the extent of benefit he was receiving.
Anybody who’s ever had the slightest involvment in construction or remodelling knows that you quickly get to the point where it’s cheaper to tear down the old house and start all over again. This would surely be the result if the market rates for this remodel were considered.
By not tearing down the house but instead doing extensive renovations (including jacking up the house to add a bottom floor), Stevens & VECCO probably thought they could get away with arguing that the modest amount VECCO charged Stevens was appropriate for the project – as long as nobody looked too closely at the details. It was a part of their conspiracy to hide the extent of the benefit Stevens was receiving from VECCO.
It also goes to show how much Stevens felt he was bullet-proof from any serioius investigation or criticism, either in Alaska or in Washington D.C., to think he could get away with it.
Now also note that Stevens hasn’t been charged with bribary. In order to prove that, they would have to prove some connection between the benefit he received and some bargained-for-exchange of favorable treatment from Stevens in his legislative capacity. They couldn’t get that far, or felt like they didn’t have to make the stretch. Like Nixon (and Martha Stewart), it wasn’t the crime itself, it was the cover-up which got him. Ironically, if Stevens had listed the benefits on his Senate disclosure forms, and said “Sure VECCO paid for my new house and car! We’re good friends! If that bothers you, then I don’t really care!” he might have been immune from legal action. And giving the nature of Alasakan politics, he might actually have gotten a few more votes in the process.
Just a bunch of regular, down-home guys trading bribes in return for a good, long gorge at the taxpayer trough.
By the way, I read a news article a week or so ago which said that the Bush administration had received a record number of pardon and cummutation requests. Something like 2,500 pending applications, with dozens more arriving daily, and they don’t think there will be enough time to go through them all before Bush leaves office.
It seems that a lot of people expect that Bush will be issuing a lot of pardons before he leaves office, and he might want to dissipate the impact of the political ones by burying them in an avalanche of general pardons. So everyone wants to “get in while the getting is good”.
If Bush doesn’t issue pardons for himself, Rove, & Cheney, for “any actions they took or may have taken prior to Jan. 20, 2009”, I will be supremely surprised.
Now, if Stevens had been smart, he would have retired from the Senate instead of filling out this last term, and signed on with a “K Street” lobbying firm instead. With the Republicans still in charge in 2002 through 2006, he could have made a mint, all of it legal (ethics is another issue), and he wouldn’t have had to deal with those pesky public disclosure forms.
But Stevens was a little too used to having power, and he didn’t want to give it up. He wanted Washington State’s girl-Senators to be beholding to him for favors as a senior membor of the Senate, rather than trying to sit on the other side of the desk as a lobbyist, and pleading for his client’s case.
Somebody please tell me that they are surprised at this.
@3 “Anybody who’s ever had the slightest involvment in construction or remodelling knows that you quickly get to the point where it’s cheaper to tear down the old house and start all over again. This would surely be the result if the market rates for this remodel were considered.”
That’s not necessarily true. It’s not an unusual project at all to jack up a house and to put a basement under it. My business partner (design and construction) recently completed such a project on his own home and saved significantly over a tear-down and rebuild.
Re: Uncle Ted
Honestly, it’s just like January 2001 hit and all the Republicans passed the word: “It’s go time. Start grabbing every dirty dollar, every young male or female, take every bribe you can accept, and funnel all the federal monay you can to your friends and family, and don’t stop until you get caught! Some of us are sure to get through.”
I’m sure glad they restored integrity to the White House and Congress.
Stevens’ corruptions resulted in ball massaging paltry charges that we will witness washed away behind manufactured loopholes.
Newsies have pointed out: that thanks to Stevens his home state receives THE HIGHEST amount of ear marks in the nation. Apparently all of us tax payers are financially responsible for yet another Red State’s lack of personal accountability. Go figure!
Will our “personal accountability” talking points White House and enablers . . . .order investigations of the HUNDREDS of Federal employees and Military officers who purchased fake diplomas so they could cash tax funded paychecks?
Their list of names were LEAKED in the press against the judge’s orders by a stealth patriot:
http://www.spokesmanreview.com.....p?ID=15898
Actually, I think Alaska probably deserves more money, on a per-capita basis, than most other states – simply because of it’s large size and comparitavly small population.
But that doesn’t mean that Stevens isn’t currupt, anyway.
Rep Oily Stevens received gifts from his oil buddies. Payback
Once again – another thread that the knuckle-dragging extreme right wants to avoid like they do a shower.
Where are all the right wing shit heads on this one? HE HE!
ByebyeGOP spews: Where are all the right wingers on this? Well, we hold no brief for crooks, and that’s why we figure Obama and Rezko are cut from the same mold as Stevens.
Have you bothered to understand that a Republican-led Justice Dept. indicted Republican Stevens? The same one that you lefty ding-dings scream about for hiring partisans? Grow up, willya?