"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.

Young is a representative, not a senator

[dufus4]

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.

Re:Are these the senators that wanted the bridge?

[MillionthMonkey]

This story broke six weeks ago [tpmmuckraker.com] (I wrote up a great story submission that got rejected). Senator Stevens and a group of unnamed "friends" from a local oil company involved in bribery schemes got together one weekend to renovate the senator's house as a weekend project. They were going to lift the first floor off its foundation, build a new first floor, and drop the old first floor back on top as a second floor. Unfortunately they screwed it up somehow (imagine) and they had to bring in a local contractor; that's where the trail started on that one.

Not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Who are these guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand the purpose of the "tubes" meme. It's a joke to be used in Slashdot comments, not a serious political criticism of Senator Stevens. His tubes speech was a pretty damned good explanation of bandwidth and network congestion, considering the guy has probably never used a computer before. The metaphor makes sense, even if you don't reach the same conclusion about network neutrality from it as he did.

Also, I think you need to double-check your math. The proposed bridge, which has not been built, is to cost about $350 million. That's quite clearly not "upwards of 1/2 BIL". Further, that decision had nothing to do with Stevens (he didn't think of it, plan it, vote for it, or campaign for it.) His only involvement in that issue was to stop the federal government from taking back the money it had already promised to Alaska for the bridge because they felt like giving the cash to a different state instead. You would be pissed too, if the feds promised your state $350 million, and then later changed their minds and sent it to someone else.

Re:Who are these guys?

[forgotten_my_nick]

Clearly your post is like a big truck and not a series of tubes [wikipedia.org].

Rep. Don Young is not a Senator

[ortcutt]

The other Alaskan senator, also a Republican, is under a cloud as well.

Don Young (R) is Alaska's sole Representative in Congress, not the other Alaskan Senator.

Re:Earmarks are good?

[dargaud]

Is that the same Dong Young as those pearls of wisdom ? :

"Environmentalists are a socialist group of individuals that are the tool of the Democrat Party. I'm proud to say that they are my enemy. They are not Americans, never have been Americans, never will be Americans." —Don Young.

"I don't see any justification for the federal government owning land, other than the Statue of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges. But to just own land to do nothing with it I think is a disservice to the Constitution." —Don Young.

"We wonder why we have got the Freemen or the militants. We wonder why we have got unrest in this country. It is because our government, in fact, has got out of hand and out of line, with the Endangered Species Act." —Don Young.

"If I have my way, I'm going to dissolve the Forest Service. They're in the business of harvesting trees and they're not harvesting trees, so why have them anymore?" —Don Young.

"If you can't eat it, can't sleep under it, can't wear it or make something from it, it's not worth anything." —Don Young.

"The environmentalists — the self-centered bunch, the waffle-stomping, Harvard-graduating, intellectual idiots that don't understand that they're leading this country into environmental disaster." —Don Young.

let's not forget Stevens OTHER inumerable fiascos

[BlackCobra43]

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)?

Re:Who are these guys?

[Tony]

$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.

Re:A little balance Keith?

[halivar]

You can talk about how many angels can dance on a Intel Core 2 Dual and whether Moore's Law was foretold in Isaiah.

The political articles on Slashdot lack even that much relevance to techies.

Re:we need to call BS on "small government"

[scheming daemons]

I think we're way beyond the point of ever having "small government" (God bless Ron Paul just the same). I'm in favor of more limited and fiscally disciplined government, like we had under Clinton

I believe it was under the "fiscally disciplined government" of Clinton that the military budget of the United States of America surpassed the military budget of every other country combined.

Not to argue benefit/detriment about it. Just pointing out how absurd it is to call the US government fiscally disciplined at any point after, say, the 60's, relative to other countries (unless fiscally disciplined includes controlling the oil supplies by force, and that's cheaper than non-military control).

The federal budget was in surplus (took in more than it spent) in each of Clinton's final four budgets.

In the past 46 years, the budget has been in surplus for 5 of them. The fifth one was LBJ's last budget (FY 1969).

Fiscal discipline has nothing to do with what the money is spent on... only that spending does not exceed income.

Your point about military spending had nothing to do with the point of the grand parent poster, that the last time we had fiscal discipline was during the Clinton Administration.

BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[Gription]

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?

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,+Ket 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 [google.com]

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!)

Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[LaughingCoder]

That sort of thing has absolutely no basis in the federal government.

I agree. This is not unlike the billions the feds spent on the Big Dig in Massachusetts. What a costly debacle that was/is.

Re:Who are these guys?

[WIAKywbfatw]

Let's not forget that the guy got pissed at the money earmarked for this project was going out of state and, in debate on the floor of the senate, publicly threatened to quit his job if that happened.

Why was that money going to go elsewhere? Hurricane Katrina. It was going to go to be used in the disaster recovery effort and play a part in helping the millions of people affected.

Imagine that you were a parent and you promised Timmy, one of your kids, a toy. While you're looking around the store, Molly, your other kid breaks her nose whilst running around, so you tell Timmy that the present will have to wait while you take care of Molly, but Timmy doesn't give a shit and practically screams the store down because you're more concerned about Molly bleeding all over the place than you are about his new toy. Well, Timmy in this story is Senator Stevens, Molly is all the Katrina victims.

What a wonderful guy.

Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[Anonymous Coward]

This needs to be modded up. The Massachusetts Big Dig project cost far more than the Bridge to "Nowhere" - on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. All paid for by federal tax funds, despite the fact that Massachusetts is well known as having the highest local tax burden of the states. But apparently they were unable to spend their own money, and had to have the rest of the US foot the bill.

But it's actually worse than that. Unlike the Bridge to "Nowhere" the Big Dig wasn't filling a need. It was replacing a highway with a tunnel that runs underneath the city. (A tunnel which used glue to hold the ceiling tiles on - an idea so great that the tiles eventually became unglued and crushed a woman.) There was already a highway. It was nearing capacity but it could have been expanded at far less cost.

But no. It was instead buried, in order to improve the city's skyline! Apparently the old elevated highway was "an eyesore" and needed to be moved to a tunnel in order to get it out of the way.

The Big Dig would be like taking a completed Bridge to "Nowhere" and replacing it with a tunnel: completely unnecessary and far more expensive than just expanding it.

All paid for with federal tax dollars, to a state that most assuredly doesn't need them.

Re:also a Republican ...

[SengirV]

I guess you never heard of Congressman William Jefferson, 2nd District of Louisana. Of course you wouldn't if all you had to go on was posts on /. Since it's obviously only GOPer who are criminals. lol

Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[LaughingCoder]

While I share your disgust with the Big Dig, there are a few factual errors in your post. The cost is more like $15 billion (not hundreds of billions, but still a sizable chunk of change). And Mass residents, actually, more specifically, turnpike users, are footing a chunk of that bill. This is actually a sore point because North Shore and South Shore residents don't have to pay, but people coming from the (politically weak) western suburbs are foced to pay higher tolls - yet all 3 groups benefit (to the degree it is a benefit) from the tunnel.

The funniest (saddest) part of the whole thing is that the so-called "greenway" (which is the new land area above the tunnel that was formerly the elevated highway "eyesore") is now just an open sore construction area - sand, barrels, etc. Meanwhile all the entrenched interest groups fight over how it should be finished and how to get other people to pay for that work. Uggggh.

Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[McNally]

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?

Anyone who has been to the area of the proposed bridge will agree that it needs to be built..

I live in Ketchikan. If they build the "preferred" bridge alternative (which will almost certainly never happen now because of skyrocketing costs and the fact that a large portion of the money allotted has already been spent elsewhere) I will be able to see it from the front windows of my house. And I can say with total confidence that your statement that "Anyone who has been to the area of the proposed bridge will agree that it needs to be built," is false. I myself am a counter-example -- I am very familiar with the area and don't agree that the bridge needs to be built. But I'm hardly alone in this opinion -- the community of Ketchikan is very much divided over the bridge issue.

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?

Re:BZZZT thankyourforplaying...

[coleridge78]

Alaska is a net taker in Federal taxation, not a contributor. As you likely know, AK has no state income or sales tax. It collects funds solely via it's non-renewable resource grants. It is politically popular (and, in a vacuum, the right thing--but we're not talking about a vacuum) that as much as possible (slightly over $1 Billion these days) in "dividend" checks to residents, and use copious federal money to make up the difference.

In short, you're full of it.

It's *not* a "Bridge to Nowhere"

[billstewart]

Sure, I'd like to see Ted Stevens get the boot as much as anybody, and the Republicans are definitely hypocritical about aggressive protectionism while claiming to support free trade.

But the bridge isn't a "bridge to nowhere". It's a bridge to the island with the Ketchikan Airport. [yahoo.com] 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.