Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, whose home back in Alaska was raided by federal investigators Monday in a wide-ranging corruption investigation, has threatened to place a hold on the Democratic-drafted ethics legislation just passed by the House and expected on the Senate floor by week’s end.
The senator told a closed session of fellow Republicans today, including Vice President Dick Cheney, that he was upset that the measure would interfere with his travel to and from Alaska – and vowed to block it.
Yes. This Ted Stevens:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator’s house, federal law enforcement officials said.
The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency.
You can almost hear the corks popping at the DNC.
Dreggas
John,
I’ve been following this over at TPM and have to say I am not suprised, hell Stevens looks to be as crooked as the timber in that house of his.
Todays GOP: they hate it when you take away their “entitlements”
jg
You post this like your facts will mean anything. Everything can be framed. This will be the dems fault, just wait.
Punchy
Dkos has a diary that says this:
So the DOJ did their damnest to limit the damage. Incredible. It’s almost as if they’ve done so much illegal/unethical stuff, that they feel free to keep doing it, as Congress is so behind already on investigations and hearings.
ConservativelyLiberal
Stevens is one nasty looking old man. I think as people get older, their personality is expressed in their face. Stevens has one nasty, angry looking face. One other thing that I always think of when I see his face is that the more conservative a person, the thinner their lips are.
I think it is because they are constantly pressing their lips together in disapproval or bitterness.
I hear that the FBI and IRS were taking pics of everything in and out of the house. A grill that had to be lifted by crane to the second floor, outlets, switches, plumbing fixtures, even the heat tape in the eaves troughs. Stevens cattily said a short time ago that he ‘paid every single bill that was submitted to him’, leaving unsaid if every single fixture and all of the labor was even billed. It will be interesting to see if the house matches the bills submitted. Personally, I doubt it. Repugs are pretty good at parsing the truth. The Dems do a lousy job of it.
Look at Clinton, he parsed the truth, got caught and came clean. I guess that is the difference, he came clean. Why that is not discussed more is interesting, it is almost an aside to the main story. I guess that is what happens when the right wing’s mighty Wurlitzer is kicked into high gear.
norbizness
Perhaps he can travel to and from his increasingly less frozen wasteland in one of them intertubes.
Angry Engineer
I believe that this just bent the needle on my irony meter.
Dave
Wow…just wow….just….wow. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! you go Ted!
The Other Steve
This is another example of criminalizing politics.
Have you people no shame?
myiq2xu
I’m guessing old Teddy’s career is going down the tubes.
Keith
If they want to buy that sad sack of beans, let them. Pundits and themselves all get the same number of votes each that the rest of us get, but those of us who think this shit is wrong outnumber them. Ain’t democracy grand? After putting up with so many years of the crap that went the other way, let them explain why they lose badly themselves.
crayz
My favorite Ted Stevens story:
Seriously, just sit down and count the corruption packed into that brief excerpt
mclaren
Actually, this is the Bush GOP:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w28.html
bago
Alaska Is…
(Obsucre reference to local PBS series)
Cronyism.
Defined.
I have 15 year old cousins that ran liquor stores up there. I used to go to one of their mega-churches. My dad worked on the pipeline. With the Oil revenues they pay residents just to live there.
The only reason it works as well as it does is because the conditions are extreme enough that darwinian mechanisms start to punish physical idiocy rather rapidly.
Redhand
Especially in Alaska. Stevens and equally slimy Rep. Don Young make my flesh crawl. Both these crooks have been way too long at the fair: they’re poster boys for the corruption that inevitably accompanies long incumbencies.
Grumpy Code Monkey
While the schadenfreude is running thick around here (I’m enjoying a good wallow in it right now), I just want to say that the last thing Congress needs is more ethics rules. They don’t result in less corruption; they just give both sides an extra weapon to use against each other.
Personally, I’m willing to tolerate a little graft as long as the greater good is served. Just don’t get too greedy.
Stevens can go screw, though. I hope they nail him to the fracking wall.
Horatio
A proposed amendment to the US Constitution, the gist of which is:
• Only individuals who can vote for any particular candidate can contribute to that candidate at any stage of the election cycle
• No contributions of any type can be made by non-individuals
• 501(c)(3) organizations are to be eliminated
• Contributions to any political party can only be made by registered voters
• No bundling of contributions
• Immediate family members of any candidate are precluded from receiving any remuneration of any kind by the candidate’s campaign committee
This could be taken further, but I think you get the idea
jenniebee
I dunno. Ted Kennedy screwed up as a young man, no doubt, but there hasn’t been a whiff of scandal about him (not the family, just him) since. The closest he’s come in decades was being accused of walking around his own house without pants, and hell, I do that all the time.
pffttt… pants.
Zifnab
Well, the McCain-Feingold resolution had more holes in it than a sieve. And, in fact, pretty much everything that’s come out of Congress circa 1994 and on has been coated with a thick sheen of Republican slime.
But if you want to see the real effect of lobbying reform, watch how many Congressmen resign at the end of ’08 if the Pelosi reform bill gets passed. Being forced to wait an extra year to become a lobbyist and pay one’s own way on airfare and meal tickets seems to be deterrent enough for some lawmakers to consider early retirement.
The entire purpose of ethics rules is to keep the graft to a minimum. Giving parties a way to hold each others’ feet to the fire is the only way to hold them accountable, and its the reason corruption flourishes in a one-party system when no one holds his good buddy to any sort of higher standard.
Otto Man
The Simpsons Movie — which is terrific, by the way — makes a nice joke out of this.
As far as Stevens go, I’ll never get tired of his “NO!” tantrum that the Daily Show keeps replaying.
jg
Blowjob lips?
Pooh
Let me just say that the Simpsons is being [i]very[/i] well received up here for just this reason…
tBone
My Intertubes are clogged with schadenfreude. Can someone help me flush the cache?
Dreggas
But wait…it gets worse
Katie
I do live here, and I can tell you that the approximately $1,000 we get every year certainly isn’t enough to make anyone with half a brain move here. The amount we get fluctuates depending on the stock market and it’s ranged from $300 to $1800 over the years, but it certainly isn’t a fortune.
As far as Ted Stevens goes, I’m not so sure they have a lot to go on at this point. The whole Veco thing is a horrible mess, this investigation has been long overdue, and his son, Ben (slime), is certainly a legitimate target. Ted has really kept his nose pretty clean over the years, relatively speaking of course. No one gets to be a politician by being squeaky clean. I like Ted. I like Lisa Murkowski a lot. Can’t stand Don Young.
rachel
Ted Stevens has been my favorite incumbecile since Santorum got voted out.