2008 More on ‘Uncle Ted’s Unexcellent Adventure’
posted by on July 29 at 15:40 PM
Senator Ted Stevens—he of the Incredible Hulk tie!—has been indicted on seven counts relating to a recent corruption probe into his ties to Alaskan oil services company VECO. Details are still coming, but the early word from CBS News was as follows:
A federal grand jury in Washington has handed up the indictment against Stevens — which the Justice Department is set to announce very shortly.Stevens faces seven counts of false statements involving VECO, the oil services company in Alaska, and the renovations done on his home.
Stevens has been the subject of a wide-ranging investigation — and with this announcement — Stevens becomes the highest level politician charged in the department’s crackdown on alleged corruption, CBS News reports.
If the name Ted Stevens sounds familiar to you, it should: While a long-time Alaska senator, he achieved his most visible media moment when explaining that the internet was a ‘series of tubes!!!!’, a concept which Senator Stevens so eloquently explains in the enclosed YouTube clip below.
The remix of which is really pretty neat:
Rumors have been swirling for almost a year that Stevens was trading government funding for VECO in exchange for the company making additions to his palatial Alaskan estate. The FBI raided his home last year searching for information on the deal, and the question of charges being filed has been less a question of ‘if’ rather than ‘when’ ever since.
The whole ugly story has been covered under the watchful and all-seeing eye of TPMuckraker since the beginning, the archives of which can be read here.
Surprised there wasn't an announcement about charges being filed against his son, as well. Not sure what they're waiting for. Maybe being handled by a different agency?
Didn't Ted Stevens record a spoken word video of him singing the lyrics to Lucy In The Sky With Diamond Bridges To Nowhere?
"I sent an internet the other day" is almost as good as "series of tubes".
Oh joy!
Now let's not waste another megabyte of bandwidth on this pond scum.
No one brought home to bacon like Ted.
Uncle Ted's "palatial estate" in Girdwood is not much more than a typical lower middle class house. Before the work doubling its size, it was little more than a cabin like shack at the base of a ski slope. FYI the entire town of Girdwood is at the base of the ski slope, and is full of hippies, greenies, and liberals. It is full of the weirdest people in Alaska.
That may sound like something to people in Seattle, but it really is not.
Remember Seattle, the main reason you exist is because of the Jones Act and its restrictions on shipping.
Uncle Ted is one of those Republicans that are pro-choice, pro-arts, pro-NPR that make it difficult to hate all of them. He is surfer and a skier. He is a genuinely nice person.
Remember also that over 70% of Alaska is locked up in parks for you in the lower 48. If 70 % of Washington State was locked away from you might feel a bit more justified in going for more pork.
The bridges “to nowhere” were actually from the largest and fourth largest cities in Alaska. The bridges would have connected them to land that was available for development. Something that is very hard to find up here. They were bridges “from somewhere.”
@6,
There's a little problem with your argument. Most Alaskans fancy themselves libertarians as they slop up huge amounts of pork from the government. Whether huge amounts of land in Alaska is off limits is irrelevant to Alaskans' rank hypocrisy.
@6, right on, Rob. You keep on dreaming about how rough and tumble you are up there in the woods, and how the man down here is keeping you down, but we all know that you live in the biggest welfare state of all. If it wasn't for massive government largesse, there wouldn't be anybody living in your state at all.
Realclear has Obama down by about 6 points in Alaska. Obama said he will go to Hawaii soon.
Why not add Alaska, hit the 50 states theme, and make huge speech for change in Anchorage denouncing the lobbyists and corruption and tying it all to GOP, start calling for a 60-D Senate, etc.
Just campaigning in Alaska is newsworthy and would get a media bump.
Oh and Mr. Alaska: Alaskans at least have 2 senators. DC folks got none. So stop stop stop your crying.
What is so cool about "indicted" is that it always reminds me of a non-existent word- indickted- which is what's happening to ted.
Alaska' other Senator is Senator because she has a Senator name: Murkowsky (which means "Senator" in Alaskan). If her name was "Patty Smith" she wouldn't be Senator (even if she were really cool).
^..^
I'm no fan of "Uncle Ted" (as he's called here), but @6 got it right- his house in Girdwood is hardly a palace. Its pretty dumpy by Girdwood standards (which is saying a lot). He's the king of shady deals, but it would be pretty ironic if they finally get him for his house.
And BTW, the "bridges to nowhere" guy is Don Young, our not-so-beloved representative.
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