It Finally Happened

I know I am stating the obvious - thanks to the McPalin hijinks's and the antics of our corrupt bastards - Alaska is enjoying (I realize, a questionable choice of words) a degree of recognition, mention and scrutiny not previously experienced at any point in its modern history.

Except perhaps during the Gold Rush.

We are surrounded by plenty of evidence that we are wiggling in the glare of this dubious limelight - Palin is the topic for the talking heads to the talk shows and everything in between, but in my mind, you know you are living in the theatre of the absurd when references to your elected officials start appearing in Harper's.

Those of you familiar with the monthly will know about the Harper's Index and their practice of featuring the ridiculous, peculiar, laughable and downright absurdly corrupt in the front 10 or so pages titled "Readings". Well, last month, Alaska began to creep into these sections. Palin made it into the Harper's Index ("Minimum number of reporters who traveled to Wasilla, Alaska, in the two weeks following Sarah Palin's selection as VP: 90") as well as into the Readings section: "Death and the Maiden". Now this month, it's even juicier.

Titled The Good Life, Senator Ted Stevens on Virtue, it's a reprint of some of the more damning transcripts of conversations between Ted and Bill that the FBI recorded.

After reading the smattering that are reproduced here, it's no wonder the jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts in such short order once the disruptive and oddball juror disappeared.

Although the transcripts are available to review - I have to confess I never bothered to. I didn't need to - I wasn't one of those that fell for the craven currying tones that the Fairbanks Daily News Miner took when reporting and commenting on the trial. However, it is very interesting to read these now.

Because really, as always - it's Ted who gives himself the rope by which he was hung.

Since these are public records and I am a lazy beast, I am sure that Harper's won't come after me if I quote just a few of the better lines of conversation from their magazine (and of course, as before, I can't resist adding a little editorializing of my own):

August 31, 2006

Ted Stevens: Hey Bill? Wonder if you are going to be around Sunday? Catherine has in mind replacing those black couches at the chalet---[can we ever get past just how pretentious it was to call that dump a "chalet"?]

Bill Allen: Yeah, uh, hey, Ted, the FBI got a warrant and searched my house and the office. They asked me what I done on your house. I said, well, he's paid for everything, and I just told'em I wouldn't talk to 'em.

T.S.: Okay. Good. I had an inkling something was up, but I don't know what it is.

September 10

T.S.: ....Keep yourself going my friend. I've never been up against a bunch like this before. I'm not getting much sleep , thinking about all this shit that's going around . I'm just trying to figure out why these fuckers are doing this thing to our friends. [quite possibly it is because those fuckers are upholding the law and they suspect you broke it, Uncle Ted]

October 18

T.S.:...So you and I ought to wait this thing out. They haven't filed a charge yet. It may be that what we've done leaves an impression that we have done something wrong. But you have to make up your mind you're doing something wrong to be really guilty of a crime. [here we see the first hint of that fine legal mind that brought us his astounding statement that he is not guilty until he finishes his appeal process] We don't want to get ourselves there by trying to do something that leads to a different kind of charge.

Yup, Alaska has arrived on the national scene - thanks to the whole freak'n lot of petty, ill-grammared thieves and trailer trash queens.

Grand Slam, Perfect 10, Triple Crown

Take your pick. To date, the Justice Department has knocked it out of the park on every member of the former CBC they have brought to trial. If they keep this up - they will have a perfect record, 14 for 14. Kudos to the prosecutors and the MIB for putting together cases that have such a high conviction rate. Of course, I rather suspect that the dumb bastards, crooks, uh, politicians make it kinda easy for them.

We need to add to the much marked up list a couple of others that were inadvertently left off the original. Former Mayor Jim Hayes and his wife really should have been on the list from the get-go. Because although they weren't part of the hallowed senatorial elite - Jim was a FOT*. Can't go forgetting it was his cosy little arrangement with Uncle Ted that landed him the first couple of million that he and his wife then inappropriately spent on themselves and the church. And nope, I don't have to use the word "alleged" because those two have had their day in court and are duly serving their time in the Gray Bar Hotel - which is getting a mite bit lousy with Alaskans.

I'll have more to say about Uncle Ted trying that tired old ploy of blaming his wife for everything in a future post. But really, don't you think he would have compared notes with his buddy Jim and deep-sixed the "wife under the bus" schtick? It didn't work for Hayes, and it sure didn't work for the Not-Senator-for-Life.

Santa's The FBI's Little List
(First posted in December 2007 - Updated on October 29, 2008)
Tom Anderson : Naughty Gray Bar Hotel
Bill Allen: Very, Very, Very Naughty Pled Guilty
Rick Smith: Naughty Pled Guilty
Pete Kott: Naughty and Easy Gray Bar Hotel
Bruce Weyhrauch: Naughty Indicted
John Cowdery: Naughty Indicted
Vic Kohring: Naughty Gray Bar Hotel
Ben Stevens: Very Naughty In the Bag
Ted Stevens: Very, Very Naughty and Haughty CONVICTED!
Don Young: Naughty and Rude Under Investigation and Spending $ Like Crazy
Frank Murkowski: Naughty and Slow Give 'im rope
Jim Clark: Very, Very, Very Naughty Pled Guilty
James C. Hayes, Indicted, Tried and Convicted Gray Bar Hotel
Murilda "Chris" Hayes, Indicted, Pled Out, Gray Bar Hotel

For now, in a nod to Super Smooth Andy G, I am out of here like a convict.

*Friend of Ted

Stevens' Brain Bucket Defense

Here is one for the law reviews. The ADN reports this morning that Stevens' defense team has requested Bill Allen's medical records. They argue that Mr. Allen's recall & testimony of gifts given to the Not-Quite-Senator-For-Life all date from 2001 forward. 2001 is the year in which Allen crashed his motorcycle and suffered brain injury.

These defense lawyers are sure earning their hefty retainers. You got to give them a nod for a very inventive answer to incriminating evidence that just can't be glossed over. It's pretty hard to fudge and obfuscate when you got people caught on tape talking about back-scratching, pay-offs and handsome gifts given for favors received - especially when one of those caught chatting is Stevens himself.

Oops. Just what is a defense team to do?

Shazam! Enter the brain bucket defense. Bill Allen crashed his bike, scrambled his brains, and presto/chango - is just making this up or mis-remembering things.

Brilliant.

Probably won't save Unc' Ted's hide, but they definitely get high marks for creativity.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

The day after the Men in Black lit a blow torch under Uncle Ted, the papers are predictably filled with the panderings of fellow politicians and others who have benefited from his dodgy behavior and/or are cut of the same cloth.

Under the lead line, Deserved Respect, the News Minus shamelessly suggests that perhaps this little indictment matter is insufficient reason not to re-elect the not-Senator-for-Life; can we really say we are surprised by that editorial drift? As if the billions he has directed our way should override the fact that he was actively selling our interests to, apparently, the lowest bidder.

As an aside, Stevens is following the same “cheap trick ” vein as Kott. After all, you would think the longest-seated Senator in US history would be more expensive than some renovations to a 1970’s suburban box – oh but I forgot, there is no implied qui pro quo here, these were simply gifts*.

Or, as the (not-so) Honorable Stevens says:” [I] paid every bill that [I] was given”. Ah, but that’s the rub, isn’t it? It's those bills Uncle Ted should have been given by VECO contractors that are causing the problems here. I wonder how much in legal fees that masterful sentence quoted above cost him.

And that’s the thing of it. Lying and obfuscation has become so much the norm in this administration, it's just business as usual. Perhaps it's best said by Dubyah, who had this to say about Senator Stevens back in ’02: “There is no question. You know where he stands in the great Alaskan, and for that matter, the great Texas tradition.” Uh, that tradition wouldn’t happen to involve being deceitful, greedy, arrogant and lackeys of Big Oil, now would it Mr. Prez? Like always recognizes like.

Bottom line is, there is no excuse for cheating or lying. Isn’t that what we teach our kids? It flies in the face of family values they like to espouse for the News Miner and other conservatives to suggest that Stevens' long history of bringing home the bacon is reason to keep him in office. It is not up to Alaskans to mitigate or minimize the severity of a federal criminal indictment through "respectful debate or discussion" as the paper’s editor suggests. There is no discussion to be had.

There is only one person responsible for the loss of respect, privilege and advantage and for the tarnishing – if not outright shellacking – of a career that could have ended very nobly indeed, and that is Ted. Personal responsibility. Another family value.

I always did think that the Anchorage International Airport was a very serviceable name.

*Personally I find the cheap rate at which our legislators and congressional delegation “allegedly” (that’s getting to be a word that is hard to use with a straight face anymore when it comes to the even dozen politicians under investigation) traded influence and votes for to be embarrassing – if you are going to be an “alleged” crook, at least do it in high style, and go for something that is worth hiding offshore.

Kott with his Hands in the Cookie Jar!

Four down, how many more to go?

Noticed today in Freddie's that they already have a few aisles of Christmas lights and lighted lawn ornaments on display. The sight of those fat inflatable lawn Santas got me to humming that little ditty in my head - you know the one: He's making a list; Checking it twice; Gonna find out who's naughty or nice, Oh! Santa Claus is coming to town!!!

Well, here is a more au courant version of it (at least for Alaska)

Santa's the FBI's Little List ---

Tom Anderson : Naughty Convicted

Bill Allen: Very, Very, Very Naughty Convicted

Rick Smith: Naughty Convicted

Pete Kott: Naughty and Easy Convicted

Bruce Weyhrauch: Naughty Indicted

Vic Kohring: Naughty Indicted

Ben Stevens: Very Naughty In the Bag

Ted Stevens: Very, Very Naughty and Haughty In the Bag

Don Young: Naughty and Rude In the Bag

Frank Murkowski: Naughty and Slow Give 'im rope

Jim Clark: Very, Very, Very Naughty There's always hope

And for those of you that didnt catch the pic on the ADN site - here is the red hat that was entered into evidence at Kott's trial - an example of the (in)famous Corrupt Bastards Club hat, which as it turns out were VECO hats with CBC hand-embroidered on the back by Kott's girlfriend. How very frat!

Hats off to the Men in Black

Corrupt Bastards Chickens Come Home to Roost
I am not usually a big, vocal fan of law enforcement, but a shout out to our local FBI agents who have outdone themselves in white collar crime investigation - rooting out not only the Rev. and Mrs. Hayes (who are beginning to look like very small potatoes compared to the Lemon Creek* gang) but also the "Honorable" Senators A & B, Representatives Kohring and Kott, former Representatives Weyhrauch and Anderson and now the Messieurs Allen and Smith.

These are the salad days, my friends, for those of us who have endured four years of "Frank-the-Bank" and his cronies, and have, for even longer, watched Big Oil and its arrogant minions thumb their noses at the people of this state - many of whom are living in remote communities in decidedly third-world conditions. To say nothing of the rest of us who struggle to meet our monthly bills as fuel and electricity rates skyrocket while Big Oil posts record obscene annual profits and cries poverty whenever the lege proposes additional taxes or royalty increases that would go towards stopping the State from giving away Alaska's oil for practically nothing.

This promises to be juicy for months to come - with many memorable quotes as the sordid story unfolds. To start, here are some of my current favs, along with my editorial comments:

"I just want to be the warden in Barbados", Kott [People, savor the irony in this one. Seems more likely to be a federal pen in the lower 48 and a stint as inmate not warden for our soon-to-be defrocked Kott]

"You'll get your gas line, the governor gets his bill, and I'll get my job in Barbados ", Kott to Smith, a VECO vice president, referring to his desire for the plum job of warden at a new prison in Barbados under construction by VECO.

"I'm going to get this fucking gas line done so I can get out of here", Kott in a January 2006 phone call to Bill Allen [kudos to the wire tap team]

"Mr. Stevens was surprised [and no doubt dismayed] to learn that Bill Allen and Rick Smith pleaded guilty to various federal crimes today and hopes that neither one of them is falsely [heaven forbid] accusing former and current members of the Alaska state Legislature of crimes in order to mitigate the consequence of their own admitted criminality [last-ditch and weak effort to save his client's ass]." John Wolf, attorney representing Senator Ben Stevens; editorial comments mine.

"The public doesn't give a damn what I do for my money", Ben Stevens in 1994 [sorry, Ben, indeed, the public does give a damn how you earn your money, considering you are supposed to be representing all your constituents, not just the ones that line your pocket with cash.]

"I own your ass", Allen to Kott (federal allegation)[need any more be said??]

"[Kohring] would kiss our ass", Allen to Smith after Allen gave Kohring $1,000; (federal allegation)

I have little doubt that tomorrow's news will reveal that the mysterious Senator B is indeed Ben Stevens...let's see what your daddy can do for you now, Ben!

Note: Mr Roo and his ladies agreed to pose as models only on the condition that it be known that they come by their chicken feed honestly and legally

*local state pen in Juneau