This just appeared in Salon Magazine. The full text may require a subscription.
Alaska’s delegaton over the last 20 years has been stidently anti-conservation, and now it turns out they are all a bunch of crooks.
What’s wrong with Alaska? Every member of Alaska’s all-GOP congressional delegation is embroiled in scandal. By Benjamin Wallace-Wells. Salon Magazine.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
I love it………..Let’s see if the oil money and can get’ em out of this.
You can read the entire story by going to the bottom of the article and click on the first NEXT PAGE and you will be directed to the entire article.
yes – my browser popped up an advertisement when i clicked the first “next” — then another link at to the top right appeared once the advertisement was finished with its animation –
remember when ted steven’s promised to retire from the senate if he didn’t get his ‘bridge to nowhere’ appropriation? these guys are crooks.
ALl a Bunch of Crooks? Be careful, as far I can determine investigations are underway and to date there have been no federal inditements. Pork barrel politics is alive and well with Alaska’s Congressional delegation who are practicing the time honored custom of using seniorty to bring home the bacon. Now that the Democrats have gained key leadership positions, look for more of the same. As for strident anti conservation views, look at Ted Steven’s most recent comments on the proposed Pebble Creek mine in the salmon rich Bristol Bay drainage. He argues pursuasively that mining interests must first protect this world class salmon resource.
Be
crooks;politicians.
No need to use redundant terms.
lets see,, Jefferson from Louisiana,,,Dem,,,,Rostenkowski,,an oldie but goodie,,, Dem…
Mike Espy,, Clinton cabinet member,,, resigned for bribes and schemes,,,
hillary couldnt remember when she put classified documents next to the magazine rack in her room during white water!!!!
Dirty Harry changes his tax returns three times a year to cover his so called “property transactions” in las vegas
get through it folks,,,,,!!!! greed and corruption works on both sides,,,,,,
Greg,
stevens argued for conserving salmon on economic pretenses. there’s a difference between conservation of wildlife values in pursuing the ascendancy of alternatives to the purely consumptive economic paradigm that permeates our “use” of the public trust; and battling over which industry gets to exploit the public trust first for its subjective private profit.
Ted Stevens could care less about conservation of anything but his industry’s bottom line.
I agree with kim – Ds & Rs are one and the same with regard to corruption. this is further supported by the complicity of the Ds with regard to impeachment. if it doesn’t happen given what is already known and public ~ Ds will be just as guilty.
I would love to see Ted Stevens go down big time. If not for his crimes against the environment then for his moral crusade to clean up television, radio, etc. be, I think he promises to retire whenever one of his big initiatives doesnt go through (I remember reading that he was going to quit when drilling was shot down in the ANWR).
Greg, might want to check this out before you tout stevens as any sort of environmentalist.
http://www.vote-smart.org/voting_category.php?can_id=S0040103
Kim is RIGHT! corruption is on both sides. All of you so called pro-environment democrats ridicule the right and for the most part rightfully so. But none of you ever give an answer to the problem. It sounds like most of you are anti-capitalist. Even with all of its problems it is still the best system around. We need oil and we need gas where do you think it is going to come from the Middle East. I personally don’t want to buy my energy from those fools. I’m all for alternative fuels and renewable energy and I practice what I preach. But if you think you can supply a country with 300 million, soon to be 450 million by 2050, with enough alternative fuels get off of the pipe.
Quit complaining and come with a realistic alternative to the problem. First, control the population, don’t have a bleeding heart for everyone that crosses the border. Two, nuclear energy is clean and for God’s sake the French use it. France has the least expensive energy in Europe and exports more electricity than any other country in the EU.
I love being RIGHT!
By the way Kim you forgot to mention how Diane Feinstein’s
(Dem. CA) husband has made millions from construction contracts in IRAQ. Sorry this does not get reported on the communist news network aka CNN.
Again I’m neither a democrat or republican. In fact I feel both are in cahoots with the other.
Just using a little God given talent to make reasonable conclusions about the world.
free-market capitalism is not what’s being practiced when politicians deliver wholesale public trust subsidies that benefit large-scale, commodity chain dominating corporations — to the detriment of those that compete on the free market. if the public assets were offered at market value ~ and the externality costs of doing business were incorporated into the market price of a product — that’s free-market “capitalism”.
stevens obstructs “capitalism” by picking favorites and offering up public assets for vastly less than market value.
but phillip is right – i speak for myself, but i think that there are common values that i would like for public places & wildlife and my children to enjoy that corporate-capitalism will not (and is not endowed to) conserve on its own. i think this administration is demonstrative of that – stevens is demonstrative of its excess.
robust and energetic public regulation (as energetic as corporate entities incentivized to loot public assets) of what is public domain is the vehicle we have to work with.
stevens et al have spent much time constructing nasty associative language to describe public regulation of what is the public’s ~ but their excess is beginning to swing back around – i hope.
dont get me wrong here,, i have the same concerns with the environemnt, tolerance for wolves, bears, trout, what ever,, is being unfairly threatened, my reason for the comment is corruption/bribes, etc, is not a mutual club of repubilcans,, and to use a few of the present congressmen under scrutiny for the promotion of an agenda is simply wrong,,and self promotional,, as many say here,, you arent looking at the science or facts… both sides are crooked, and there are some on both sides that have good interest at heart,, i have no problem bringing the corruption to light, just please dont make it sound like its a republician thing,, cause for every republican,, theres a dem to match the accusations,,
Both political parties have a long history of corruption during certain periods, and other periods where politics have been relatively clean.
As for clean, back in the 1950s, Republican President Eisenhower let his chief of staff go because he had received some modest presents from lobbyists. Eisenhower also vetoed a major natural gas deregulation bill because of mere rumors of attempted bribery in Congress — a far contrast from today.
Alaska’s congressional delegation is notable because of its strong influence over public land policies in the United States. There is also no doubt that they are all Republicans — two of them very senior. Senator Ted Stevens is the most senior Republican US Senator. Until this Congress he was President pro tem of the US Senate.
These Alaskans have all had very negative views and taken very hostile actions on most conservation issues, the Bristol Bay mining issue to the contrary, notwithstanding.
I don’t think that a common defense we hear today from politicians accused or convicted that there are other bad people out there — maybe even worse — is much of a defense.
Phillip, I think everyone understands that both sides are corrupt, but it seems like the corruption that causes “lasting damage” is disproportionately on the republican side. What with the war, environmental damage, and the president doing NOTHING about illegal immigrants when he had an overwhelming republican majority in both houses who could still support the republicans? And of course we need oil and gas because ted stevens and the rest of the politicians who are in the back pocket of the oil companies vote time and time again against alternative energies (check his voting record if you dont believe me).
Ah yes, the trademark “but Democrats are just as bad” lines. And we even got to hear the “but Democrats never offer a solution” line too!
Congratulations; owned and operated mouthpieces of the PNAC.
Yes, all politicians are crooks. But right now, Democrats are a better choice. They didn’t cost us $100,000,000,000 so far on a war designed to use military pawns to protect corporate interests in Iraq – a war that has cost the lives of more of these soldiers than people who died on 9/11; and magnitudes greater numbers of innocent Iraqis.
Sure, Democrats have their corruptions, but they don’t involve killing people, stealing billions from us voters, ruining the economy, destroying the middle class, and creating 10 times as many terrorists as existed previously.
So, to you who still, for whatever ungodly reasons, support Republicans; please stop trying to argue your party’s good points by demonstrating Democrats’ bad points. It’s a tired old method that may work on you; lord knows Fox News does it all the time; but it won’t work on us.
Here’s a little soundbite for you, something I would LOVE to see as a bumper sticker: Caution. Education Causes Liberalism.
By the way, we DO offer solutions (though I’ll never claim to be a democrat.) Sadly, the solutions won’t work, largely because Bush saw fit to make sure it could NEVER happen.
The solution, is to outlaw broadcast advertising of political campaigns. The idea is to take away the REASON politicians want corporate money: advertising is damn expensive. A single spot can cost as much as a few hundred thousan dollars. Take away the reason to spend money, and you take away the reason to NEED money, and thus the source of corruption.
You could even go one step further, and outlaw politicians taking corporate money, or listening to corporations whatsoever; since corporations don’t have a vote.
And before you flame my idea (ahem); why don’t you try asking questions, rather than assuming you know what is in my head, and how this would work. You’re not a political analyst; despite Fox News trying hard to make you think you can be. I’ve thought and researched this idea for years and know it will work; just like I know how the easiest way to implement it was destroyed by Bush, when he abolished that part of the 1957 (or thereabouts, pardon my faulty memory) FCC act that already made it so that political advertising was illegal (the Act stated that equal time must be GIVEN (not offered for a price) to all sides of an issue, or all candidates in a political campaign…and all someone had to do was challenge ANY broadcaster for not offering equal time for FREE – and the revenue stream would have ended.)
Mike W. apparently you misunderstood my statement. I am wanting a solution to an energy problem not a solution to campaign finance. But you are right political broadcasting should be thrown out.
I have a couple of questions for you.
1. Were you this upset about the war in Kosovo?
I’ve found most people upset with the Iraq war had know problem with the conflict in Kosovo.
2. Do you know the current unemployment rate in the US?
Staggeringly low for economy that is ruined.
the solution for the energy problem is the same as for any commodity confronting the inevitability of scarcity: do more with less … we have the technology, and can foster the will, to conserve our way out of the middle east – more nuclear plants, wind mills, etc. just shuffle the ecological consequences, not diminish them.
bite the bullet and gradually remove subsidy as the political opportunities arise ~ generate such political opportunities. begin to internalize externality costs of production into the market price of energy ~
energy is expensive – far more than we pay at the pump.
once folk are confronted with the actual cost of the energy that they consume ~ the demand for conservation technology will skyrocket and the propensity to waste will atrophy.
stevens’ and republicans in general, contribute more to the obfuscation of the free market such as this. they had uninhibited power to foster change and they squandered it ~ instead, opting to perpetuate waste, subsidy, and corruption. it is appropriate to criticize republicans over democrats because of the unchecked power and their use of it.
as for the war… – grasp for all the straws you can – it was a lie, many of our families are directly impacted by these lies – the war in kosovo wasn’t doomed from the start with the ideologically driven administration as this war is.
the FCC is an interesting regulator as well in these times. we often forget that the airwaves are our public assets – just as public land is ~ telecom companies are our leasees. diverse ideas ought be aired freely (but equally) on our airwaves ~ and enough time to develope a comprehensive/developed and meaningful conversation about the public interest. we ought demand that our permittees give precedence to the health of our civic institutions over the health of our complexion ~ as is the case with the multi-fold airtime granted pimple-cream commercials over dialogue concerning the public interest.
unemployment is a scantily clad indication of economic health.
Im educated, college degrees and all, not liberal though,, not sure who you call middle class thats being destroyed,,,,,,or what the criteria and qualifications are for it, do you mean minimum wage earners,, is that middle class,, or the 10 dollar an hour worker,, is that middle class,,,,,but the people i know, and consider myself a part of, the middle class are doing just fine,,and i live part of the year in the deep south,,,that would be contractors,, electricians, small resturant owners, loan officers at small banks,,bar owners,,entreprneurs,, ,,, like ross perot said, some one has to work at mcdonalds,,,,as unbelieveable as it seems,, not everyone is gonna make a 100k a year,,,, what kind of wage does someone have to make to qualify for a good employment number ,,,just what is the criteria,,,tell us,,,somehow this vision of everyone making some 50-100k a year to have a successful employment figure is jsut BS,!!!! it simply isnt gonna happen,,,,wont happen for bush,, wont happen for the next person either,,,,,dem or rep
Good to hear the liberal view on corruption and lying is still intact….As to whose corruption is more or less bad,,,there is no quanitifiation for the degree of corruption,, you either are or you arent, and to deny that Dems corruption is somehow less is just foolish,,,,!!!yes,, foolish!!!!,,,Here is the fact….CORRUPTION, whether taking tickets for football games, golf trips, rides on planes,,whether you are lying about sex or not sex or what ever your definition is,,, stealing or bribes,,,,is not about cost or whose is worse or better,,,,,,ITS A VIOLATION OF MY TRUST, YOUR TRUST, AND THE PUBLIC TRUST,,!!!!!..If in your you liberal thinking think its ok to let some go because of its dollar amount or not bad enough to worry about,,,,,, then you my friend are part of the problem,, not a source of solution,,,,IT MEANS YOU TOLERATE IT IF NOT BAD ENOUGH<<<<AND TOLERANCE OF ANY LEVEL OF CORRUPTION WILL NEVER DEFEAT IT !!! ,, ,,,you can beat the liberal drum all you want,claim your crooks arent as bad as republican crooks,,,,,but bad is bad,,rotten eggs stink no matter where they come from,!!!
AS for tv time,, i doubt very seriously if you are gonna get a majortiy of newly elected democrats to outlaw television ads,,free, equal, what ever,,,,,its how they got the message out that they were gonna make so many changes that have yet to come through on,,nice dream,,,, but i am afraid that plan will swirl around the bowl as well,,,they all like to see and hear themsleves talk for free just like Jesse, AL S. and the repbublicans,,,,,,
Someone wrote above “as for the war… – grasp for all the straws you can – it was a lie, many of our families are directly impacted by these lies – the war in kosovo wasn’t doomed from the start with the ideologically driven administration as this war is.” lets see,, if i am not mistaken,, the standard bearer of the dem party,, ole JFK himself sent in the first green beret into vietnam as ‘advisors”,,, and LBJ followed the party line,, took good ole tricky dick to get us out ( i think he was a republican),,,,so dont dare try to make a clarification on whose wars are worse,,,or more costly,, JFK’s little war to stop the commies, which took over in the end, only cost 50k US soldiers lives and seveal hundred thousand wounded and about 13 years,,he is lucky him and his brother got shot and didnt have to face the decisions and explanations as to why we were in vietnam,,,THey left fat drunk Ted around to handle that,,!!!!,, we are only at 3700 dead right now,,,, but i suspect the consequnesces to our way of life will be mcuh greater if we leave the resources in the ground behind in iraq than the commies in vietnam, according to JFK…..It wont stop at Iraq!!! i guess thats the short side thinking that leaving Iraq is the solution to the whole thing,,,,,,,, economic burdens on our daily living due to disrupted fuel supplies from not only iraq, but saudi arabia, bahrain, UAB will be just the start,, geometric increases in fuel cost havent been calculated in a meaningful way yet,,,but you can say we need alternative forms of energy!!!!!! well,,,
Earlier this year someone had a plan to use wind for power in texas witht he big props,, well, it got shot down due to migrating birds running into them,,,,,its funny everyone wants to have the power to do what they want, but when an ideas comes to fruition,, its not GOOD ENOUGh!! too damn many interest to pacify,,,, well there are just too damn many people in this world to be too dang picky,,,,,,,no one wants nuclear, no one wants wind,, no one wants coal, no one want s steam, no one wants hydro… for gosh sakes,, what the heck is it gonna take,,, the ideas ARE there,, but in many instances,, its the conservation groups that wont allow it to happen,,,,,sorry folks,, society isnt gonna allow us to go back to cooking over campfires like cavemen, so you better get real about expectations and realize comprimises are gonna have to be made…..!and you better make damn sure you can supply the daily needs of our country and the world in about 3 months of our leaving of iraq!!
SO why doestn someone bang ole hillary here,!!!,( good ole demcratic liberal),,,,she wont denounce taking PAC money,,,!!!said good people work for pacs that work for hard working people,,,,come on liberals,, so what side of the fence you gonna stand on,,,ok for hillary to take pac money,,,but bag everyone else for it,,,or does it just depend on WHAT pac you get it from,,,,, again,,either you are for it here or against it or are you gonna ride the fence and make exceptions,,,,
for who ever wrote this above,,,”unemployment is a scantily clad indication of economic health.” it seems to be a big selling point in the democratic push and shove to be the next president,, and also a good beating point on the present adminstration,,,,,so it must mean somehting to them,, and seems to be one of there yardsticks for economic health,,, you gonna chide them for using it as a basis to get “THE POWER” of the presidency,,,,,
until significant sacrifices are made on both sides,,,whining and complaining will continue,,and that is a concept that you better get your hands around,, cause staying on the far side of either side will never foster progress,,,
be,
Then why is it when unemployment is high everyone says the economy is bad? I agree it is not the best indicator such as consumer confidence, GDP, the market, interest rates, etc.
But this country in theory is at full employment. Kosovo was politically motivated a distraction from domestic issues. This Iraq situation may be a lie I just find it ironic that if there were a left leaning president in office there would not be this much uproar.
Phillip D.. thanks for the short version,, wish i had the economy of words you have,, same thoughts here!
According to my sources, intervention in Kosovo was led by NATO. NATO involvement lasted less than three months. The entire NATO force suffered two fatalities (two US CWO whose helicopter was shot down by Serbs).
And Iraq? Here’s the latest summary from the Guardian:
As of Saturday, Aug. 18, 2007, at least 3,706 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 3,046 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
The AP count is 8 higher than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 168 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Romania, South Korea, one death each.
I’m not a liberal. Bill Clinton had some serious shortcomings, and his wife is 120 pounds of raw, unprincipled ambition. But Clinton never got us into anything like this Iraq fiasco. Nor did the father of the Current Occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Kim: shorter paragraphs, please? And what’s with those consecutive commas? You may have some really good thoughts in there, but gosh it’s hard to wade through.
sorry SAP, im not a writer, i just write what i comes to mind. will work on it though. thanks for reading!