MORE REPUBLICAN PARTY PROBLEMS IN ALASKA-- DO THEY HAVE ENOUGH PRISONS UP THERE?

No one from DWT made it to the incredible Take Back America Conference in DC this week, although I've been following the events via Firedoglake where Jane and much of the crew are in attendance-- and making an impact. But good news: almost the entire DWT staff will be at a Taking Back 6th Street Conference in NYC on Thursday at an Indian restaurant (although the exact restaurant hasn't been chosen yet; any suggestions?) Now I'm sorry we didn't hold our conference in Alaska. I really wanted to go, mostly because I need to examine the Sitka area to see how close the on-the-ground realities of geography correspond with Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, which I just finished reading. Oh, and because I want to be in Alaska to celebrate.

Celebrate? Sure. Alaska is so far away that people in the other 49 states barely realize that the entire Republican Party of Alaska has been caught with their paws in the cookie jar. I would like to experience the mass frog walks and resignations. Just today Republicrook State Representative Vic Kohring raised the white flag "to focus on his defense against federal bribery and extortion charges."

I'm not sure when Don Young, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, all implicated in the burgeoning Alaska Republican scandals, will be indicted, arrested or charged. But I hope it's soon and it could certainly be any day. (And I'm in Montreal today, so halfway there anyway.) I also don't know if Rep. Kohring is going to plead guilty to murder, although he seems to imply there's something to that.

"I take the job as a legislator very seriously, but my life is on the line, so I have chosen to defend myself so I can prevail in court," Rep. Vic Kohring told The Associated Press. "It's a very, very ugly decision to have to make, frankly."

Kohring and two former state lawmakers were indicted May 4 on federal bribery and extortion charges related to alleged dealings with Anchorage-based oil field services company VECO Corp.
Federal prosecutors accuse the lawmakers of selling their votes to VECO officials while they were considering a rewrite of the state's petroleum production tax, which could have levied a 20 percent tax on profits and a 20 percent credit on capital investments.

VECO executives Bill Allen and Rick Smith pleaded guilty May 7 to federal charges of bribery and conspiracy. They have since resigned their positions but have not yet been scheduled for sentencing.
Kohring and former Republican Reps. Pete Kott and Bruce Weyhrauch all have pleaded not guilty and have had their original July trial dates pushed back to the fall.

VECO and their executives have long had Congressman Young and Senator Ted Stevens and his family-- as well as Senator Murkowski and her notoriously corrupt family-- on their payroll. All of them have been taking gigantic bribes from the oil services company in return for special treatment in Washington and Juneau. That's illegal; very illegal. Stevens is expected to plead not guilty by virtue of severe senility but Young and Murkowski will have a far tougher time.


UPDATE: WHY IS TED STEVENS STILL ALLOWED ON THE FLOOR OF THE U.S. SENATE?

Actually, he hasn't been indicted yet so it makes sense that he still be allowed to sit at his desk in the Senate and it even makes sense that the collegial senators address him as "the distinguished gentleman from Alaska." But it makes no sense at all that a crook like Stevens, who-- along with his crooked legislator son-- has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from VECO, be allowed to work on energy legislation!

Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Alaska) is in the final stages of crafting a fuel economy compromise amid contentious debate on Capitol Hill.

The compromise, a summary of which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal, softens a current Senate mileage proposal under debate and could be offered as an amendment as early as Wednesday night or Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

For some reason I had no doubt that VECO's paid whore in the U.S. Senate would do whatever he could to soften and proposals that force any kind of social responsibility on them or cost them any profits whatsoever, regardless of how many lives are saved. But that's ole Ted and the GOP.