Anchorage--
I'm still pondering two big events from last week, and I will write more on them when I get back from three days in Prince William Sound. In the meantime, I will say that Ted Stevens' funeral was a spectacle and a tribute, while the announcement of the federal government's decision not to prosecute Bill Allen for sexual offenses with underaged girls is a travesty. If the feds were going to give the former VECO chieftain a pass on multiple acts of sexual abuse of minors--charges that the authorities appeared to have a good case on--in order to get his cooperation in prosecuting serious acts of public corruption, the Department of Justice should have cowboyed up, acknowledged it, and argued why that was the right thing to do. More to come.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Friday, August 20, 2010
Feds Announce that Bill Allen Will Not Be Charged for Sexual Offenses with Minors
Anchorage--
Rich Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News has a long story on the Department of Justice's announcement that it is dropping without charges the long investigation of Bill Allen's alleged sexual involvement with a number of girls then underage. You should read the whole thing at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/20/1418211/feds-wont-prosecute-allen-on-sex.html on the Internet.
Rich Mauer of the Anchorage Daily News has a long story on the Department of Justice's announcement that it is dropping without charges the long investigation of Bill Allen's alleged sexual involvement with a number of girls then underage. You should read the whole thing at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/20/1418211/feds-wont-prosecute-allen-on-sex.html on the Internet.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Why Ted Stevens' Death Has Hit Alaska So Hard
Anchorage--
An outpouring of grief has washed over Alaskans regarding the tragic passing of Ted Stevens. The former U.S. Senator died last week in a plane crash near Dillingham. In addition to Stevens, that accident took the lives of Dana Tindall, of Anchorage, a telecommunications executive; Tindall's daughter, Corey, a high school student; Washington, D.C., lobbyist Bill Phillips, a former chief of staff for Stevens; and the pilot, Terry Smith, of Eagle River, a retired Alaska Airlines chief pilot. The survivors were former NASA Administrator and ex-Stevens staff member Sean O’Keefe; O’Keefe’s son Kevin, a student; Washington, D.C.-area lobbyist Jim Morhard; and Phillips’ son Willy, a student.
Signs of mourning for Ted Stevens are all over. Large streetside signs reading “GOD BLESS TED STEVENS” and “HE LOVED ALASKA AND WE WILL MISS HIM SEN TED STEVENS” appear four blocks apart in Anchorage. A funeral home runs a radio spot in heavy rotation urging people to sign the official guestbook at its parlor and receive a program about the former Senator’s life.
There are no fewer than four events marking the end of his life in Anchorage this week. There was a Catholic mass Monday; a viewing of his casket today at his old home church, All Saints Episcopal; a procession tonight following that viewing from All Saints to Anchorage Baptist Temple; and finally the official memorial service at that megachurch on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The Anchorage Baptist Temple can hold more than 4,500 people, and Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among those in the pews.
Love and Admiration
There appear to be several strands in this mourning for “Uncle Ted,” who served as U.S. Senator for Alaska for 40 years. For his family and friends, there is the obvious love for a man who was dedicated to those close to him. For many others who crossed his path over the years, there is affection and admiration for his many fine qualities—intelligence, hard work, devotion to Alaska and the interests of Alaskans as he saw them. Alaskans also treasure the bluntness that carried its own kind of charm: the skillfully used temper, the Incredible Hulk and Tasmanian devil ties, the tough-guy statements like “Senator, that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” If the legendary Governor Jay Hammond personified Alaskans’ image of themselves as independent pioneers who run trap lines and build their own cabins, Ted Stevens personified the Last Frontier’s scrappy fighter side.
Grief Over the Loss of a Glorious Past
The mourning over the man who worked in Alaska public life for well over five decades also seems to reflect a nostalgia for an earlier time—the era in the 1950s and early 1960s when statehood was won and people worked to build the new state. Back then, Alaskans seemed more united, the politics seemed purer, and the Great Land seemed greater. Ted Stevens was the last prominent link to that period, and some of the grief seems to come from that longing for a time that now seems more glorious and less complicated. (Mingled with that nostalgia may be a strong sense of regret among Alaska voters. Stevens only lost re-election after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him on seven felony counts eight days before the general election in 2008, and a poll taken after the case collapsed the next year reportedly showed that the then 85-year-old Stevens would have won 2-1 if the election were run again.)
Thanks, Ted, for the Spending and the Helpful Laws
Then there is the gratitude. Ted Stevens delivered for Alaskans. People usually focus on the dollars, and there were billions and billions of those. Stevens concentrated most of his Capitol Hill career on his service on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he ultimately ascended to the post of Chairman. In that capacity, he showered so much federal funding on Alaska that the state’s newspapers routinely used the term “Stevens money” without quotation marks to describe projects and programs from Washington, D.C. As Stevens said in his farewell Senate address, “Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals, clinics, communications networks, research labs, and much, much more.”
Ted Stevens was the man who brought home the bacon (or the pork, as observers outside Alaska often called it). In the words of the writer Michael Carey, Stevens became “something of a frontier fertility god—worshipped, propitiated, feared."
But Alaskans tend to have some sense that Ted Stevens’ contributions to the state came in places other than the federal budget. As a Department of Interior official, Ted Stevens helped bring statehood. As a U.S. Senator, he played major roles in legislation that created Alaska Native corporations (the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA), helped make Alaska’s fisheries sustainable, and allowed the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) that has brought so much wealth to Alaska’s economy.
Sophisticated insiders also recognize that Ted Stevens’ distinctive accomplishments in legislation required a shrewd sense of the possible, a knack for timing, a willingness to compromise, and even that seemingly un-Stevens quality of patience. As Mark Regan has noted, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1978 (ANILCA) depended on Stevens' brokering a very complex compromise, and the law would not have passed without Stevens' almost infinitely patient work. Regan has also pointed out that Stevens was almost entirely responsible for passing legislation rescuing the Native corporations allowing them to sell their net operating losses; this move was only possible because Stevens and his staff saw how to do it.
“If Ted Stevens hadn't been there, land issues might still be uncertain, many Native corporations might have gone under, and fishing rights might still be as snarled as they were in the early 1970s,” Regan told me. “We can remember and celebrate him not for bringing home so much bacon, but for working out arrangements which have made it a whole lot easier for us to live and work together as Alaskans.”
The writer Charles Homans observed that “In the view of his constituents he was less Alaska's senator than its patriarch, the leader who guided Alaska's transformation from a territorial outpost to a modern petrostate.”
Alaskans seem to understand the correctness of the observation of the Almanac of American Politics that “No other senator fills so central a place in his state’s public and economic life as Ted Stevens of Alaska; quite possibly no other senator ever has.”
Only a Career Member of Congress Focused on Alaska Issues Could Stay Above the Fray and Command Respect Across Alaska’s Factions
Ted Stevens only kept his status as an icon across the decades, however, because he didn’t do what at least one of his Senate staff members thought likely 35 years ago. In 1975, a Capitol Hill aide to Stevens told me that there was speculation among the staff that the Senator would ultimately go back to Alaska and cap his career by serving as Governor.
Stevens’ long-time Senate colleague Frank Murkowski did that in 2002, and that move ended up destroying his image in the state. Murkowski went from routine re-election over 22 years in the Senate to finishing third in his own Republican primary when he ran for re-election as Governor in 2006.
Sen. Murkowski kept winning re-election because as a Senator he did not have to make decisions that divided Alaskans. Gov. Murkowski lost badly when he ran for re-election as Governor in part because he made some tough calls, which had him take aggressive positions on fiscal questions like state budget cuts vs. reductions in Permanent Fund Dividends vs. bringing back the state income tax on individuals.
Ted Stevens, on the other hand, stayed an Alaska hero because he maintained a laser-like focus on fighting for Alaskans against the federal government. He worked to get federal dollars for Alaska projects and programs; he maneuvered to make federal law favorable to Alaskans; and he stood up for individual Alaska constituents against federal agencies. As the state’s fierce lobbyist, clever lawyer, and superombudsman, Stevens was almost a cross between a Western hero played by John Wayne and star attorney Perry Mason of TV fame, the kind of champion you want on your side when the stakes are high and the odds are long.
Stevens was a gladiator for Greatlanders in the arena of Washington, D.C. Even if he didn’t always win, Alaskans could always see that he was trying his hardest. As U.S. Senator for Alaska, Stevens was the captain of the Last Frontier team, or even the chieftain of the Alaska tribe.
All that would have gone out the window if Ted Stevens had left the U.S. Senate to return to Alaska as Governor. As the state’s chief executive, he would have had to takes sides among Alaska’s warring clans on various issues, particularly fiscal matters. Stevens’ popularity would have plummeted, especially if falling oil prices forced him to make tough calls on budget and tax issues. The diminutive scrapper’s famously irritable and pugnacious personality would have not have worn as well with Alaskans if he had become the state’s chief executive. Serving as Governor would have made it much harder for Stevens to hang onto the idealized view of Alaska society he seemed to have as a Senator, which allowed him to believe that all boats would rise together if he just kept pouring enough federal dollars into the ocean. As Governor, Stevens would no longer have been “Uncle Ted”—he could easily have become in many Alaskans’ eyes “that knucklehead in Juneau.”
Ted Stevens was a smart man who worked hard for a long time to promote the best interests of Alaska as he saw them. His stature as an Alaska legend was immeasurably aided by his decision to stay in the U.S. Senate, where as a top-ranking federal official he could best fight the feds on behalf of his constituents.
An outpouring of grief has washed over Alaskans regarding the tragic passing of Ted Stevens. The former U.S. Senator died last week in a plane crash near Dillingham. In addition to Stevens, that accident took the lives of Dana Tindall, of Anchorage, a telecommunications executive; Tindall's daughter, Corey, a high school student; Washington, D.C., lobbyist Bill Phillips, a former chief of staff for Stevens; and the pilot, Terry Smith, of Eagle River, a retired Alaska Airlines chief pilot. The survivors were former NASA Administrator and ex-Stevens staff member Sean O’Keefe; O’Keefe’s son Kevin, a student; Washington, D.C.-area lobbyist Jim Morhard; and Phillips’ son Willy, a student.
Signs of mourning for Ted Stevens are all over. Large streetside signs reading “GOD BLESS TED STEVENS” and “HE LOVED ALASKA AND WE WILL MISS HIM SEN TED STEVENS” appear four blocks apart in Anchorage. A funeral home runs a radio spot in heavy rotation urging people to sign the official guestbook at its parlor and receive a program about the former Senator’s life.
There are no fewer than four events marking the end of his life in Anchorage this week. There was a Catholic mass Monday; a viewing of his casket today at his old home church, All Saints Episcopal; a procession tonight following that viewing from All Saints to Anchorage Baptist Temple; and finally the official memorial service at that megachurch on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The Anchorage Baptist Temple can hold more than 4,500 people, and Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among those in the pews.
Love and Admiration
There appear to be several strands in this mourning for “Uncle Ted,” who served as U.S. Senator for Alaska for 40 years. For his family and friends, there is the obvious love for a man who was dedicated to those close to him. For many others who crossed his path over the years, there is affection and admiration for his many fine qualities—intelligence, hard work, devotion to Alaska and the interests of Alaskans as he saw them. Alaskans also treasure the bluntness that carried its own kind of charm: the skillfully used temper, the Incredible Hulk and Tasmanian devil ties, the tough-guy statements like “Senator, that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” If the legendary Governor Jay Hammond personified Alaskans’ image of themselves as independent pioneers who run trap lines and build their own cabins, Ted Stevens personified the Last Frontier’s scrappy fighter side.
Grief Over the Loss of a Glorious Past
The mourning over the man who worked in Alaska public life for well over five decades also seems to reflect a nostalgia for an earlier time—the era in the 1950s and early 1960s when statehood was won and people worked to build the new state. Back then, Alaskans seemed more united, the politics seemed purer, and the Great Land seemed greater. Ted Stevens was the last prominent link to that period, and some of the grief seems to come from that longing for a time that now seems more glorious and less complicated. (Mingled with that nostalgia may be a strong sense of regret among Alaska voters. Stevens only lost re-election after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him on seven felony counts eight days before the general election in 2008, and a poll taken after the case collapsed the next year reportedly showed that the then 85-year-old Stevens would have won 2-1 if the election were run again.)
Thanks, Ted, for the Spending and the Helpful Laws
Then there is the gratitude. Ted Stevens delivered for Alaskans. People usually focus on the dollars, and there were billions and billions of those. Stevens concentrated most of his Capitol Hill career on his service on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he ultimately ascended to the post of Chairman. In that capacity, he showered so much federal funding on Alaska that the state’s newspapers routinely used the term “Stevens money” without quotation marks to describe projects and programs from Washington, D.C. As Stevens said in his farewell Senate address, “Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals, clinics, communications networks, research labs, and much, much more.”
Ted Stevens was the man who brought home the bacon (or the pork, as observers outside Alaska often called it). In the words of the writer Michael Carey, Stevens became “something of a frontier fertility god—worshipped, propitiated, feared."
But Alaskans tend to have some sense that Ted Stevens’ contributions to the state came in places other than the federal budget. As a Department of Interior official, Ted Stevens helped bring statehood. As a U.S. Senator, he played major roles in legislation that created Alaska Native corporations (the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA), helped make Alaska’s fisheries sustainable, and allowed the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) that has brought so much wealth to Alaska’s economy.
Sophisticated insiders also recognize that Ted Stevens’ distinctive accomplishments in legislation required a shrewd sense of the possible, a knack for timing, a willingness to compromise, and even that seemingly un-Stevens quality of patience. As Mark Regan has noted, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1978 (ANILCA) depended on Stevens' brokering a very complex compromise, and the law would not have passed without Stevens' almost infinitely patient work. Regan has also pointed out that Stevens was almost entirely responsible for passing legislation rescuing the Native corporations allowing them to sell their net operating losses; this move was only possible because Stevens and his staff saw how to do it.
“If Ted Stevens hadn't been there, land issues might still be uncertain, many Native corporations might have gone under, and fishing rights might still be as snarled as they were in the early 1970s,” Regan told me. “We can remember and celebrate him not for bringing home so much bacon, but for working out arrangements which have made it a whole lot easier for us to live and work together as Alaskans.”
The writer Charles Homans observed that “In the view of his constituents he was less Alaska's senator than its patriarch, the leader who guided Alaska's transformation from a territorial outpost to a modern petrostate.”
Alaskans seem to understand the correctness of the observation of the Almanac of American Politics that “No other senator fills so central a place in his state’s public and economic life as Ted Stevens of Alaska; quite possibly no other senator ever has.”
Only a Career Member of Congress Focused on Alaska Issues Could Stay Above the Fray and Command Respect Across Alaska’s Factions
Ted Stevens only kept his status as an icon across the decades, however, because he didn’t do what at least one of his Senate staff members thought likely 35 years ago. In 1975, a Capitol Hill aide to Stevens told me that there was speculation among the staff that the Senator would ultimately go back to Alaska and cap his career by serving as Governor.
Stevens’ long-time Senate colleague Frank Murkowski did that in 2002, and that move ended up destroying his image in the state. Murkowski went from routine re-election over 22 years in the Senate to finishing third in his own Republican primary when he ran for re-election as Governor in 2006.
Sen. Murkowski kept winning re-election because as a Senator he did not have to make decisions that divided Alaskans. Gov. Murkowski lost badly when he ran for re-election as Governor in part because he made some tough calls, which had him take aggressive positions on fiscal questions like state budget cuts vs. reductions in Permanent Fund Dividends vs. bringing back the state income tax on individuals.
Ted Stevens, on the other hand, stayed an Alaska hero because he maintained a laser-like focus on fighting for Alaskans against the federal government. He worked to get federal dollars for Alaska projects and programs; he maneuvered to make federal law favorable to Alaskans; and he stood up for individual Alaska constituents against federal agencies. As the state’s fierce lobbyist, clever lawyer, and superombudsman, Stevens was almost a cross between a Western hero played by John Wayne and star attorney Perry Mason of TV fame, the kind of champion you want on your side when the stakes are high and the odds are long.
Stevens was a gladiator for Greatlanders in the arena of Washington, D.C. Even if he didn’t always win, Alaskans could always see that he was trying his hardest. As U.S. Senator for Alaska, Stevens was the captain of the Last Frontier team, or even the chieftain of the Alaska tribe.
All that would have gone out the window if Ted Stevens had left the U.S. Senate to return to Alaska as Governor. As the state’s chief executive, he would have had to takes sides among Alaska’s warring clans on various issues, particularly fiscal matters. Stevens’ popularity would have plummeted, especially if falling oil prices forced him to make tough calls on budget and tax issues. The diminutive scrapper’s famously irritable and pugnacious personality would have not have worn as well with Alaskans if he had become the state’s chief executive. Serving as Governor would have made it much harder for Stevens to hang onto the idealized view of Alaska society he seemed to have as a Senator, which allowed him to believe that all boats would rise together if he just kept pouring enough federal dollars into the ocean. As Governor, Stevens would no longer have been “Uncle Ted”—he could easily have become in many Alaskans’ eyes “that knucklehead in Juneau.”
Ted Stevens was a smart man who worked hard for a long time to promote the best interests of Alaska as he saw them. His stature as an Alaska legend was immeasurably aided by his decision to stay in the U.S. Senate, where as a top-ranking federal official he could best fight the feds on behalf of his constituents.
Why Ted Stevens' Death Has Hit Alaska So Hard
Anchorage--
An outpouring of grief has washed over Alaskans regarding the tragic passing of Ted Stevens. The former U.S. Senator died last week in a plane crash near Dillingham. In addition to Stevens, that accident took the lives of Dana Tindall, of Anchorage, a telecommunications executive; Tindall's daughter, Corey, a high school student; Washington, D.C., lobbyist Bill Phillips, a former chief of staff for Stevens; and the pilot, Terry Smith, of Eagle River, a retired Alaska Airlines chief pilot. The survivors were former NASA Administrator and ex-Stevens staff member Sean O’Keefe; O’Keefe’s son Kevin, a student; Washington, D.C.-area lobbyist Jim Morhard; and Phillips’ son Willy, a student.
Signs of mourning for Ted Stevens are all over. Large streetside signs reading “GOD BLESS TED STEVENS” and “HE LOVED ALASKA AND WE WILL MISS HIM SEN TED STEVENS” appear four blocks apart in Anchorage. A funeral home runs a radio spot in heavy rotation urging people to sign the official guestbook at its parlor and receive a program about the former Senator’s life.
There are no fewer than four events marking the end of his life in Anchorage this week. There was a Catholic mass Monday; a viewing of his casket today at his old home church, All Saints Episcopal; a procession tonight following that viewing from All Saints to Anchorage Baptist Temple; and finally the official memorial service at that megachurch on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The Anchorage Baptist Temple can hold more than 4,500 people, and Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among those in the pews.
Love and Admiration
There appear to be several strands in this mourning for “Uncle Ted,” who served as U.S. Senator for Alaska for 40 years. For his family and friends, there is the obvious love for a man who was dedicated to those close to him. For many others who crossed his path over the years, there is affection and admiration for his many fine qualities—intelligence, hard work, devotion to Alaska and the interests of Alaskans as he saw them. Alaskans also treasure the bluntness that carried its own kind of charm: the skillfully used temper, the Incredible Hulk and Tasmanian devil ties, the tough-guy statements like “Senator, that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” If the legendary Governor Jay Hammond personified Alaskans’ image of themselves as independent pioneers who run trap lines and build their own cabins, Ted Stevens personified the Last Frontier’s scrappy fighter side.
Grief Over the Loss of a Glorious Past
The mourning over the man who worked in Alaska public life for well over five decades also seems to reflect a nostalgia for an earlier time—the era in the 1950s and early 1960s when statehood was won and people worked to build the new state. Back then, Alaskans seemed more united, the politics seemed purer, and the Great Land seemed greater. Ted Stevens was the last prominent link to that period, and some of the grief seems to come from that longing for a time that now seems more glorious and less complicated. (Mingled with that nostalgia may be a strong sense of regret among Alaska voters. Stevens only lost re-election after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him on seven felony counts eight days before the general election in 2008, and a poll taken after the case collapsed the next year reportedly showed that the then 85-year-old Stevens would have won 2-1 if the election were run again.)
Thanks, Ted, for the Spending and the Helpful Laws
Then there is the gratitude. Ted Stevens delivered for Alaskans. People usually focus on the dollars, and there were billions and billions of those. Stevens concentrated most of his Capitol Hill career on his service on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he ultimately ascended to the post of Chairman. In that capacity, he showered so much federal funding on Alaska that the state’s newspapers routinely used the term “Stevens money” without quotation marks to describe projects and programs from Washington, D.C. As Stevens said in his farewell Senate address, “Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals, clinics, communications networks, research labs, and much, much more.”
Ted Stevens was the man who brought home the bacon (or the pork, as observers outside Alaska often called it). In the words of the writer Michael Carey, Stevens became “something of a frontier fertility god—worshipped, propitiated, feared."
But Alaskans tend to have some sense that Ted Stevens’ contributions to the state came in places other than the federal budget. As a Department of Interior official, Ted Stevens helped bring statehood. As a U.S. Senator, he played major roles in legislation that created Alaska Native corporations (the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA), helped make Alaska’s fisheries sustainable, and allowed the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) that has brought so much wealth to Alaska’s economy.
Sophisticated insiders also recognize that Ted Stevens’ distinctive accomplishments in legislation required a shrewd sense of the possible, a knack for timing, a willingness to compromise, and even that seemingly un-Stevens quality of patience. As Mark Regan has noted, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1978 (ANILCA) depended on Stevens' brokering a very complex compromise, and the law would not have passed without Stevens' almost infinitely patient work. Regan has also pointed out that Stevens was almost entirely responsible for passing legislation rescuing the Native corporations allowing them to sell their net operating losses; this move was only possible because Stevens and his staff saw how to do it.
“If Ted Stevens hadn't been there, land issues might still be uncertain, many Native corporations might have gone under, and fishing rights might still be as snarled as they were in the early 1970s,” Regan told me. “We can remember and celebrate him not for bringing home so much bacon, but for working out arrangements which have made it a whole lot easier for us to live and work together as Alaskans.”
The writer Charles Homans observed that “In the view of his constituents he was less Alaska's senator than its patriarch, the leader who guided Alaska's transformation from a territorial outpost to a modern petrostate.”
Alaskans seem to understand the correctness of the observation of the Almanac of American Politics that “No other senator fills so central a place in his state’s public and economic life as Ted Stevens of Alaska; quite possibly no other senator ever has.”
Only a Career Member of Congress Focused on Alaska Issues Could Stay Above the Fray and Command Respect Across Alaska’s Factions
Ted Stevens only kept his status as an icon across the decades, however, because he didn’t do what at least one of his Senate staff members thought likely 35 years ago. In 1975, a Capitol Hill aide to Stevens told me that there was speculation among the staff that the Senator would ultimately go back to Alaska and cap his career by serving as Governor.
Stevens’ long-time Senate colleague Frank Murkowski did that in 2002, and that move ended up destroying his image in the state. Murkowski went from routine re-election over 22 years in the Senate to finishing third in his own Republican primary when he ran for re-election as Governor in 2006.
Sen. Murkowski kept winning re-election because as a Senator he did not have to make decisions that divided Alaskans. Gov. Murkowski lost badly when he ran for re-election as Governor in part because he made some tough calls, which had him take aggressive positions on fiscal questions like state budget cuts vs. reductions in Permanent Fund Dividends vs. bringing back the state income tax on individuals.
Ted Stevens, on the other hand, stayed an Alaska hero because he maintained a laser-like focus on fighting for Alaskans against the federal government. He worked to get federal dollars for Alaska projects and programs; he maneuvered to make federal law favorable to Alaskans; and he stood up for individual Alaska constituents against federal agencies. As the state’s fierce lobbyist, clever lawyer, and superombudsman, Stevens was almost a cross between a Western hero played by John Wayne and star attorney Perry Mason of TV fame, the kind of champion you want on your side when the stakes are high and the odds are long.
Stevens was a gladiator for Greatlanders in the arena of Washington, D.C. Even if he didn’t always win, Alaskans could always see that he was trying his hardest. As U.S. Senator for Alaska, Stevens was the captain of the Last Frontier team, or even the chieftain of the Alaska tribe.
All that would have gone out the window if Ted Stevens had left the U.S. Senate to return to Alaska as Governor. As the state’s chief executive, he would have had to takes sides among Alaska’s warring clans on various issues, particularly fiscal matters. Stevens’ popularity would have plummeted, especially if falling oil prices forced him to make tough calls on budget and tax issues. The diminutive scrapper’s famously irritable and pugnacious personality would have not have worn as well with Alaskans if he had become the state’s chief executive. Serving as Governor would have made it much harder for Stevens to hang onto the idealized view of Alaska society he seemed to have as a Senator, which allowed him to believe that all boats would rise together if he just kept pouring enough federal dollars into the ocean. As Governor, Stevens would no longer have been “Uncle Ted”—he could easily have become in many Alaskans’ eyes “that knucklehead in Juneau.”
Ted Stevens was a smart man who worked hard for a long time to promote the best interests of Alaska as he saw them. His stature as an Alaska legend was immeasurably aided by his decision to stay in the U.S. Senate, where as a top-ranking federal official he could best fight the feds on behalf of his constituents.
An outpouring of grief has washed over Alaskans regarding the tragic passing of Ted Stevens. The former U.S. Senator died last week in a plane crash near Dillingham. In addition to Stevens, that accident took the lives of Dana Tindall, of Anchorage, a telecommunications executive; Tindall's daughter, Corey, a high school student; Washington, D.C., lobbyist Bill Phillips, a former chief of staff for Stevens; and the pilot, Terry Smith, of Eagle River, a retired Alaska Airlines chief pilot. The survivors were former NASA Administrator and ex-Stevens staff member Sean O’Keefe; O’Keefe’s son Kevin, a student; Washington, D.C.-area lobbyist Jim Morhard; and Phillips’ son Willy, a student.
Signs of mourning for Ted Stevens are all over. Large streetside signs reading “GOD BLESS TED STEVENS” and “HE LOVED ALASKA AND WE WILL MISS HIM SEN TED STEVENS” appear four blocks apart in Anchorage. A funeral home runs a radio spot in heavy rotation urging people to sign the official guestbook at its parlor and receive a program about the former Senator’s life.
There are no fewer than four events marking the end of his life in Anchorage this week. There was a Catholic mass Monday; a viewing of his casket today at his old home church, All Saints Episcopal; a procession tonight following that viewing from All Saints to Anchorage Baptist Temple; and finally the official memorial service at that megachurch on Wednesday at 2 p.m. The Anchorage Baptist Temple can hold more than 4,500 people, and Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be among those in the pews.
Love and Admiration
There appear to be several strands in this mourning for “Uncle Ted,” who served as U.S. Senator for Alaska for 40 years. For his family and friends, there is the obvious love for a man who was dedicated to those close to him. For many others who crossed his path over the years, there is affection and admiration for his many fine qualities—intelligence, hard work, devotion to Alaska and the interests of Alaskans as he saw them. Alaskans also treasure the bluntness that carried its own kind of charm: the skillfully used temper, the Incredible Hulk and Tasmanian devil ties, the tough-guy statements like “Senator, that’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” If the legendary Governor Jay Hammond personified Alaskans’ image of themselves as independent pioneers who run trap lines and build their own cabins, Ted Stevens personified the Last Frontier’s scrappy fighter side.
Grief Over the Loss of a Glorious Past
The mourning over the man who worked in Alaska public life for well over five decades also seems to reflect a nostalgia for an earlier time—the era in the 1950s and early 1960s when statehood was won and people worked to build the new state. Back then, Alaskans seemed more united, the politics seemed purer, and the Great Land seemed greater. Ted Stevens was the last prominent link to that period, and some of the grief seems to come from that longing for a time that now seems more glorious and less complicated. (Mingled with that nostalgia may be a strong sense of regret among Alaska voters. Stevens only lost re-election after a jury returned guilty verdicts against him on seven felony counts eight days before the general election in 2008, and a poll taken after the case collapsed the next year reportedly showed that the then 85-year-old Stevens would have won 2-1 if the election were run again.)
Thanks, Ted, for the Spending and the Helpful Laws
Then there is the gratitude. Ted Stevens delivered for Alaskans. People usually focus on the dollars, and there were billions and billions of those. Stevens concentrated most of his Capitol Hill career on his service on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he ultimately ascended to the post of Chairman. In that capacity, he showered so much federal funding on Alaska that the state’s newspapers routinely used the term “Stevens money” without quotation marks to describe projects and programs from Washington, D.C. As Stevens said in his farewell Senate address, “Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals, clinics, communications networks, research labs, and much, much more.”
Ted Stevens was the man who brought home the bacon (or the pork, as observers outside Alaska often called it). In the words of the writer Michael Carey, Stevens became “something of a frontier fertility god—worshipped, propitiated, feared."
But Alaskans tend to have some sense that Ted Stevens’ contributions to the state came in places other than the federal budget. As a Department of Interior official, Ted Stevens helped bring statehood. As a U.S. Senator, he played major roles in legislation that created Alaska Native corporations (the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, or ANCSA), helped make Alaska’s fisheries sustainable, and allowed the construction of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) that has brought so much wealth to Alaska’s economy.
Sophisticated insiders also recognize that Ted Stevens’ distinctive accomplishments in legislation required a shrewd sense of the possible, a knack for timing, a willingness to compromise, and even that seemingly un-Stevens quality of patience. As Mark Regan has noted, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1978 (ANILCA) depended on Stevens' brokering a very complex compromise, and the law would not have passed without Stevens' almost infinitely patient work. Regan has also pointed out that Stevens was almost entirely responsible for passing legislation rescuing the Native corporations allowing them to sell their net operating losses; this move was only possible because Stevens and his staff saw how to do it.
“If Ted Stevens hadn't been there, land issues might still be uncertain, many Native corporations might have gone under, and fishing rights might still be as snarled as they were in the early 1970s,” Regan told me. “We can remember and celebrate him not for bringing home so much bacon, but for working out arrangements which have made it a whole lot easier for us to live and work together as Alaskans.”
The writer Charles Homans observed that “In the view of his constituents he was less Alaska's senator than its patriarch, the leader who guided Alaska's transformation from a territorial outpost to a modern petrostate.”
Alaskans seem to understand the correctness of the observation of the Almanac of American Politics that “No other senator fills so central a place in his state’s public and economic life as Ted Stevens of Alaska; quite possibly no other senator ever has.”
Only a Career Member of Congress Focused on Alaska Issues Could Stay Above the Fray and Command Respect Across Alaska’s Factions
Ted Stevens only kept his status as an icon across the decades, however, because he didn’t do what at least one of his Senate staff members thought likely 35 years ago. In 1975, a Capitol Hill aide to Stevens told me that there was speculation among the staff that the Senator would ultimately go back to Alaska and cap his career by serving as Governor.
Stevens’ long-time Senate colleague Frank Murkowski did that in 2002, and that move ended up destroying his image in the state. Murkowski went from routine re-election over 22 years in the Senate to finishing third in his own Republican primary when he ran for re-election as Governor in 2006.
Sen. Murkowski kept winning re-election because as a Senator he did not have to make decisions that divided Alaskans. Gov. Murkowski lost badly when he ran for re-election as Governor in part because he made some tough calls, which had him take aggressive positions on fiscal questions like state budget cuts vs. reductions in Permanent Fund Dividends vs. bringing back the state income tax on individuals.
Ted Stevens, on the other hand, stayed an Alaska hero because he maintained a laser-like focus on fighting for Alaskans against the federal government. He worked to get federal dollars for Alaska projects and programs; he maneuvered to make federal law favorable to Alaskans; and he stood up for individual Alaska constituents against federal agencies. As the state’s fierce lobbyist, clever lawyer, and superombudsman, Stevens was almost a cross between a Western hero played by John Wayne and star attorney Perry Mason of TV fame, the kind of champion you want on your side when the stakes are high and the odds are long.
Stevens was a gladiator for Greatlanders in the arena of Washington, D.C. Even if he didn’t always win, Alaskans could always see that he was trying his hardest. As U.S. Senator for Alaska, Stevens was the captain of the Last Frontier team, or even the chieftain of the Alaska tribe.
All that would have gone out the window if Ted Stevens had left the U.S. Senate to return to Alaska as Governor. As the state’s chief executive, he would have had to takes sides among Alaska’s warring clans on various issues, particularly fiscal matters. Stevens’ popularity would have plummeted, especially if falling oil prices forced him to make tough calls on budget and tax issues. The diminutive scrapper’s famously irritable and pugnacious personality would have not have worn as well with Alaskans if he had become the state’s chief executive. Serving as Governor would have made it much harder for Stevens to hang onto the idealized view of Alaska society he seemed to have as a Senator, which allowed him to believe that all boats would rise together if he just kept pouring enough federal dollars into the ocean. As Governor, Stevens would no longer have been “Uncle Ted”—he could easily have become in many Alaskans’ eyes “that knucklehead in Juneau.”
Ted Stevens was a smart man who worked hard for a long time to promote the best interests of Alaska as he saw them. His stature as an Alaska legend was immeasurably aided by his decision to stay in the U.S. Senate, where as a top-ranking federal official he could best fight the feds on behalf of his constituents.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Judge Sedwick Turns Down Vic Kohring's Attempts to Either Get His Case Thrown Out or Get a New Trial
Anchorage—
As noted above, U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick today rejected ex-State Rep. Vic Kohring’s efforts to get relief based on the prosecution’s admitted failures to turn over before trial evidence favorable to the former Republican legislator from Wasilla.
It’s worth going over this 31-page ruling in bullet point style:
1. To Judge Sedwick, ex-VECO CEO Bill Allen was so obviously crooked as of the first half of 2006 that anybody around the legislature with a room temperature IQ could see it. On March 30, 2006, Kohring went to see the “notorious” Allen in the Baranof Hotel’s Suite 604, “the location which Kohring knew was the very center of Allen’s web of corruption in Juneau.”
2. The judge does not buy any argument that Vic Kohring was too clueless, too honest, or too powerless to commit the crimes for which he was convicted. As to the former lawmaker’s character, the court states that “While Kohring may not have been an inherently corrupt individual, at some point he became motivated to engage in political corruption.”
3. The judge believes that the FBI surveillance videotape showing Kohring’s meeting with Allen in Suite 604 on March 30, 2006 conclusively establishes Kohring’s guilt, notwithstanding any of the evidence the government wrongfully withheld. The judge focuses on Count 3 of the indictment of Kohring, which charged him with attempted extortion. Judge Sedwick looks at the videotape showing Kohring going over to Suite 604 to ask Allen to help with Kohring’s $17,000 credit card bill. The judge notes that this approach occurred during the legislature’s consideration of the proposed Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT) bill, oil-tax legislation Allen clearly was lobbying heavily. Add it all up, and the judge sees an obviously corrupt solicitation amounting to attempted extortion.
The court emphasizes the legal rule that a convicted defendant seeking relief based on the government’s failure to disclose evidence before trial must demonstrate a reasonable probability that the withheld evidence affected the jury’s verdict. (Although the judge would not use this term, this concept is similar to the cry of “No harm, no foul” you might hear in pick-up basketball.) The judge views the tape of the March 30 meeting as so incriminating that the prosecution’s failure to disclose did not make a difference in the outcome. “The court cannot bend or warp its understanding of the videotape into a shape that raises any reasonable probability that Kohring would not have been convicted on Count 3 by any jury which saw the videotape and contemplated what it saw in the context of Allen’s mission in Juneau and the inescapable inference from the evidence as a whole that Kohring understood and was willing to help with Allen’s corrupt mission.” The judge also points to Kohring’s recorded voice mail messages to Allen’s chief political lieutenant Rick Smith the next day detailing the legislator’s efforts on behalf of what he knew Allen and Smith wanted regarding oil-tax legislation. To Judge Sedwick, those recorded messages are the cherry on top of Vic Kohring’s guilty sundae.
4. In what Kohring’s lawyers must tonight be damning as unfair jiu-jitsu, the judge relies heavily on the fact that the jury acquitted the defendant of the charge of actual (not attempted) extortion to let stand the convictions on three other charges. Judge Sedwick reasons that the evidence wrongfully withheld by the prosecution could undermine confidence in convictions based on alleged cash payments by Allen to Kohring. As the judge notes, some of the previously undisclosed evidence shows that Allen sometimes told prosecutors that he made those cash payments as gifts or as expressions of pity and did not intend them as bribes. The judge also notes that those alleged cash payments would provide a basis to convict Kohring of extortion, but the jury acquitted Kohring of that charge.
The judge concludes, however, that the charge of attempted extortion in Count 3 was based on Kohring’s solicitation of help on his $17,000 credit card bill and not on any of the payments totaling up to $2,600 that Allen made to Kohring or the job at VECO worth $3,000 given to the lawmaker’s nephew. The judge rules that the March 30 videotape and the recorded messages of March 31 support the conviction for attempted extortion in Count 3. Judge Sedwick also announces that the same recorded evidence could provide the basis for the convictions for conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion (Count 1) and bribery (Count 4).
Accordingly, confidence in those three convictions based on taped evidence cannot be shaken by any withheld evidence about Allen’s shaky memory, Allen’s evolving accounts of his past actions, or inconsistencies between Allen’s and Smith’s recollections of the circumstances or purposes of any payments to Kohring. Once again, the tapes trump, and undisputed evidence on the tapes can compensate for undisclosed evidence that was not taped.
Ironically, this means that the famous “Easter egg” shot of Allen giving cash to Kohring on March 30—the iconic image of the whole federal investigation into Alaska public corruption—is not even conduct for which Kohring was convicted.
5. Despite his denial of Kohring’s requests for dismissal of the charges, a new trial, or an evidentiary hearing, Judge Sedwick is letting the former legislator walk around free while his lawyers pursue an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Although this court has not found a sufficient basis to order a new trial or dismissal of the indictment, it is certainly possible that the Circuit Court will see the matter differently.” Given that Kohring is neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety, Judge Sedwick will let him remain on release pending appeal.
As noted above, U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick today rejected ex-State Rep. Vic Kohring’s efforts to get relief based on the prosecution’s admitted failures to turn over before trial evidence favorable to the former Republican legislator from Wasilla.
It’s worth going over this 31-page ruling in bullet point style:
1. To Judge Sedwick, ex-VECO CEO Bill Allen was so obviously crooked as of the first half of 2006 that anybody around the legislature with a room temperature IQ could see it. On March 30, 2006, Kohring went to see the “notorious” Allen in the Baranof Hotel’s Suite 604, “the location which Kohring knew was the very center of Allen’s web of corruption in Juneau.”
2. The judge does not buy any argument that Vic Kohring was too clueless, too honest, or too powerless to commit the crimes for which he was convicted. As to the former lawmaker’s character, the court states that “While Kohring may not have been an inherently corrupt individual, at some point he became motivated to engage in political corruption.”
3. The judge believes that the FBI surveillance videotape showing Kohring’s meeting with Allen in Suite 604 on March 30, 2006 conclusively establishes Kohring’s guilt, notwithstanding any of the evidence the government wrongfully withheld. The judge focuses on Count 3 of the indictment of Kohring, which charged him with attempted extortion. Judge Sedwick looks at the videotape showing Kohring going over to Suite 604 to ask Allen to help with Kohring’s $17,000 credit card bill. The judge notes that this approach occurred during the legislature’s consideration of the proposed Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT) bill, oil-tax legislation Allen clearly was lobbying heavily. Add it all up, and the judge sees an obviously corrupt solicitation amounting to attempted extortion.
The court emphasizes the legal rule that a convicted defendant seeking relief based on the government’s failure to disclose evidence before trial must demonstrate a reasonable probability that the withheld evidence affected the jury’s verdict. (Although the judge would not use this term, this concept is similar to the cry of “No harm, no foul” you might hear in pick-up basketball.) The judge views the tape of the March 30 meeting as so incriminating that the prosecution’s failure to disclose did not make a difference in the outcome. “The court cannot bend or warp its understanding of the videotape into a shape that raises any reasonable probability that Kohring would not have been convicted on Count 3 by any jury which saw the videotape and contemplated what it saw in the context of Allen’s mission in Juneau and the inescapable inference from the evidence as a whole that Kohring understood and was willing to help with Allen’s corrupt mission.” The judge also points to Kohring’s recorded voice mail messages to Allen’s chief political lieutenant Rick Smith the next day detailing the legislator’s efforts on behalf of what he knew Allen and Smith wanted regarding oil-tax legislation. To Judge Sedwick, those recorded messages are the cherry on top of Vic Kohring’s guilty sundae.
4. In what Kohring’s lawyers must tonight be damning as unfair jiu-jitsu, the judge relies heavily on the fact that the jury acquitted the defendant of the charge of actual (not attempted) extortion to let stand the convictions on three other charges. Judge Sedwick reasons that the evidence wrongfully withheld by the prosecution could undermine confidence in convictions based on alleged cash payments by Allen to Kohring. As the judge notes, some of the previously undisclosed evidence shows that Allen sometimes told prosecutors that he made those cash payments as gifts or as expressions of pity and did not intend them as bribes. The judge also notes that those alleged cash payments would provide a basis to convict Kohring of extortion, but the jury acquitted Kohring of that charge.
The judge concludes, however, that the charge of attempted extortion in Count 3 was based on Kohring’s solicitation of help on his $17,000 credit card bill and not on any of the payments totaling up to $2,600 that Allen made to Kohring or the job at VECO worth $3,000 given to the lawmaker’s nephew. The judge rules that the March 30 videotape and the recorded messages of March 31 support the conviction for attempted extortion in Count 3. Judge Sedwick also announces that the same recorded evidence could provide the basis for the convictions for conspiracy to commit extortion and attempted extortion (Count 1) and bribery (Count 4).
Accordingly, confidence in those three convictions based on taped evidence cannot be shaken by any withheld evidence about Allen’s shaky memory, Allen’s evolving accounts of his past actions, or inconsistencies between Allen’s and Smith’s recollections of the circumstances or purposes of any payments to Kohring. Once again, the tapes trump, and undisputed evidence on the tapes can compensate for undisclosed evidence that was not taped.
Ironically, this means that the famous “Easter egg” shot of Allen giving cash to Kohring on March 30—the iconic image of the whole federal investigation into Alaska public corruption—is not even conduct for which Kohring was convicted.
5. Despite his denial of Kohring’s requests for dismissal of the charges, a new trial, or an evidentiary hearing, Judge Sedwick is letting the former legislator walk around free while his lawyers pursue an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Although this court has not found a sufficient basis to order a new trial or dismissal of the indictment, it is certainly possible that the Circuit Court will see the matter differently.” Given that Kohring is neither a flight risk nor a danger to public safety, Judge Sedwick will let him remain on release pending appeal.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Applying "No Harm, No Foul" Principle, Judge Lets Vic Kohring's Convictions Stand
Anchorage--
U.S. District Judge John Sedwick has ruled that former State Rep. Vic Kohring's corruption-related convictions will stay in place. The court announced today that FBI surveillance tapes of Kohring's interactions with ex-VECO CEO Bill Allen and Allen's chief political lieutenant Rick Smith showed the former Wasilla Republican lawmaker's guilt so conclusively that it wouldn't have mattered if the government had given to the defense before the trial all the evidence the defense was entitled to get.
I have to run off to an appointment, so there's more to come later.
U.S. District Judge John Sedwick has ruled that former State Rep. Vic Kohring's corruption-related convictions will stay in place. The court announced today that FBI surveillance tapes of Kohring's interactions with ex-VECO CEO Bill Allen and Allen's chief political lieutenant Rick Smith showed the former Wasilla Republican lawmaker's guilt so conclusively that it wouldn't have mattered if the government had given to the defense before the trial all the evidence the defense was entitled to get.
I have to run off to an appointment, so there's more to come later.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
RIP, Ted Stevens
Anchorage—
Officials have confirmed that former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) has died in a plane crash in southwest Alaska that has killed four other people and left four more injured.
I have written at great length on this blog about Ted Stevens’ life and career as well as the criminal charges he faced in 2008 and 2009. Tributes, memorials, and critiques are all over the media today as well as expressions of condolences and sympathies for the dead, the injured, and their loved ones. I’ll confine myself this afternoon to a couple of observations about the way Ted Stevens died and some things we could do today in line with the way he lived his 86 years:
1. It’s terribly ironic that Ted Stevens died flying. He obviously relished flying as a military pilot in World War II and as an avid recreational pilot during his years in Alaska. (Those years in the Great Land began when he and his first wife Ann arrived in Fairbanks in 1953, not 1950 as I mistakenly wrote this morning.)
Ted Stevens also had to fly a great deal as a passenger during his 40 years serving as one of Alaska’s two U.S. Senators. Stevens made the more than 6,000-mile round trip between Anchorage and Washington, D.C. hundreds of times during those four decades. He flew extensively around the Great Land on trips to campaign and work as a Senator, and he jetted around the world to fulfill his Congressional duties.
Stevens worked hard in the Senate to improve Alaska aviation, and the state’s largest airport is named after him.
Alaska aviation needs a lot of improvement, because flying in the Last Frontier is uniquely hazardous. Alaska has a lot of land, and most places have no road to them. Often the planes are small, the flights are unscheduled, the aids to navigation are rare, the weather is bad, the terrain is harsh and remote, and the distances are long from point to point. Flying in Alaska can sometimes seem like dicing with death, and Stevens had seen the numbers fall the wrong way before. Stevens’ first wife Ann died in a plane crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed four other people and left him seriously injured and one of only two survivors. Even before that tragedy three decades ago at the airport that would later be named after him, he had reportedly said that he had a premonition that he would die in a plane crash.
2. Let’s focus today on some of the positive and practical lessons of Ted Stevens’ life. The “Alaskan of the Century” and longest serving Republican Senator ever was a giant of the Last Frontier and the U.S. Senate, but his life as a man can also teach us. Any fair account of Ted Stevens’ life has to address the mistakes he made that contributed to the prosecution that produced seven jury verdicts of guilty against him in 2008 before that prosecution blew up the next year due to acknowledged misconduct by government lawyers. But today, let’s think of the simpler things that this man learned during his long life and tried to tell others. Love your family, and do your best to spend as much time as you can with them. Exercise—it will improve your mind as well as your body. Work hard, and study enough to learn what you need to know in order to do your job.
Officials have confirmed that former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) has died in a plane crash in southwest Alaska that has killed four other people and left four more injured.
I have written at great length on this blog about Ted Stevens’ life and career as well as the criminal charges he faced in 2008 and 2009. Tributes, memorials, and critiques are all over the media today as well as expressions of condolences and sympathies for the dead, the injured, and their loved ones. I’ll confine myself this afternoon to a couple of observations about the way Ted Stevens died and some things we could do today in line with the way he lived his 86 years:
1. It’s terribly ironic that Ted Stevens died flying. He obviously relished flying as a military pilot in World War II and as an avid recreational pilot during his years in Alaska. (Those years in the Great Land began when he and his first wife Ann arrived in Fairbanks in 1953, not 1950 as I mistakenly wrote this morning.)
Ted Stevens also had to fly a great deal as a passenger during his 40 years serving as one of Alaska’s two U.S. Senators. Stevens made the more than 6,000-mile round trip between Anchorage and Washington, D.C. hundreds of times during those four decades. He flew extensively around the Great Land on trips to campaign and work as a Senator, and he jetted around the world to fulfill his Congressional duties.
Stevens worked hard in the Senate to improve Alaska aviation, and the state’s largest airport is named after him.
Alaska aviation needs a lot of improvement, because flying in the Last Frontier is uniquely hazardous. Alaska has a lot of land, and most places have no road to them. Often the planes are small, the flights are unscheduled, the aids to navigation are rare, the weather is bad, the terrain is harsh and remote, and the distances are long from point to point. Flying in Alaska can sometimes seem like dicing with death, and Stevens had seen the numbers fall the wrong way before. Stevens’ first wife Ann died in a plane crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed four other people and left him seriously injured and one of only two survivors. Even before that tragedy three decades ago at the airport that would later be named after him, he had reportedly said that he had a premonition that he would die in a plane crash.
2. Let’s focus today on some of the positive and practical lessons of Ted Stevens’ life. The “Alaskan of the Century” and longest serving Republican Senator ever was a giant of the Last Frontier and the U.S. Senate, but his life as a man can also teach us. Any fair account of Ted Stevens’ life has to address the mistakes he made that contributed to the prosecution that produced seven jury verdicts of guilty against him in 2008 before that prosecution blew up the next year due to acknowledged misconduct by government lawyers. But today, let’s think of the simpler things that this man learned during his long life and tried to tell others. Love your family, and do your best to spend as much time as you can with them. Exercise—it will improve your mind as well as your body. Work hard, and study enough to learn what you need to know in order to do your job.
Ted Stevens Apparently in Serious Plane Crash in Rural Alaska
Anchorage--
Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) is reported to have been a passenger on a plane that apparently crashed in southwest Alaska and killed five of the nine people aboard. Other people on the plane apparently include former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who used to work for Stevens on Capitol Hill.
Details are still sketchy, as bad weather has hampered access to the scene.
Ted Stevens has got to be one of the most experienced fliers in the world who has not been a professional pilot most of his life. Stevens was a military pilot during World War II and a recreational pilot after moving to Alaska in 1950. Although visitors to Alaska often concern themselves with the possibility of bear attacks, the bigger dangers on the Last Frontier are light plane crashes and drowning. Stevens himself barely survived a crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed his wife and four others among the seven on the plane.
Initial reports about incidents in remote areas are often wrong, so hope for the best.
Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens (R.-Alaska) is reported to have been a passenger on a plane that apparently crashed in southwest Alaska and killed five of the nine people aboard. Other people on the plane apparently include former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, who used to work for Stevens on Capitol Hill.
Details are still sketchy, as bad weather has hampered access to the scene.
Ted Stevens has got to be one of the most experienced fliers in the world who has not been a professional pilot most of his life. Stevens was a military pilot during World War II and a recreational pilot after moving to Alaska in 1950. Although visitors to Alaska often concern themselves with the possibility of bear attacks, the bigger dangers on the Last Frontier are light plane crashes and drowning. Stevens himself barely survived a crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed his wife and four others among the seven on the plane.
Initial reports about incidents in remote areas are often wrong, so hope for the best.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Judge Announces that Ruling on Vic Kohring's Motion Will Come "Soon"
Anchorage—
U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick stated at a hearing yesterday that he would rule “as soon as I can” on a motion by former State Rep. Vic Kohring (R.-Wasilla) to have the ex-lawmaker’s corruption convictions thrown out. The comment came at the oral argument on the motion, and you can read the story in the Anchorage Daily News at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/05/1397941/kohring-ruling-coming-soon.html on the Internet.
And a correction: The federal criminal investigation of U.S. Rep. Don Young (R.-Alaska) apparently included a probe of an allegation of Young’s involvement in changing the language of an earmark to benefit the “Coconut Road” project in Florida. My post regarding Young’s announcement that the feds had ended its investigation of him mistakenly referenced "Coconut Grove," which is the name of a Miami neighborhood and (in slightly different spelling) a Boston nightclub that was the site of a terrible fire in 1942.
U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick stated at a hearing yesterday that he would rule “as soon as I can” on a motion by former State Rep. Vic Kohring (R.-Wasilla) to have the ex-lawmaker’s corruption convictions thrown out. The comment came at the oral argument on the motion, and you can read the story in the Anchorage Daily News at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/05/1397941/kohring-ruling-coming-soon.html on the Internet.
And a correction: The federal criminal investigation of U.S. Rep. Don Young (R.-Alaska) apparently included a probe of an allegation of Young’s involvement in changing the language of an earmark to benefit the “Coconut Road” project in Florida. My post regarding Young’s announcement that the feds had ended its investigation of him mistakenly referenced "Coconut Grove," which is the name of a Miami neighborhood and (in slightly different spelling) a Boston nightclub that was the site of a terrible fire in 1942.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Neither Pig Roast Dirty Dollars Nor Golf Clubs Nor the Coconut Grove Earmark Shall Bring Him to Prison: Don Young Says the Feds Won't Prosecute
Anchorage--
The office of U.S. Rep. Don Young (R.-Alaska) has just issued a press release that is worth quoting in full:
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE
A Statement From The Office Of Congressman Young
Congressman Young's legal team has been notified that after full cooperation from the Congressman, the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice has concluded their investigation and declined prosecution of Congressman Young.
Rich Mauer has more at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/04/1395830/rep-young-wont-face-federal-charges.html at the Website of the Anchorage Daily News.
The office of U.S. Rep. Don Young (R.-Alaska) has just issued a press release that is worth quoting in full:
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE
A Statement From The Office Of Congressman Young
Congressman Young's legal team has been notified that after full cooperation from the Congressman, the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice has concluded their investigation and declined prosecution of Congressman Young.
Rich Mauer has more at http://www.adn.com/2010/08/04/1395830/rep-young-wont-face-federal-charges.html at the Website of the Anchorage Daily News.
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