History not made

Ted Stevens' brave battle to become the first convicted felon ever elected to the U.S. Senate is over.

Ted Stevens convicted

Cosmic justice is served. Al-Caponian though it may be.

The banality of graft

The formidable Dirty Dozen regular Sen. Ted Stevens, (R-AK, seen below in his characteristic Incredible Hulk tie) has been indicted on 7 counts of lying about gifts he received from an oil company. (WP, also see Google News results)

Stevens, it is pretty convincingly alleged, took $250K worth of goods and services from Veco Oil in exchange for help with the company's legal troubles in Alaska. The offense was failing to report these gifts.

Offensive enough. But to me, the worst offense of all is what these gifts consisted of. Did Stevens send his nogoodnik son to school with these funds? Pay off his mortgage or something? Tithe to the church? Pay off debts owed to a dangerous mobster in order to save his life?

Nope. He remodeled his bathroom and installed some high quality kitchen appliances.

Merry Christmas from Ted Stevens

House Backs Arctic Drilling at End of Marathon Session (NYT).

So, to bring everybody up to speed, this is the result of the latest attempt to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas development. Senator Ted Stevens* (R-AK) got drilling language attached to a bill to fund the Department of Defense and Katrina reconstruction. Very difficult to vote against. Dirty, dirty, dirty.

I want to be pissed at the House, but hell, if I had to work until 5 a.m. on a Sunday night, I might vote away my own mother. Actually, it gets even worse for those hard-working public servants, because this is what they were voting on at 6:20 a.m.:

H.R. 4510: to direct the Joint Committee on the Library to accept the donation of a bust depicting Sojourner Truth and to display the bust in a suitable location in the rotunda of the Capitol.

*Who, I recently learned, frequently wears an Incredible Hulk tie to work