Alaska Republicans: Snakes in a Bag

The news that Republican legislators are being arrested in clumps by the FBI will shock no one familiar with the inexhaustible corruption and betrayal of Alaska and its citizens by the state's Republican party. The arrests - under a Bush appointed U.S. District attorney, mind you, follow the FBI raids of last year on legislative offices in Juneau. And those who sold out, sold out cheap, credit card debts here, inflated flooring bill there, and literally pocket change for the goons and pimps running VECO oil field services company.

The Chief Pimp was Bill Allen, CEO of VECO international, who has been a right-wing player in Alaska for many years; he once got VECO to buy the Anchorage Times, which has a daily editorial presence in the milkmaid liberal Daily News many years after the Times folded. Today's Times editorials are largely about pleasuring the oil industry.

It isn't credible to believe this is an isolated incident of straightforward here's-some-cash for votes corruption. Coke, working girls and cash in bags are the legacy of the oil boom in Alaska politics and it hasn't ended. More likely it's endemic, widespread among Alaska Republicans and some Democrats, and stretches back decades.

That this indictment came from the federal government rather than the state suggests that Alaska was incapable of cleaning its own house - Alaska is being redecorated from a proud frontier of independent and yet socially minded men and women to a third-world carnival of corruption and dependency.

The next on the round up of may include the former State Senator, Ben Stevens, Ted Steven's son. The elder Stevens, leaving Alaskans an enduring legacy of expensive buildings in random places and emotional imbalance, was once a U.S. District Attorney in Alaska. But note that part of the FBI raids occurred in Girdwood, Alaska, which is the permanent residence of Ted Stevens.

I notice that recent pressure from Sen. Murkowski and Ted Stevens to find an Alaskan for the top federal prosecutor's spot in Alaska that opened in January (hmm) which on first blush appeared to be highly appropriate resentment over the Bush administration's interference, may have a direct impact on the criminal case. Ted Stevens should not be selecting, or even pressuring the decision, on who is the federal prosecutor about to indict his son.

That he is even trying stinks to high heaven - and with Congressman Young now directly tied to the Abramoff scandal, (his aide selling out the American citizens of the Marianas into wage slavery), it is imperative for the future of the state of Alaska to account for all political corruption in the state. The federal charges do not preclude state charges, or civil lawsuits by the state, or private suits on behalf of its citizens. VECO and its oil industry associates must be forced to produce evidence of all it's attempts at bribery and extortion at all levels of government, not just this instance. This is much more important than the gas line - long after the resources are gone, the legacy that Alaska leaves of law and order and democracy will shape generations.