{"id":123,"date":"2005-11-14T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-16T12:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=123"},"modified":"2005-11-14T17:28:00","modified_gmt":"2005-11-14T23:28:00","slug":"gop-senator-for-life-ted-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/gop-senator-for-life-ted-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Senator-for-\r\n\r\nlife Ted Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right wing starts to reap <\/p>\n

the whirlwind<\/a> By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST<\/p>\n

Of course, there’s Alaska’s temperamental, <\/p>\n

vengeful<\/strong> GOP Senator-for-life Ted Stevens.<\/p>\n

Stevens has just introduced a bill to roll back federal protection of Puget <\/p>\n

Sound — clearing the way for more tankers and refineries.<\/p>\n

The old bastard shakes down [Washington state’s] business interests <\/p>\n

for $250,000 in donations whenever he seeks another term. And this is what we get in return.<\/p>\n

Evil deeds backfire.<\/p>\n

National Pork Service<\/a> By Richard Cohen<\/p>\n

after … a $223 million bridge from Ketchikan (population 8,900) to Gravina Island (population 50), was mocked as the “Bridge to <\/p>\n

Nowhere,” Stevens properly turned the issue into one of virtual civil rights. He recalled the days when Alaska was a mere territory with <\/p>\n

few of the usual rights of states and said that now, once again, it was being accorded second-class status: “It will not happen,” he <\/p>\n

thundered. “It will not happen,” he bellowed.<\/p>\n

The statue of Stevens will note that he was the first senator in American history to <\/p>\n

take himself hostage. His threat to resign — an action of vast indifference to all of mankind with the possible exception of the 50 <\/p>\n

people on Gravina Island — would have deprived the Senate of a reverse Gold Rusher, someone who came down from Alaska to mine for gold <\/p>\n

in Washington. His speech, in which over and over he bemoaned the pitiful nature of his state’s modest road system, made no mention of <\/p>\n

how Alaskans pay no state income tax and are awarded a piece of the state’s oil revenue. The state is No. 1 in per capita federal aid, <\/p>\n

which is a tribute of sorts to Stevens’s ability to game the system at the expense of us all. …<\/p>\n

But it is his threat to resign <\/p>\n

— “I don’t threaten people; I promise people” — that shall forever be memorialized. It is a model of insistence, of selfishness, of <\/p>\n

seeing the government no differently than Huey, Dewey and Louie saw their uncle, the fabulously rich Scrooge McDuck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right wing starts to reap the whirlwind By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST Of course, there’s Alaska’s temperamental, vengeful GOP Senator-for-life Ted Stevens. Stevens has just introduced a bill to roll back federal protection of Puget Sound — clearing the way for more tankers and refineries. The old bastard shakes down [Washington state’s] business interests … Continue reading GOP Senator-for-<\/p>\n

life Ted Stevens<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}