The Daily Background

The FBI has expanded their investigation of Ted “series of tubes” Stevens (R-Alaska) to include the entire company whose CEO plead guilty to bribery of legislators in exchange for contracts:

The FBI is investigating the National Science Foundation’s award of $170 million in contracts to the oil field services company that oversaw renovations on U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens’ home, McClatchy Newspapers has learned.

The firm, Veco Corp., captured a lucrative five-year NSF contract in 1999 to provide logistics and support for polar research, although it had no previous experience in that field. During the same time period, Veco’s top executive managed renovations that doubled the size of the longtime Republican senator’s Girdwood, Alaska, home — the scene of a July 30 FBI raid.

So. An oil company that has never done any polar research before (others applying for the contract were American universities and education institutions) gets 170 million dollars worth of contracts on their first shot? And this same oil company just happens to also offer to remodel Senator Stevens’ house, as he happens to be the then-Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee (which handled contracts like that).

When was the last time an oil company offered to remodel your house for you at a below-market rate? And the CEO of this same corporation plead guilty to bribing other (Alaska state) legislators in exchange for helping to get other contracts?

And one of those legislators happens to be Ted Stevens’ son, who received almost $250,000 in bribes?

… And we’re supposed to believe this is all just one huge coincidence and that Ted Stevens has done nothing wrong? I’m not buying it, Senator.

I am this close to registering the domain name dumpted.com and making it into an anti-Ted Stevens blog or something. Stevens, 83, is up for re-election in 2008, and for the first time in a long time, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate might actually lose an election.

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