Blago Impeached, no mandamus

The Illinois House voted all but unanimously (one lone holdout) to impeach Blago. The measure now moves to the Senate.

And now you see why I'm not a betting man. The Illinois Supreme Court denied the mandamus motion filed by Burris, saying that the Sec of State violated no legal duty. The essence of the court's order was that Illinois law does not impose a duty on the Secretary of State to sign or affix the state seal to the document. According to the court, the Secretary of State's ONLY duty is to "register the appointment," which he did. The court basically concluded (even though they have no authority over the same) that Senate rules cannot trump state law or the 17th Amendment, cannot make Illinois do anything further. Therefore, back to DC.

And our senior senator is not acquitting himself well lately.

Brothers and Sisters, may I have an amen???

Budget deficits are bad, hallelujah! May I have an amen!

AMEN!

Out of control spending has to stop, brothers and sisters! May I have an amen!

AMEN!

Well well well. After eight giggling years of gleefully enabling Der Chimpenfuhrer to run up a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT, Congressional Republicans have seen the light. Now that Democrats are in charge, we must be RESPONSIBLE. We need to think about the TAXPAYER! We need to worry about MAIN STREET!

PULL-EAZE. Yeah, I'll have a double scoop of hypocrisy with extra sleaze, please?

And take Harry Reid and Jay Rockefeller with you

See below.

Memo to Sen. Feinstein

The Hon. Dianne Feinstein
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510

Dear. Sen. Feinstein:

I have been amused at your recent petulance concerning the appointment of a fine candidate, Leon Panetta, to head up the CIA. I would have appreciated your concern if you had not been a willing enabler of the Bush administration's abuses on illegal wiretapping and torture. In this humble correspondent's view, any Democrat who regularly referred to the illegal eavesdropping as a "terrorist surveillance plan" deserved to be treated with even less regard than that shown you by the president-elect.

So, Sen. Feinstein, Happy New Year and

You can tell you went to a small college....

When they get excited about this:

Jon Stewart Mentions DePauw's Kresge Auditorium on TV's Daily Show

January 5, 2009, Greencastle, Ind. — "Who will be the Obama administration's First Dog?," asked Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's The Daily Show. "Tonight we get our first glimpse at the candidates as millions were glued to their television sets for the CNN Puppendential Debate, broadcast live from DePauw University's Kresge Auditorium."

The humorous segment, which aired tonight, featured CNN's Anderson Cooper "interviewing" the canine "candidates." DePauw was not seen in the piece, and it's not clear why the program decided to use Kresge Auditorium as the "site" of the mock debate.

A video clip of the complete segment is available at the program's Web site. A short edited video can be found here: [Download Video: "Edited Daily Show Clip" - 3002kb]

More on "As the Burris Turns"

A Slate piece picked up on my argument below. I still think it is highly likely that he will serve, but there is a colorable constitutional argument the Senate could use to preclude him from being sworn in (and it is NOT the approach taken by Harry Reid, who is a major-league buffoon.) Reid is arguing the technicality of the certification, which is effectively mooted if/when the Illinois Supreme Court grants the mandamus motion. The Sec of State's certification is PURELY ministerial and is probably not even a legal requirement. He is acting as a notary, just authenticating that this is the document the governor signed. Otherwise would add an impermissible "with the advice and consent of the Sec of State" proviso to the appointment provision.

A serious, albeit an unlikely challenge, could be made to the substance of the legality of the appointment. Under Art 1 Sec 5 of the constitution, senators are not bound by what is going on outside in the prosecutorial process.

And in terms of making asses of oneself, insert "Sen. Cornyn" here.

It's not a slam dunk, but there may be an angle...

Re: Carlos' post below:

It is a very murky question concerning the Senate's power to refuse to seat the nominee under the Article I Section 5 provision that each house shall be the judge of its own members. The Adam Clayton Powell case is informative and conclusive, but not absolutely controlling in my view, as it MAY be distinguishable on the facts.

For those not in their dotage like I am, ACP was a controversial House member from Harlem. He was embroiled in a scandal involving misuse of funds and payroll padding. He was, however, duly re-elected, and the House refused to seat him. The court basically held that the judging of its members clause does not allow the imposition of qualifications beyond those described in Article I (and Burris OBVIOUSLY meets those bare-bones requirements)

The plan of attack is to go under the same section, but not the qualification of the members. Rather, it is the part referring to the Senate judging the ELECTION. The argument would be that unlike Powell, whose ELECTION was not in doubt legally, the senate could argue that the SELECTION of Burris did not comply with the law because of the bribery scandal taint, i.e., we cannot determine if he was properly named pending the outcome of the investigation.

It's not a slam dunk, but it would at least tie things up a long time.

The Dem caucus and leadership could of course make his life miserable--give him a broom closet office, deny committee appointments and seniority, etc. but that would just make them look small and petty.

Burris is not a felon but he is a hack. One more embarrassing moment for Illinois.

Blago Appoints Burris to Obama's Senate Seat

Why is Blago doing this?

Because HE CAN. Aside from the fact that this is a tainted appointment and that Roland Burris will never be seated by the U.S. Senate, while Burris may be personally "clean," he is 71 and is retired from elective politics after a long string of defeats (public repudiation, really). So, the inevitable perception is that Burris will be nothing more than a willing, or unwilling, placeholder for whoever is legitimately elected to Obama's vacated Senate seat. Which raises the LEGITIMACY issue all over again.

Bottom line: the appointment may be ILLEGITIMATE but it is CONSTITUTIONAL.

Accepting the appointment, Burris set himself up as the only person standing between economic chaos and peace and prosperity! Talk about hubris ...

Burris: "How much was it, $14,000? I gotta check my records (his law firm's), I didn't think we had that much to give to the governor."

Meanwhile, the Illinois legislature's impeachment proceedings, such as they are, have become a platform for Blago's competent lawyer, Ed Genson, to become the star of the show and cast aspersions on the entire process, as any counsel should do, with his "fighting shadows" and other media-friendly sound bites.

The Illinois impeachment committee look like a gathering of fools, sitting there with their paper name tags, while Genson holds court. There are no articles of impeachment, there are no witnesses called, there's no sense of direction, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald indicated that the legislature is interfering with his investigation.

What are they deliberating about? With each passing day they look more and more like a foolish kangaroo court. The legislature couldn't even move quickly enough to enact legislation removing the Senate appointment power from the governor. Perhaps the tittilating release of the actual tapes, dangled as a possibility by Fitzgerald, may save the legislature from further embarrassment.

Blagojevich said he acted after the legislature FAILED to act on a special election to have the people decide. How appropriate. Congressman Bobby Rush defended the Burris appointment, saying "my prayers have been answered" that the governor would appoint an African American to the U.S. Senate. "Separate, if you will, the appointee from the appointor." He said Jesse White, Sec. of State, acted "prematurely" in stating he would not certify the Senate appointment.

Is it just me, or do Illinois politics look more like something out of a banana republic, circa 1950s? Corruption, pay-offs, buy-outs, dictatorial executive, rubber stamp legislature, corruption, outrageous political maneuvers, corruption ... Panis et Circenses, or to put it more parochially, pass the popcorn.

See below, re: conspiracy theories

So we have less than a month of Bushocracy left to endure. Israel grossly over-responds in criminal fashion to attacks from within Lebanon. Hmmm, one last chance at "glory" for Der Chimpenfuhrer as they use Israeli surrogates to provoke the conflict with Iran they've been seeking? Crazy I know, but just how crazy?

Fiddling While Rome Burns

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli warplanes rained more than 100 tons of bombs on security sites in Hamas-ruled Gaza Saturday and early Sunday, killing at least 230 people in one of the Mideast conflict's bloodiest assaults in decades. The government said the open-ended campaign was aimed at stopping rocket attacks that have traumatized southern Israel.
The U.N. Security Council held emergency consultations Saturday night and early Sunday and debated whether to adopt a statement urging Israel to halt its military operations "without delay."

Again, I have always supported Israel's right to exist and defend itself, but since the days of Sharon, they have acted as an outlaw state. The summer war against Lebanon was Bushian in its illegality and in its poor execution. What Americans miss so often is how important this issue is in the eyes of seemingly the rest of the world but us. This goes a long way toward explaining the radicalization of young Arabs and other Muslims.

The shoe thrower in Iraq and the Gaza debacle are the exclamation points on these years of Bush failure. He came into office, looked at the volatile mix of explosive forces that was the Middle East, and asked "Condi, what the hell does vola--vola-volltilititty mean--oh hell, I've got brush to clear."

Inaction would have been criminal, but inaction and indifference would have been a rosy dream compared to what he did do. The invasion of Iraq was not only an affront to human decency and the sensibilities of people throughout the region, but the not-even-veiled neocon rationale to "re-engineer" the region to make it more "Israel-friendly" could not have been more ill-conceived and damaging. In addition, our totally one-sided "whatever Israel wants to do is fine with us" approach has destroyed any hope of having credibility as an honest broker in the region. The blame is not all Israel's, but they have cooperated in the Bush network of failure and escalation.

[Editor's Note: To American Jews and supporters of Israel, the warm fuzzy embrace that the fundamentalist neocons give to Israel is part of their desire to see their twisted view of prophecy fulfilled to bring about the rapture and have the blasphemous Israelites who reject Jesus be tossed in the lake of fire. Have a nice day.]

Shoes, bombs, death and failure. THAT is the Bush legacy.

Movie recommendation

We just got back from seeing Frost/Nixon. VERY enjoyable.

Frank Langella is tremendous as Nixon.

Frank made his name on stage and in a mediocre film as Dracula. I was thinking about his characters, Dracula and Nixon. Of course, one was an evil soulless bloodthirsty monster--while the other was just a vampire.

The End Times

We had 15 inches of snow, then -5 degrees, and today--a tropical storm. Seriously. It is 65 degrees warmer than last weekend, with 60-plus MPH winds.

To the climate change naysayers--"global warming" is often misunderstood, and people confuse climate with weather. A pattern of climate change can and does produce extremes of weather, both warm and cold, wet and dry.

Are we really tightwads?

I read a commentary from the NY Times over the weekend that's been bothering me. Nick Kristof does a pretty good analysis of Arthur Brook's book "Who Really Cares," which says, basically that conservatives in general give more to charity than liberals.

"The upshot is that Democrats, who speak passionately about the hungry and homeless, personally fork over less money to charity than Republicans - the ones who try to cut health insurance for children."

Is that true? Do we only show compassion towards the less fortunate when it is in the form of generous government spending, and not from individual contributions? In essence, are we the cheapskates??

I hate to be one-uped by Republicans, and I know that they give alot of money to churches, and he did find that religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives, but Brooks apparently also found that "if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes."

What? Do conservatives, in general have more to give? Do we really just talk the talk, instead of putting our money where our mouth is?

Any thoughts?

On the Beach

What if we could vote for president based on who looks best on the beach ...?

And do these guys even pass the CREEP test ...?

"I AM NOT A CROOK." (See, if the president does it it's not a crime.)

"Hear, hear ..."

"Hehehe...Yuck!"

On Rick Warren...

I've been kicking this one around, and my position on it changes about as often as the amount of snow in my driveway. The take at this precise moment is:

It was a stroke of political genious. Obama looks large, conciliatory and magnanimous. It will also

a) energize civil rights activists and
b) show the Saddlebackers, et al. as the bigoted freakshow that they are

All at no cost to the president-elect.

Brilliant.

I don't know if there'll be snow....

Burl Ives sang the line above in "A Holly Jolly Christmas."




I know. There'll be snow. LOTS of snow.

Holly jolly this.

Alex, may I have conspiracy theories for $1000?

Mike Connell died in a plane crash on Thursday?

Mike Connell? Who?

Well, he was one of the key figures in the 2004 Ohio vote rigging scandal. He was on the verge of testifying and died "mysteriously" in the crash of his small airplane. How convenient.

Tricky Rod?

So, it turns out that the White House isn't the only government institution filled with devotees of one Richard Nixon:

While going to school at Northwestern University, Blagojevich idolized Nixon, according to friends, frequently defending him during the Watergate scandal. According to a long-time Blagojevich friend, the future governor often found inspiration in Nixon's "me against the world" sensibility. Blagojevich particularly loved the fact that Nixon bounced back after the "you won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore" speech after losing the race for California governor in 1962.

Blagojevich dismissed Nixon's corruption as par for the political course, asserting (like many Nixon defenders) that the Kennedys did far worse things than anything that happened in Watergate.

Sigh.

A random unpleasant thought

As people become more desperate in George Bush's depression, how many will join the military because they have no other options and be killed or maimed on Bush's bloody altar?

Drew Peterson is ENGAGED

So, another one of our state's embarrassments, wife-killing cop Drew Peterson, is engaged. ENGAGED. Some 23-year old girl actually agreed to marry a man who in all likelihood killed his last two wives.

But I have an idea...

Let's be proactive.

Let's plan ahead and get the happy couple those "traditional" anniversary presents.

Year 1 is paper:



Year 2 is cotton:



For #3, we have leather:

Anniversary #4 is flowers



and

Finally, for the 5th anniversary, we give the gift of wood.