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.