Tag: illinois

Roland Burris: Not so fast on my not running for IL-SEN.

Don’t tease us like this, Senator Burris.  It’s unseemly in a Senator:

“You never say never,” Burris told ABC News in a “Subway Series” interview for the ABC News program “Top Line.” The “Subway Series,” which debuts on Monday, features interviews with senators and other political leaders on board the Capitol Hill subway.

“What I’m still hearing,” Burris said, is “people from all over the country and they are saying, ‘Don’t give up that seat.'”

…yes. Yes, I suppose that this may be technically true. The question is, how many of them are Democrats registered to vote in Illinois? Continue reading Roland Burris: Not so fast on my not running for IL-SEN.

Rod Blagojevich hath a website.

This, I think, deserves Ace of Spade HQ‘s Flaming Skull:

flaming_skull1

Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced and displaced former governor of Illinois, now has a website where he continues his fight for “ordinary people,” the Associated Press reports.

He has a website, a… radio talk show (WLS-890 AM, although he’s not on the schedule yet), a book (The Governor*) – and he’s available for public speaking gigs!  Universities especially: you could book him for your next commencement ceremony.

Oh.  Sorry about the “book him” thing, Rod…

Moe Lane

*“We follow the governor as he is awakened early one morning –his young daughter sleeping peacefully beside him – and unceremoniously arrested by FBI agents without knowing the charges being brought against him. We see the harsh glare of the spotlight, the media whirlwind already staking out his home and family, rushing to judgment before even the governor himself knew what crimes he’d been accused of committing. We follow him through the maze of political conspiracies that threaten to unseat and impeach the governor of the fifth largest state in the U.S. –forces brought to light by the ambition of an attorney general and the greed of her Democratic State Party Chairman father –as well as the zeal of a federal prosecutor and the manipulations of a disloyal lieutenant governor.”

There probably will not be a dull word in this one. Maybe ten truthful ones, but no dull ones.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rewarding party loyalty: Kirk, Castle, and Cao.

Like RS’s Erick Erickson and TNR’s Ironman, I instinctively shy from a boycott of the NRCC because they had eight members out of one hundred and seventy eight who flunked a test vote.  Some of the names on that list hurt to see, and a couple are exercises in teeth-grinding; but perfect is the enemy of the good, and Congressional Republicans have done a good job in using our lopsidedly minority status to the best effect possible.  Nobody’s pretending that this was passed with bipartisan support.  Nobody’s even trying.  That’s better news for next year’s elections than what I was frankly expecting, back in December 2008.

That being said: this was a test vote, and these eight represent eight ‘Blue Dogs’ that could safely vote No on this bill and keep pretending to their constituents that they believe in fiscal responsibility, and there needs to be some sort of response to that.

I have a modest suggestion along those lines, and his name is Anh “Joseph” Cao (LA-02). Continue reading Rewarding party loyalty: Kirk, Castle, and Cao.

Meet Adam Kinzinger (R Cand, IL-11).

Brian’s excellent post about Debbie Halvorson and her fake independence lacked only one thing: this.

Not his fault – it took a little bit of finding – but it’s an excuse to put this front and center. Adam’s main site is, of course, here. It’d be great if he hit his fundraising number by the deadline, wouldn’t it?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Burris off the perjury hook…

…and the Illinois Democratic party is kept firmly on the Burris one.

Far be it from me to suggest that the Illinois GOP has decided to not do the Illinois Democratic party a favor:

No perjury charge against US Sen. Burris-prosecutor

CHICAGO, June 19 (Reuters) – An Illinois prosecutor investigating the appointment of Roland Burris to President Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat said on Friday there was insufficient evidence to charge Burris with perjury.

Some of Burris’ answers to questions posed by an Illinois legislative committee in January were vague, but he did not lie about his discussions with then-Governor Rod Blagojevich’s aides concerning his appointment, Sangamon County Prosecutor John Schmidt said in a statement.

[snip]

“Some of (Burris’) statements were vague, but vague statements cannot support a perjury charge,” Schmidt said.

Continue reading Burris off the perjury hook…

I cannot *believe* that this is part of Blago’s Revenge.

I mean, how could he have known that Burris would end up on Armed Services?

MR. LEMNIOS: Sir, in the — as director of Defense Research and Engineering, my critical role would be to work technology strategy across the Department of Defense; to identify those key areas where the Department needs to strengthen and drive its technology strategies, technology efforts; to work with the services in their laboratories to foster a broad set of –

SEN. BURRIS: Excuse me. You’re saying that there is — services have their own research laboratories going, with research military personnel, or outside contracting personnel?

MR. LEMNIOS: Sir, I’ve seen combinations of both. Some examples include the Naval Research Laboratory, not too far from here, which includes certainly government employees as well as some contractors on site; include the Air Force Wright-Patterson Laboratory which, again, include many government researchers and outside contractors.

(Via Mere Rhetoric, via Hot Air)

Wired is appalled, although as usual I’m not sure why; it’s hardly a news flash that the Democratic Party would consider Armed Services to be the perfect backwater in which to put a Senator like Burris.  I just refuse to believe that Blagojevich is that prescient. If he was, he’d still be in office.

Nonetheless, I cannot wait for the Democratic Illinois primary. Particularly the part where the national Democratic party bends itself into amusing rhetorical pretzel shapes to avoid talking about why they’re supporting/not supporting Burris in it. Trust me, they’re not going to want to talk about it, either way.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Dick Durbin knew all along that Blagojevich was selling off the seat.

[UPDATE]: Welcome, Hot Air readers. I agree with Allahpundit that this was probably legal of Durbin, but I still think that he really should have mentioned it to somebody when the indictments started piling up.

This would only be a bombshell if it had been unexpected.

AP Exclusive: Blago talked to Durbin about Senate

CHICAGO (AP) – Just two weeks before his arrest on corruption charges, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich floated a plan to nominate to the U.S. Senate the daughter of his biggest political rival in return for concessions on his pet projects, people familiar with the plan told The Associated Press.

Blagojevich told fellow Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin he was thinking of naming Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to the seat vacated when Barack Obama won the presidential election, according to two Durbin aides who spoke on condition of anonymity.

[snip]

The aides said the concessions Blagojevich wanted in return were progress on capital spending projects and a health care bill that were stalled in the Legislature.

Continue reading Dick Durbin knew all along that Blagojevich was selling off the seat.

Illinois state tax increases killed.

Amazing what a little fiscal intransigence can do:

The Illinois House overwhelmingly rejected a temporary income tax increase Sunday, moving the state closer to massive spending cuts that critics called a “doomsday” budget.

The House’s Democratic leaders didn’t even try to pass a larger, permanent increase that was approved by the state Senate a day earlier. Lawmakers said there was little support for that plan during private Democratic discussions.

Instead, the House considered a measure that would have bumped the state’s 3 percent personal tax rate to 4.5 percent for two years. House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said it would have produced about $4.5 billion for a state government drowning in red ink.

The Senate version is described here: essentially, while the Illinois Senate apparently was willing to ignore Republican objections (the truly strange term system that the Illinois state Senate has may have something to do with that), the Illinois House was apparently a little less happy with ending up ratifying significant tax hikes, particularly since the GOP was making no secret about the fact that it wasn’t involved in the process of making this budget in the first place. At least, that’s about the only reason that I can see for having a legislature that’s nearly 2-to-1 Democrat/GOP go so thoroughly the other way on this vote.  At any rate, the Illinois Republicans are indicating that they’re willing to participate in the future budget negotiations.  Assuming that the Democrats are willing to let them, that is.

No rush.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Burris did in fact make an offer for the Senate seat.

Harry, you ignorant slut.

I am perilously close to being gobsmacked by this transcript of the Burris/Blagojevich conversation (via Hot Air). I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me that there’s enough there to indicate that Roland Burris flat-out lied about not trading favors and money for the Senate seat.  I am not, however, so stunned as to be unable to remind people about this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this…

Hold on: let’s see that video again.

Ha!

…this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and, finally, this.  In short – and may you have as an enjoyable time reviewing those posts as I did – Rod Blagojevich’s pick of Roland Burris for the Illinois Senate was a transparent trap – and Harry Reid and the rest of the Democratic Senate caucus sprung it anyway.  In fact, not being content with springing the trap, Reid and his caucus insisted on making every possible mistake that they could, too.  All because they were afraid.  People will be writing about this act of political revenge fifty years from now, and mocking the Senator from Nevada on every page, too.

Deservedly.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.