Once Again... Russ Feingold Steps Up To The Plate For Democracy

If there is one thing we learned from this flood of senatorial appointments it's that it's long past overdue that voters decide who senators should be, not governors. Governors, whether a sociopath like Blagojevich in Illinois or a hack like Paterson New York, have their own agendas. It rarely-- if ever-- coincides with the peoples' agenda, which-- at least theoretically-- is looking for the best possible representation for the states.

Everything about the Senate started out as anti-democratic and it has gradually become less and less so. The Senate represents states, not people. California's 37,000,000 people have two senators, just like Wyoming's 500,000 people-- and unlike Washington, DC's 600,000 (who have no senators or representatives-- not even if you count them as 5/8s of a person). Everything was done to insulate the Senate from "the passions" of the mob (i.e.- the voters)-- from the longer terms and higher age requirements to the myth that the Senate was the repository of "elite wisdom," to the way in which senators got their jobs.

Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not by voters (let alone universal suffrage). It wasn't until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913-- following the examples set by Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Montana between 1906 and 1912-- that voters started electing senators nationwide. The Southern states, of course, bitterly opposed electing senators and fought ratification every step of the way. The problem with the 17th Amendment is that it also authorizes governors to appoint senators when there is a vacancy.

That's what's behind the three ring circuses in Illinois and New York and the thwarting of the will of the voters whenever a senator is appointed. And that's what Russ Feingold (D-WI), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, addressed today when he announced he would introduce a Constitutional Amendment that abolishes gubernatorial appointments to Senate vacancies.

"The controversies surrounding some of the recent gubernatorial appointments to vacant Senate seats make it painfully clear that such appointments are an anachronism that must end. In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution gave the citizens of this country the power to finally elect their senators. They should have the same power in the case of unexpected mid term vacancies, so that the Senate is as responsive as possible to the will of the people. I plan to introduce a constitutional amendment this week to require special elections when a Senate seat is vacant, as the Constitution mandates for the House, and as my own state of Wisconsin already requires by statute. As the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, I will hold a hearing on this important topic soon."

Perhaps there will soon be a member of the House as committed to constitutional solutions to this kind of mess as Feingold. As we've mentioned before, the best man running to replace Rahm Emanuel in Illinois' 5th CD, is Tom Geoghegan and a few weeks ago Tom penned a NY Times OpEd that also got right to teh heart of the matter:

In 2009 four new senators will slip into office — all in violation of the Constitution, which requires a special election to fill a Senate vacancy. Colorado, Delaware, hapless Illinois and star-struck New York will have senators “elected” by a single voter, the governors who appoint them.

It may have been a while since many of us read the 17th Amendment, which was ratified in 1913. Its first paragraph replaced the indirect election of senators by state legislatures with “direct” popular election by the voters. The second paragraph, which you may have skipped in school, deals with vacancies. It states that when seats open up unexpectedly, governors “shall issue writs of elections to fill such vacancies.” The plain enough meaning is that the governor will issue an order for a special election. But for decades now governors have opted not to issue writs directing new or special elections. Why are they ignoring the Constitution? To increase their own power, of course.

The pretext being used is a legal “proviso” in the amendment that comes later in the second paragraph. It states: “Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.”

2008: A YEAR ON STEROIDS, Part 3

Did the Big Three CEOs base their survival strategy on

this National Lampoon cover -- with us as the dog?

Random observations, thoughts, and rants on 2008, Part 3 (of 3)


by Noah


1. THE ILLUSION OF NEWS

"CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power."

-- Arthur C. Clarke

Sure, Clarke's quote refers to Desert Storm, but not much has changed. (One obvious change: Ted Turner is long gone from CNN, and most everything else he once controlled.) I stopped watching Corporate News Network after the 2004 "election," because their incessant pro-Bush programming sickened me beyond repair. To this day, if I find someone has left CNN on where I work, I grab the remote and put on the Weather Channel, just so some sense of reality is emanating from the tube. I often muse that Fox "News" exists just so CNN has an appearance of integrity by comparison. But really, how do you say one mass murderer is a nicer person than the other?

Then there's USA Toady. Every hotel I stay in drops this piece of journalistic flaming dog poop on my doorstep every morning. Not counting the tabloids, who make no pretense at being truthful, whatever the worst fast food chain out there is, this is its print-news equivalent. On its face, it presents an illusion of news just like pictures on a fast-food menu lead one to imagine that one is about to get food.

The illusion of food, the illusion of news -- what's the damn difference? Both give you the same thing in the end. Toady was a scheme from day one. Back around 1970, a crooked U.S. attorney general (imagine that, a crooked AG!) named Ed Meese proudly proclaimed, "We will turn this country so far to the right, you won't recognize it." One of the ways they're doing it is with free reading material that purports to be news, free fast-food news that you can grab as you leave your hotel or run through the gate to catch a plane. USA Toady, Weekly Standard, whatever. The corporations that run our hotels and airlines are all with the program. Catapult the propaganda, as Dubya says! Millions absorb and regurgitate it daily, until it becomes prevailing public opinion for those who aren't interested in having an opinion of their own. What did Goebbels say about repeating a lie often enough? It's the power to cloud minds.

Sean Hannity fits right in with all of this. In another century, he would just be regarded as someone's local village idiot, sitting on a wall in the park babbling to himself. But now we are so advanced that we put him on camera, and the effect is the same, multiplied ad infinitum. Dumbing down made easy.

It's worth pondering (to me, anyway) that we have been beaming our television programs out into space for about 70 years now. Suppose someone or something out there is watching. Picture beings who are unfamiliar with our ways, with our cultures. Imagine that, say, they only get some fractured broadcasts of prime-time cable "news" panels filled with incessant shrieking and shouting and jabbing of fingers, and some bits and pieces of Three Stooges reruns from TVLand. Could they discern the difference? Would we be put on a list for immediate extermination? Should we be embarrassed?

Hannity, Coulter, and Beck. Moe, Larry, and Curly.


2. STEROIDS WERE BIG THIS YEAR (PUN INTENDED)

I'm puzzled as to why you can go to jail for decades in some backward states like Texas for possessing two joints, yet not for selling something that has proven to be much more harmful. Oh, that's right, it's a question of who's making what you're selling!

The issue of steroid use is a complicated, multilayered one. Testing and laws haven't caught up to modern drug tech, and of course enforcement will always lag behind. When a lot of athletes started using steroids, you could buy the stuff in a health-food store just a block away from where I live; no prescription or back alley dealer necessary. They hadn't even been banned from Major League Baseball yet.

That doesn't excuse those who continued to use them or started using them after the ban, but we give the makers and promoters a pass, just as we give the sociopathic heads of tobacco companies a pass, even after they lie to Congress and it comes out that they have even targeted children not just by putting more nicotine in their product but by experimenting with chemical combos for the so-called "filters" that heighten the addictive properties of the product. We spend more time pontificating about toxic toys from China. Where's the even hand?

I love Rep. Henry Waxman, but the idea of a bunch of his grandstanding congresscreep colleagues with obvious alcohol-abuse and overeating problems pointing fingers while letting drug companies, including tobacco companies, off the hook also bugs me. Without public financing of campaigns, such absurdities and inequities will continue and continue. Inaction is bought and paid for. The issue of so many Southern Senators supporting foreign auto companies but not our own has a similar root cause. More on that below.


3. GEORGE W. BUSH, ROD BLAGOJEVICH . . .

How the hell do such ridiculous people get as far as they do? Certainly lots of people have seen the danger signs at the local level before they become national figures.

The answer lies in the means used to present these cretins to the public on a statewide or national scale. That means is the media, of course. It's more than the fact that there is virtually no investigative reporting anymore. We've gone way beyond that low. Obviously the media is all too willing to sell itself like the cheapest whore on the corner for campaign advertising revenue. Integrity and concern for our society never enter the equation for the media lowlife types. They make their money, and the country goes down the chute.

Nice folks. Money doesn't talk, it swears. Then again, maybe they just like such cretins. Maybe they see more than a bit of themselves in them.


4. EVERYWHERE, THERE ARE LOTS OF PIGGIES

Take that just-mentioned incredible cursing boy from Illinois. I'd have to say that Governor Bleepovich is crazy. Or at least he wanted to get caught, which may be the same thing. I mean, look, he knew he was being investigated and he still said what he said on his phone. Maybe he's just retarded, but then he would have run with the other party.

In any event, it looks like he crossed a legal line. Like it or not, and I don't, politicians make deals. That's at the root of what politics is. Most basic deal: They will give you something if you raise money for their campaign. It appears that this guy took it a step further and was saying, "Just give me the money." Either way, crazy or not, the guy is a sleazebag. Here in New York, we thought we had a real sleazo in Eliot Spitzer, but he can't be number one on the list anymore. Spitzer's case was a sex scandal, and no one in either party defended him, unlike what happened with Sen. David "Diapers" Vitter, who the Repugs all rallied around. There is a difference in the two parties, eh?

So much of this stuff centers around the corrupting influence of money. It's another reason for public campaign financing. Right now you have some Southern Senators against present and future auto bailouts because they are financially heavily supported by foreign automakers who have plants in their states. The U.A.W. supported their opponents, so they'd like to blame them for everything and get rid of them, too. Senators literally have to raise thousands of dollars per day to get reelected. To me, the reason to oppose bailouts is because the CEOs will likely just pocket the money and little if anything will change. To me it's welfare, although the pols and their media slaves don't call it that -- though they would if you or I were asking for the money.

The problem is that there is also a reason to support bailouts for the Big Three which the media didn't mention for a long time and barely mentions now. That reason is the jobs that are not Big Three auto-company jobs but jobs in related industries like parts suppliers, metal workers, etc. Three million people stand to lose their jobs over this crisis, but they are not of a class that Repugs like Alabama Senator Dick Shelby care about. Wall Street, yes. Our class, no.

Another unspoken thing is: What will happen to the advanced tech that our auto companies have? The answer is that, if the Big Three go bankrupt, selected divisions of them will be bought up by various foreign interests, especially Chinese. China is dying to get its hands on this stuff, and it's nowhere near as simple as just buying one of our cars. It's like when we sell planes and missile parts; we don't do it until we have something more advanced that renders what we sell to foreign interests out of date. China wants our R&D, future tech. It's like the Big Three CEOs copied that old National Lampoon "If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog" cover, only this time the dog is us.

We're now stuck between a rock and a hard place for real. It's extortion. And it's very ironic that the party that says it's more patriotic is the one that's in favor of aiding and abetting foreign interests, not to mention screwing the middle and working classes while pushing the economic meltdown further into a full-blown depression. Who hates America? At least those lowlife senators haven't pulled the gold from our teeth, like their idols from another time. Who can afford a dentist now anyway?


5. THOSE SUPREME FOLKS WHO GAVE US PRESIDENT DUBYA

I understand the idea that Bush is a prime source of material for standup comics and that people will miss that about him (if you need a fix, check out this clip), but what he's done to all of us is tragic. The damage he has done will never be over. No political figure has ever damaged our country more. Somewhere -- in a cave, a tent, or a deluxe high rise -- Bin Laden has a smile of satisfaction and accomplishment on his face.

One can only hope that history is once again taught in our schools someday and that the names of the criminal "Supreme" Court judges who gave us President Dubya are memorized by future students as examples of how corrupt judges can be and what tragedy they can inflict on the populace. It would be nice if the graves of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Anthony Kennedy are well-marked and well-known, so that future American dog-owners know right where to take their dogs for walkies.


6. A PARTING THOUGHT ON CAMPAIGN 2008

More than a few times I heard the argument for McCain-Palin that they would "protect the babies" or some such not-thought-out nonsense. Of course Repugs are never concerned about the health or future of the already-born. To Repugs, it's "once you're born, you're on your own." If, for example, you grow up in your local Love Canal, it's your fault. So, all you Focus on the Family types, think about this if you can grasp it: No American pol killed more babies in the womb than your sainted George W. Bush. He did it with his environmental policies, his health-care policies, his bombs, and a smirk. You voted for him. Nice work, suckers.


7. AND A PARTING THOUGHT TO SENATE DEMS RE. 2009

Senate Repugs have acted like schoolyard bullies for far too long, and the Dems just lie down and take it, getting run over by a Mack truck every time.

Change is coming!

However, there's only one way to deal with a bully. We're in a culture war, and a war is a war. I have no use for that "turn the other cheek so they can slug that one too" stuff. In the real world, though, I'm sure we'll see the Senate once again tied up by obstructionist Repugs who make sure that the Dems need 60 votes to pass every piece of Obama's legislative program, 60 votes that they will hardly ever be able to get. Then in 2010 the Repugs will say the Dems have accomplished nothing.

Maybe there's a chance. But only if the Dems change their attitude and grow a spine. That starts with getting rid of Harry Reid as majority leader.


FRIDAY IN PART 1: Sarah P and Joe the P, Gov. Spritzer, Keith and Rachel, the Repugs stuck in mid-20th century, and more

YESTERDAY IN PART 2: Dubya's pardons, Hank the Grifter's bailout, GOP election-stealing, and more

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Quote of the day: Obviously it's nothing to brag about when your approval rating drops to 8%, and yet --

Adaora Udoji and John Hockenberry of PRI and WNYC's The Takeaway

by Ken

You know how every once in a while you hear a thought that's running through your head come out of the mouth of a TV or radio talking head?

This morning on The Takeaway an Illinois reporter was updating us on the situation with the governor, the lieutenant governor (who acknowledges that he hasn't spoken to the governor since August 2007), and the problem of filling the state's U.S. Senate vacancy. Of course there wasn't really any news, but in passing the reporter made mention of the governor's approval rating dropping to eight percent.

The first thing out of the mouth of cohost John Hockenberry was:

"I'd like to talk to those eight percent."

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John Laesch: "Blagojevich arrest offers opportunity for change" -- toward meaningful campaign finance reform

"When elected officials and candidates spend a majority of their time talking to wealthy campaign donors, they are not listening to voters. When politicians are too busy fundraising, they are not reading bills before voting and they are not writing legislation to fix the economy. . . .

"Every candidate complains about the legal pay-to-play system, but few have ever had enough courage to make a serious effort at fixing it. Well, I can't think of a better time in Illinois' history for elected officials to stand up and fight for campaign finance reform. I challenge any political figure, Democrat or Republican, to present and fight for meaningful campaign finance reform legislation. Now is the time to lead."

-- former IL-14 congressional candidate John Laesch

There are a whole bunch of reasons why it's a shame that voters in IL-14 failed to send one of DWT's and Blue America's favorite candidates, John Laesch, to Congress. Not least is John's understanding of the culture of corruption, of which Republicans have become such masters, while too many Democrats have been trying to close the gap. We're happy to present this guest editorial, which John wrote for his hometown paper, Northern Illinois's Beacon News. -- Ken


Blagojevich arrest offers opportunity for change

by John Laesch

I was not surprised when I first learned that Governor Blagojevich had been arrested on Tuesday morning. From Abraham Lincoln to Paul Simon to Barack Obama, Illinois has produced some of America's greatest political leaders. Sadly, we have also produced too many of the type of Dan Rostenkowski, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich.

While we have seen the best and worst that Illinois has to offer politically in less than a month, I feel that the Blagojevich indictment presents one of the best opportunities we have seen for some time to fundamentally change our political system for the better.

The problem is not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party per se, but, instead, a political system that demands non-stop fundraising or ultra-rich candidates like Jim Oberweis and Bill Foster. When elected officials and candidates spend a majority of their time talking to wealthy campaign donors, they are not listening to voters. When politicians are too busy fundraising, they are not reading bills before voting and they are not writing legislation to fix the economy.

This is why Wall Street can pick up the phone and ask members from either party to support a $700 billion bailout package while election year promises go unanswered. Believe me, Wall Street paid dearly for the bailout, but those contributions were perfectly legal.

If you ask me, there is very little difference between a $10,000 legal contribution made to a member of Congress from an influential bank and the illegal fundraising schemes that Governor Blagojevich instituted.

Every candidate complains about the legal pay-to-play system, but few have ever had enough courage to make a serious effort at fixing it. Well, I can't think of a better time in Illinois' history for elected officials to stand up and fight for campaign finance reform. I challenge any political figure, Democrat or Republican, to present and fight for meaningful campaign finance reform legislation. Now is the time to lead.

If Blagojevich has the good sense to step down and Lt. Governor Pat Quinn becomes governor, we can turn our attention to the probable special election to replace Barack Obama. And, while Senator Durbin, Obama and Quinn are all calling for a special election, I think it is important to note that about a week ago, I heard Durbin on the radio listing off his requirements for the next U.S. senator. To no surprise, being "a good fundraiser" was first on the list.

I remember conversations that I had with political insiders back when Rod Blagojevich was first running for governor. The former chairman of the Democratic Chairman's Association told me that he had backed Rod Blagojevich because Rod had proven to be a strong fundraiser; the same fund-raising skills that landed Blagojevich in jail.

So, while the Democratic establishment in Illinois is likely to support the "good fundraiser" for a special election, I will be supporting the most honest, ethical person in the field who is committed to real campaign finance reform. I want my democracy back.

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The Blagojevich follies send Frank Rich smiling down the memory lane of Bush regime muck

"The surveillance tapes of Blagojevich are so fabulous it seems a tragedy we don't have similar audio records of the bigger fish who have wrecked the country. But in these hard times we'll take what we can get."

-- Frank Rich, in his Sunday NYT column,
"Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich"

by Ken

It seems we're still waiting for developments to develop in the strange affair of Illinois's indicted governor, Rod Blagojevich. If you haven't read the "transcript" that appeared on Daily Kos of the "conversation" between the governor and Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff-designate to President-elect Obama, you may enjoy it -- it's cleverly imagined, but imaginary it is. It does appear, however, that there was such a conversation, and who knows? Maybe it went something like this.

Meanwhile, we were just talking earlier today about "paying the price," or more often not paying the price, for the depradations of the Bush regime, and for punditocrative support therefor. Now along comes Frank Rich, enjoying the comedy of the Blagojevich comedy act, but finding it sending him down some pungent memory lanes.

Two Cheers for Rod Blagojevich

By FRANK RICH

ROD BLAGOJEVICH is the perfect holiday treat for a country fighting off depression. He gift-wraps the ugliness of corruption in the mirthful garb of farce. From a safe distance outside Illinois, it's hard not to laugh at the "culture of Chicago," where even the president-elect's Senate seat is just another commodity to be bought and sold.

But the entertainment is escapist only up to a point. What went down in the Land of Lincoln is just the reductio ad absurdum of an American era where both entitlement and corruption have been the calling cards of power. Blagojevich's alleged crimes pale next to the larger scandals of Washington and Wall Street. Yet those who promoted and condoned the twin national catastrophes of reckless war in Iraq and reckless gambling in our markets have largely escaped the accountability that now seems to await the Chicago punk nabbed by the United States attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald.

The Republican partisans cheering Fitzgerald's prosecution of a Democrat have forgotten his other red-letter case in this decade, his conviction of Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Libby was far bigger prey. He was part of the White House Iraq Group, the task force of propagandists that sold an entire war to America on false pretenses. Because Libby was caught lying to a grand jury and federal prosecutors as well as to the public, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. But President Bush commuted the sentence before he served a day.

Fitzgerald was not pleased. "It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals," he said at the time.

Not in the Bush era, man. Though the president had earlier vowed to fire anyone involved in leaking the classified identity of a C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame Wilson -- the act Libby tried to cover up by committing perjury -- both Libby and his collaborator in leaking, Karl Rove, remained in place.

Accountability wasn't remotely on Bush's mind. If anything, he was more likely to reward malfeasance and incompetence, as exemplified by his gifting of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, L. Paul Bremer and Gen. Tommy Franks, three of the most culpable stooges of the Iraq fiasco.

Bush had arrived in Washington vowing to inaugurate a new, post-Clinton era of "personal responsibility" in which "people are accountable for their actions." Eight years later he holds himself accountable for nothing. In his recent exit interview with Charles Gibson, he presented himself as a passive witness to disastrous events, the Forrest Gump of his own White House. He wishes "the intelligence had been different" about W.M.D. in Iraq -- as if his administration hadn't hyped and manipulated that intelligence. As for the economic meltdown, he had this to say: "I'm sorry it's happening, of course."

If you want to trace the bipartisan roots of the morally bankrupt culture that has now found its culmination in our financial apocalypse, a good place to start is late 2001 and 2002, just as the White House contemplated inflating Saddam's W.M.D. That's when we learned about another scandal with cooked books, Enron. This was a supreme embarrassment for Bush, whose political career had been bankrolled by the Enron titan Kenneth Lay, or, as Bush nicknamed him back in Texas, "Kenny Boy."

The chagrined president eventually convened a one-day "economic summit" photo op in August 2002 (held in Waco, Tex., lest his vacation in Crawford be disrupted). But while some perpetrators of fraud at Enron would ultimately pay a price, any lessons from its demise, including a need for safeguards, were promptly forgotten by one and all in the power centers of both federal and corporate governance.

Enron was an energy company that had diversified to trade in derivatives -- financial instruments that were bets on everything from exchange rates to the weather. It was also brilliant in devising shell companies that kept hundreds of millions of dollars of debt off the company's bottom line and away from the prying eyes of shareholders.

Regulators had failed to see the iceberg in Enron's path and so had Enron's own accountants at Arthur Andersen, a corporate giant whose parallel implosion had its own casualty list of some 80,000 jobs. Despite Bush's post-Enron call for "a new ethic of personal responsibility in the business community," the exact opposite has happened in the six years since. Warren Buffet's warning in 2003 that derivatives were "financial weapons of mass destruction" was politely ignored. Much larger companies than Enron figured out how to place even bigger and more impenetrable gambles on derivatives, all the while piling up unseen debt. They built castles of air on a far grander scale than Kenny Boy could have imagined, doing so with sheer stupidity and cavalier, greed-fueled carelessness rather than fraud.

The most stupendous example as measured in dollars is Citigroup, now the recipient of potentially the biggest taxpayer bailout to date. The price tag could be some $300 billion -- 20 times the proposed first installment of the scuttled Detroit bailout. Citigroup's toxic derivatives, often tied to subprime mortgages, metastasized without appearing on the balance sheet. Both the company's former chief executive, Charles O. Prince III, and his senior adviser, Robert Rubin, the former Clinton Treasury secretary, have said they didn't know the size of the worthless holdings until they'd spiraled into the tens of billions of dollars.

Once again, regulators slept. Once again, credit-rating agencies, typified this time by Moody's, kept giving a thumbs-up to worthless paper until it was too late. There was just so much easy money to be made, and no one wanted to be left out. As Michael Lewis concludes in his brilliant account of "the end" of Wall Street in Portfolio magazine: "Something for nothing. It never loses its charm."

But if all bubbles and panics are alike, this one, the worst since the Great Depression, also carried the DNA of our own time. Enron had been a Citigroup client. In a now-forgotten footnote to that scandal, Rubin was discovered to have made a phone call to a former colleague in the Treasury Department to float the idea of asking credit-rating agencies to delay downgrading Enron's debt. This inappropriate lobbying never went anywhere, but Rubin neither apologized nor learned any lessons. "I can see why that call might be questioned," he wrote in his 2003 memoir, "but I would make it again." He would say the same this year about his performance at Citigroup during its collapse.

The Republican side of the same tarnished coin is Phil Gramm, the former senator from Texas. Like Rubin, he helped push through banking deregulation when in government in the 1990s, then cashed in on the relaxed rules by joining the banking industry once he left Washington. Gramm is at UBS, which also binged on credit-default swaps and is now receiving a $60 billion bailout from the Swiss government.

It's a sad snapshot of our century's establishment that Rubin has been an economic adviser to Barack Obama and Gramm to John McCain. And that both captains of finance remain unapologetic, unaccountable and still at their banks, which have each lost more than 70 percent of their shareholders' value this year and have collectively announced more than 90,000 layoffs so far.

The Times calls its chilling investigative series on the financial failures "The Reckoning," but the reckoning is largely for the rest of us -- taxpayers, shareholders, the countless laid-off employees -- not the corporate and political leaders who led us into the quagmire. It's a replay of the Iraq equation: the troops, the Iraqi people and American taxpayers have borne the harshest costs while Bush and company retire to their McMansions.

As our outgoing president passes the buck for his failures -- all that bad intelligence -- so do leaders in the private and public sectors who enabled the economic debacle. Gramm has put the blame for the subprime fiasco on "predatory borrowers." Rubin has blamed a "perfect storm" of economic factors, as has Sam Zell, the magnate who bought and maimed the Tribune newspapers in a highly leveraged financial stunt that led to a bankruptcy filing last week. Donald Trump has invoked a standard "act of God" clause to avoid paying a $40 million construction loan on his huge new project in Chicago.

After a while they all start to sound like O. J. Simpson, who when at last held accountable for some of his behavior told a Las Vegas judge this month, "In no way did I mean to hurt anybody." Or perhaps they are channeling Donald Rumsfeld, whose famous excuse for his failure to secure post-invasion Iraq, "Stuff happens," could be the epitaph of our age.

Our next president, like his predecessor, is promising "a new era of responsibility and accountability." We must hope he means it. Meanwhile, we have the governor he leaves behind in Illinois to serve as our national whipping boy, the one betrayer of the public trust who could actually end up paying for his behavior. The surveillance tapes of Blagojevich are so fabulous it seems a tragedy we don't have similar audio records of the bigger fish who have wrecked the country. But in these hard times we'll take what we can get.

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Has anybody asked Governor Rod what it would cost to get him out of the Illinois statehouse?

Governor Rod takes the oath of office for his second
term in January 2007, with the help of wife Patricia

by Ken

I understand all the concern about Gov. Rod Blagojevich continuing in office while out of the slammer on bail, and especially about the prospect of his making a U.S. Senate appointment. Gosh, wouldn't that just be awkward! And I'm as impressed as anyone else by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's success at leading the way with a stern appeal to Governor Rod to stand down, which has now been joined by all the Senate Democrats.

It makes you wonder, though. Have these folks been paying attention?

Surely we know by now how to get Governor Rod's attention. After all, appointing a U.S. senator (or not) and holding onto a governorship are "[expletive] valuable things," no? You don't let things like that go for [expletive] nothing, do you? Certainly not if you're Governor Rod.

Don't the Senate Dems need to find out just what it would cost to get the governor: (a) to refrain from appointing a new senator, and (b) to step down as governor?

Heck, with all those Democratic senators on board, if they divvy up the cost, it should be affordable, wouldn't you think?

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Is Rod Blagojevich Insane-- Like Really Crazy?

The danger is that they LOOK more or less normal

OK, so day two and we find Blagojevich out on $4,500 bail and back in the governor's office, having turned his passport over to the court so he can't skip the country. Reading through the transcipts in the affidavit it is difficult to not conclude that the governor of Illinois is completely delusional and, frankly, insane. At least publicly, his attorney, Sheldon Sorosky, isn't buying into the "crazy" excuse... yet. "He didn't do anything wrong... A lot of this is just politics," the lawyer said. He also said Blagojevich is not resigning. The Illinois legislature is considering articles of impeachment. In fact, they have been for quite some time; it's just more urgent now. Even faster than that, though, they will take away the governor's power to appoint a senator.

In separate statements, House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President Emil Jones said they will call a special legislative session next week to repeal the state law that now gives the governor the power to fill Mr. Obama’s seat. Both said they will press instead for a special election to fill the remaining two years of Mr. Obama’s term.

“I am prepared to convene the House next Monday to change state law to provide for a special election for the U.S. Senate replacement,” Mr. Madigan said. “I would urge U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin to take note of this action.”

Wouldn't it be ironic if a special election led to a Republican getting that seat!

Anyway, back to the state of Blagojevich's mental health. Several elected officials have been telling the media that he has appeared insane to the,. Yesterday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky went on the record saying she thinks he's "clinically" insane.

"I think, perhaps, [crazy] is sort of a clinically appropriate word," she said of Blagojevich, who allegedly sought to reap massive financial rewards from candidates vying for Obama's seat. "If you think about it, this individual who was still willing to entertain the notion of himself as Secretary of Health and Human Services or being a candidate 2016. There is something not right there ... It is absolutely so fanciful or delusional and individual. It's not representative of, 'well here are the rules.' It is not, in fact, the way most political people would handle a serious situation."

Several members of the state legislature were on TV last night saying that their interactions with Blagojevich have led them to the conclusion that he is mentally unbalanced and certifiably insane. In a story for CNN, Campbell Brown refers to his actions as "psychotic" and "truly unhinged." The NY Times uses words like "delusional, narcissistic, vengeful and profane" to describe the governor. State Senator Mike Jacobs, one of the legislators I heard being interviewed on CNN last night about Blagojevich's mental stability says he thinks he's lost his grip on reality. Reading the transcripts makes me wonder how long ago that happened. “I’m not sure he’s playing with a full deck anymore,” Jacobs told the Times.

I've been carping for a few weeks now how New York's governor should put aside his own personal criteria for gain-- a balanced ticket that would help his re-election bid, for example-- and pick a replacement for Hillary Clinton based on one thing and one thing only: who would be the best person to serve the interests of New York's citizens. I mean, someone of a different ethnicity or geographical location might make for superficial "balance," but why not just appoint the best person-- say Jerrold Nadler-- and explain that his brilliant mind balances all the morons currently serving in the Senate. Sorry, but going through the devious perambulations of Blagojevich and his chief of staff makes me think that the time is well past due for the concept of appointing senators should be done away with entirely and everywhere-- that and having one political hack, like say George W. Bush, be able to pardon other political hacks who have been convicted of criminal activities.

Except for the sad pack of twerpy midgets running for the useless RNC Chair-- who feel Blagojevich should gay-marry Obama-- everyone both inside and outside of Illinois politics has called for the delusional Illinois governor to resign. Speaking on behalf of the Senate Democratic caucus, Harry Reid asked him to a- step down and b- "under no circumstance make an appointment to fill the vacant Illinois Senate seat." Every single Democrat plus Lieberman signed it! Obama had already called on him to resign and so did Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn. Meanwhile, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan says if he doesn't resign she'll take him to court to force him out, using an obscure Illinois Supreme Court rule under which the state's seven justices could vote to oust a sitting governor deemed unfit for office. Impeachment proceedings might start next week but complications, though not politics, could draw it out for longer than anyone wants him around.

Blago art by Zina Saunders

MORE AN ASIDE THAN AN UPDATE

Last time I was in Chicago it was for a meeting with a group of local progressives. I asked them about why such a politically progressive city like Chicago is still embracing the degree of political corruption inherent in the Daley Machine. The answer shocked me: "It works. Look around at how prosperous the city looks." I was mortified, but changed the topic.

Yesterday Daniel Engber asked a similar question at Slate. Three governors, a mayor, 27 aldermen and at least 79 local officials have been convicted of serious crimes in the last 3 decades. "What," he asks, "makes Chicago so corrupt?" Their culture of corruption goes back over 100 years, with those in power handing out contracts, jobs, and social services in exchange for political support.

Chicago's large immigrant population made it easier for political machines to grow in power. Poor ethnic communities could be played off against one another and manipulated with petty gifts. In exchange for political support, ethnicities would be given virtual fiefdoms within city government; the Irish, for example, were given police work, and the Italians jobs at the transit authority.

...In Chicago, corruption persisted, to some degree because the city never had the benefit of a reformist mayor like New York City's Fiorello LaGuardia, who had political ties to FDR. Instead, Chicago moved towards a one-party system that made it even more vulnerable to corruption: The city's last Republican mayor left office in 1931. Today, not even the Democratic primaries are competitive—for the most part, once you're in office, you stay there. The weak campaign finance laws in Illinois probably helped to stave off competition in recent years.

The star power of Chicago politicians may also contribute to the city's continuing problems with corruption. Incumbents tend to be big personalities who get celebrity coverage in the local papers—which sometimes translates into ethical leeway from voters. (In cities like Los Angeles and New York, local politicians take a back seat to the media celebs.)

...Public perception may be the most useful measure. If the inhabitants of a city view corruption as a given, they'll be more inclined to forgive politicians who have already been tainted by scandal, like Chicago's current mayor, Richard Daley.

Law And Order Simply Do Not Exist For The American Political Class-- No Pardons For Politicians!

If someone is surprised that it isn't just Republican political hacks like Duke Cunningham (R-CA), Tom Delay (R-TX), Bob Ney (R-OH), Virgil Goode (R-VA), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Don Young (R-AK), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dick Pombo (R-CA), John Doolittle (R-CA), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Gary Miller (R-CA), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Katherine Harris (R-FL), Tom Feeney (R-FL), Conrad Burns (R-MT), Ken Calvert (R-CA), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Pete Domenici (R-NM), Hastert (R-IL), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John Boehner (R-OH), Vern Buchanan (R-FL) who are criminal viruses infecting out political system, then they haven't been paying close enough attention. The Culture of Corruption is nonpartisan or, as we mentioned before, bipartisan-- which is why it is so tragic that Nancy Pelosi has refused to remove Charlie Rangel from his chair at House Ways & Means. It's another scandal-- as big as Blagojevich's-- waiting to explode.

Having removed William Jefferson from his committee positions, Pelosi not only did the right thing, she helped shield the honest members of the Democratic caucus from Jefferson's taint. The voters take too long-- usually way too long-- to remove crooked politicians. Despite Boehner's self-serving rant, New Orleans Democrats dumped Jefferson this week not because they decided they hate African-Americans, gays and women's choice, but because they were finally fed up with corruption. They tried to do it in 2006 but Republican voters cynically voted to keep Jefferson in office.

Rahm Emanuel may be profoundly corrupt and may be a crook-- but he isn't a stupid crook-- unlike his buddy Blagovejich. Perhaps with a sense of self-preservation, Emanuel seems to have started one of those false rumors that he's so well known for that he was one of those who blew the whistle on Blagovejich.

The governor, accused of seeking cash for the political appointment of Obama's Senate replacement, is not a close associate of the President-elect. Indeed, in the affidavit, Blagojevich called Obama a "motherfucker" for wanting him to appoint an official that the governor either did not like or wouldn't receive money from. Local news reports, meanwhile, suggest [alas, falsely] that it was Obama chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel who blew the whistle on the governor.

The problem with Democrats not being as scrupulous about their own crooked members as they are vigilant about crooked Republicans-- although, come to think of it, they're pretty lax with them too, blood being thicker than water and honor among thieves and all-- is that it makes them utterly ineffective as reformers and as defenders of the peoples' interests. Today's headlines should be about the FCC's egregious abuses of power and about the Republican-engineered whitewash for Blackwater mercenaries (and executives). Instead we'll have GOP media hacks trying to connect Obama to Blagojevich.

And all the careful congressional staffers' investigational work that shows mind-boggling mismanagement on a par with everything else the Bush Regime has done, is swept aside by a media obsessed with finding out who is referred to in the lurid indictment as Senate candidate #5. How can Democrats expect to speak with any moral authority when they tolerate crooks like Blagojevich, Jefferson, Rangel and wink and nod at sleazy operators like Murtha, Emanuel and Mollohan? And who suffers? The American people, of course.

Bush shouldn't pardon a single member of the political class, not Cunningham, not Jefferson, not Libby, not Rove, not Rumsfeld. The Culture of Corruption will only be strengthened and made even more invincible if a single one of them walks free.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Arrested Trying To Sell A Senate Seat

We often talk about the endemic political corruption in Louisiana and how the national Republican Party is an organized crime syndicate. Bush's compact with Republican members of Congress in 2000 was basically, "steal all you can, don't embarrass me and leave the government and the really big stuff for me." All that's true, but like we always said, corruption is nonpartisan, or, rather, bipartisan. Rahm Emanuel is certainly as corrupt as Tom Delay; there never has been any difference. And Illinois political corruption is no less heinous than the Louisiana flavor. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich-- that state's first Democratic governor in more than a generation-- won office by running as an anti-corruption reformer. That turned out to be a big joke-- on the citizens of Illinois-- really fast. The full affidavit is here. He was taken into custody today.

[L]ittle more than a year after replacing George Ryan in office in 2003, Blagojevich found his administration at the early stages of what became a host of state and federal investigations into allegations of wrongdoing involving state hiring, board appointments, contracting and fundraising that battered his tenure.

In their prosecution of Blagojevich fundraisers and allies, dubbed "Operation Board Games," federal prosecutors detailed a scheme that began only months after Blagojevich took office in which top fundraiser and adviser Antoin "Tony" Rezko conspired with longtime GOP government apparatchik Stuart Levine to split kickbacks from a state pension deal. Rezko also helped ensure Levine's reappointment to a state pension board.

As part of the investigation, in which 13 people have been indicted or convicted, kickbacks were often the prescribed price of doing high-level business, be it the pension board for state teachers or the panel that decided whether hospitals could expand their facilities. And the extortion efforts went beyond merely enriching the participants to include soliciting campaign funds for Blagojevich.

At the same time, as Blagojevich began gearing up for his 2006 re-election bid, the clouds of scandal grew deeper. U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald acknowledged federal prosecutors had spent more than a year investigating fraud in state hiring that involved "multiple state agencies" and developed "a number of credible witnesses." Federal prosecutors also were looking into a $1,500 check written to one of Blagojevich's children by the husband of a recently appointed state worker.

In the month before Blagojevich was re-elected, Rezko was indicted on corruption charges while his ally, Levine, pleaded guilty to wringing cash from firms seeking state business. Federal prosecutors also were alleging Rezko and Christopher Kelly, another top fundraiser and adviser to the governor, had been influence peddling. Kelly later was indicted on unrelated federal tax charges.

They also began investigating real estate deals by First Lady Patricia Blagojevich in which she received hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from politically connected clients, some of whom won millions of dollars in state business.

This morning Blogojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested-- at least in part-- for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat! The report from Federal Prosector Patrick Fitzgerald's office is absolutely shocking:

Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to Frank Bochte of the FBI. Both were awakened in their residences and transported to FBI headquarters in Chicago.

In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himself as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union, in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.

Another charge alleges Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of him in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.

Blagojevich and Harris, along with others, obtained and sought to gain financial benefits for the governor, members of his family and his campaign fund in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state jobs and state contracts, according to the charges.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement.

"They allege that Blagojevich put a 'for sale' sign on the naming of a United States senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism."

Just when I was thinking what a good job he was doing standing up for the workers at Republic Windows and Doors! He took on the predatory banksters but it looks like he was just as bad a predator as they were. And he got caught at it. This came from Fitzgerald's press release:

In the earliest intercepted conversation about the Senate seat described in the affidavit, Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A on November 3 that if he is not going to get anything of value for the open seat, then he will take it for himself: "if... they're not going to offer anything of any value, then I might just take it." Later that day, speaking to Advisor A, Blagojevich said: "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain." He added later that the seat "is a [expletive] valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing."

I just thought I'd mention, as long as we're on the topic of corruption, that when Blojojevich went to the governor's office, Rahm Emanuel was handed his Hose seat, a rotten borough that had been scheduled to be gerrymandered out of existence. That was a political payoff for having shoved NAFTA down the throats of enough reluctant Democrats to get it passed. Just mentionin'. One good outcome? we may wind up with a good Senate pick-- like Jan Schakowsky. The Lt. Governor, Pat Quinn, is a solid progressive.


UPDATE: THIS SHOULD HAVE STARTED MONTHS AGO

But it's a good idea anyway. State Representative John Fritchey, one of the dozen or so serious contenders for Blagojevich's (and Rahm Emanuel's) old House seat, claims impeachment proceedings will begin immediately. And, wisely, Durbin has called for a special election to fill Obama's Senate seat.