2008

Look, It’s Not Hard to Impeach Someone

ArchPundit December 10, 2008 No Comments

Yes, I would have preferred a thoughtful process that included hearings and deliberation.
It’s too late for that.  The Speaker had his chance to convene an investigative panel before this. Now, we are stuck with a completely untenable situation.  Let’s review the rules for impeachment:

The House of Representatives has the sole power to
conduct legislative investigations to determine the existence
of cause for impeachment and, by the vote of a majority of
the members elected, to impeach Executive and Judicial
officers. Impeachments shall be tried by the Senate. When
sitting for that purpose, Senators shall be upon oath, or
affirmation, to do justice according to law. If the Governor
is tried, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall
preside. No person shall be convicted without the concurrence
of two-thirds of the Senators elected. Judgment shall not
extend beyond removal from office and disqualification to
hold any public office of this State. An impeached officer,
whether convicted or acquitted, shall be liable to
prosecution, trial, judgment and punishment according to law.
(Source: Illinois Constitution.)

Impeachment is not a criminal process. It is a political process and as such, it does not require a long drawn out process.  This kind of handwringing was for before we got in this situation, not now. Remove him.  The grounds have been there for over one year if not longer.

What if the Impeachment Were to Last Beyond the Start of the New Lege Session?

ArchPundit December 10, 2008 No Comments

Steve Brown is worried:

Madigan called Blagojevich’s arrest “a new low for conduct by public officials.”

“I believe in the rights of individuals to due process, but I also believe action must be taken to avoid certain functions of state government from being irrevocably tarnished by Governor Blagojevich’s continued exercise of power,” Madigan said in a statement.

Madigan plans to bring the House back Monday, and the Senate also is returning, to discuss stripping the governor’s power to appoint a replacement for President-elect Barack Obama as U.S. senator. Lawmakers will be meeting in regular session, allowing them to take up impeachment or any other matters they want.

But Madigan spokesman Steve Brown cautioned there are several complications to proceeding with impeachment, including timing.

A new legislature will be sworn in Jan. 14, and if impeachment proceedings start before then, there’s a question of whether they could continue with new lawmakers or have to start over.

Bullshit.  It shouldn’t take that long.  Get rid of him and stop this nonsense.  He must go, the Illinois voters want him gone, there are a plethora of reasons, and tons of evidence.   If you cannot get this done by January 14th, the problem is with you, not with the process.  Frankly, you can get it done by December 14th and should.

Happy Birthday Rod!

ArchPundit December 10, 2008 No Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaCCG7QkM_c[/youtube]

Hysterical

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ_kvxmeHas[/youtube]

Some Good Analysis of the Time Line

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

And such by Emptwheel over at Firedoglake.  She’s covered Fitzgerald a lot and is especially good at reading between the lines.  A couple key things she points out include that there are more tapes of the discussion to sell the seat and that discussions that would not have resulted in financial gain to Blagojevich were taped as well (read typical political horse trading).

I’d follow her closely especially in regards to what Fitzgerald is doing.

The Thing No One Has Covered Yet

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

The entirety of the specific charges in the indictment only cover from October 22, 2008 to the present when they had phone taps in place.  The bulk of the investigation and crimes that are being investigated are from before that period.  This was largely new crimes.  The hospital and Tribune Company charges are related to earlier investigations, but even then all of the specifics are new to anyone who have followed the investigation over the last several years.
This stuff isn’t even the core of the investigation.  This is what they gathered off of a phone tap in a little over one one-half months.  This is the tip of the iceberg.  There have to be some federal agents and prosecutors kicking themselves for not tapping his phone before.  If they knew it would be this easy they probably would have tried.

What Kind of Moron Is This GuY?

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

Kevin Drum:

BLAGO UPDATE….Thanks partly to this being a slow news day and partly to the sheer juiciness of the whole thing, the blogosphere is ablaze with chatter about the arrest of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges. Main theme: the guy has been under investigation for three years by the same prosecutor who convicted both Scooter Libby and the previous governor of Illinois, but he was merrily blathering away to friends anyway about selling off Barack Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder? What kind of fucking moron is this guy?

Oh, let’s just make this an open thread for ideas on how to answer that question.

Nate Silver Ought To Leave the Internal Illinois Politics to Others

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

Nate:

The Republicans are extremely disorganized in Illinois, but both the governor’s seat and Obama’s senate seat now need to be considered viable pickup opportunities for them in 2010. The Republican with the strongest statewide brand name is former senator Peter Fitzgerald, who retired from the Senate in 2004. With that said, the Democrats have several rising stars of their own, such as Alexi Giannoulias, Jan Schakowsky, Lisa Madigan, and Luis Guiterrez, all of whom have pretty clean reputations.

Peter lives in Virginia now and was a crappy Senator.  Yes, he appoint Fitzgerald which was great, but he had horrible constituent service and was probably the least popular state politician until Blagojevich took over that mantle.  His polling sucked when he dropped out.   The Republicans have no one statewide with a good brand other than Tom Cross.  They have a few prospects, but given the state’s demographics, winning is still tough and most contenders washed themselves of Blagojevich’s taint some time ago.

Gutierrez is not a rising star, he’s a guy near the end of his career who has several questionable real estate deals.  They don’t appear to amount to much, but one of them involves Rezko. I think we can say stick a fork in that career.

This is Teh Awesome

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

Truly Awesome:

It’s time to play Name That Goon! Rod Blagojevich vs. Tony Soprano.

Hands on buzzers: One’s a trash-talking thug trying to stay one step ahead of the law. The other was played by James Gandolfini. Can you identify the speaker of the ten quotes below?

1. “Unless I get something real good…shit, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying.”

2. “What the fuck am I, a toxic person or something?”

3. “Log off, that “cookies” shit makes me nervous!”

4. “They’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them.”

5. “You got no fuckin’ idea what it’s like to be number one. Every decision you make affects every facet of every other fucking thing.”

6. “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and I’m just not giving it up for fuckin’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there.”

7. “That motherfucker’s full of shit. He’s shaking me down.”

8. “Our recommendation is fire all those fucking people, get ’em the fuck out of there…”

9. “I could have made a larger announcement but wanted to see how they perform by the end of the year. If they don’t perform, fuck ’em.”

10. “Jesus Christ! The money I’ve been dropping in here, I could’ve bought a fuckin’ Ferrari.”

Answers:
Tony Soprano: 2, 3, 5, 7, 10
Governor Blagojevich: 1, 4, 6, 8, 9

But the Problem is

ArchPundit December 9, 2008 No Comments

Okay, everyone wants to pass a law taking Blagojevich’s power away:

(Crain’s) — The state’s top two legislative leaders Tuesday said they will move fast to seize control of the process of selecting a replacement for Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, taking that power away from Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

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.”

If he remains in power, he can avoid signing it, make an appointment before vetoing it.  He has to be removed first.