The People Insisted on Roland Being Open for Running in 2010
ArchPundit
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVtc_4AA_SI[/youtube]
Unclear if those people exist outside of Roland’s head
Uncategorized
“Members of the media, my name is Roland Burris, junior Senator from the state of Illinois”
It is time for my close-up Mr. Demille?
Geoghagen Announces for IL-5
I’m running for Congress in the Fifth District of Illinois. As a Chicago lawyer for thirty years I have fought for working people in this District and throughout the city. I have represented unions as well as people with no unions to protect them. In plant closings I have helped them recover health and pension benefits. I obtained health care for the uninsured. I’ve been pressing the State of Illinois to crack down on payday lenders.
In my life as a lawyer I have lived out a commitment to one cause above all – to bring economic security to working Americans, in our District, in our country. That’s the same commitment I will bring to Congress. We’re deep in an economic crisis unlike any other we’ve known. It may last years. We need new and creative ways to protect working Americans, especially our older working people who have no real pensions to live on.
For years we’ve heard the doomsayers: “We can’t afford Social Security.” “We can’t afford ‘single payer’ national health.” One thing we all learned from the $700 billion bailout: We’ve got the money to do all of this and more. At the moment, the Federal Reserve is literally printing money, to give not billions but trillions to banks and financial firms. To the people of this District, the banks and others have gotten their money. Now it’s your turn. Here’s the bailout I will go to Congress to get:
First, I want to expand Social Security, our public pension system, to replace, not overnight but in stages, the private pension system which has collapsed. Social Security now pays about 38 to 39 percent of your working income. In other developed countries, it averages 65 percent. That’s where our fiscal stimulus should be: a commitment to reach this goal, a public pension that ordinary working people can live on.
Second we have to move to single payer health care program, at least in phases: we might begin with extending Medicare to children, but the government should ultimately be the single payer for all. That’s not because single payer is the only ethical and efficient way to protect us all. No, it’s also because it is crucial to making us competitive globally. Through single payer and expanded Social Security, the goal is to pick up the “non-wage” labor costs that employers now have to pay. That’s already how other countries out-compete us: they have the government and not the private employer pick up these non-wage health and pension costs.
Unless we have government pick up the costs of pensions and health care, our companies can’t compete, and we’ll go on piling up huge trade deficits. We’ll have debacles like GM, which has collapsed in part because of the health and pension costs that the federal government should have been paying all along.
For years, the conservatives have said: “We can’t do this. The money isn’t there.” Well, the money is there. It was there for the Iraq war, a colossal waste of money, and for the bailout, the first half of which has been a colossal waste as well. And if we now have the government pick up non-wage labor costs with the use of general revenues, we will in fact make it cheaper and easier for our companies to hire. This is in fact the best and most realistic approach for a long term recovery.
Finally we have to put limits on returns to financial firms. We should re-enact the usury laws, the interest-rate caps that were in place in America up till the 1970s. We need to stop the rates of 30 to 35 percent, the hidden fees, the hundreds of ways that banks pull our money out of industry and into gambling and speculation.
In my campaign I will have a single minded focus on getting people out of debt, that’s why I so strongly support the Employee Free Choice Act and other changes in our labor laws. And the plan I am setting out here will help make our country more competitive. I’m a strong supporter of President Obama. Yes, I strongly support his program to repair our infrastructure. Even so, we don’t have to pave the streets with gold. If not the meltdown then the bailout should have opened our eyes. The real fiscal stimulus has to be the kind that brings financial security to the middle class. The message of this campaign is: We’re moving beyond the bailout. Now it’s your turn. Please join us www.geogheganforcongress.com
That’s Our Roland
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYAKQGb1b8k[/youtube]
His ideas aren’t as insane as Keyes, but he’s every bit the egomaniac who has little tolerance for those who he thinks are fools–which is everyone who disagrees with him.
Bonus points to the reporter who asks him if he has a mouse in his pocket the next time he uses the Royal We.
Fritchey is in for the Illinois-5 Race
According to his Facebook profile.
Because He’s So Trustworthy
Reid and Durbin tee up on Blagojevich’s claims regarding Reid’s conversations with Blagojevich:
Reid accused Blagojevich of “making all this up” and denied saying “who not to appoint.” Durbin, on ABC’s “This Week,” likewise pointed the finger at the two-term Democratic governor.
“It’s an outrage that the Blagojevich people, in the last days of their administration, facing impeachment in Springfield, are now flailing in every direction, trying to show defiance in the appointment of Roland Burris and attacking everybody in sight,” Durbin said. Such tactics, Durbin said, were “just plain wrong and the people of Illinois see through it.”
Blagojevich has said he is innocent of the criminal charges against him and that his actions do not warrant impeachment by the legislature.
BootBlago
It’s been busy so I keep forgetting to highlight BootBlago by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform’s new site.
I love the effort though I have a few criticisms of the implementation. Either way, a worthy effort.
Denial Isn’t Just a River in Egypt
It’s arguable about how the Supreme Court will rule on Burris’ appointment when the Senate refuses to seat him. I think the Senate does have the power, but after reading the Powell decision and analysis of it, I’m pretty sure the Court will force his appointment on the Senate. IOW, I think the Court will be dead wrong, but given the decision and the current court’s deference to executive power which would extend to a Governor, I’m not terribly optimistic. I hope to be proven dead wrong. Nothing would make me happier. However, it’s a gamble, and one that didn’t have to be taken:
With Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White refusing to sign papers authorizing Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris, and Senate Democratic leaders refusing to seat anyone appointed by Blagojevich, House Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman Steve Brown maintained that the appointment is moot.
Asked why Democratic leaders didn’t foresee Blagojevich naming a senator, Brown essentially said there is no appointment. “It hasn’t happened. That’s only happened in some dark corner of the governor’s mind. It hasn’t been certified, so that makes it null. There was nothing to anticipate.”
Steve Brown is smart and a very good spokesperson. That, however, is Orwellian.
It’s fair to say Blagojevich wouldn’t have really signed a special elections bill–because Blagojevich says he would have signed something hasn’t exactly been a standard worth hanging your hat on for the last six years. However, impeaching him fast would have done it. Might have Emil done nothing? Sure–and his Senators would have rebelled. Maybe for no effect, but it would have been the best shot to avoid this fiasco.
Friday is a Travel Day
I’ll be off line all of the day most likely.
Inevitably Rod will invade Missouri or something.
Senator Burris
His aides are calling him Senator already.
Mr. Burris, 71 years old, brushed off the opposition in a 25-minute interview during which aides called him “senator” and he argued that he would represent his state well. “From South Beloit to Cairo, from Galena to Zion, East St. Louis to Lawrenceville, I know this state. I know its people,” he said.
He also questioned — as have several legal scholars — the Senate’s right to keep him from taking the seat, asking, “By what authority can [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] deny a governor carrying out his constitutional duty?”
“I am the senator, and it sounds good,” said Mr. Burris, now a lobbyist and lawyer. “I’m giving up a lot of money to go to the Senate, OK? I’m taking a pay cut,” he said, referring to a U.S. senator’s salary of about $169,000 a year.
“…and it sounds good.”
The unfortunate thing is that no one was blogging when Burris was in office and ran so many times. I forgot how much fun he is.