Huge news in my neck of the woods!!!

Looks like Blago was trying to "auction" the Senate seat. The tapes are pretty damning thus far. That, and he has a prolific potty mouth, many (deleted)s in the transcripts. Real classy guy. Scumbag is too gentle a term.

Predictions? Who turned him in? The Feds have had an eye on him for some time (3 years). By not automatically surrendering the Senate appointment to certain parties, said parties pulled some strings with the Feds and they moved up their plans to indict/prosecute. The timing seems a little too "coinkydink".

I liked the 6:15 a.m. arrest in his PJ's. How appropo.

They'll never really clean up Chicago. It's been crooked since before Prohibition and has never gotten better -- just less obvious at times.

Too bad for Blago that didn't remember what the Kingfish said, "Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink."

Conan-t-G, that is exactly what every around here is scratching their heads about; how the heck could he be so stupid??? In this day and age, as sophisticated an art as corruption has become, to be caught by such a simple thing as a phone tap.

You know that Obama's gotta get some of this on him. Could we be looking at the first president to be impeached before he takes the oath of office?

Scumbag of epic proportions!!! Blago even tried to shake down the Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, but the CEO of CMH told him no:

On October 8, Blagojevich told a person described only as "Individual A" that he was willing to make $8 million available for Children's Memorial Hospital, but "I want to get [Hospital Executive 1] for 50."
advertisement

Individual A felt that Blagojevich was talking about a $50,000 campaign contribution from the hospital's chief executive officer and that the $8 million referred to a recent commitment by Blagojevich to secure state funds via "some type of pediatric care reimbursement."

"Intercepted phone conversations between Rod Blagojevich and others indicate that Rod Blagojevich is contemplating rescinding his commitment of state funds to benefit Children's Memorial Hospital because Hospital Executive 1 has not made a recent campaign contribution," the affidavit says.

Didn't take long for Obama to be implicated in this. He hasn't even taken office yet. Plus we have a NJ governor having sex in the back of trucks and a NY governor hiring prostitutes while married. But Bush is the villian of the decade...
WG

> Your thoughts...predictions?

Thanks for asking! We love this blog!

> The timing seems a little too "coinkydink".

Word on the street is that Rahm Emanuel "dropped a dime" on Blagojevich. Short view, this makes me like Emanuel more. Big picture, we see that our President elect is --as some of us noted all along-- the product of America's most politically shameless city.

Listen, if you're even close to being a Baby Boomer, this might be a good time to go back and read "Boss" by Mike Royko. You can buy it for pennies, and it'll only take a couple hours. It famously describes the principle by which Mayor Daley (1955-1976) rose from the political cesspool: Don't ever cheat, but don't get in the way of people who do cheat.

And so it is with our incoming president: He didn't set any of the nail bombs for which Ayers is held responsibile... But he never got too upset about them, either. Wouldenna been expedient.

Getting pissed of a Jody earlier today made me visit the MetaFilter blog, where she sometimes hangs out. They have an excellent thread about Blagojevich, from which many interesting niblets are linked--

-- Important new word: "Schadengasm"

-- Compelling factoid: Rahm Emanuel's middle name really is Israel.

-- There's also an interesting bitch-slapping session between commenters. Several of them thought the original post was too weak, while others have been happy to have additions and corrections made to the message stack as news broke throughout the day. It's a typical internet argument, but for some reason it greatly clarified the personalities of people who trade comments like these. Some people like to think there's a big bundle of truth out there, and that the best sources (NY Times / CBS News / whomever) are just trying to carve off and deliver a distinct fragment of that truth. But other people (ahem) are happy just to have the topics raised and consider new information as it becomes available.

--

PS- Nice to have Juliana's local perspective on this.

"Word on the street is that Rahm Emanuel "dropped a dime" on Blagojevich."

As my sweet Auntie used to say, "You bet'cher sweet bippy!", Crid.

Someone decided it was time for this glaring embarrassment to part company with the Democratic Party in IL. Especially considering that he was so damn SLOPPY. Honestly, to be busted by wiretap of his office phone, he's even on tape warning people to be careful what they say since he's probably tapped. We're all scratching our heads.

http://blogs.e-rockford.com/sweenyreport/2008/12/09/blagojevich-didnt-know-how-to-do-corruption-proprely-so-as-not-to-get-caught/

Also, so damn GREEDY (redundant on my part, I know, but shaking down a Children's Hospital?!?). Worst of all, DELUSIONAL; he has ambitions for the White House in 2016 (this is on tape, not just a paranoid Republican's musing).

DELUSIONAL II: He didn't see it coming. When they came for him, he asked, "Is this a joke?" No, Governor, and you're no longer on the inside track. You've been founding irredeemably lacking, and you've been spat out.

The timing seems a little too "coinkydink".

Juliana - Patrick Fitzgerald stated they moved the timing up, mainly because they didn't want to have waited until after the appointment, and then have the appointment called into question.

I wonder if Dick Durbin will now stop pushing President Bush to pardon George Ryan.

Living in Chicago myself, all you have to do is look to the Daley's (Father and Son), to see how to do corruption correctly. You appoint the liars and cheats, and then just stand back and do nothing and claim ignorance. It's worked well for them for decades. Blago should have been taking notes.

The whole situation really is insane. I'd always thought that Louisiana and New Mexico had the most corrupt politicians. Perhaps not.

Grafitti: A few months ago someone hopped the security fence to tag Husband's restaurant building, which is under construction. City of Austin had it removed within the week. Impressive, I thought.

The next question is, will he come clean in order to save his wife? Apparently, while he was up to his eyebrows in all this mess, his wife is at least up to her knees.....

> his wife is at least up to
> her knees.....

Are you saying that... um...

Never mind, we'll keep reading the papers.

Crid.

Really. [insert sigh of exasperation HERE]

UP to her knees, darling, not DOWN on her knees.

Then again, I'm in the Midwest, you're out there in LALA land, Lord knows how the whole culture gap works in that respect.....

[insert voiceover of Sean Connery's line from The Untouchables- "And THAT'S the CHICAGO WAY!]

But thanks for the laugh. Booger.

Here you go, from the beleaguered Trib itself.... she's a real lady (wait a tic, do I hear Tom Jones?)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/illinois/chi-patti-blagojevich-081210-ht,0,5336225.story

> "And THAT'S the CHICAGO WAY!

You wouldn't believe how many times that line has come to mind today. You never know where a classic phrase is gonna turn up. When that film came out, we thought it would vanish in the mist...

More- Zorn was on the radio (out here) this afternoon. He said that in recent months, some had described Blogo as "sociopathic". But even with the corruption then apparent, the public had a assumed these were just bitter players from the game. But as it turns out.....

Heh. I just love how lil' Jesse Jackson Jr. is trying to talk his way out of all this! o.O

I just love how lil' Jesse Jackson Jr. is trying to talk his way out of all this!

I just love how his elocution and mannerisms in speaking are just like his old man's. I keep waiting for him to shout, "You can't arrest me. I am...somebody!"

Oh my gods, aren't they?? I was cracking up last night, watching him on the news, and BF's looking at me like I had 3 heads, and I told him who it was and he says, "that's the SON?? I thought it was HIM!!" o.O

Flynne, nothing personal I promise, but I disagree in all respects....

I'd never seen a picture of JJjr or heard the sound of his voice. And a sample of his press conference qouted by Drudge made it sound like a "non-denial denial." But this clip via Breitbart was impressive as Hell. I wouldn't have guessed he was Jesse's son until he mentioned it himself. His speech patterns have no Carolina mannerisms. And more to the point, his denial is featureless and unequivocal: If it turns out that there was as much as a faxes' worth of illicit contact or mutual pandering with Blogo, his career is over.

There's something to admire about that, even if he's gambling... And I can't believe he's gambling that hard.

It's funny, because a lot of people I really respect (see McArdle, for instances) aseem certain that he's "candidate number five", mostly because it's easy to imagine that he could pull together a half a million dollars without any trouble.

His elocution and mannerisms in the prepared speech in the Breitbart piece were nothing like those in his off-the-cuff denial on the news last night.

On the news, he was a dead ringer for his dad.

Yeah he sure was, Conan!! Crid, if you had seen it, I'm sure you would have thought the same.

On another note, and totally off topic, we've been given notice that the company is closing down the research center where I work, probably within the next month or so. I've already tweaked my resume and gotten it out to my head hunter friend. I'm good to go! o.O