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Blagojevich Won: BURRIS SWORN IN TODAY - UPDATES
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Topic: Blagojevich Won: BURRIS SWORN IN TODAY - UPDATES (Read 890 times)
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Bianca
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Posts: 41646
Blagojevich Won: BURRIS SWORN IN TODAY - UPDATES
«
on:
January 01, 2009, 08:37:17 pm »
For sheer brazenness, nobody surpasses Rod
John Kass
The Chicago Tribune
December 31, 2008
Since he was federally charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been wrongly caricatured as some kind of hapless jester prancing on the edge of madness.
Jesters hold rattles with a likeness of their heads on the end of a stick, and they hop off into a corner, prattling to themselves. That's what jesters do.
Jesters don't pick up the race card in a nationally televised news conference and slam it into the face of every Democrat in the U.S. Senate, a palm heel strike to the tip of the nose, leaving all of them watery-eyed, their lips stinging.
Yet that's what Blagojevich—aided by former Black Panther-turned-Daley-machine-functionary Bobby Rush—did at that stupendous news conference in Chicago on Tuesday. That's when the governor appointed Democratic empty suit Roland Burris, an African-American, to fill the Senate seat vacated by Obama.
"Please don't allow the allegations against me to taint this good and honest man," said Blagojevich.
It was a brazen move, and a smart one, and though the race card was ugly, there was no passion in it. There was no lunacy involved.
"This is not about Roland, this is about Rod," said savvy political consultant Thom Serafin when I called him while watching the circus of the politically bizarre. Serafin correctly predicted weeks ago that it would be Burris, shortly after Blagojevich was arrested and most other Senate hopefuls pulled out lest they be infected by the governor's dilemma.
"This is Rod telling the political class that he's still active, that he's still around, that he's still the governor," Serafin said. "And how do they deny Roland Burris? They can't."
On TV, Burris was chattering amiably, saying nothing as usual, and this time he forgot to mention several key facts about himself: That he's waited his turn and now it's his turn; that he's had his gravestone carved with all his political titles but he left room for more, and that he helped elect Blagojevich by running in the Democratic primary for governor and pulling African-American votes from Blagojevich's strongest challenger, former Chicago schools chief Paul Vallas.
It's that kind of arithmetic that politicians find impossible to deny.
"Let me just remind you that there is presently no African-American in the Senate," said Rush, the U.S. representative of the 1st Congressional District, whom the young Obama challenged years ago and got trounced by, teaching Obama to embrace the realities of Chicago politics: Go along and get along.
On Tuesday, Rush was obviously quite ill, but he was not mentally unstable. He was certainly strong enough to use the angry race language of the 1960s as he stood next to Burris and Blagojevich. Rush warned that no sitting Democrat would go on record for long to bar an African-American from taking the seat.
"I would ask you to not hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer. Roland Burris is worthy," Rush said.
Hang? Lynch?
Isn't that the old politics of race that Obama was to have transcended for us?
But there it was, out in the open again, the images of young men hanging from trees in old black-and-white photos offered up easily by Rush, who has himself cozied up to Mayor Richard Daley and for a time was in charge of a Daley political fund.
"And I don't think any senators want to go on the record to deny an African-American from taking a seat in the U.S. Senate," Rush said, ominously.
Grown-ups have seen such theater before. The only things missing were cameo performances by those two prolific race card players, Al Sharpton and Chicago's own Rev. Jesse Jackson.
But Sharpton was preoccupied, giving photo ops to Caroline Kennedy for her New York Senate campaign. That video clip of the two having a cozy lunch, chatting amiably like old friends as they spear their vegetables, continues to run endlessly on cable TV news. While Sharpton might think the Kennedy lunch was expensive, she will no doubt consider it cheap at the price.
Meanwhile, Jackson has his own issues. His son, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Bud Light), is mentioned in the Blagojevich federal criminal complaint as Senate Candidate 5, whose emissaries reportedly promised Blagojevich $1 million in campaign cash in exchange for his appointment. Congressman Jackson has denied making any such arrangement.
Senate Democrats are talking tough now, saying they won't seat Burris, but that won't hold. The debate has been framed. The only African-American in the Senate leaves for the White House, another African-American is appointed to fill that spot, and Democratic politicians know they owe their livelihoods to African-American voters.
That talk about transcending race was just talk. Skin pigment trumps ideas, and Blagojevich, who may be facing a jury soon, wants all the friends he can get.
Of course, Tuesday's fiasco could have been avoided. Democrats in the state legislature could have stripped Blagojevich of his appointment powers and imposed a special election. Obama also could have demanded it. But as he has done so often in his career, Obama avoided a confrontation and looked the other way.
Democrats tried to finesse this, and they allowed Blagojevich the opening he needed, to hold that news conference and defy everybody. And so I'm forced to tip my hat to Gov. Dead Meat on this one, for sheer brazenness.
He's no jester. And it takes guts to keep a straight face while Democrats about you are losing theirs.
jskass@tribune.com
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Last Edit: January 15, 2009, 01:59:38 pm by Bianca
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod
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Reply #1
on:
January 02, 2009, 07:18:48 pm »
Tough Calculus for Blagojevich on Senate Seat
By MONICA DAVEY and
RACHEL L. SWARNS
The New York Times
Published: December 31, 2008
CHICAGO —
Since his arrest on corruption charges on Dec. 9, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois wavered several times on whether to appoint a new senator to fill the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, people with knowledge of his thinking said Wednesday.
Morry Gash/Associated Press
Representative Danny Davis
said an emissary of Gov. Rod
R. Blagojevich offered him the
Senate seat last week.
Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune,
via Associated Press
Roland W. Burris, who has been
chosen to fill President-elect
Barack Obama’s former Senate
seat, greeted passers-by Wed-
nesday after a television inter-
view in downtown Chicago.
But once it became clear that state lawmakers would not call a special election, Mr. Blagojevich had an emissary make a call on Dec. 24 to Danny K. Davis, a Democratic representative and longtime African-American leader.
Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat who had already been accused of trying to sell the seat, had a difficult calculus to meet: someone who would accept his offer under the circumstances and someone, political experts say, whose standing might somehow help spare his own future, political or otherwise.
Mr. Davis said Wednesday that he turned down the governor’s offer to take the seat. But he suggested that the governor might want to consider Roland W. Burris, a former attorney general and the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois. Four days later, Mr. Blagojevich presented Mr. Burris (who was not told about the earlier invitation to Mr. Davis) as the next senator from Illinois, saying he was required to make an appointment.
Political leaders here, nearly all of whom have been critical, suggested that the governor very likely had other motivations. Some said he wanted to cause political trouble for his critics, forcing Senate leaders either to accept his appointee or to be seen as rejecting a respected African-American leader, while others said that he was trying to garner favor among blacks, and perhaps even members of an eventual jury pool.
Still others said the move was simply classic Governor Blagojevich, doing the unexpected and stirring things up, or “just Rod being Rod,” in the words of Representative Jan Schakowsky. “The can of worms he has opened up,” Ms. Schakowsky, a fellow Democrat, went on, “is just the kind he likes.”
On Wednesday, four black Democrats in the House said Mr. Burris should be allowed to join the Senate despite opposition to the appointment by Senate Democrats.
Some of those House members warned that black Democratic voters could be angered if Mr. Burris is prevented from taking the seat. Those who called for Mr. Burris to be seated were Representatives Maxine Waters of California, Donald M. Payne of New Jersey, Donna M.C. Christensen of the Virgin Islands, as well as Mr. Davis.
Senate Democrats said they were standing their ground in opposing Mr. Burris because he was chosen by Mr. Blagojevich. Jim Manley, an aide to Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said the Senate would most likely move to have the question of whether Mr. Burris should be seated reviewed by the Senate rules committee, “which would have the effect of delaying his seating.”
Mr. Burris made it clear Wednesday that he intends to aggressively fight attempts to block his entrance to the Senate, filing a petition in the Supreme Court of Illinois that challenges efforts by Jesse White, the Illinois secretary of state, to withhold his signature from documents that will send Mr. Blagojevich’s appointment to Washington.
In an interview, Mr. Burris vehemently dismissed any notion that Mr. Blagojevich’s involvement should take away from his political work, his commitment to constituents or his credentials to sit in the Senate.
“All of those other problems that he has, those are his problems,” Mr. Burris said. “He asked me, and I said yes, and I haven’t stepped back since because what the governor has done is legal. If it were illegal, I wouldn’t be bothered with it.”
Across the state, uncertainty remained over what might happen next, a situation one lawmaker described as an unfolding novel with an unknown ending. Democrats in Springfield said they would press ahead with an impeachment inquiry against the governor. Angry Republicans called once more for a special election for the Senate seat, a notion Democrats had rejected before Mr. Blagojevich made his appointment.
“They made a calculated political decision to not run a special election bill, so they enabled the governor to do what he did yesterday,” State Representative Tom Cross, a Republican, said of his Democratic colleagues.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney here, had no comment on the appointment of Mr. Burris, his spokesman said. On Wednesday, Mr. Fitzgerald requested more time to get an indictment against Mr. Blagojevich, whose arrest on charges of conspiring to commit fraud and soliciting bribery had been presented initially as a criminal complaint.
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Last Edit: January 02, 2009, 07:30:24 pm by Bianca
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod
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Reply #2
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January 02, 2009, 07:25:13 pm »
Mr. Fitzgerald, who had been expected to indict Mr. Blagojevich by next week, asked for 90 more days, saying the holiday schedules had prevented grand jury meetings and that the length of the investigation into the governor, more than five years, and the thousands of intercepted phone calls required additional time. Mr. Blagojevich has denied the charges.
With The Times's Monica DaveySeveral black lawmakers said the Senate’s efforts to block the appointment of Mr. Burris by Mr. Blagojevich would be viewed by many black voters as a signal that systemic roadblocks continue to prevent qualified, respected African-Americans from climbing the political ladder.
They said Mr. Obama’s opposition to the appointment would do little to ease such concerns among their black constituents, who remain concerned that the Senate has no black members.
“I do think it’s a dilemma for the leadership of the party,” Representative Payne said, referring to Democratic leaders in the Senate. “Everyone acknowledges that he’s a great choice. So to deny that person, I just think would send a disappointing signal.”
Throughout Wednesday the telephone lines were burning in the studios of WVON, a black talk radio station in Chicago, where scores of callers voiced their outrage at what they described as the racist efforts to block Mr. Burris from taking his seat.
“We’ve come out of this presidential election so steeped in change, but the game still remains the same,” said Michael L. Peery, a producer at the station, describing the sentiments of the callers. “When you’re African-American, you always have to leap a little higher. It’s never really a level playing field here.”
The Rev. Marshall Hatcher, a black pastor at New Mount Pilgrim Church on Chicago’s West Side, said white politicians who reject Mr. Burris would suffer among black voters, adding that whites “show a disconnect” when they fail to see why it is so important to African-Americans to have a black replace Mr. Obama in the Senate.
In an effort to fill the seat, on Dec. 24, Representative Davis met with Sam Adam Sr., a well-known criminal defense lawyer here whose son has represented Mr. Blagojevich during the impeachment hearings in Springfield, in Mr. Davis’s Chicago office. There, Mr. Adam said the governor wanted to give him the Senate job.
“They thought I was the best candidate,” Mr. Davis recalled. Mr. Davis, who said he had hoped to be considered for the post long before Mr. Blagojevich’s legal troubles, said he asked Mr. Adam for a day, Christmas, to weigh the question. Mr. Adam did not return phone calls from The New York Times. Neither did his son, Sam Adam Jr., nor Mr. Blagojevich’s other lawyer, Edward Genson.
The decision, Mr. Davis said, did not take long, and required a conversation with his wife, the only one he consulted.
“I felt that if I was to take the appointment,” Mr. Davis said, “I would spend so much of my time deflecting and defending the position that it would take away from my real reason for being involved in politics and political life: to try and find solutions to problems.”
On Friday morning, meeting again with Mr. Adam, Mr. Davis recommended Mr. Burris as having “impeccable credentials.” Mr. Burris’s name had come up as a possible replacement for Mr. Obama even before Mr. Blagojevich’s arrest, in a long list with others, none of whom said on Wednesday that they had been contacted with offers similar to Mr. Davis.
Later on Friday, a representative for the governor spoke with Mr. Burris, according to Fred G. Lebed, Mr. Burris’s longtime business partner.
“My first reaction was I need time to think about this, and I need to consider all of the possibilities and what my friends and family and supporters really thought about it,” Mr. Burris recalled. He spent Friday and Saturday calling nearly 200 people: friends, judges, fellow lawyers. “It was all positive,” he said of their reactions. A lawyer, Mr. Burris also studied the law over the weekend, he said, to satisfy himself that Mr. Blagojevich was within his authority in making the appointment.
On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Blagojevich himself called Mr. Burris at his South Side home. In a 20 minute call, they sealed the appointment.
On Monday, before the plan was announced, Mr. Burris said he asked his staff to contact Mr. Obama and other Democratic leaders. Somehow, the calls did not reach Mr. Obama, Mr. Burris said. The two have been supportive of each other over the years, endorsing each other’s candidacies and participating in fundraising events; they were never close personal friends, but allies from distinct generations in Illinois politics. Mr. Burris said the last time they spoke was more than a year ago.
Although he was describing himself as a senator, Mr. Burris said he has yet to get a plane ticket to Washington or to form a staff.
“We have absolutely, positively nothing,” he said, noting that he was already receiving requests from residents seeking tickets to the presidential inauguration.
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Last Edit: January 03, 2009, 10:57:36 pm by Bianca
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #3
on:
January 02, 2009, 07:54:23 pm »
Oh how I love a good political soap-opera.
And this one is quite a doozie!!!
No matter what the Race-Baiter President-Elect does, it will make him look bad.
I am laughing so hard I am shedding a few crocodile tears.
What a wonderful way for Ozero’s adminstration to begin.......
Serves you right for calling the Clintons racists and everybody else who doesn't like him,
WAY BACK FROM THE BEGINNING !!!!!!
«
Last Edit: January 02, 2009, 07:56:09 pm by Bianca
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #4
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January 02, 2009, 09:04:36 pm »
Democrats plan cool reception for Senate appointee
Laurie Kellman,
Associated Press Writer
Jan. 2, 2008
– WASHINGTON
– Senate Democratic leaders plan to grant few if any privileges next week to Roland Burris, the man picked by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to represent the state in the Senate, even if Burris arrives on Capitol Hill with the proper credentials.
Senate officials involved in the tangle of legal and logistical planning said Friday that a Democrat will object to Burris being duly sworn with the rest of his class and will propose that his credentials be reviewed for a period of time by the Rules Committee.
That would give Burris the status of a senator-elect to the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama in the juiciest of several dramas swirling around open Senate seats days before the 111th Congress convenes.
Senate Democrats are slow-walking Burris' appointment because they hope Blagojevich will be removed from office before the Rules Committee completes its investigation.
As early as next week Blagojevich — federal authorities accuse him of offering to sell the appointment to the highest bidder — could become the state's first chief executive to be impeached. A state Senate trial would follow and if he were convicted, Blagojevich would be removed from office.
For his part, Burris planned to argue his case in the news media and threatened to sue Senate Democrats if they refuse to swear him in as the chamber's only black member.
Race is a prominent force in the dispute. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., said he called Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and "made it abundantly clear that we felt that they should reconsider."
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #5
on:
January 02, 2009, 09:06:26 pm »
No luck, Payne reported on Friday.
"I have heard no one say that they felt that he is not qualified," Payne said. Race would not be a factor, he added, were there black members of the Senate. "There is a legitimate opportunity to have the Senate at least start to look a teeny bit like America."
Democrats have said that their opposition to Burris is not about Burris but the fact that anyone appointed by Blagojevich would be tainted by the corruption charges against the governor.
And they're not budging, despite significant questions about whether they have the legal standing to block an appointee of a sitting governor.
The only way Burris will be allowed on the floor, according to Democratic officials who asked not to be identified, is if he possesses a certification of appointment signed by Blagojevich and Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.
Burris would then be treated as a senator-elect, which by tradition means he'll be allowed on the Senate floor without voting or speaking privileges — and he wouldn't be granted a desk, according to the officials. They requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The man charged with letting people through the door of the chamber, Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer, said he expects the two sides to work out a deal before Tuesday.
Gainer has known Burris since their days in Illinois law enforcement, when Burris was attorney general and Gainer was the director of the state police.
"He is a good man," Gainer said in a telephone interview. "He plays by the rules. I don't think there's going to be a confrontation."
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #6
on:
January 02, 2009, 09:08:23 pm »
But Republican Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona said Friday that he wants to review state and federal law before opining on whether Burris should be seated. Still, he questioned whether the legal status of the patron is enough reason to block the appointee.
"The Senate has to be very careful of setting a precedent that just because it doesn't like the governor that appointed (Burris) we therefore refuse to seat a qualified appointee," Kyl said in a telephone interview.
Not that Republicans are against blocking people from being seated. Another Republican leader, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters Friday that he would object to seating any new senator from Minnesota until an anticipated court case is finished and an official election certificate issued in the battle between Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.
In contrast, nobody's objecting to Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet, who is expected to be named to replace Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., set to be Obama's interior secretary.
In the Illinois case, Senate Democrats believe the Constitution and their agenda-setting power give them the tools for a slow-motion rejection of Burris' credentials if they are not signed by both the governor and White, who has refused to certify anyone Blagojevich appoints.
If Burris appears at the Capitol with his certification signed by Blagojevich and White, the officials said, Burris would be permitted on the Senate floor.
Vice President Dick Cheney, as president of the Senate, would then ask whether anyone objects to the senators-elect being duly sworn. A Democrat would object and propose that Burris' credentials be referred to the Rules Committee for an investigation. If no one objects to that motion, the credentials go to the panel for a period of perhaps 90 days.
In the meantime, Burris gets the privileges of an unsworn senator-elect. The Senate's unofficial customs and traditions leave unclear whether that status would come with a pay check, but Burris could be accorded a stipend for staff and given office space.
____
Associated Press writers Steven K. Paulson in Denver, Brian Bakst in St. Paul, Minn.,
and Christopher Wills in Chicago contributed to this report.
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Krista Davenport
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #7
on:
January 03, 2009, 12:24:45 am »
Quote from: Bianca on January 02, 2009, 07:54:23 pm
Oh how I love a good political soap-opera.
And this one is quite a doozie!!!
No matter what the Race-Baiter President-Elect does, it will make him look bad.
I am laughing so hard I am shedding a few crocodile tears.
What a wonderful way for Ozero’s adminstration to begin.......
Serves you right for calling the Clintons racists and everybody else who doesn't like him,
WAY BACK FROM THE BEGINNING !!!!!!
I don't see how Obama has ever been a race-baiter, Bianca, explain that to me.
Burris should be seated, though, the Senate doesn't have any legal right not to seat him! Harry Reid is one of the worst Senate leaders that we have ever had. While he is worried about his Senate looking squeaky clean (and most people think that politicians are crooks), the Republicans keep eating his lunch because they keep whining "filibuster' each time he wants to bring something to a vote.
They don't even hold 'real' filibusters, they just hold pretend ones. He wants to play a 'gentlemanly' game, while the Republicans go for blood. We need a new Senate leader!
Too bad we can't get someone with some stones like Russ Feingold to lead the Senate.
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Byron
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #8
on:
January 03, 2009, 01:01:19 am »
The Senate should confirm Burress, he has no corruption linked to him and has had a good reputation in Illinois for years and years.
Speaking of which, the media has Blagojevich tried, convicted and put away already, what if he isn't even guilty? Think of it, all that we have heard of is the tapes, but we have never actually heard the tapes, only have Fitzgerald's word that they even exist.
No money was exchanged.
No racket was unarthed, and, at the initial press conference, Fitzgerald asked for more witnesses to step forward.
That tells me he has a pretty weak case.
I wouldn't be surprised if, despite all the media hoopla, Blagojevich gets off, and even keeps his job. In America, people tend to forget that you are still innocent till proven guilty.
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #9
on:
January 03, 2009, 09:28:19 am »
SO, WHO'S BEEN BANGING THE DRUMS THE LOUDEST FOR BLAGO'S RESIGNATION?
Obama calls for Blagojevic's resignation
President-elect Barack Obama joined the rising clamour Wednesday for the resignation
of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is accused of corruptly peddling a U.S. Senate seat.
“The president-elect agrees with Lieutenant-Governor... "
Chicago Tribune
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #10
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January 03, 2009, 10:34:54 pm »
Sen. Reid called Blagojevich about Senate seat
ABC News
Jan. 3, 2009
CHICAGO
– Illinois' embattled governor complained through his spokesman Saturday that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is guilty of a conflict of interest in that Reid telephoned him in early December to discuss the seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
Lucio Guerrero, spokesman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said he didn't know firsthand which candidates the Nevada Democrat supported during the call, but said he knows Reid's candidates did not include Roland Burris, the man the governor recently picked for Obama's seat.
Senate leaders have vowed to oppose the appointment of Burris.
"I think the governor believes there is a conflict of interest — that Reid showed he has a horse in the race and Roland Burris wasn't one of them," Guerrero said.
In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Reid spokesman Jim Manley confirmed the majority leader called Blagojevich on Dec. 3 — six days before the governor's arrest on federal corruption charges — to talk about the vacancy. Prosecutors say Blagojevich at the time was trying to peddle Obama's seat in exchange for money or a job in Obama's cabinet.
Manley declined to name the candidates discussed, saying there was "no need to embarrass the people that were subject of the conversation."
Manley added that Reid also spoke to the New York and Colorado governors about openings created when senators from those states accepted Obama administration jobs.
"It is part of his job as majority leader to share his thoughts about candidates who have the qualities needed to succeed in the Senate," Manley said.
Manley said the claim that Reid has a conflict of interest regarding Burris was "absolutely ridiculous."
"The Senate Democratic caucus has said from the very beginning we would not accept an appointment by the governor," he said. "This has nothing to do with Mr. Burris. It is about the man doing the appointing."
Burris wouldn't comment on Reid's conversations with the governor, saying he didn't know the details of what they discussed.
Burris, a former Illinois attorney general, accepted Blagojevich's appointment and is expected to be in Washington on Tuesday and ask to be sworn in along with the rest of the Senate. The Democratic leadership is expected to defer the matter to a rules panel until impeachment proceedings against Blagojevich are settled, apparently in hopes that a new governor will appoint someone else.
Reid is standing by the decision to oppose any appointment by Blagojevich, Manley said.
An attorney representing Burris is lobbying for Senate support, sending a letter to Senate Democratic leaders asking them to seat his client.
In the letter, dated Friday, attorney Timothy Wright called on the Senate leaders to grant the people of Illinois the representation the U.S. Constitution affords them.
The letter was addressed to Dick Durbin of Illinois, Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California and to Reid, who has said that anyone picked by Blagojevich will be turned away.
Wright, who said he hadn't received a response to the letter as of Saturday, told The AP that he planned to go to federal court if the Senate refuses to seat Burris.
Burris has already asked the Illinois Supreme Court to force Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White to certify the appointment, hoping it will help his argument to be seated.
Reid urged Blagojevich to appoint either Illinois Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Saturday, citing anonymous sources.
Reid reportedly opposed the appointments of Democratic Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Danny Davis because the Democratic leader feared they would lose the seat to a Republican in the 2010 general election. Reid also allegedly opposed Emil Jones, the powerful black leader of the Illinois Senate, on the same grounds.
"What is clear to me is that every candidate that was African-American was denied and every other candidate was acceptable," said Wright, adding, "I'm not going to read too much into that."
Wright also echoed Blagojevich's claim of a conflict of interest, saying that Reid's call to the governor showed he had a political stake in who took Obama's seat.
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Bianca
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #11
on:
January 03, 2009, 10:53:15 pm »
SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT'S GOING ON IN NEW YORK STATE!!!
Isn't Ted & Caroline Kennedy's promises of great amounts of $$$ from fundraisers a BRIBE?
Not to mention Caroline Kennedy's total lack of experience....
From all the checking I have done,
Illinois will be well served by such
an upstanding, able and highly
qualified person as Mr. Burris.
Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelo(u)si should go back out West and stay there!!
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Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
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Reply #12
on:
January 04, 2009, 12:55:42 am »
For once, I agree with you, Bianca, Burris would make a great rep for the state of Illinois, and Pelosi and Reid should take a walk. They're losers! Who wants to begin the new administration with people like that, who carry the stain of failure?
I have a sentimental weakness for the Kennedys, though, so I am perfectly fine with Caroline, lack of experience and all, getting a crack at Hillary's seat. The Senate needs more intelligent women in there.
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Bianca
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Posts: 41646
Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #13
on:
January 04, 2009, 09:39:48 am »
Deanna,
There is propably nobody more sentimental about the Kennedys than I - I even have
a small collection of Jackie's jewellery that are sold at some of the shopping networks.
To notch replicas and not cheap....
But New York is a large state and it needs seasoned representative and, yes, New York
does have such WOMEN:
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND
Congressional Representative from upstate New York, would be a better qualified candidate than C. Kennedy Schlossberg for the New York Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton:
This Democrat, representing New York’s 20th Congressional District, supports stem cell research, the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act, is against the partial privatization of Social Security, and opposed now disgraced Governor Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
In Congress she sits on the Congressional Agriculture subcommittees on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture, and the subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry. In the Congressional Armed Services Committee she sits on the subcommittees on Sea Power and Expeditionary Forces, and Terrorism and Unconventional Threats.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Furthermore, the point I was trying to make is that the situation in New York is no
different than the one in Illinois - a bribe is a BRIBE.....
I just saw Reid talking about this on TV, but I'll be 'nice' and refrain from commenting
anymore - it might get me banned and he isn't worth it!
«
Last Edit: January 04, 2009, 01:04:26 pm by Bianca
»
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Bianca
Superhero Member
Posts: 41646
Re: For Sheer Brazeness, Nobody Surpasses Rod - UPDATES
«
Reply #14
on:
January 04, 2009, 10:11:19 am »
Top senators plan Monday meeting on Burris
Jan. 4, 2009
ABC News
WASHINGTON
– Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to meet with the chamber's top Republican to see if they can come to a bipartisan solution on what to do about Senate appointee Roland Burris.
Burris is the Democrat picked by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY'-uh-vich) to take Barack Obama's seat. The governor has been accused by federal authorities of offering to sell the appointment to the highest bidder.
Reid says he will talk to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday in hopes of coming to a bipartisan position on Burris. The chamber swears in new senators on Tuesday.
Reid also denies telling Blagojevich that appointing three African-American lawmakers — Reps. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Danny Davis or state lawmaker Emil Jones — would be unacceptable. He says Blagojevich is "making all this up."
He spoke on NBC's "Meet the Press."
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