From the Kulture of Korruption Department:
Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brother solicited U.S. Sen. Roland Burris for up to $10,000 in campaign cash before Blagojevich named Burris to the coveted post -- something Burris initially failed to disclose under oath before an Illinois House impeachment panel, records and interviews show.
Didn't he also tell the Senate that there was no solicitation?
Burris (D-Ill.) acknowledges being hit up for the money in a new affidavit he has sent to the head of the House committee that recommended Blagojevich be removed from office.
The affidavit is dated Feb. 5 -- three weeks after Burris was sworn in to replace President Obama in the Senate.
This article reports expected results of the ruling by Coleman's lawyers that is diametrically opposed to the article earlier posted (which originated at CNN.com)
Dealing a blow but not a knockout to Republican Norm Coleman's hopes, the judges in the U.S. Senate election trial on Friday tossed out most of the 19 categories of rejected absentee ballots they were considering for a second look, making it clear that they won't open and count any ballots that don't comply with state law.
On its face, the ruling looked to be a victory for DFLer Al Franken, whose lawyers had urged the judges to turn down 17 of the 19 categories and said Friday that they had very nearly done it. "We are obviously very pleased with the court's decision ... there's a large chunk of ballots that have now been taken out of play," said Franken lawyer Marc Elias.
But Democrats want every vote to count™ ...
But Coleman's attorneys saw it differently, saying that the ruling leaves untouched about 3,500 of the 4,800 rejected absentee ballots they want the court to open and count, enough to make it possible for Coleman to overcome Franken's 225-vote certified recount lead.
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#1
And just why would that surprise anyone? The secret that isn't a secret in DC is that politicans don't read the bills, staffers do. Politicians vote based on what there staffers tell them
#3
This is good ammo for the trunks. Let it be known that the democrats all voted together for a trillion dollar spending bill that they never even read.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/14/2009 13:18 Comments ||
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#4
i doubt the staffers had time too read the entire bill since it was only printed the night before the vote, i thought they where gonna have too have like 48 hours too read every nill under osama
Marvin Hoffman is listed in campaign finance records as one of the many lobbyists with the powerful PMA Group donating money to lawmakers. But Hoffman is a soon-to-retire information technology manager in Marina del Rey, Calif., who has never heard of the Arlington lobbying firm or the Indiana congressman to whom he supposedly gave $2,000.
"It's alarming that someone is stealing my identity somewhere," Hoffman, 75, said in an interview. "I've never heard of this company."
Another contributor listed as a PMA lobbyist is, in fact, a sales manager for an inflatable boat manufacturer in New Jersey. John Hendricksen said he did make campaign donations but never worked at PMA and does not know how he ended up listed in records that way.
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Senator Arlen Specter is one of only three Republicans to support the economic stimulus bill in Congress, and the latest Rasmussen Reports survey in Pennsylvania shows that his position is costing him support back home.
Just 31% of Keystone State voters say are more likely to vote for Specter because of his position on the stimulus package while 40% are less likely to do so. Arlen knows perfectly well that by the next time he's up for election all this will be forgotten. He'll campaign on having Led the Fight™ for something to do with children or puppies or both.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
not nearly as much as his vote is hurting the rest of us... and our kids... and grandkids... and...
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
02/14/2009 2:57 Comments ||
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#2
I disagree about Arlen's future. Part of Penna. turning blue is that the RINOS have left the GOP. Arlen's base in Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware and Chester Counties is no longer blue and will not be able to support him in the primaries. The west is furious. People are still PO'd about the Whiskey excise.
Fast Eddie's quandary will be whether to move to open primaries so voters don't get a choice in the general or to let the trunks become a permanent minority as in other one party states. The seat will turn officially blue in 2010. But it has been for some time any way. Thanks to George Bush.
#3
Spector only voted for the Stimulus because it provided 30 million for one of his pet projects. I believe it was the National Institute of Mental Health, but I could be wrong.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/14/2009 9:36 Comments ||
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#4
And to the constituents of the Democrats who voted against it, and to the constituents of nearly all of the Republicans which combined could number into the hundreds of millions of Americans, Barry, Reid, Pelosi say shut up and go to hell!
#7
Spector only voted for the Stimulus because it provided 30 million for one of his pet projects. I believe it was the National Institute of Mental Health, but I could be wrong.
Posted by Deacon Blues
And Pelosi got $30 Mil for her mouse pet project. Apparently the market price of rodents is $30 million.
Arlen should retire and die in whichever order is best according to God
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/14/2009 11:22 Comments ||
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#8
If we are lucky maybe his vote will knock him out of office and the people in Pennsylvania will get a real representative in Congress. Dump Murtha too.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, battling brain cancer, is in Florida and will miss the final Senate vote on the economic stimulus package.
The Massachusetts Democrat is continuing his treatment and physical rehabilitation, and Democrats don't need his vote for final passage, spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner said Friday.
Kennedy plans to travel between Florida and Washington for future Senate business "until the weather gets warmer here," Wagoner said.
Kennedy had returned to the Senate on Monday for an earlier vote on the economic stimulus plan. He voted for the bill on a test tally. It was passed 61-36, one more vote than the 60 required to overcome objections.
It was Kennedy's first visit to the Capitol since he suffered a seizure on the day of Obama's inauguration last month. He was using a cane and appeared to have lost a bit of weight, but he seemed energetic and happy to be around his colleagues again.
"He's doing very well and he's on top of things," said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., who is a longtime Kennedy friend.
The 76-year-old lawmaker was stricken at a legislative luncheon in the Capitol following Obama's swearing-in, leaving many of his colleagues and friends shaken and worried. He spent the night in the hospital after doctors diagnosed him with "simple fatigue" following the frigid outdoor inauguration ceremony and warm indoor reception.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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The 76-year-old lawmaker was stricken at a legislative luncheon in the Capitol following Obama's swearing-in, leaving many of his colleagues and friends shaken and worried not stirred.
Posted by: regular joe ||
02/14/2009 16:39 Comments ||
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#3
Gawd hep me I LOL'd hard.
I will see you again in deh sink trap.
(word is that it's been re-done with orange shag carpets, that's roumors tho, don't quote me.)
Kwame Kenyatta says some of his fellow members of the Detroit City Council have brought negative and embarrassing attention to themselves and the city.
It's almost a certainty that Council President Monica Conyers is part of that group.
Conyers' at-times fiery personality and tough talk come at an even tougher time for a city mired in debt and steeped in scandal.
The wife of Democratic Congressman John Conyers has been criticized for using taxpayer-funded police bodyguards to chauffeur their son to an exclusive private school. Monica Conyers also has opposed legislation that would expand Detroit's aging Cobo convention center.
Conyers hasn't responded to interview requests from The Associated Press.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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you can youtube the detroit city council and see these clowns in action - it's painfully embarrassing to watch. One of the females was wearing a tiara during one of their meetings and calling one of the councilmen "shrek". They are ingnorant and unprofessional beyond belief. It's no wonder detroit is the stinking piece of monkey crap that it is, the inmates are clearly running the asylum.
Three days after Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner announced a $50 billion program to prevent home foreclosures, a powerful Democratic congressman who is deeply involved in the housing crisis suggested that $50 billion might prove to be just a down payment for a larger taxpayer-funded program.
"We may need more than $50 billion for foreclosure [mitigation]," Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters Friday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. If there is not a high re-default rate after the $50 billion is injected into Treasury's homeowner bailout plan, the government should consider spending more money to fund the plan, the Massachusetts Democrat said.
Mr. Frank said deteriorating home prices were a major cause of the plunging value of mortgage-related assets, which have blown huge holes in the balance sheets of many of the world's largest banks.
And foreclosure mitigation is the best way to slow down home-price depreciation, he argued.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Did anyone ask the proud papa of the financial crisis about the stunning success of his sub-prime loan "love child" with Herb Moses?
U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter says she is not ruling out a bid for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Judd Gregg next year.
Her 2nd District Democratic colleague, U.S. Rep. Paul Hodes, has said he intends to run. Shea-Porter has not gone that far, but said this afternoon, "I am not ruling it out."
She cited a recent Public Policy Polling survey, which found that she and Hodes fared about the same against two potential GOP candidates, former Sen. John E. Sununu and former Rep. Charlie Bass. The polls, she noted, "showed everybody in a dead heat, so I think it's going to be really interesting for people who love to watch politics."
The 1st District representative said her cell phone "has been ringing off the hook."
But she said she is focused on the stimulus package, the economy in general and two wars. She said that instead of focusing on raising money, "I think I should be talking about policy.
"If anyone is going to run for the U.S. Senate, they need to put out why they're running and when they're running, and that deadline is not until June 2010," the filing period for 2010 candidates for federal and state offices.
"Right now these problems that this country is facing are so enormous that to me it's just not a good time for me to talk about anything except what we can do to help our state."
The second-term Democrat this afternoon praised the House's passage of a $787 billion economic package that is now headed to the Senate. Shea-Porter, who represents the state's 1st Congressional District, said the package is "good for the country and good for New Hampshire" and will help Granite Staters "pretty much across the board.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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Republican Norm Coleman was dealt a major legal blow Friday evening as the three judge panel overseeing the post-election trial issued an order that significantly limits which rejected absentee ballots may be reconsidered in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race election. Counting improperly rejected absentee ballots to prevent what they say was voter disenfranchisement has been a pivotal theme of Coleman's case.
In their order, the judges said they are "confident that...there is no systemic problem of disenfranchisement in the state's election system, including in its absentee balloting procedures."
They also stressed that merely proving a ballot was rejected wrongfully -- the issue much of the testimony thus far has been devoted to -- is not sufficient grounds to request that it be opened and counted. That voter, they said, may have cast a ballot in person on Election Day, or submitted a subsequent absentee ballot that was counted.
They wrote that each side must prove that the ballots they want counted were "legally cast" and that cannot be done simply showing a ballot was wrongfully rejected.
The judges also outlined ten categories of absentee ballots that will not be considered in the trial because, as they write, the ballots in these categories "are not legally cast under relevant law."
Categories that will not be considered include absentee ballots submitted by non-registered voters, absentee ballots inside a return envelope not signed by the voter or absentee ballot applications that were not signed, and absentee ballots that were dropped off in person on election day.
Coleman is challenging the results of the state recount that put Democrat Al Franken in the lead with 225 votes.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Will they go thru and toss the ballots Franken got under those circumstances?
This thing is RIGGED.
And the people fo Minnesota are complete fricken IDIOTS. Minnesoata, the Stupid State.
#2
"They wrote that each side must prove that the ballots they want counted were "legally cast" and that cannot be done simply showing a ballot was wrongfully rejected."
WTF? Shouldn't Coleman's lawyers be petitioning a Federal judge based on this statement to declare the election null & void? The counted 'found' ballots before the recount even began have far more questions surrounding them than any potential absentee ballots.
Regardless, this article must have originated at the HuffPost (this is CNN, after all), because the Coleman team sees this ruling in much different light than this article projects, as noted here
Page-busting link modified.
"...Coleman's attorneys saw it differently, saying that the ruling leaves untouched about 3,500 of the 4,800 rejected absentee ballots they want the court to open and count, enough to make it possible for Coleman to overcome Franken's 225-vote certified recount lead.
Coleman lawyer Fritz Knaak said that those remaining votes -- along with the ballots of registered voters who were thought to be nonregistered as well as the ballots of voters whose signatures looked mismatched but weren't -- will eventually result in Coleman's return to the Senate."
This past week, a Tennessee journalist, George Poague of the Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle, surveyed the Tennessee power structure in light of the nation's current economic crisis and, by way of noting the bad aroma now attaching to the financial sector, had this to say: "We've read about the Merrill Lynch CEO (since fired) who spent more than a million bucks redecorating his office. That included a trash can costing $1,400. Just before Christmas, he gave billions in bonuses to Merrill executives - their reward for destroying the company."
From there Poague, pointing out the U.S. automakers had a harder time coaxing bailout money from Congress than had Wall Street, went on to excoriate U.S. Senator Bob Corker for taking positions which he deemed detrimental to the domestic auto industry and concluded: "When Corker showed up at the Detroit auto show last month, auto workers said the senator should receive a pay cut, or should have his job outsourced. See how you like it, Bob! That made me laugh. At the very least, Corker should be given a buyout and replaced. Is Harold Ford Jr. still available?"
Connecting the dots reveals an irony not touched upon by Poague: Included in the lucky Merrill executives getting those pre-Christmas bonuses was almost certainly Ford, a ranking Merrill Lynch executive since February 2007 and one so highly regarded that Bank of America, which absorbed the fallen brokerage, kept the former Memphis congressman on as a rainmaker.
Indeed, Ford reportedly was the featured speaker only last week at a hedge fund group on behalf of the Merrill Lynch division. And a googling of his activities on behalf of the brokerage since his initial appointment in February 2007 (some three months after losing a U.S. Senate bid) as a Merrill Lynch "vice chairman and senior policy advisor," shows a vast and varied itinerary -- ranging from a visit to China as the face of Merrill Lynch to featured spots on financial panels organized by the likes of the prestigious Brookings Institution.
And Ford continues to be a hot property on the political market as well. His name is continually put forth on lists of potential Tennessee Democratic gubernatorial candidates in 2010, and any number of traditional party brokers are angling to get him to make that race.
As of now, the recently married Ford has not closed the door on running for governor, though those who know him wonder if he would be wiling to undertake an administrative job confining himself to the Volunteer State and to forgo his current vistas, which -- besides the Merrill Lynch position, estimated by the New York Post to pay him $3 million annually -- include heading up the Democratic Leadership Council, appearing as an analyst on national political affairs at MSNBC, and maintaining a relationship to Vanderbilt University as a featured adjunct professor.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2009 00:00 ||
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My 2 cents. He'll run if he believes he can win and make boodles of money in the process. His Father was convicted of bribery while a State Congressman. He did run a clean campaign when running for the Senate, though. He is a Spread the Wealther, as long as it's not hia wealth.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
02/14/2009 9:33 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
