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News, more news sources than you have the time to read Support Governor Rod
Blagojevich Blagojedvich is an honest corrupt politician.
Why punish Blagojevich for openly doing what
most politicians do secretly. We all know both parties are for sale to the
highest bidder and have politicians who will say and do anything to get elected.
(source)The
two party system in the USA lacks political ethics and has become increasingly
centered upon serving the interests of politicians and their special group
supporters.
(source)Blagojevich is just more open
and honest in his political dealings. He is the poster child for America's
corrupt two-party system and we need to keep him. Learning about
Blagojevich's open corruption lets us see the often hidden spectacle of the
USA's ugly political corruption
Blago Indictment Document - Chicago Tribune ^ | December 11, 2008 | Feds
Posted on Thursday, December 11, 2008 11:35:51 AM by Bon mots
Is Michelle Obama the "Specifically Named Individual" on page 66 of the Criminal
Complaint against Governor Rod Blagojevich.
From the indictment:
ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are
believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to suck it
up for two years a More..nd do nothing and give this motherf***er [the
President-elect] his senator. F**k him. For nothing? F**k him. ROD BLAGOJEVICH
states that he will put [Senate Candidate 4] in the Senate before I just give
f**king [Senate Candidate 1] a f**king Senate seat and I dont get anything.
(Senate Candidate 4 is a Deputy Governor of the State of Illinois).
ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated that he needs to find a way to take the financial stress
off of his family and that his wife is as qualified or more qualified than
another specifically named individual to sit on corporate boards.
The specifically named individual is Michelle Obama, who was appointed to the
Board of TreeHouse Foods, a WAL-MART vendor, on June 25, 2005, even though she
did not have experience in the private sector previous to the appointment and
knows absolutely nothing about food distribution nor retail.
Here are the benefits the Obama family received as a result of Michelle Obamas
stint with the WAL-MART vendor:
____________________________________________________________________________________
According to the couples tax returns, Mrs Obama earned $51,200 (#25,700) for her
work as a non-executive director on Treehouses board last year, on top of the
$271,618 salary she was paid as a vice-president of the University of Chicago
Hospitals.
_____________________________________________________________________________
She also received 7,500 Treehouse stock options, worth a further $72,375, as she
did the previous year, when she banked a $45,000 salary from the company.
Blagojevich's honest
and open corruption supports the founders of the USA Constitution USA's
Founding Fathers knew that political power corrupts.
The creators of the constitution, the USA's Founding Fathers, created the USA
Constitution knowing that political power corrupts.
They knew that future politicians would need to be required adhere to the law,
before heeding to their own personal needs, if a government was to last and
protect its citizens.
For many years the USA Constitution served as the basis for
politician's actions. Then, many Americans started to try and change the
law by changing the constitution or how it was interpreted.
Franklin Roosevelt tried to stack the Supreme Court, civil rights
activists chose to use the popularity of their message, not to get new laws, but
to get judges who would find new law in the constitution, written between the
lines -- in shadows, in words so hard to see that only liberal judges with good
eyesight could find them.
When this tinkering with the Constitution happened, politicians
became freer to pursue their own wants (for, as an example, getting campaign
contributions) by finding loopholes the evolved and more easily persuaded
judiciary would see,
Click here for an essay on this topic)
Prosecuters say the wiretaps portray blatant
corruption: But is Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich openly scheming to barter his
power for favors anything new for politicians. Have politicians not
already written laws to allow them the "work together for the common good?"
Are Blagojevich tapes enough evidence to convict?
It was suggested when it launched that the Obama
website tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so
far are the opposite: Obama's supporters appear to be using -- and abusing -- a
tool allowing them to "flag" questions as "inappropriate" to remove all
questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of
Obama's website.
The Blagojevich questions -- many of them polite and reasonable -- can be found
only by searching words in them, like "Blagojevich," which produces 35 questions
missing from the main page of the site.
"Given the current corruption charges involving Blagojevich, will 'serious'
campaign finance reform that takes money completely out of politics through
publicly funded elections be a priority in the first term?" asked Metteyya of
Santa Cruz, California.
"This submission was removed because people believe it is inappropriate," reads
the text underneath it.
Also removed as "inappropriate":
"In light of the recent corruption scandals (Blagojevich, Rangel, Jefferson,
Stevens, etc) that have dominated the political scene,is there any ethics
legislation being crafted to actually curb corruption and prevent another wave
of nixonian cynicism?", a question from "lupercal," of Gainesville.
And: "Is Barack Obama aware of any communications in the last six weeks between
Rod Blagojevich or anyone representing Rod Blagojevich and any of Obama's top
aides?", a question from Phil from Pennsylvania.
Declaring a question "inappropriate" is different from merely voting it down;
it's calling foul on a question, not just disapproving of it.
Community reporting systems like this are often vulnerable to abuse from
committed partisans -- YouTube has wrestled with a parallel problem -- and the
only solution is conscious efforts to remedy it.
So far, Obama's team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable
questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize
the site.
(source)
The stinging criminal complaint against Illinois
Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris raises lots of questions
for President-elect Barack Obama – a few of which he answered on Thursday, at
his first news conference since Blagojevich was charged in the
cash-for-Senate-seat affair..
Here are seven worth asking:
1 – “Did you communicate directly or indirectly with Blagojevich about picking
your replacement in the U.S. Senate?”
Obama issued a categorical statement Tuesday that he personally hadn’t spoken
with Blagojevich about the seat — but seemed to correct himself in a way that
suggested others around Obama might have.
“I had no contact with the governor or his office and, so we were not – I was
not aware of what was happening," Obama said.
Yet, according to prosecutors’ characterizations of Blagojevich’s wiretapped
telephone conversations, the Illinois governor seemed to believe he had a
channel of communications with Obama’s team.
For instance, Blagojevich was recorded speaking to a union official who
Blagojevich “understood … was an emissary” to discuss the interest of Obama
confidant Valerie Jarrett in the seat, according to the criminal complaint
unveiled Tuesday.
But at some point, Blagojevich seemed to become aware that Obama’s team had no
interest in his favored option – he would pick Jarrett in exchange for being
named secretary of health and human services, prosecutor allege. How did he know
that?
Asked at the press conference if he or his people had interacted with
Blagojevich or his office about filling the vacant Illinois Senate seat, Obama
said he, personally, had not.
But he left the door open to the possibility that his aides may have and
promised that he would reveal the results of an investigation of any such
interactions “in the next few days.”
He said: “what I want to do is gather all the facts about any staff contacts
that may have taken place between the transition office and the governor’s
office.”
He asserted, though, that no one on his staff engaged Blagojevich in his alleged
efforts to trade the Senate seat for personal benefit.
2 – “Why didn’t you or someone on your team correct your close adviser David
Axelrod when he said you had spoken to Blagojevich about picking your
replacement?”
Last month, Axelrod unambiguously described a conversation between Obama and
Blagojevich about filling the seat.
“I know he's talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names, many
of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them,"
Axelrod told an interviewer from Chicago’s Fox affiliate.
But then, Axelrod retracted the comment – after the president-elect asserted
Tuesday that he hadn’t spoken to Blagojevich. Axelrod issued a statement saying
he "was mistaken when I told an interviewer last month that the President-elect
has spoken directly to Governor Blagojevich about the Senate vacancy. They did
not then, or at any time, discuss the subject."
3. “When did you learn the investigation involved Blagojevich’s alleged efforts
to ‘sell’ your Senate seat, or of the governor’s impending arrest?”
Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said it was not until Tuesday that Obama learned
the details of the complaint against Blagojevich – the same day it was released
to the public – and wouldn’t say exactly when or how Obama was notified.
But at least some people got an early heads-up: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. told
reporters that he was notified Monday night by federal prosecutors that the
investigation was coming to a head, that an arrest was imminent and that Jackson
was not a target. (source)
Land of Lincoln once again mired in controversy
Posted: 04:56 PM ET
From CNN's Ed Hornick
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is accused of scheming to sell Barack Obama's
Senate seat to the highest bidder.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Illinois state politics read more like a script from "The
Sopranos" than a page out of the history books.
On Tuesday, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, and his chief of staff,
John Harris, were arrested on federal corruption charges involving an alleged
pay-for-play scheme to award Barack Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder —
among other accusations.
Each was charged with a count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and a
count of solicitation of bribery, authorities said. If convicted, the two could
spend a maximum of 30 years in prison.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called Blagojevich's actions a "political crime
spree" and said his behavior would make Abraham Lincoln "roll over in his
grave."
Lincoln, after all, is one of the state's most famous figures, having served as
a congressman and later as president.
U.S. Attorney
Patrick Fitzgerald called Blagojevich's
actions a "political crime spree" and said
his behavior would make Abraham Lincoln
"roll over in his grave."
Lincoln, after all, is one of the state's
most famous figures, having served as a
congressman and later as president
.
Watch: CNN's Ed Hornick discusses the story
»
The FBI special agent in charge of the case, Robert Grant, went so far as to say
that "if [Illinois] isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's
certainly one hell of a competitor." Video Watch more on the complaints against
the Illinois governor » Watch more on the complaints against the
Illinois governor »
But accusations of corruption like those against Blagojevich are nothing new to
Illinois.
"Corruption is in the DNA of this state," said CNN contributor and Chicago
resident Roland Martin. "The voters in this state, when I talk to people, since
I have been here, they're pretty much like, 'You know what? This is what we
expect.' " (source)
