But who is responsible for Illinois being represented by a lying weasel in the U.S. Senate?
Though Blagojevich appointed Burris, that was just the beginning of our descent into madness. Like I said, there are two others who deserve credit.
Obama could have demanded a special election to fill his own vacated Senate seat, the one that Blagojevich allegedly tried to sell to the highest bidder. Obama also pressured Senate leaders to seat Burris, in the hopes of ending the fiasco before his inauguration.
And, after Burris tried to fix the lie he told to Durkin in the impeachment hearing—that he had no contact about fundraising with Blagojevich people other than one aide named Lon Monk—Burris sent an affidavit to a Madigan flunky, state Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (D-Madigan), dated Feb. 4.
Currie held that affidavit in her desk, conveniently, until after Burris voted last week for the near trillion-dollar Obama pork/stimulus package. Now Madigan is demanding an investigation of possible perjury and has sent the documents to a Springfield prosecutor.
Yet the deed has been done. Obama's porkulus was passed. Obama got Burris' vote, and Madigan has an excuse to attack Burris because he doesn't want Burris leading the 2010 Illinois Democratic ticket when Madigan's daughter runs for governor.
See how it works? They get what they want. And we get Tombstone Burris.
They talk about transcending politics, but all we can hear are the flies.
I don't know what else to say about this. . .I mean, what else could possibly come out to make Illinois look like an even bigger joke? A governor that's been impeached and removed from office, an appointee to the U.S. Senate that has apparently lied about his contacts with the impeached Governor, a member for the Illinois legislature conveniently holding onto an affidavit that revises previous remarks regarding those contacts and the former holder of that Senate seat benefiting from all of the above? How convenient is too convenient? Or, as someone once said, "I don't like coincidences."
On the other hand, there's this article:
"President Barack Obama is seeking to assure Canada, the largest U.S. trading partner, that he has no interest in disturbing the two countries' economic relationship. That message, for now, trumps any push by the U.S. to renegotiate a North American trade pact, as Obama has suggested."
It would be a huge mistake, even in the best of times, to force open talks to re-negotiate NAFTA. As much as Congress and Obama may think they have a reason to re-negotiate over the environment and labor, Canada and Mexico a) don't want to re-negotiate (the Canadian PM Stephen Harper is no fan of either the environment or labor to begin with), and b) if they were forced, the U.S. would come out in a far weaker position due to what Canada and Mexico would want taken out of NAFTA (i.e., allowing the U.S. to be the first buyer of their oil). While progressives would probably view that as a success- force other countries to accept our socially "good" programs and take less of that nasty oil- the effect on our economy would be disastrous. By putting these new and expensive requirements on products made in Canada and Mexico would obviously increase the costs of the product itself, making companies less likely to want to sell those products to the U.S. market (since they would be bound by the NAFTA requirements, instead they could ignore NAFTA and just sell them somewhere else). And by not allowing the U.S. to be first buyer of oil, we would be subject to more market fluctuations in the oil market and also be potentially subject to purchasing our oil from less friendly countries.
Finally, I want to say to California legislative Republicans- Quit.
The shenanigans that are going on in the State Senate are ridiculous and are making this party look like a joke. Ousting former Minority Leader Dave Cogdill in the middle of the night is childish and stupid. At some point the party is going to have wrench itself from the grips of the stalwart conservatives and come back to some sort of reasonableness. Do I think that increasing taxes in a state that already has the second highest sales tax in the nation and one of, if not, the highest income tax in the nation during a recession is a good idea? Of course not. And do I think that legislative Democrats are themselves being stubborn in the face of much needed spending cuts- again, of course they are. However, that doesn't change the fact that simply holding up the budgetary process to satisfy the conservative base may be good for talk radio, but is not good for us, the citizens.
I understand that Republicans are against taxes, but that battle is not one that should be fought today. That is a much larger battle that can be set aside for this budget solution. Am I happy with the budget solution, no. Honestly, I think I'd rather see it all show up in sales taxes rather than be split up between sales and income taxes, as long as this is all temporary. (Nevermind a larger belief that once you increase taxes, it becomes harder to bring them back down, however "temporary" they are, especially when the party in charge of the legislature likes nothing more than to spend money frivolously.) Hell, there's a lot of things in this state that I'm not happy with, starting with the state's desire to destroy what manufacturing and agriculture industry we have left in this state under the guise of the environment.
New Minority Leader Dennis Hollingsworth said today that he wants to reopen budget talks with no new taxes. While I generally sympathize with the belief that no new taxes are needed, the fact is some amount of taxes are going to have to be raised- this is what happens when you have balanced budget requirements and can't simply run a deficit, not that I would endorse running a deficit, but it's understandable. Sen. Cogdill believes that he's made the best deal possible considering the Democrats' own intransigence on cutting spending. All this showboating and chest-thumping of Republicans on no new taxes makes the party look foolish and increasingly marginalized. Get over it. Pass the budget and take your case to the voters this summer. Senators Cox and Maldonado- show some backbone and show that you won't be bullied: vote for the budget.
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