Rod Blagojevich, removed from office by a unanimous vote of the State Senate, and just to drive the stake home, they unanimously passed a motion from holding any further office in the State of Illinois.

Finally, the Lego Man is gone. Get him to trial so he can get his prison time started.

The narcissistic personality disorder is strong with this one.


The "powerful forces" and "political lynch mob" arrayed against him might better be described as "the voting public". His defense attorney, Ed Genson, can't even look reporters in the eye when he calls this a "witch hunt", because he knows Blagojevich is, in fact, a witch.

Governor Rod Blagojevich is out there. He can't be bargained with. He can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And he absolutely will not stop, ever, until the general fund is empty.

Last week, the Blagojevich situation looked set to paralyze state government entirely:

One result of the long-running deadlock in Springfield is that Illinois has lost billions of dollars in federal funds, money we could have used for roads and bridges.

On top of that, state government is facing a $4 billion to $5 billion shortfall. Some Medicaid providers, including hundreds of doctors, haven't been paid for care they gave to patients six months ago.

A plan to borrow $1.4 billion to speed up those payment checks has hit a huge snag. As part of every big borrowing, Attorney General Lisa Madigan has to sign a formal document. Part of it states that there is no litigation or controversy that threatens the governor's ability to serve in office.

Which, obviously, nobody would sign. Facing state prisons running out of food and nursing homes kicking their patients out, state officials and bond attorneys have reached an agreement to simply revise the language, which apparently now states that the governor's situation is, in fact, incredibly dire and that any whacky and surreal thing at all could happen.

Meanwhile, caught red-handed, on tape, trying to sell a United States Senate seat and extorting firings from the most prominent media outlet in his state, Governor Blagojevich (who had a 4% approval rating before the scandal), has now taken a formal position: "You ain't got nothin' on me, coppers!"

Chicago defense attorney Ed Genson proclaimed that the governor is not guilty, will not resign, and instead will fight the charges against him.

"He's not stepping aside," Genson told reporters outside his Chicago office building. "He hasn't done anything wrong. We're going to fight this case....I think the case is not what it seems and I think that when it comes to pass, you'll see it's not what it seems and you'll find that he's not guilty."

What he's got here is golden, and I don't blame him for not giving it up for nothing. However, "not guilty" != "innocent". If he fights the charges and wins, he's still done something wrong, and he's still unfit to pick up drycleaning. This is just the tiny portion of his total wrongdoing that the Feds happened to catch on tape.

Blagojevich has not spoken to the press yet. He left Genson's offices just before his attorney did, saying that he was looking forward to talking to the general public.

"I can't wait to talk to you guys and to have a chance to be able to say the things I'm looking forward to saying," Blagojevich said. "But there's a time and place for all of that and I'll, uh, we'll soon let you know when it's gonna be."

As long as he's wearing an orange jumpsuit, I'm fine with that, but I expect he's thinking more along the lines of "whoever pays me the most for the rights". According to a memo distributed to Blagojevich's neighbors by his wife, we can only assume that what he's looking forward to saying is "!@#$ you".

The state's first lady avoided any specific mention of her husband's arrest and the resulting crisis engulfing state government. Rather, she had a three paragraph typewritten note delivered to homes along their Ravenswood Manor block, blaming the media for the inconvenience.

The note begins: 'Dear Neighbor, My husband and I would like to apologize to you and your family for the media barrage that has descended on our neighborhood.''

She goes on to write that she hopes the media attention will subside, "not only for the sake of our children, but also for you and your family.''

This is the media's fault.

Right.

Rod Blagojevich has now spent longer making it clear he has no intention of resigning than Eliot Spitzer spent deciding if he should. A few thoughts:

1. The media has barely scratched the surface of what's gone on.

Up to this point, national media coverage has revolved almost exclusively around what's contained in the federal complaint. Obviously, this is driven by the fact that it indirectly involves Barack Obama, but it does not accurately reflect how Rod Blagojevich ultimately ended up in handcuffs or what's really wrong in Illinois. The press is finally starting to dig a little deeper, but there may never be an accurate portrayal of how Blagojevich has systematically turned state government into a criminal enterprise. It's a rare man who thinks nothing of his daughter receiving a $1,500 check for her 7th birthday from a former campaign staffer, just days after giving the staffer's wife a well-paid state job (though she had, herself, failed the state's qualifying exams). Millions of Illinoisans have suffered from the crumbling of state government, and billions of public dollars, both state and federal, have been diverted and squandered in the (apparently incompetent) efforts of Rod Blagojevich to enrich himself and his associates.

Numerous top Blagojevich associates have already been indicted over the years, including Tony Rezko, slumlord and scammer of minority-business programs, and Chris Kelly, the "roofing contractor" whose sister was made head of the Bureau of Real Estate Professions five days after getting her real estate license and who Blagojevich's own father-in-law warned the world was selling state appointments for $50,000. Like Al Capone, they got him on tax evasion.

Dominic Longo, head of the hilariously-named "Coalition for Better Government" (a motley crew of Chicago Democrats with mafioso-nicknames and questionable pasts), ultimately turned on Blagojevich, accusing Blagojevich of ruining Longo's reputation, despite Longo himself being a convicted felon and vote fraudster. The cast of bizarre characters is endless, from a tire-slashing union activist to a cigar-smoking lycanthrope.

Once you get past the idea that the Blagojevich administration is a political organization, his suicidal decisions and insane policies start making a lot of sense: every policy is a confidence game, every photo op is a shakedown, and every newly-created office has an angle. Shortly after his election, a federal judge had to intervene to stop him from giving an effective monopoly over telecom service in Illinois to Mayor Daley's own brother.

In March, it was revealed that Blagojevich had allowed a million dollars to be sent to "the wrong place", an "error" that left the landmark Pilgrim Baptist Church without promised fire-reconstruction aid but which subsequently uncovered a festering pool of shady activity involving FBI informants, a "school" that had "mistakenly" received the money but which was also facing nine civil suits and owing substantial back taxes, a questionable gubernatorial pardon of one of the teachers, and, naturally, Tony Rezko.

Then there's Central Management Services, the state agency tasked with controlling costs. Their mission, as it turned out, was only taken ironically: the agency was so thoroughly corrupt that CMS employees were apparently getting fired because their crooked schemes were foiling the crooked schemes of other CMS employees. A 140-page independent audit revealed that of the six hundred million dollars in savings Blagojevich attributed to CMS, fewer than one hundred million could actually be identified, leading CMS to try and fail to accuse the Auditor-General of corruption, and Blagojevich to claim that they just had "different ways of doing business".

Despite the CMS mission, contractors, including IPAM, a subsidiary of Mesirow Financial, were found to be billing the state for things like parties to celebrate winning CMS contracts. IPAM lost their contract, but a year later, Mesirow was allowed to manage a billion dollars of bonds for the Tollway Authority, itself a hive of scum and villainy, part of a Department of Transportation seeded with unqualified Blagojevich lackeys dubbed "local agency liaisons" and used as a means for Blagojevich to give a six-figure job to his drunk-driving childhood friend Daniel Stefanski, a guy so dirty that the Teamsters, of all people, claimed Stefanski's presence had corrupted their organization.

We now know that even dying, poverty-stricken children were not beyond the grasp of Blagojevich's extortion racket, and the odds are that Republic Windows and Doors did not happen without someone, somewhere, writing a substantial check to purchase Rod's "divine intervention". How about the FamilyCare debacle, in which Blagojevich's attorneys admitted that they "can't identify participants or contact them, monitor premium payments or refund them, and don't even know how much they've collected in premium payments or where the money is"?

Legislators and auditors who got in the way of Rod Blagojevich found themselves blacklisted, as Blagojevich personally tormented his enemies by eliminating funding for anti-gang programs, floodwalls, pandemic flu preparedness, and other spending intended to protect the very lives of Illinois citizens. As part of his insane war to force the legislature to approve his budget, he even took the police power itself hostage, threatening to lay off 90% of the Illinois State Police if he didn't get his way.

Comptroller Dan Hynes even refused to sign some of Blagojevich's checks, opting to have vendors sue the state before he'd help Blagojevich squander more of the state's scarce resources on epic misadventure at a time when the state was sending as little as six bucks and change as "payments" against multi-million dollar debts owed to healthcare providers.

In a just world, forensic accountants would make their careers hunting down everyone involved in creating this disaster, and it would become a literal textbook case for corruption among criminal justice students. We shouldn't be demanding Rod Blagojevich's resignation, we should be demanding seppuku, or perhaps that he be locked up in Arkham Asylum.

2. It is entirely possible that Rod Blagojevich is completely out of his mind.

I'm hardly the first person to suggest this, but Blagojevich has exhibited frightening paranoia since early in his administration. One of his first public embarrassments was the discovery that his office was diverting Department of Corrections prison psychologists to the Orwellian business of monitoring and analyzing media coverage of his leadership. This is a man who is so obsessed with appearances that a bodyguard was tasked with carrying his hairbrush (codenamed "the football", both for it's colossal size and as a reference to the nuclear launch codes carried with the President).

This is a man who, when Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn declined to accept a security detail, simply added Quinn's security detail to his own, then purged experienced bodyguards in favor of his handpicked, inexperienced cronies. The end result was a massive detail that posed a danger to themselves and others, creating a spectacle at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, drinking on the job, chasing skirt, losing their guns, and ramming Volkswagens while doing 90 mph on the shoulder. Blagojevich brought them with him, wherever he went, even closing roads in places as far away as California (apparently without permission of the host states) so that he could speed his motorcade along and make sure everyone "knew who he is".

This is a man who opted to live in Chicago instead of the state capital, because he "didn't want his daughter to change schools". Instead, he billed taxpayers for his staff to take thousands of flights back and forth to Springfield.

The governor's budget director flies on state aircraft nearly once every 2 1/2 days as he tries to find ways to control costs.

This is a man who was repeatedly dinged for ethical concerns over his habit of putting his name in large print all over state publications and websites, at times much larger than the word "Illinois", and who spent half a million dollars on new tollbooth signs for no apparent reason other than to be able to see his own name in lights.

When Eliot Spitzer first came under scrutiny in the incident with Bruno, there were widespread rumors that he had abandoned telephone communications to avoid leaving a trail. Instead, communications were conducted by messengers. By comparison, Blagojevich, fully aware of the scope of the investigation into his administration, didn't just use phones, he even had his wife on the line. Something is certainly wrong with this picture, but whether it's simply a matter of epic vanity, arrogance, and stupidity or a legitimate mental imbalance is unclear. Blagojevich father-in-law Mell says that he's now only concerned about the welfare of his daughter and granddaughter, and he should be: they're in the hands of what may be a narcissistic sociopath.

3. For Blagojevich, this is but another scam.

You might think this is the worst week of Rod Blagojevich's life, but he appears to have accepted his inevitable indictment long ago. The FBI's complaint documents him casually discussing his "legal situation" and plotting to give himself the Senate seat both to escape impeachment from the Governor's office and to give himself access to financial and political resources currently beyond his reach that would be needed to fight the Feds.

Dragged away from his home in handcuffs, Rod Blagojevich simply posted bail and went back to work, presumably to resume criminal activity. Insane or not, his current thinking is almost certainly that he now has an unprecedented opportunity to extort money and favors from all the people he could otherwise rat out to the Feds, something he is highly motivated to do, given that he may very well be facing the prospect of dying in prison. He thought he could get Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to fund his future, so his reality is pretty distorted.

4. Barack Obama thinks that we're all stupid.

It may very well be that nothing untoward happened between the Obama and Blagojevich camps. However, Obama's attempt to make this go away by pretending that they had no idea what was going on, that they hadn't discussed it with Blagojevich, and that we're all crazy to ask makes him look like he's lying in our faces. Indeed, he is, and Philadelphia's Democratic governor Ed Rendell agrees.

Of course they had contact about this, and if the Obama administration is all about transparency and honesty, they should provide complete answers to Politico's Seven Blago Questions for Obama. Instead, they're allowing Blagojevich questions to be censored on their new "Open for Questions" site.

Frankly, if Rahm Emanuel did indeed sell Blagojevich out, he should step right up so we can give him his medal, but instead, they're badly mishandling this. Emanuel claims he's receiving daily death threats, and that's just sad. There's no reason to believe to believe Emanuel has done anything wrong. However, if Emanuel is surprised and outraged that refusing to talk to the media is causing them to intrude further into his life rather than to back off, he must be incredibly naive about what MSM journalists actually do for a living.

5. The Blagojevich arrest should not be allowed to be the end of this.

The culture of corruption that bred the Blagojevich administration does not exist in isolation on the 16th floor of the Thompson Center. It rippled in from Chicago, and has rippled out to pollute nearly every facet of state government. Resolving this requires an extensive and sustained outrage from the electorate, and whipping it up requires getting the public to understand not just that what's happening is wrong, but that it's doing harm in the lives of Illinoisans and to taxpayers nationwide. It is not acceptable, it never was, and the perpetrators should be hounded relentlessly.

Yesterday, Rod Blagojevich defiantly brushed off the news that his phones were tapped:

A defiant Gov. Rod Blagojevich says anyone who wants to tape his conversations should feel free to do it openly because doing it "sneakily" smells like Watergate, the scandal that brought down former President Richard Nixon.

"This is America, you know, and I'd appreciate if you want to tape my conversations, give me a heads-up and let me know," Blagojevich said.

It did smell like Watergate, if you imagine that Blagojevich is, in fact, playing the role of his political hero, Richard Nixon. The reason federal investigators didn't give Blagojevich a "heads-up" is for much the same reason that cops sometimes get no-knock warrants.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on Tuesday on charges he brazenly conspired to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder in what a federal prosecutor called a "corruption crime spree."

Blagojevich also was charged with illegally threatening to withhold state assistance to Tribune Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune, in the sale of Wrigley Field, according to a federal criminal complaint. In return for state assistance, Blagojevich allegedly wanted members of the paper's editorial board who had been critical of him fired.

"We were in the middle of a corruption crime spree and we wanted to stop it," Fitzgerald said Tuesday, calling the corruption charges against Blagojevich "a truly new low."

Federal investigators bugged the governor's campaign offices and placed a tap on his home phone and Chicago FBI chief Robert Grant said even seasoned investigators were "stunned" by what they heard on the tapes.

Stunned?

There's no excuse for being "stunned". I got over that five years ago when the brazen criminality of Rod Blagojevich became so painfully obvious simply from reading the paper. Since this blog started, I've written about four hundred posts on Blago's corruption and incompetence, pretty much shouting into the darkness, even while partisan Democrats still tried to assert that Blagojevich was merely a "victim" of the "right-wing smear machine".

You didn't need a degree in political science to put this one together, you just had to have a healthy skepticism of politicians from the most corrupt political machine in America, and a willingness to admit that they're visibly destroying the state. I called this exact scheme with Obama's Senate seat six months ago. Somehow, despite it all being right there in the papers, he managed to get reelected, and the public consensus that his corruption exceeds the typical background noise for Chicago Democrats has really only started to come together in the last year or so.

Fitzgerald took a dramatic step to stop Blagojevich today rather than continuing to gather evidence. My guess is he wanted to stop him before he could poison the Senate with his appointment. Longtime readers know that seeing Blagojevich go to prison has essentially been this blog's primary purpose, so let me put it in writing, to avoid any confusion: this arrest makes me very happy. The only reason it took me this long to post about it is because I've been working nights this week, and didn't find out until I woke up two hours ago to several voicemails, emails, and instant messages wondering why I haven't posted about this yet.

This is like Christmas morning.

Blagojevich considered appointing himself [to the United States Senate]. The affidavit said that as late as Nov. 3, he told his deputy governor that if "they're not going to offer me anything of value I might as well take it."

"I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain," Blagojevich allegedly said later that day, according to the affidavit, which also quoted him as saying in a remark punctuated by profanity that the seat was "a valuable thing - you just don't give it away for nothing."

The affidavit said Blagojevich also discussed getting a substantial salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions.

It said Blagojevich also talked about getting his wife placed on corporate boards where she might get $150,000 a year in director's fees.

He also allegedly discussed getting campaign funds for himself or possibly a post in the president's cabinet or an ambassadorship once he left the governor's office. He noted becoming a U.S. senator might remake his image for a possible presidential run in 2016, according to the affidavit. And he allegedly said a Senate seat would also provide him with corporate contacts if he needed a job and present an opportunity for his wife to work as a lobbyist.

"I want to make money," the affidavit quotes him as saying in one conversation.

The affidavit said Blagojevich expressed frustration at being "stuck" as governor and that he would have access to greater resources if he were indicted while in the U.S. Senate than while sitting as governor.

Not only was Rod Blagojevich, the most loathed Democrat in America, the only Democratic governor who managed to prove less popular than Kathleen Blanco in the middle of Hurricane Katrina, still trying to weasel his way into the Presidency of the United States, but he was hoping to have a more powerful office from which to weasel his way out of the criminal charges he so richly deserves. Ironically, the fact that he deserves them is why his hopes of running for President were dashed in the first place.

They've also arrested Blagojevich's chief of staff, John Harris, who apparently was involved in a separate conspiracy involving the Service Employees International Union and, in some undefined and apparently non-implicatory way, Barack Obama.

Under the plan, Blagojevich would appoint a new senator who would be helpful to the president-elect and in turn get a job as head of Change to Win, a group formed by the union. The union would get an unspecified favor from Obama later.

Nothing in the court papers suggested Obama had any part in the discussion. In fact, Blagojevich allegedly said in the same conversation that Obama most likely would not appoint him as secretary of health and human services or to an ambassadorship because of the negative publicity that has surrounded the governor for three years.

One day later, according to the affidavit, Blagojevich allegedly told an associate he knew Obama wanted a specific Senate candidate but "they're not going to give me anything except appreciation." He finished the remark with an expletive.

Illinoisans aren't even going to give him that.

Update: A reader emails:

Q: What did one Illinois prison inmate say to the other?

A: "The food was better when you were Governor."

Heh.

Update: The complaint.

What a relief that the Feds didn't let him finish his term before taking action. He didn't deserve to go out with his dignity intact. Today was a good day.

Update: Ironically, today is United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day. Tomorrow is Rod Blagojevich's birthday.

An instant message from my father: "It's Rod Blagojevich's birthday tomorrow, but he had his surprise party today."

He's Honored To Get What We All Want To See

He's kind of like Jesus, but not in a sacriligious way.

"All of those things happened because we had to push and prod and fight through the system to get it done for people, and if I get bloodied up in the process, and there are some times when people are just not generally approving, I feel honored to get my ass kicked for the people," Blagojevich said.

Well, in that case... Monday Night Rehabilitation!

Really, isn't that what he's implying here? That voters are just too stupid to understand how precious his genius is?

For the current election, Blagojevich has come out against a referendum calling for a new state constitutional convention.

Of course he has.

He said it might limit his power to get around the state General Assembly to get things done.

In fact, it's almost guaranteed to do exactly that. The more Blagojevich promotes that fact, the more likely it is to pass.

Incredibly, the Constitutional Convention referendum process is already being bungled by Blagojevich's co-incompetents:

An Illinois appellate court affirmed the trial court's remedy for the "downright misleading" and unconstitutional ballot: hand out a flyer to voters telling them to disregard the referendum "Explanation" and "Notice" that are printed right on the ballot.

The bottom line is that citizens will vote on a ballot that a court has ruled is unconstitutional.

Irony.

He's a Victim of the System

The video surveillance system.

The head of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library was fired Tuesday, just days after it came to light that he had twice been arrested for shoplifting.

Director Rick Beard was placed on administrative leave last week after The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reported his arrests for stealing DVDs and neckties, but he continued to receive his salary.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich formally fired him on Tuesday. Beard was notified by telephone, said Dave Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

Beard made nearly $250,000 a year as director of the museum and the foundation.

He was charged in August with trying to steal $40 worth of DVDs from a Springfield Target.

And he was charged with misdemeanor theft last year after being caught allegedly trying to steal $300 worth of neckties at a Springfield shopping mall.

The DVDs? Season 4 of "House".

This is how it starts, petty theft, tire slashing, vote fraud. Then, you get bold, and rob your own armored cars.

Soon, the transformation will be complete, and Beard will be eligible to run for high office in Illinois.

This Must Have Been Done by Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot

Illinois' "other" Democratic Senator, Dick Durbin, in a remarkable moment of clarity:

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin wishes he could blame Republicans for the mess and dysfunction paralyzing Illinois state government these days, but he knows he can't.

"This mess is our creation, Democratic creation, and there are no excuses for what has happened," Durbin, a Springfield resident and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said in an interview Thursday with The State Journal-Register editorial board.

Durbin said he's tried to work more closely with Blagojevich on key issues, but doesn't get his phone calls returned regularly. He said he doesn't know what it will take to fix the problems or whether he or anyone else in Washington could help cut through the morass.

Don't worry: once we elect a product of the Chicago Democratic machine, shining beacon of good governance that it is, to the Presidency, everything will be puppies and unicorns in no time.

He Loves You Even More Now That You Hate Him

Point:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich may be the least liked politician in America. A new poll shows only 10 percent want him re-elected in 2010. Add that to the 13 percent who approve of Blagojevich's job performance -- that's even worse than President Bush's 18 percent approval ratings. The Chicago Tribune poll surveyed 500 likely voters last week.

The governor has become such a polarizing figure that both Republicans and Democrats are using him in negative ads. State Sen. Debbie Halvorson, a Democratic candidate for Congress in the 11th district, is now using the contributions of businessman Marty Ozinga, her opponent, to Blagojevich as a reason to vote for her.

Counter-Point:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich today blamed his low approval rating on the faltering economy and said he thinks voters would give him a third term in office if he was running on the Nov. 4.

What did he blame it on after Hurricane Katrina, when he somehow managed to rank worse than Governor Blanco?

He said he was confident that if he was on the ballot today that he'd "win by 10 points or better."

That's technically correct. If he was on the ballot today, he'd be unopposed.

"I love the people of Illinois more today than I did before," Blagojevich said. "And if it's a case of unrequited love at this point, I'll just have to work extra hard to get them to love me again."

In some jurisdictions, that'd be enough to get a restraining order. However, it looks like the feds would prefer to skip straight to prison.

Let's just be safe and assume the money was stolen.

Often, recordkeeping anomalies are a sign of fraud.

In a lawsuit filed by a lawyer and two business-group representatives, Blagojevich lawyers admitted they had virtually no record of [the FamilyCare health insurance] program.

They said the administration can't identify participants or contact them, monitor premium payments or refund them, and don't even know how much they've collected in premium payments or where the money is. That, along with the Legislature's rejection of the program, raised ''severe concerns,'' Judge Fitzgerald Smith wrote in issuing the court's opinion.

The Democratic governor asked the Legislature last year to expand state-subsidized health care by raising income limits, adding 147,000 people at a cost of about $40 million. The Legislature refused, as did a legislative rules-making body and Secretary of State Jesse White.

But Blagojevich began enrolling newcomers. The administration continued even after Circuit Judge James Epstein issued his April injunction. It took another court order to get Blagojevich to stop.

Greg Baise, president of the Illinois Manufacturers Association and a plaintiff, called the lack of records ''appalling'' and said it's likely plaintiffs will ask the judge to appoint an outside monitor to ''unwind'' the program because Blagojevich can't be trusted.

Rod Blagojevich can't be trusted to pick up lunch.

Great Success

At last, the day I've been living for.

Could Illinois Governor Blagojevich suffer the same fate as convicted former Governor George Ryan?

Could he? Could he?

Sources tell CBS 2 News Chicago that Federal agents claim to have enough evidence to indict Blagojevich on fraud and conspiracy charges.

I hope they don't plan on letting him finish his term. He deserves to go out in flames, not like a decent public servant.

He Can Do This By Himself

For years, I've mocked Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for his "job creation" initiatives, all of which always seem to involve hiring people directly onto the state payroll for needless public programs, given his demonstrated inability to attract private capital.

Our jobs bill means creating more than 85,000 jobs through mass transit construction, more than 7,000 jobs through school construction, and more than 140,000 jobs through road construction...We can build roads all around our state: roads like Route 51 in Decatur, widen I-55 outside of Chicago, widen Route 13 from Marion to Carterville, improve Route 2 in Rockford, Route 5 in Moline, build the Technology Boulevard in Peoria, start work on the Mississippi River bridge, and realize the dream of making Route 336 a gateway from Chicago all the way to Kansas City....And when I say jobs, these are good jobs. Laborers laying asphalt for the expansion of Route 2. Ironworkers fabricating the support beams for the new Mississippi River Bridge. And do you know what these jobs pay? They can pay anywhere from $40,000 all the way to $120,000 a year.

That's what taxpayers want to hear, how well-paid all the new hires will be.

In a variation on the same theme, Blagojevich is now under fire for his seemingly arbitrary decision to move a government agency a hundred miles south.

"It's a decision I could make by myself as a governor and I've made a decision to move some IDOT operations out of Springfield, where it's been for more than 100 years, to bring that IDOT facility and the jobs that go along with it to Southern Illinois as a way to do a couple of things," Blagojevich said. "First and foremost, it will balance the representation of the IDOT throughout Southern Illinois and give Southern Illinois a presence. The better part of it is the opportunity to create 150 jobs in Southern Illinois that otherwise didn't exist."

"I respect their position, but as governor, my job is to provide opportunities across the state. Southern Illinois is a part of our state that for way too long has been (treated) sort of like a forgotten stepchild by state government," he said.

"You're always going to have critics and criticism and your motivations questioned. At the end of the day I know where my heart is and I know this is the right thing to do and I'll let all the critics be critics," Blagojevich said. "All I know is there will be 150 new jobs and I'm really excited about it."

There will not be 150 "new jobs", there will be 150 jobs moved from one place to the next as, by Blagojevich's own admission, an effort to "provide opportunities" under an administration that apparently can find no other means to do so.

Coincidentally, these "new" jobs are moving into my old state senate district, held by Gary Forby (D). Forby, prior to Blagojevich's announcement, was conveniently indisposed during the recall amendment vote.

Speculation that the relocation was politically motivated, perhaps in part as a sort of "payback" to Forby for not casting a vote on a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow for recall of public officials, is untrue, Blagojevich said.

Therefore, it is likely true.

Through the Looking Glass

Another disturbing series of links in the chain:

An ex-international fugitive helped spring Tony Rezko from jail earlier this month, putting up homes that comprise nearly one-third of the $8.5 million in property and cash securing Rezko's bail, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The three homes belonging to former Iraqi Electricity Minister Aiham Alsammarae -- a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen who broke out of a Baghdad jail in 2006 -- are part of a long list made public in Rezko's case Friday following a Sun-Times request. Six of the other individuals who pledged property to get Rezko out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center on April 18 are current or former state employees.

Prosecutors, however, strongly opposed Rezko's release from jail, saying he was a flight risk and that he wouldn't think twice about leaving his closest friends penniless.

Of those employees, no fewer than four were tied to "Central Management Services", the Orwellian bureaucracy created to figure out why Illinois has too much bureaucracy. A state audit later determined that the problem, at least in part, was that Central Management Services was contributing to state government's resemblance to a car with a hole in the gas tank, itself hiring contractors who would then bill the State of Illinois for, for example, the cost of parties to celebrate getting a lucrative state contract.

A few months ago, I first started reading about Alsammarae, and, frankly, had no idea what to make of it. The web of corruption surrounding the Chicago Democrats has become too complicated for me to keep track of, and that's practically "what I do". That's disturbing to me.

Update: Heh.

Ata marks the third person to say under oath that the governor offered to trade favors in return for raising money for his campaign.

We know, we know.

Job For Sale

A terrible specter looms over Illinois:

The decision won't have to be made for almost a year, if at all. But speculation already is rampant in Springfield about who Gov. Rod Blagojevich would appoint to fill Sen. Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat if Obama leaves it for the presidency (or vice-presidency) in January 2009.

Possibilities include U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Chicago, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, or state Sen. James Clayborne, D-Belleville, any of whom would maintain Illinois' position as home to the nation's only black senator.

Or he could turn to state Attorney General Lisa Madigan or state Comptroller Dan Hynes, on the premise that these are people Blagojevich wouldn't mind sending to another time zone.

Blagojevich could even appoint himself.

Most Illinoisans wouldn't mind seeing Blagojevich sent to another time zone, but only on a rail.

"I'm not sure my imagination is broad enough to encompass all the things that he might do," said Charles Wheeler, director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "...He's really not a very predictable fellow."

My prediction? The new Senator would be a close associate of a major Blagojevich campaign donor, and probably on the short list for a federal indictment.

When Rezko wanted something done, the Blagojevich administration leaped into action to make it happen, Levine marveled in a 2004 telephone conversation secretly recorded by federal agents.

"I have never been in a better position than I am right now," Levine bragged to a contractor he was shaking down for a $1 million kickback. "Part of the reason is because there's never been such tight control of the central apparatus. This guy is making decisions . . . and can get anything done that he wants done."

"Nobody could have done this but me," Levine boasted to a business partner on April 21, 2004, after fixing a vote of a state regulatory panel to approve a controversial Crystal Lake hospital project. The bribe from the contractor, which Levine said he planned to split with Rezko, was contingent on board approval of the planned Mercy Hospital.

The arbitrary exercise of absolute political power and a pull-based economy. It's as American as brie.

Changing the Guard

In the Chicago police department, things are getting shaken up.

New commanders have been assigned to almost every district in this city's long-troubled police force in an effort to diversify the ranks, bolster community relations and improve internal affairs, Police Superintendent Jody P. Weis announced Thursday.

Mark Donahue, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said Mr. Weis's one-day moves represented more change than he could remember any superintendent making in decades past.

"He has a mission," Mr. Donahue said.

It's probably about time.

He Lived By The Sword

When Oliver Willis says it's time for a liberal Democrat to resign, their career must really be over. That, or Willis has suffered major frontal lobe damage. Daily Kos diarist "Swan", however, has a big glass of Kool-Aid ready to go.

The Wall Street Journal reflects.

One might call it Shakespearian if there were a shred of nobleness in the story of Eliot Spitzer's fall. There is none. Governor Spitzer, who made his career by specializing in not just the prosecution, but the ruin, of other men, is himself almost certainly ruined...The stupendously deluded belief that the sitting Governor of New York could purchase the services of prostitutes was merely the last act of a man unable to admit either the existence of, or need for, limits.

He routinely used the extraordinary threat of indicting entire firms, a financial death sentence, to force the dismissal of executives, such as AIG's Maurice "Hank" Greenberg. He routinely leaked to the press emails obtained with subpoena power to build public animosity against companies and executives. In the case of Mr. Greenberg, he went on national television to accuse the AIG founder of "illegal" behavior. Within the confines of the law itself, though, he never indicted Mr. Greenberg. Nor did he apologize.

In perhaps the incident most suggestive of Mr. Spitzer's lack of self-restraint, the then-Attorney General personally threatened John Whitehead after the former Goldman Sachs chief published an article on this page defending Mr. Greenberg. "I will be coming after you," Mr. Spitzer said, according to Mr. Whitehead's account. "You will pay the price. This is only the beginning, and you will pay dearly for what you have done."

Jack Welch, the former head of GE, said he was told to tell Ken Langone -- embroiled in Mr. Spitzer's investigation of former NYSE chairman Dick Grasso -- that the AG would "put a spike through Langone's heart." New York Congresswoman Sue Kelly, who clashed with Mr. Spitzer in 2003, had her office put out a statement that "the attorney general acted like a thug."

Spitzer, as Newsweek put it, ended up getting Spitzered.

Update: An interesting take from The Globe & Mail: "Spitzer scandal adds to Wall Street woes".

Frankly, Wall Street seems deeply amused. Then there's this:

A poll of New Yorkers conducted Monday afternoon found that six of every 10 respondents believed Gov. Eliot Spitzer should resign from office.

I expect that number will settle out to a clearer concensus as the facts start to replace the word-of-mouth, but with the major papers essentially publishing political obituaries, I won't be surprised in the least if he resigns today.

Update: Apparently, Spitzer racked up a bill with the Emperors' Club VIP somewhere in the vicinity of $75,000. Spitzer has now been given 48 hours to resign by state Republicans, or else he'll face impeachment. The New York Daily News, the New York Post, and Newsday have all called for his resignation.

The New York Daily News, New York Post and Newsday all demanded he quit. "Hit the road, John…and make it quick!" said the Daily News, while the Post called him "NY's naked emperor".

The Wall Street Journal's editorial position seems quite clear from above.

Spitzer may regret holding off on his resignation. Had he resigned yesterday or even today, he might've been able to salvage his image by doing the right thing. Now, when he does, the historical narrative will doubtlessly remember him as being forced to resign against his wishes.

Love Potion No. 9

Few, even George W. Bush and Rod Blagojevich, have demonstrated the razor-sharp aptitude for squandering political capital that has characterized the leadership of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Building a name for himself by bullying New York businesses against whom he couldn't build legitimate cases and coming to power on a tidal wave of feel-good campaign ads promising New York's return to an undefined but optimistic prior glory (you might even call it an Obama-like campaign of "hope and change"), Spitzer wasted no time making enemies of his colleagues by bullying the legislature and using the state police to spy on political rivals. In a single blow, he alienated 70% of New Yorkers by insisting on backing a scheme to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses, an idea so repulsive that even many county clerks vowed to defy him, so assinine that the mere residue of it almost singlehandedly destroyed the Clinton campaign.

Now, a little over a year into his term of office, we find that Spitzer has been caught with, er, well, his hand in a cookie jar.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who gained national prominence relentlessly pursuing Wall Street wrongdoing, has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a law enforcement official and a person briefed on the investigation.

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong," said Mr. Spitzer, who appeared with his wife Silda at his Manhattan office. "I apologize first and most importantly to my family. I apologize to the public to whom I promised better."

As he went to leave, three reporters called out, "Are you resigning? Are you resigning?", and Mr. Spitzer charged out of the room, slamming the door.

The man described as Client 9 in the affidavit arranged to meet with a prostitute who was part of the ring, Emperors Club VIP, on the night of Feb. 13. Mr. Spitzer traveled to Washington that evening, according to a person told of his travel arrangements.

Spitzer was well-known to the girls of Emperors' Club VIP as "George Fox", and "several" of them apparently knew his real identity. Something tells me he wasn't so sorry at the time. Still, if it hadn't been for the prior nonsense, the odds are he'd have the support needed to survive this. Instead, he's burned the overwhelming majority of his bridges. In fact, CNBC reported that there was cheering on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the announcement of the scandal.

Ironically, State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, the man Spitzer's office was trying to smear, stands to become acting Lieutenant Governor if Spitzer resigns. Wonkette offers her own unique take on this scandal, with Eliot Spitzer's Whores: A Pictorial Tour of the Emperor's Club Ladies. The real site of Emperors' Club VIP is gone, which probably has something to do with the arrest of the people running it.

Legislators react:

"He has to step down. No one will stand with him," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island. "I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving."

Democratic Assemblyman John McEneny said: "I don't think anyone remembers anything like this - the fact that the governor has a reputation as a reformer and there is a certain assumption as attorney general that you're Caesar's wife. It's a different element than if you were an accountant."

Yes.

Update: A hollow defense of Spitzer from Alan Dershowitz.

You know, big deal, married man goes to prostitute! In Europe, this wouldn't even make the back pages of the newspaper...[A] customer can't be held responsible for whether or not the ring pays their taxes or launders money. I mean, let's not take him beyond what his level of accountability is.

Yeah! How was Spitzer supposed to know that he was dealing with crooked hookers?

Dershowitz, who also went on to blame it on "men" in general, was seemingly oblivious that paying for sex is illegal both in DC and in New York, a state where Spitzer himself used to prosecute prostitution rings. When this was brought to his attention, Dershowitz wrote it off as "part of the cycle of hypocrisy we live in".

Who's this "we", white liberal? Sounds like part of the cycle of hypocrisy Spitzer lives in, making loud public showings of his righteous prosecutions of prostitution rings, then purchasing their wares behind the back of his wife and three daughters.

Spitzer didn't just hire a prostitute, he went to some trouble to bring one to Washington from New York City, literally making a federal case out of it on the night before Valentine's Day. It's only logical that Spitzer should now be shunned and ostracized by the people he was once posturing to impress on this very same issue.

Wheels Within Wheels

It's another layer:

Gov. Blagojevich's administration went on the attack Friday over questions about his pre-election decision to sanitize the past of a political candidate who twice ran against House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie.

Backed by U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) and other lawmakers and activists, Deputy Gov. Louanner Peters said the Chicago Sun-Times and House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) wrongly suggested politics played a role in Blagojevich's 2005 pardon of Sharon Latiker.

Latiker, who was convicted in 1992 of stealing $17,000 from the city treasurer's office, left a well-paying Blagojevich administration job after getting her pardon and took on Currie, a loyalist of the governor's chief legislative nemesis, Madigan.

"No, Mr. Speaker. No, Sun-Times. This is not political. It's about life. It's about redemption," Peters said.

Praise the Lord!

"I can only assume that the deputy governor must have bumped her head in the last few days," Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said.

This scandal came about due to the new scrutiny being given to Blagojevich's pardons in the wake of the incident with the Loop Lab School. The man's been corrupt since birth.

Why not just strip him of the office?

The Illinois legislature seeks to cripple their tyrant.

A bill that would strip Gov. Rod Blagojevich of control over the Illinois State Board of Education sailed through a state House committee Tuesday, sending it before the full House.

But even if the bill makes it through the House, it will face a tougher road in the Senate, where Blagojevich ally Emil Jones (D-Chicago) holds the gavel. Jones said Tuesday that he is satisfied with the board as it is.

Naturally.

Mr. Popular's name is coming up all over the place, including courtrooms. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Blagojevich's name was on the table within the first ten minutes of Tony Rezko's trial, and among the witnesses was Blagojevich's former campaign finance director, Kelly Glynn.

Kelly Glynn, who is not accused of any wrongdoing in the case, served as finance director for Rod Blagojevich's 2002 Illinois gubernatorial campaign, a job she does not list on an online resume [on LinkedIn].

There is a hole in her experience between 2002, when she reported she stopped working as a deputy chief of staff for Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and 2005, when she reports taking her current position as finance director for the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee].

That's a part of my life I'd try to forget, too. This is the only man who holds the power to so disgust the legislature and citizenry that a constitutional amendment is being written just for him.

At the urging of Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, an Illinois House committee Wednesday voted unanimously in favor of asking voters if they want to allow California-style recalls of elected officials.

State Rep. Jack Franks, D-Woodstock, said he proposed the constitutional amendment because of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's performance, and that he expects overwhelming support for the bill in the House.

"Illinois voters deserve a way to remove an incompetent elected official who has not committed a crime," Franks said.

I think the word he was looking for is "convicted". To assert that Blagojevich hasn't committed a crime is, shall we say, a stretch.

Of course, as Eric Zorn so correctly noted last November, Illinois voters do have a way to remove incompetent elected officials - by voting for someone else.

You had your chance. Blagojevich has been a banquet-sized turkey as a chief executive -- our editorial cited "his reckless financial stewardship, his dictatorial antics (and) his penchant for creating political enemies" as well as the smog of scandal that's hovered over his administration -- but no one can argue that he was a stealth turkey.

Blagojevich ran for re-election in a primary and general election last year as a notorious self-basting holiday bird whose record for grandstanding, stubbornness and cronyism in his first term was widely reported.

You may be disappointed by the pettiness, paralysis, polarization and general gobble-gobble-gobble in Springfield, but, unless you weren't paying attention last year, you can't be surprised. And you can't, in good conscience, ask for a re-do just because Blagojevich is running true to form.

Even if he weren't, you, the voters, have given us no reason to think you'd make a better decision choosing his replacement.

One day, we'll look back and on this and laugh, right?

Six Degrees of Tony Rezko

Another story of Blagojevian incompetence becomes a story of unbridled corruption.

CBS 2 toured the school's new facility, a commercial condo in the Loop the owners bought with the $1 million grant they never should have gotten.

CBS 2's background check on Loop Lab turned up some interesting facts, beginning with the grant. Mays, who signed the papers, checked that school was "not delinquent in its payment of moneys owned to any federal, state or local unit of government".

The grant was dated November 27, 2006. Three days later, on November 30, 2006, the IRS charged the school with failing to pay $29,000 in back taxes.

The school also has nine civil cases against it totally more than $67,000. On top of that, in 2004, a teacher at the school was accused of sexual harassment, and a year before, in 2003, the director, Dr. Chandra Gill, had a felony record for hitting a police officer.

Coincidently, in January 2007, shortly after the school had been approved for the $1 million grant, Gill was pardoned by the governor.

The school lost the harassment case, and questions about that pardon apparently caused Blagojevich to walk away.

Blagojevich again defended the "mistake" that sent the money to the school, which used the grant to buy a condo space in the Loop in May but has not yet reopened. But the governor left the unrelated news conference when he was asked about the Tribune's disclosure Wednesday about the pardon for Gill.

William Quinlan, general counsel to the governor, stepped forward to tell reporters that the January 2007 pardon for Gill "had absolutely nothing to do" with the Loop Lab School. He said Blagojevich pardoned Gill based on a unanimous recommendation from the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.

"I can say, officially, that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Loop Lab School," Quinlan said. "The first we found out about it was just recently."

But in her August 2006 petition for clemency, Gill said she was a volunteer at the school but could not assume a full-time administrative position held open for her at the school unless her felony record was expunged.

Oops.

Incredibly, Tony Rezko is all over this.

The head of the state grant-giving agency previously worked for Rezko, and the owner of the building where the school is moving was a Rezko business associate.

That man, as was established yesterday, was also convicted of fraud.