Democat's New Years Eve Video

More Time Please

Looks like that evidence isn't spilling in so fast on Blagojevich. Fitzgerald's looking for more time. Funny that Fitzgerald didn't realize that the grand jury wouldn't work over the holidays when he made the well timed arrest. That's something I would have expected him to know. I'm also wondering why he wasn't so diligent in collecting evidence on Rove and Cheney in the Plame matter. Oh, yeah, it turned out Cheney actually admitted his role to the FBI. Maybe it would have been too easy a case for the great Patrick Fitzgerald what with a confession and all. Look, I'm not mad at Fitzgerald over Blagojevich. If he did do something illegal, he should suffer the consequences. I would suggest however that Fitzgerald stop approaching this case as if he's running a political campaign and more like the skilled prosecutor I know he is. However, I am mad at Fitzgerald over Rove and Cheney and mad how he works his reputation for being apolitical when he so clearly is not.

My Favorite 2008 Moments

Here are my favorite 2008 moments:

First and foremost has to be hearing Keith Olbermann announce Barack Obama as the projected next president of the United States. Keith's voice cracked a little after his first sentence. They tend to cut that part out when they reshow it on MSNBC, but that was the part I loved.

I got to talk to Madeline Albright as she signed books at Borders in Chicago before I saw her speak at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. I don't think she was too thrilled that I was an Obama supporter, but it was interesting to talk to her and hear her speak later that night.

Tina Fey's impressions of Sarah Palin. My absolute favorite moment was when Fey took out a flute and asked Queen Latifah playing journalist Gwen Ifill moderating the VP debate, "are we not doing the talent portion?" My mom's favorite line was when Fey as Palin asked Amy Pohler as Katie Couric if she could phone a friend.

When the Kirk supporters visibly quaked as Obama and Seals supporters stepped off at the Deerfield July 4th parade with the cry "Fired up. Ready to go."

The Princess Nudelman scandal. So, did the dead fish actually try to vote? I was in Palatine Township all day on election day and never heard.

I made Huffington Post.

My dad went on the record for my blog. He responded to John McCain's inability to remember the number of houses he owned. Dad said, "I know how many houses I have, one, but even if I had 20 houses, I'd know how many I had." I feel lucky every day that I come from a family whose members care about the people of this world and don't fall for republican lies, racism and classism. I have 5 young cousins and every day we all try to work so we can create a better world for them then we've created so far.

Happy New Year, President Obama. Happy New Year America.

Dr. Brezezinski Explains Why Mark Kirk's Middle East Policy Has Failed Israel

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Dr. Brezezinski put Joe Scarborough in his place, but not before he explained why the sort of support Mark Kirk his given to Israel is not all that helpful. Mark Kirk's support for Israel has been support for arming them and keeping quiet while the rest of the Bush administration armed all their neighbors and does nothing to try to bring the opponents together. Kirk goes around the district taking credit for this missle or that, but what he and his compadres in the Bush administration have created is an endless cycle of killing, cease fire, ghettoization, anger, cease fire violations, killing and so on. They never have a plan for the end game or a plan to deal with the economic and humanitarian disaster in Gaza to try to break the cycle. They add nothing more than internationally divisive rhetoric. There is no end game here, no exit strategy. I don't think Mark Kirk looks for an exit strategy because he doesn't want an exit. The cycle works so well for him at the polls. He doesn't care much about how well it's working for average Israelis.

Brezezinski caught Scarborough in his "stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you (Joe)" when Joe recited the adage that Israel has to attack because no one comes to their defense. Brezezinski is arguing that that adage ignores the lack of proportion of the attacks to the cease fire violations and that none of it answers the lack of work on the part of the US to push both parties to break the cycle and provide more than hopelessness and hatred in Gaza.

I don't necessarily think Mark Kirk has a stunningly superficial knowledge of the history of the conflict. I don't think he really cares one way or the other. He just relies on our stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on, and what is still going on, to keep us lapping up his stories of Israel being gone while we are brushing our teeth and keeping the fear, arms, campaign dollars and votes for him flowing.

The Guy's Got Guts

You have to say one thing for Blagojevich, the guy's got guts. Looks like he decided to appoint a senator after all and he chose someone hard for Democrats to reject, former Illinois Atty. Gen. Roland Burris. Burris is just old enough, just out of politics long enough, just patrician enough, just squeaky clean enough, just compromise enough (once called a "C" note candidate) to be probably one of the best choices around. republicans will be all over it just because he's not a republican and they're such reformers (yeah, right). Now, Illinois republicans have an interesting problem because they are still digging themselves out of their party's recent racist fit over that "Barack the Magic Negro" video. The worst of that is that many of them cannot disavow it or they will lose their base and the even worse of that is that many of them won't disavow it because it reflects their own point of view.

I think the Burns plan outlined on PI a few days ago should take effect re Burris and let's see what happens. I have a feeling Harry Reid is going to look like a jerk if he refuses to seat Burris. Let's see what Dick Durbin has to say about it. Dick?

One important note about Roland Burris. He never lied to start a war and get over 4000 Americans killed and over 30,000 wounded. No, that was Mark Kirk, the guy who thinks he should be our next senator. It's still strange to me that there's little outrage in Illinois over Kirk's central role in the Iraq war lies. Then, there's Kirk's arm everybody Middle East strategy the results of which are playing out now as we speak to the benefit of no one. I can only imagine Kirk's been salivating over death in Israel and Gaza. If the Illinois senate seat does go to a special election, you'll see what I mean. That's not to mention Kirk's support of torture and his support of the CIA destroying the evidence and of course Kirk's role in the deregulation that destroyed our economy and brought us tainted food from China. If you want to talk about accountability, I think you need to start with Mark Kirk and get to Blagojevich and Burris some time after Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Don't talk to me or Illinois Democrats about accountability until you address the worst culprits in our government.

One thought swirling in my mind: have the Democrats just found their very own Karl Rove in Rod Blagojevich? Maybe not, but I still see the dark comedy in this one. Look, it's not like this is some epic battle between good and evil. It's the "so corrupt they'd rob you blind for power" vs. the "so corrupt they'd kill you for power." It just illustrates that we need to run people for office who want to serve. Interestingly, Blagojevich might have found the one guy left who stands for that. Bottom line is that we need public financing of campaigns and fast or the choice will remain between the corrupt crooks and the corrupt murders.

What's the difference between selling a senate seat and buying one? At Least Blagojevich Was Up Front About His Motives.

UPDATED

The ad depicted below and on the right has been running on liberal blogs and websites that subscribe to Advertise Liberally. "Let the People Vote" it proudly proclaims in an attempt to appeal to reform minded liberals and progressives. Well, as with most things, you really need to read the fine print.

The fine print is thankfully required by law, but I think it should be bigger. It reads:

"Paid for by the Republican National Committee"

Clicking on the ad takes you to a site called GOP.com where readers are urged to contact Mike Madigan and demand accountability and a special election to elect a republican of course. The site makes no mention of accountability for the Iraq war, political hirings and firings at DOJ, the treasonous outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, not to mention the economic depression republicans seeking that senate seat caused with failed trickle down economics.

I think the ads should be required to say that the republican National Committee wants a special election to help them make up for the senate seats it lost in November because the American people were fed up with republicans in Congress who worked with the Bush administration to bring destruction to this country. Speaking of republicans in congress who worked with Bush and the neo-cons, Mark Kirk is most likely behind this ad. It smacks of his style, hiding his party affiliation in the very small fine print of campaign ads, and even insincerely coming out at the end of the election cycle as a republican for Obama (but of course only in certain neighborhoods). Kirk knows his only chance at an Illinois senate seat is to lie about being a reformer in the midst of scandal. It's the reform part he'll never really get to and we know this because he never has in the past.

Just before the last election, Kirk was so very worried about Illinois' budget, but he doesn't care about the huge cost of special elections now. He doesn't care that Illinois can barely afford to pay special ed therapists, teachers, health care workers, and snow and ice removal workers. He's a big fiscal conservative when it comes to your unemployment, your health care, health care for poor children, food stamps which he called unnecessary pork without even trying the food stamp diet himself, and your wife's, mom's and sister's unequal pay, but dangle a Senate seat in front of him, and suddenly, as far as he's concerned, the State of Illinois is flush with money. Even republican Lake County Clerk Willard Helander is not with him on this one. She's concerned that the special election, really a special primary and then a special general, for the benefit of really only Mark Kirk will cost Lake County alone around $1 million.

Frankly, I really don't see much of a difference between Blagojevich's alleged selling of a senate seat and Kirk's thinly veiled attempt to buy one with our tax dollars. I guess if Democrats want to be played by republicans again as they were from about 1996 until November 2006, and arguably November 2008, they can fall for this fake call for reform, but I'd rather they stuck to the facts as they are eventually proven. The juries, both grande and petit, are still out on Blagojevich. When you think about all of this with a jaundiced eye, the only things that have been proven here are that, for all the big reform promised out of expectant Senator Kirk, he's willing to lie about WMD in Iraq and his personal knowledge of the same to start a war, lie about union wages and benefits to prevent an auto bailout, lie that he prevented CEO pay out of taxpayer dollars to get a Wall Street bailout, and lie about China drilling off Cuba to promote offshore oil drilling. I don't see much reform here.

Where's the Beef on Blago? What did they do with the Beef on Cheney? De-Deifying Pat Fitzgerald.

It's getting about time Pat Fitzgerald gives up the goods on Blagojevich, either by indictment or at a preliminary hearing, and that's not simply my preference, but part of the federal rules of criminal procedure. His 20 days are about up. If Fitzgerald goes the hearing route, it means he's not come up with much more, but he's likely to win because the standard of proof is only "probable cause" and not the criminal standard for a trial. Of course, to get that conviction, he'll have to come up with the evidence for beyond a reasonable doubt.

Fitzgerald told us he couldn't prosecute Rove and Cheney in the Plame matter because he couldn't come up with the evidence. Apparently, he didn't even think he had enough to use the same tactic he used on Blagojevich with the criminal complaint. Now, however, it appears that Fitzgerald might have had much more on Cheney than he let on. It's coming out that Dick Cheney actually confessed to a part in the Plame outing. It's in an FBI report. See here and here and here. It's one of those stories the mainstream media doesn't seem to like, so all those crying out for Blagojevich's head don't even know about it.

I always wanted to believe the best of Fitzgerald, not deifying him as some do, but hoping he was a good prosecutor. I always really liked the attorneys in his office and felt he was trying to do a good job. Now, I can only think that no matter what Blagojevich did or didn't do, much of this is political. It seems to me Fitzgerald swooped down without the goods, without the beef. Blagojevich's arrest was timed perfectly for Fitzgerald and his republican party. This all happened at a time when there were murmers that an Obama administration might not keep Fitzgerald in office. Now, Fitzgerald gets to keep his job no matter what because any ouster would be deemed political and maybe even cover up criminial on Obama's part. It was also timed perfectly to give republicans a chance of picking up a senate seat at a very large cost to taxpayers for a special election. Funny, Mark Kirk doesn't seem to be concerned about the cost of a special election even though he claimed to be so fiscally conservative and so very concerned about Illinois solvency this past November.

My take on Blagojevich is that he's not too bright, but not much of a criminal, and not doing much more than his predecessors ever did. Think about it. Despite what the mainstream media would have you think, do you really think in your heart of hearts Blagojevich is the first one to try to extract consideration for an appointment? Of course not.

Blagojevich's problem is that he was elected on a reformist ticket with a state in the mood for reform. Instead of sticking to that he got himself involved in a turf war with Madigan and pulled out all the old tricks. Longtime Illinois political observer Dick Kay has described this situation as just another part of the unending turf war between the southwest side Irish Democrats and northwest side Eastern Europeans Democrats that has been going on for decades. That seems to be a spot on description. I still want Blagojevich to resign because he's no reformer as he promised, but I don't want to see him replaced with more of the same from either party.

I believe that Fitzgerald should do what he can to clean up the Blagojevich situation within the law, but he also needs to stop being so political about it and stop protecting Cheney and Rove. Compared to what Blagojevich might have done, these guys are the real criminals and exacted a far greater cost to this country.

The Obama administration needs to make sure Cheney and Rove are prosecuted with as much vigor as Fitzgerald has used to go after a Democrat. It doesn't seem to me that Fitzgerald is the person for the job either.

A Yawn and a Good Cry--Two Movies, Two Fauns

Christmas is often a time for movies, so I'm reviewing two together. Neither is new, but they were new to me. I'm reviewing them together because they both, on the surface, come from the same genre, childhood fantasy, and are about the same era in history.

Last night I watched ABC's presentation of the 2005 movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It's the movie version of the famous C.S. Lewis book. I have not read the book. I'm going to spot Narnia with an extra cat treat because I suspect the network version cut out a lot for commercials. In fact, they either cut out a lot or the movie simply makes no sense.

Basically, Narnia is about 4 siblings, two boys and two girls, in decending order of age Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. The children live with their mother in World War II London. After Edmund almost gets killed retrieving his soldier father's picture near a window of their flat during a bombing raid, their mother sends them off to the country to live with an old professor. There is no explanation of the relationship between the family and the professor. The children think he's going to be mean, but he really isn't, just odd and it ultimately never matters because he is barely in the movie. His housekeeper is crabby with no explanation of what her problem is, and the kids try to avoid her.

The kids are bored, and one day little Lucy convinces them to play a game of hide and go seek with her. Lucy hides in an old wardrobe and finds there is no back. As she moves further into the wardrobe, she ends up outside in a forest in winter. She gets adventurous and keeps going down a road where she encounters a light pole and a faun who we learn is Mr. Thomas. At first they are both afraid of each other. Lucy gets up her courage first introducing herself to him. He calms down and asks her to tea at his house. They go and seem to have a nice tea, and then all of the sudden he explains to her that he's going to have to kidnap her because some evil queen does not want human children around, describing human children as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve (ok, we can see where this is going).

Lucy escapes and gets back to the wardrobe and then the house where her skeptical siblings had not experienced the same passage of time Lucy did and are still looking for her as part of the game. Another day Edmund follows Lucy to Narnia, and lies to the older two about Narnia's existence, or lack thereof, presumably because he wants their acceptance. While in Narnia, Edmund runs into a woman claiming to be the queen of Narnia. She feeds him treats, and tells him if he comes back to her castle, she will make him a king. Edmund finds Lucy and they both return to the wardrobe and circa 1940s England.

Eventually, all the children all find out about Narnia when hiding in the wardrobe to escape the consequences of a broken window from a game of cricket. Then, we find out that there is real trouble in Narnia. It's been winter for 100 years because an evil witch queen decreed same. We also learn that the witch will not allow Christmas, but no one in Narnia seems particularly religious or even seems to care much. The faun, Mr. Thomas, got in big trouble for letting Lucy go. Edmund is still curious about the queen and the older two don't really want to hang around, but are convinced by two cute little beavers claiming there is a prophesy that four human children will save Narnia from the evil witch. Then, Edmund gets himself in trouble again not listening to Peter and they are stuck there because they have to extricate Edmund from his problem.

This is where Narnia broke down for me. The queen/witch is evil, but there is no explanation or apparent reason why. The place is principally occupied by talking animals and there is no explanation why it needs to be ruled by humans or why or how the witch took power when there's a perfectly good lion king hanging around. Then, it gets worse. Santa Clause shows up with weapons for the children, but no explanation or wisdom for them and doesn't stick around to fight himself. The 100 years of winter (which was always more beautiful than sinister) breaks into spring, but long before the evil witch queen is defeated with no explanation.

Eventually, after a terrible scene where the lion is humiliated and worse by the queen/witch, there is a epic battle that is a sort of a toned down Lord of the Rings spoof with all sorts of odd creatures fighting with weapons that look out of the middle ages. The centaur's were kind of cool looking, and there is one apparently higher ranking centaur who seems to be in charge, but then for some unexplained reason Peter gets to be the leader with no experience or credentials or special skills. I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that, of course, the kids win, but there is no life lesson or moral that I was able to pull out of the whole thing. They win so they can get titles, wear crowns and ride around on horses for sport. Then, there's the end which I won't give away, but will describe it as nothing more than an opening for the sequel.

Another WWII movie about a childhood fantasy is Pan's Labyrinth. I recently saw it in its entirety on Netflix which is why the network version of Narnia got spotted a cat treat. Pan's Labyrinth is in Spanish with subtitles. It's the story of a little girl, Ofelia living just after the Spanish Civil War when groups of communists, anarchists, farmers and defeated Spanish Republicans still fought their lost cause around the Spanish countryside against Franco's army. You have to remember your history here. Franco led the rebels, but was connected to Spain's wealthy and corporate elite, Hitler and Mussolini. The Republican army led the people fighting Franco with the backing of Mexico and the Soviet Union. Franco won and ruled a fascist Spain for decades.

Pan's Labyrinth is set around the time of WWII, probably a little later than Narnia as there are references to the end of WWII, and a hope that the allied forces would hit Franco after defeating Hitler in France. They didn't.

Ofelia, we learn is the daughter of a tailor who was killed during the war. Her mother remarried to save them from the cruel world (at least per the mom). Sadly, the mom didn't do a real good job choosing the groom. He's a brutal captain in Franco's army bent on destroying a band of leftover opponents running around the countryside looking for food and antibiotics. Ofelia's mom is pregnant by the captain, and very ill with the pregnancy. They come to live with him in his country house, so he can take care of the sick mom while continuing to murder and torture his opponents. The captain's housekeeper, Mercedes, is the sister of one of the anti-Franco fighters and she, along with the doctor, is sending them food and medicine. Mercedes suffers from self-loathing believing she is a coward for serving the captain and not joining the group of anti-rebels.

Ofelia comes with a set of books and we learn that she loves fairy tales. On the way to the country house, she encounters what initially looks like a praying mantis, but is a fairy. The fairy leads her to a faun. Two movies, two fauns. The one is Pan's Labyrinth looks more commanding, but we don't know if he's good or bad. He's in charge of something, but we don't know what that is. The faun tells Ofelia that she is really the daughter of the King of the Underworld, but that the magic has gone out of her and she has to perform three tasks to prove she still has the touch and become immortal. Ofelia gets herself in trouble with her mom ruining a new dress while performing the first task in an old dead fig tree full of bugs and mud. Mom's getting sicker and becomes bedridden. Ofelia's next task is more complex and she fails because she does not follow the directions. Two fairies die because of Ofelia's misdeed, so the faun dismisses her as a human. Mom gets sicker, but the faun gives Ofelia a home remedy and after she makes the potion, mom gets a bit better.

Things get more desperate for the anti-Franco forces and for Ofelia's mom. The captain grows stronger as he figures out what is going on with the fighters and in his own home. There is the beginning of a torture scene that is sadly poignant for today's American audience with Dick Cheney going around bragging about his approval of torture. We also see the aftermath with the suffering of the torture victim. Eventually, the baby is born and the worst happens for everyone. In an attempt to rescue the situation, the faun gives Ofelia her third and last task despite the earlier failure. Then, things get even worse, or do they? I don't want to give away the ending, but will say that Mercedes comes through in a big way proving she is no coward.

What is so good about Pan's Labyrinth, that fails in Narnia, is the connection between the real story and the fantasy. All the loose ends of both stories tie up in Pan's Labyrinth while we are given no connection between the epic battle for Narnia and WWII.

Pan's Labyrinth takes some attention because it's in Spanish (unless you are fluent in Spanish), but it's worth the work, and the good cry you'll get in the end because the story, while terrible, is beautifully told. It connects the brutality of war and brutality of fairy tales while showing the good in both worlds including the importance of leadership and self-sacrifice. Narnia, as edited by ABC, was a big pointless yawn where four kids end up being leaders after having learned nothing and lead with no special interest in their new kingdom or its inhabitants. Maybe it's a good movie for kids if you don't mind them thinking Santa hands out weapons. It's sort of war on Christmas-y with the same lack of evidence and logic as a Bill O'Reilly editorial.

For Disney level cuteness of kids, cute talking animals, and with it's free cat treat to level the playing field, Narnia gets two cat treats, only one earned because the movie is pointless and villianizes women for no good reason. Pan's Labyrinth gets 4 cat treats for story tie-in, ultimate meaning, the writer director Guillermo del Toro's love of both history and fairy tales that shows through in every scene, and its handling of the difficult subjects of war and related brutality. I do not recommend Pan's Labyrinth for small children, but I do recommend it for you and perhaps teenagers.

If it doesn't stop snowing, we're going to need flying reindeer

Chuck Berry's Run Rudolph Run

Hey, didn't Mark Kirk promise he was going to make the sun shine?

Cause of Death, Lack of Due Diligence

One of the big problems for many fund managers around the world is that, despite claims they take specific actions to ensure the safety of investments they put their clients in, some of them, lots of them in fact, put their clients money in Madoff funds without performing the least amount of due diligence. Everyone was doing it. Madoff was considered golden. Now, one of these fund managers is dead, a suicide. Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet has taken his own life in his Manhattan office. He didn't leave a note, but I guess he felt bad about his customers' losses and perhaps his own.

Earlier this week, we learned that Fairfield Greenwich Group is in the same spot. They've been sued by investors for over $7.5 billion. Fairfield took more than $500 million in fees since 2003 on Madoff investments and for the fees promised investors due diligence. They specifically promised investors that money would not be moved from Fairfield accounts to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities without two signatures and that they would independently calculate the value of the funds it invested at Mr. Madoff’s firm at least once a week. While fund manager, Walter Noel, is reportedly alive and kicking, his firm is effectively dead. I hope he decides to tough it out. Forgiveness for big Wall Street types and mortgage fraudsters is all around, I'm sure there's enough for him. Forgiveness only runs out for the union auto worker who, according to Mark Kirk, makes millions and only works one or two day each year. If you believe that, you've failed to do your due diligence.

Lack of due diligence is also a large part of the general mortgage disaster. Loan officers either didn't do their due diligence or did it, found it indicated no deal, and ignored it. Securitizers ignored warning signs on the value of the loan packages. I think the largest growth area for 2009 will be in law firm due diligence, reviewing financials and documents. How could it not?

It's my mom's birthday

Today is mom's birthday. She's decided to go backwards like that Brad Pitt movie and the old Father Guido Sarducci skit.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Scandal at OTS

I've touched on this story before wondering where the OTS was while all this shenanigans was going on at our nation's banking and lending institutions. Well, now we know they weren't just sitting back and doing nothing worried about "excessive intervention", they in fact did intervene, but not in the way one would hope. They helped.

Darrel Dochow, regional director of OTS' western region has now been suspended for helping. I think they call it cooking the books. Basically, under Dochow's approval Indymac backdated capital infusions allowing it to show a better financial situation on its books that allowed it to avoid regulations that would have kicked in had the real financial situation been reported. Those regulations would have cut back on some of that subprime and liar loan lending toward the end. Dochow also "supervised" Wamu and Countrywide, two other notoriously failed institutions.

Apparently, Indymac was trying to hide the numbers with creative accounting, but Ernst & Young (to their credit) said no. Indymac was faced with being downgraded from "well capitalized" status to "adequately capitalized" status and that would have limited its ability to use brokers. To solve the problem, Indymac executives chose to put more money into the company, but their timing was off, so they just lied about it and Dochow formally approved of their strategy. I think they call it knowingly making false statements in the financial records of a public company and I think this puts you into problems under SEC laws and Sarbanes-Oxley. You'll remember Mark Kirk wanted to kill Sarbanes-Oxley.

OIG says this isn't an isolated case.

Rick Warren

I know there are a lot of people, gay and straight, who are very mad about Obama's choice of anti-gay activist and claimed minister Rick Warren for the invocation at the inaguration. He wouldn't have been my choice because if one is re trying to create an atmosphere of inclusion, I don't think he or she does that by choosing people who do nothing but exclude. However, maybe there is a method to the madness of including Rick Warren in the inaguration. It appears to have had some effect on Warren. He's taken language telling gays they are not welcome to join his church off his website. I think gays ought to take it as a peace offering and take him up on it. A little diversity reality would probably be a good thing for members of that church.

The Ghosts of Winters Past

Susan Garrett sent around some pics of Chicago winters past for Christmas. Left is a picture of Chicago in 1936. Looks to me like it's taken from North Avenue Beach. Love that art deco Palmolive building in the pre Mies van der Rohe skyline.

I saw a television program on the history of buildings not long ago and they said that Chicago almost missed the era of art deco skyscrapers, because of the unstable swampy marsh below unlike Manhattan which is built on bedrock. Eventually, someone figured out how to raise the buildings out of the swamp. Here's a list of our art deco treasures. Not too shabby considering.

When I see Chicago like this, in its architectural glory knowing that it was built by immigrants of all kinds, including my grandparents, I wonder why Mark Kirk berates the place so.

Adam Sandler's Chanukah Songs

Democat's Jewish too.

Here's Part 2:


Part 3:

Obama Administration Needs to Pursue Justice Against Its Predecessor

While the media concentrates on its approved for publication scandals of your basic corruption and illicit sex, something happened yesterday that should be looked into, but probably won't be any more than was the Downing Street Memo. The private plane of republican technology expert Mike Connell went down in Ohio yesterday. Connell was a star witness in the case against Ohio republicans for the actual physical stealing of the Ohio vote in 2004. I've written about this case before.

Connell was subpoenaed for deposition right before this past election and was poised to be a real threat to Karl Rove in the case King-Lincoln v. Blackwell. Recently, Connell confided to reporter Larisa Alexandrovna that he was threatened. His attorneys also registered a complaint with the judge in the case. Alexandrovana goes on:

You see, Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all "known" Karl Rove accounts.

In addition, I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman. This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.

People want to pass questions about Connell's death as conspiracy theory, but we've seen this before and frankly I'm beginning to think all the peer pressure that's asserted against conspiracy theories is pretty convenient for the people who get away with the conspiracies.

According to the Brad Blog, Karl Rove had asked Connell to take the fall for the 2004 Ohio vote tampering. The source for this information was a letter from Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck to Attorney General Michael Mukasey. It seems that this Ohio attorney felt pretty strongly that something was going on there. Along with that Brad Blog link, you can take a look at this one from ePluribus Media.

If you would prefer to pass this one off as conspiracy theory fine, but I still think it has to be added into the other Ohio vote fraud and supression cases, the Plame case, the DOJ hiring and firing case, and the Iraq War lies, all of which together require the Obama Administration to pursue justice against its predecessors.

Since many of you want to get all worked up over scandal, I'll simply suggest that Spitzer's sex life and Blagojevich's potty mouth pale by a long shot to what was done in the Bush administration, and that Americans seem a little too easily manipulated by a press that picks and chooses its scandals based on sound bytes, friendly connections and anything involving sex or words referencing sex.

Not a Wonderful Life for Blagojevich and Madoff

I was going to write a post about how it was unlikely Rod Blagojevich was actually insane, but since his press conference complete with Kipling quote, I'm not so sure. Here's the full poem. OK, on reading, it's not too far out. Just surprising as a response to a criminal complaint. I'd still rather have had the resignation. Blagojevich seems to have forgotten that the change we worked for and desperately need is more important than he is.

More far out to me at least was this New York Times review of the old Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life titled Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life. It was written by Wendell Jamieson.

Now, I'm not a big fan of the Christmas movie genre, and I'm sort of sick of It's a Wonderful Life, but I think this guy missed the mark in his review. He thinks the bizarro alternate universe Pottersville looks like a lot more fun than stodgy old Bedford Falls. Jamieson writes, "the women are hot, the music swings, and the fun times go on all night." OK, I guess some folks go in for that sort of thing which is why there is a Las Vegas, but Jamieson goes on:

It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.

Yikes. With all this hostility, I can only imagine he must have invested with Bernard Madoff.

It appears to me that Mr. Jamieson's problem is that he isn't with the program yet. We're on the verge of the great change for which we fought, the end of selfishly acting as if helping someone else is a nightmare worthy of rage. He wasn't listening when Barack Obama reminded us that a neighbor's suffering diminishes us all. The greed and selfishness of the past is supposed to be gone (with notable the exceptions of Rod Blagojevich who needs to quit even if he thinks he can defend against Fitzgerald's charges so we can all move on and Norm Coleman who probably should give it up considering it looks like he may be in Blagojevich's shoes if he wins).

Jamieson goes on to charge George with the embezzlement of the money lost by Uncle Billy never mentioning that it was Potter who stole the money. If George would have gone to jail for the lost money, it would have been an injustice caused by lack of evidence. If no one from any of the big mortgage lenders goes to jail for mortgage fraud and no one from the Bush administration or the republican Congress goes to jail for lying about Iraq, why should George? Luckily for George, Joe Birkett was not the prosecutor.

Mr. Jamieson ultimately admits the end of the movie chokes him up as he looks at Harry Bailey's happiness and ponders being George who gave it all up for Harry and becoming an angry young man suffering from the great inconvenience of having to show humanity to those less fortunate. How Reagan/Bush era of him. I think Jamieson needs to save his self-absorbed sobs and realize that the movie is about isolation vs. community. The movie villain, Mr. Potter, isolated himself behind his wealth and power. The Baileys may have had their foibles, but they interacted in their community and worked with and for their neighbors. The moral of the story is that selfishness leads to isolation, and a far more bitter frustration than lost personal dreams. Just ask Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff who had it all and threw it away in an attempt to acquire more.

republicans Saving Themselves From Themselves

I just heard Bush announce the loans to the automakers. Mark Kirk was willing to spread lies of unreal pay and vacation benefits showered on auto workers in order to stop an auto company bailout, and get constituent support doing so based on lies just like the Iraq war, but this new development from the White House tells me that they knew they would bring down the entire economy in their quest to destroy the automakers union. To avoid the consequences of their failed conservatism folly, they trotted Bush out for a final appearance before he goes into worst president in the world history. Now they get to continue to preach their failed policies while avoiding the political hit they'd take for the natural outcome of their ideology. I guess it's lucky for us they weren't willing to take it to the nth degree, but it does indicate that despite everything they've destroyed, they're still going to push economic conservatism.

Oddly, it appears the very wealthy were the main victims of the Madoff ponzi scheme. The full effects, however, won't be known for quite a while as various investment advisors around the country who took their clients money and placed it with Madoff figure out that their clients are affected. It looks like it's also going to affect pension funds and that will affect many average Americans. Then, there is the HuffPost point that the lost taxes will affect the entire country. Even worse, is information trickling out of New York that Madoff's scheme was pretty much an open secret. Many investment advisors are now saying they knew Madoff had to be involved in a scheme to earn such stable returns in unstable markets. I wonder why none of these licensed financial professionals saw fit to complain.

Maybe they didn't complain because they knew it wouldn't matter. The SEC didn't seem to care about Madoff's violations. Today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the SEC knew of irregularities back in 2006. Must be nice to have close family connections to your regulators when you're trying to play the system to steal.

I imagine the people that touted deregulation and tolerated soft regulators thought only the middle class and poor were going to be affected. Those not wealthy enough to purchases the best of the best products, services, medical care etc. were supposed to be the only victims. Those in power were in the money and were't supposed to take a hit. Now that several have, I wonder how they feel about Bush administration de-regulatory ideology and wonder if there are going to be progressive converts among the people selling off furniture and jewelry from Upper East Side coops in which they can no longer afford to live.

Yet Another Reason All Those Terrorist Lists Aren't Such a Great Idea

Our government under George Bush and Mark Kirk busied itself making lists of people they decided to label terrorists for one reason or another. Some of the reasons must not have been too great because of all the little old ladies and small children found on these lists. Even well know entertainment and political figures have made it to the terrorist list. Apparently, it doesn't take much to get on one of these lists.

As if that wasn't enough to label these terrorist lists garbage, here's another reason: U.S. v. Haytham Khalil. It's a lawsuit in which the defendant "New York City Police Department Sergeant Haytham Khalil is accused of illegally accessing the FBI's terrorist watch list via an NYPD computer." Why did Khalil do it? To help a friend in a child custody case. They were trying to smear one of the parents to the benefit of the other parent.

You have to ask yourself if you want to live in a country where easily accessed, unreliable data can be freely used against people. For the mostpart, it's just another form of racism and it allows individuals to profile people and set them up. However, don't bet that a Western European surname will keep you safe from this problem. No one's really sure what gets them on these lists.

A Little Lost on Me

Monday afternoon, Illinois republicans screamed and shouted about Blagojevich, and more particularly, Illinois Democrats' plan to delay work on a special election. Frankly, all the hysterics are lost on me.

The Downing Street Memo, the British memo that proved the Bush administration intentionally and knowingly lied about WMD in Iraq in order to start a war they pre-planned before 9/11, should have put an end to the Bush administration. It should have started an impeachment effort. It should have led to prosecutions of administration officials up to and including Bush and Cheney. All quiet from republicans then. The mainstream media didn't care either. Both loved the war and neither cared much about the truth.

The investigation of the Plame leak should have continued until the party or parties responsible for treasonously outing an active field CIA agent were found. With Karl Rove in his sights, the great Patrick Fitzgerald simply gave up on that one without filing of a criminal complaint, preliminary hearing or additional discovery, and there was no screaming and shouting from the right. Fine by them.

The DOJ firing scandal that made possible illegal use of torture, stalled prosecutions of Abramoff, Ney and Cunningham and pushed the politically motivated investigation of Don Siegelman, should have also sparked special investigators and special prosecutors, but Bush AG appointee Mukasey said he wasn't all that interested (sort of like how Bush said he wasn't all that interested in capturing Osama bin Laden). Again, we heard no screaming and shouting from republicans. In fact, Mark Kirk along with the other house republicans mocked the importance of the matter when they very theatrically walked out of congressional contempt hearings.

So, with all that happened, and all the terrible and very real consequences for Americans including the needless deaths of over 4000 American soldiers, that they gladly ignored, all the present longwinded and fake emotional pleas from Illinois republicans for justice are a little lost on me.

What it does say to me is that the Obama administration must continue to press for justice on these three issues. Some say it would not be good for the country, but I think that is nonsense. It would be both legally and politically foolish to allow republican politicization of investigations and prosecutions, or the lack thereof, to consume our new administration. It would hand republicans a disingenuous and undeserved platform of reform they intend to use to stop the much needed change we all fought so hard to achieve. It would also allow the perpetrators of very serious crimes to get away with all of them and encourage others to try again one day much like the failure to prosecute Iran-Contra all the way up to the top probably inspired Cheney, Rove and Bush to do what they did to us and to the world.

Outsourced, the Movie

I haven't done a review in a while, so here's one on a movie with a political message:

I recently watched the movie Outsourced on Netflix instant watch. It was much better than I expected. It's a sort of sweet story about a man, Todd Anderson played by Josh Hamilton, who is the manager of a call center taking orders for a company that sells Chinese-made fake patriotic, Americana-kitch products to Americans who mostly hate foreigners. He's told the only way he can keep his job and collect his un-vested benefits is to take an assignment in India training his replacement who will run the new India-based call center and the Indian employees.
Todd travels to India secure in the knowledge that he's going to teach American language, accent and culture to the Indian employees and leave. He leaves understanding that cultural understanding is a two way street.

Todd is escorted to a rooming house by his future replacement played movingly by Asif Basra, who tells Todd they will take better care of him than there than his own mother would. Todd is not particularly family oriented and wants to stay at the hotel, but can't get his hosts to understand, so he ends up in the rooming house run by a woman who interrogates him about his marital status and feeds him. Earlier, Todd had become ill from juice he purchased from a street vendor, and since he cannot eat, he takes to putting his meals over a wall where they are collected by a mysterious someone.

Todd goes to the local company office, located in a small town outside of Bombay--which they refer to in the movie as Bombay and not Mumbai, and finds that their average call time is over 12 minutes and that there is a cow in the back of the office. Call time is long because the Indian employees do not understand the products and have some language/dialect/accent barrier with customers. One employee, a young woman played by Ayesha Dharker, reminds Todd that English is the language of Indian government and that both India and America inherited it from the British. She asserts that of the two, the Indians have the better pronounciation and dialect.

Todd's boss calls him to advise that he needs to get call time down to 6 meaning 6.0 or less, not 6.0 -6.9 as is the custom in the States. Todd works to bring down the call time through greater understanding of the employees and a series of incentives. It's a little joke in the movie that the Indian culture more readily accepts the company's products (other than a beef branding device they are aghast exists) than Todd does himself. The movie also brings up a couple of moral questions. First for the workers in India, is it ok to lie to callers that the calls are being taking in Chicago? Next, a couple of questions for the American customers: 1) is it ok to buy Chinese made American flags and bald eagle replicas from a company using Indian workers? and 2) should their displeasure at the Indian call center be directed toward the Indian employees of the company, or the company itself, or perhaps politicians like Mark Kirk who for his part has championed outsourcing and been vocally against any changes to the tax code that would disincentize it?

One of my favorite scenes was one where Todd meets and follows the Indian man who has been taking the meals over the wall. It seems that the man is of a lower caste, but they don't really say that. Todd shares a meal with the man and his family in a carefully choreographed expression of lack of understanding together with true understanding. Another terrific scene is the celebration of color, a festival called Holi, in which celebrants throw colored powders at each other. Holi is a celebration of the victory of good over evil and a celebration of spring. They only mention the latter in the movie. His hosts advise Todd to stay inside that day, but he doesn't see their note, and goes out ending up having a fine time joining in the festivities with Basra's character and a group of local boys.

At one point, Todd makes the foolish mistake of asking the Hindu God of Destruction to bring it on and she does. However, destruction opens new doors as Todd is advised by Dharker's character who was made assistant manager. Such a door is open, at least temporarily.

The movie has a twist ending that I won't reveal.

I really enjoyed Outsourced. It gets its message across gently and entertainingly so it's really a movie and not just a message. It gently makes fun of both Americans and Indians, brings out some serious cultural issues on both sides particularly the individual's relationship to family, and gets it's message across about the companies that harm all sides.

The blog gives Outsourced 3 cat treats and notes that eventually Americans will get all those jobs back. When we get poor enough, India and China will outsource them back to us.

Bush Deregulation Strikes a Blow for the Badguy, Again

With all the talk about the giant ponzi scheme of Bernard Madoff, some have been discussing the role of deregulation in the estimated $50bn loss. FT does and says:

But regulators may also have to explain how such a scam could have gone unnoticed for years, especially since Mr Madoff’s consistently high returns had previously aroused suspicions and sparked complaints to the SEC. There were other potential red flags: lack of third-party oversight; a very small accounting firm for the size of the operation; his own broker/dealer operation.

FT answers its own question later in the article:

Part of the explanation for the regulators’ inability to detect Mr Madoff’s alleged scheme may lie in the oversight approach. SEC examiners would have inspected Mr Madoff’s securities brokerage. But, it was Mr Madoff’s investment advisory business – which did not register with the SEC until 2006 – that was allegedly at the heart of the fraud.

Moreover, not all registered advisers are examined by the SEC, partly because the group has grown rapidly in recent years – increasing by over 50 per cent to more than 11,000 since 2001. Only about 10 per cent of SEC registered advisers are examined every three years, and it is no longer the case that newly registered advisers are examined in their first year, according to people familiar with the process.

CNN Money just posted an editorial on the topic in which they ask:

Not long ago the Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly looked into Madoff's operation and found nothing wrong! Hell-oo?! Anybody home?! Did the SEC
ask who the custodian of these investments was? I guess not. That's disgraceful negligence on the part of the SEC.

CNN Money also questions how Madroff could have done it all by himself. Bloomberg described how Madroff avoided scrutiny:

The Securities and Exchange Commission hadn’t examined Madoff’s books since he registered the unit with the agency in September 2006, two people said, declining to be identified because the reviews aren’t public. The SEC tries to inspect advisers at least every five years and to scrutinize newly registered firms in their first year, former agency officials and securities lawyers said....

Federal officials investigating Madoff have found evidence he ran an unregistered money-management business along with his firm’s brokerage and investment-advisory units, said two people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because the probe isn’t public. Madoff had kept his firm’s financial statements under lock and key and was “cryptic” about its advisory activities when discussing them with employees, the SEC said in a lawsuit against him last week.

Madoff was a connected former advisor to the SEC. Apparently, he was given deference by the regulators who in my opinion, given what we know about Bush administration regulation, were probably told to treat him like a customer or superior rather than a person subject to their regulations.

American People Duped Again By Bush's Man at Treasury and his Buddies in Wall Street

Not long ago, Hank Paulson was kudos seeking for his change to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He made the change with much ballyhoo at a press conference that pretty much distracted people from understanding that he was saying he was going to ignore the authority given by Congress in the bailout bill that actually passed and do his own thing more like the bailout bill Congress rejected. The first bill that Congress rejected originated in Treasury and gave Paulson endless power to pass around the cash as if he had just won the mega millions lottery himself. It also failed to contain any provisions limiting executive pay.

Now, the Washington Post is reporting that Paulson pretty much knew he was going to make the change when Congress was attempting to work with him on the revised language, particularly the language regarding limits executive pay (the language Mark Kirk claims sold him on the bill):

By the morning of Saturday, Sept. 27, the final day of marathon negotiations on the bill, draft language relating to taxes and containing the enforcement provision applied to all companies participating in the bailout programs, Democratic and Republican congressional aides said. But then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and his deputies began pushing for the compensation rules to differentiate between companies whose assets are purchased at auction and those whose assets or equity are purchased directly by the government, the aides said....

Davis, the Treasury spokeswoman, confirmed that the Treasury pushed to place fewer restrictions on executives at companies receiving capital infusions, but she gave a different explanation. She said many of those firms are more stable and are being encouraged to participate in the bailout to strengthen the overall system. "The provisions for failing institutions should come with more onerous conditions than those for healthy institutions whose participation benefits the entire system," she said.

Lawmakers agreed to the Treasury's request that the measure apply only to executives at companies whose assets were bought by the government through auctions. In the executive-compensation tax section, a new sentence saying that eventually was inserted.

Meanwhile, Paulson repeatedly told lawmakers that he did not plan to use bailout funds to inject capital directly into financial institutions. Privately, however, his staff was developing plans to do just that, Paulson acknowledged in an interview. (emphsis mine)

Since, the government isn't buying any of the bad assets, none of the executive pay limitations are going to apply to anybody. I guess they pulled one over on us and our Congressman, Mark Kirk. I didn't think it was their job to pull one over on us, but apparently they think so.

As the Illinois State Legislature deals with Rod Blagojevich and he consults with counsel about his eventual recogning in court, I wonder who's going to bring Hank Paulson and the Bush administration from which he was spawned to justice.

Joe Birkett Hopes We've Forgotten

I caught a glimpse of Joe Birkett on the news last night on quite a moral high horse. It appears he wants to run for that open Senate seat. I suppose he thinks we've forgotten about his part in the Jeanine Nicarico case. Attorneys under Birkett's charge as chief of the criminal division of the DuPage County State's Attorney knowlingly sent two innocent people to death row. The men served 11 years on death row. This was not one of those unfortunate cases where all the evidence pointed to the poor schnooks and then later it was found out to be incorrect. No, they knew Cruz and Hernandez were not guilty at the time they prosecuted them. There were a couple of people unwilling to participate, one DuPage County sheriff's deputy and the Assistant State's Attorney General Mary Kenney resigned over the matter, but despite the resignations no one remaining in the DuPage County Sheriff or State's Attorney's office cared enough about two hispanic guys to do anything about it. Most of the distain for Cruz and Hernandez seemed to involve the idea that they must have been guilty of something, so who cares about the exact reason they are executed.

For Birkett's part, there one witness, Steve Schmitt, who claimed that Birkett and a detective threatened him for refusing to testify to their set of facts despite Schmitt's insistance that they did not represent the truth. He also ignored the confession of Brian Dugan and still insisted Cruz and Hernandez were guilty long after everyone knew it was over.

Seven DuPage county officials were tried in a case called the DuPage Seven, but Birkett himself escaped justice. Birkett lobbied for the DuPage County Board to pay defendants’ legal bills. The DuPage Seven were acquitted despite testimony of a DuPage County deputy sheriff who admitted he fabricated evidence to ensure Cruz's conviction, and said other deputy sheriffs and the prosecutors involved knew it.

This is the case that led former IL Governor George Ryan to put a moratorium on the death penalty.

One thing in can say in Birkett's favor. He was several years ahead of his time. He really belonged in the Bush Administration DOJ.

Bad News: Socks Near Death

Just on the wire. Socks Clinton, famous for being the White House cat and mentor of Democat is ill and reported near death. The 19 year old tuxedo cat still living with former Clinton secretary Betty Currie, has cancer.

Here's another story on Socks from about a year ago.

Democat expresses her sympathy for fomer campadre, Socks and to the Currie family. "Socks was a great friend and always dressed well," said Democat in a recent interview. She added, "meow."

Gadzooks! Rumsfeld and Not Some Low Level Military Clerk Led Detainee Torture. Let's Remember How Mark Kirk Helped Him

You may have heard under the Blagojevich din that the Senate Armed Services Committee making inquiry into detainee torture issued its report last week. The report confirms that the Bush administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld and other "top officials", knew about and supported torture at Abu Ghraib ending any last shred of credibility in their claims that they knew nothing and torture was the product of some bad apples in the low level ranks as if that's ever an excuse in the military where superiors are supposed to be in control of their troops. In fact, they didn't just know about it, they approved it.

I wonder if Lynndie England, the less than stellar solder who took the hit and went to prison for Rumsfeld is going to sue the U.S. for her unjust incarceration. Maybe she should sue Rumsfeld personally. It's odd to now look back on what Rumsfeld said about her conviction, ''We had a problem, and we dealt with the problem and dealt with it in an appropriate way." I guess he meant appropriate for him.

What the report fails to mention are the names of those who helped Rumsfeld torture detainees. Many in the republican congress were all for torture, or at least all for not stopping it.

Mark Kirk often brags about his relationship with Rumsfeld who used to represent an old configuration of the district. Kirk's famous for complementing Rumsfeld on a job well done in Iraq:

Secretary Rumsfeld used to represent parts of our district in the 1960s. I think that he and his team have done a masterful job in defeating Iraqi forces quickly and decisively.

There are even reports that Kirk was in a meeting with Rumsfeld just shortly before the planes hit the towers on 9/11.

Kirk was a major backer of torture in the House. For starters, he supported the infamous school of the Americas, Torture U. He defended CIA destruction of torture tapes. He claimed that the tape destruction was important to protect American torturers from retaliation, admitting that there was torture, but that it was ok so long as it was hidden. Kirk voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act that took away habeas corpus that was later deemed unconstitutional, and in 2007, he voted against banning torture after thirty retired admirals and generals urged Congress to pass the legislation that set strict standards for detainee treatment. Kirk bragged that he knew more than anyone because he went through a demonstration water boarding as part of his military training forgetting that in the demo he knew they weren't going to kill him. He also touted great results from water boarding claiming that "everyone breaks." The recent Senate Committee report disagreed finding that it was not an effective way to get any reliable intelligence concluding that the use of torture, “damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.” Finally, in 2008 kirk again refused to ban torture by voting no to override Bush's veto of a torture ban. In doing so he said,

Mr. Speaker, I am four for five on veto overrides of our President, but this is not one of them. This bill limits our intelligence professionals at a time when we need more people in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The bill fails to provide tools to monitor foreign terrorist communications when we should be monitoring more of them. And it also provides less resources to our own intelligence community, not more. The bill also does have earmarks in which the committee delayed publication. Senators McCain and Clinton and Obama all now support a complete moratorium on earmarks this year, but this legislation does not do that. We not only hamstring our intelligence community by this bill, we waste millions of dollars on no or low quality earmarks that have little utility to the intelligence community. We should bring back this bill without any spy pork. Mr. Speaker, I still serve in the intelligence community. We all know that torture is illegal, and we all read the papers and know that all Republican and Democratic candidates for President are against waterboarding. So, in January of this year, that will be over, but the rest of the issues in this bill will not. Does this bill hamstring our community? It does. Does it fund 26 items of spy pork? It does. And for these reasons, we should not pass this flawed piece of legislation.

He was worried about earmarks, but not cut off ears claiming torture would eventually get taken care of anyway.

Southern Senators Didn't Want Auto Bailout to Help Their Constituents

It's been clear that much of the opposition against the auto bailout in the Senate came from southern republican senators from states where foreign non-union automakers have their US operations. It's clear from that the constituents they seek to protect by their actions to kill the auto bailout are the automakers themselves and not the people who work for those automakers and live in the states those senators represent. That is clear because, while the non-union automakers in the south now make about as much as the UAW automakers in Detriot, those wages will sink when UAW is gone. When they kill the last bastion of union manufacturing in this country, there will no longer be even the smallest amount of competition for labor requiring a living wage. Wages for auto workers in those southern states will sink to the lowest common denominator. I wonder who they expect will be able to buy their products. Maybe the Chinese.

Die Already Medicine

Back in April 2007, my mom guest blogged and wrote a post she titled Why Don't You Die Already! It was her take on the republicans' idea of heath care. She looked at Medicare D and their other ideas about health care systems and health care costs and felt that people like George Bush and Mark Kirk pretty much expected those who were not wealthy enough to purchase premium health care on their own to die. Well, we now have confirmation that is the republican health care plan:

KRAUTHAMMER: And he explained it in part by saying he will work on prevention. Now, I have been in the business for 30 years, and you hear it every year, and you want to weep when you hear it again and again. Prevention is a nice thing, but it doesn't save money.

HUME: Why?

KRAUTHAMMER: For example, the biggest preventative healthcare success in American history is the reduction in smoking. What happens instead of dying young if you smoke, you die older, spending years in a nursing home, and the costs end up higher. I'm not in favor of dying young, but it's more expensive if you live longer.

If you die of a heart attack at 50, that's awful, but it's cheap. If you live into your 80's, you will end up with Alzheimer's or cancer or a chronic disease that's expensive.
So, as a society, look — I'm not arguing in favor of sudden death and early death, but it's not a way to save money, which is what Obama is selling, which I have heard for 30 years.

The way to save money in healthcare, the most immediate and effective, is to eliminate defensive medicine. I was a chief resident 30 years ago and a lot of our tests are entirely unnecessary and are a way to prevent lawsuits. The Democrats will never do that because of their dependence on the trial lawyers.

This is particularly strange coming from an accident survivor such as Krauthammer. Dr. Krauthammer is a quadraplegic due to a diving accident at age 22. I wonder if he begged rescuers to leave him at the bottom of the pool.

I have a strange feeling that Blogojevichfest running 24/7 on all the news stations is more about preventing the Obama administration from making any headway on health care and less about the bumbling criminal described in the affidavit attached to the complaint. It has already overtaken Obama's first health care press conference. Americans need to decide if they want to be entertained by the actions of someone who belongs in one of those stupid criminal videos or health care. I'd choose the latter, but that's just me.

A Little Perspective

UPDATED

Blagojevich needs to resign.

That being said, again, here's a little much needed perspective that you'll never get in the mainstream media or from our elected officials who are busy worrying about their own political positions. I have no political position and never intend to acquire one. This is what I think:

In witnessing the Blagojevich circus of the past 3 days, all I can think about is that Democrats need a little perspective. Apart from the fact that regardless, Blagojevich needs to resign, it's important to get a grip and understand what's going on here because it looks like Democrats have busied themselves throwing out the baby with the bathwater (Blagojevich being the bathwater and our Senate seat being the baby.)

First, the legal end. Fitzgerald filed a criminal complaint, not an indictment. It's two pages long with two counts. A 76 page affidavit is attached. The thing about a criminal complaint is that if it is not turned around into an indictment in 20 days, there has to be a preliminary hearing. A preliminary hearing entitles the defendant to discovery. Why does that matter? If Fitzgerald could have prevented Blagojevich from being entitled to discovery before an indictment, he would have. What does that tell us? He doesn't think he has enough evidence at this time to indict. That doesn't mean he won't get it or maybe he even has it now, or is on the verge of getting it, but on the day he filed, he didn't have it. That could explain why Blagojevich is staying put. I wish he wouldn't, but it is an explanation. It is also curious to note that the last guy Fitzgerald didn't have enough evidence on was Karl Rove who was not arrested and never had to answer to anybody for anything. Fitzgerald might be good, and even the best of the lot, but he's not devoid of politicking himself, so stop deifying him.

Second, take a look at the evidence in the affidavit. Looks to me like even if it's all true, Blagojevich isn't a very successful criminal. The hospital told him to go jump and the Tribune told him to go jump. Of course, not being a very good criminal is not a defense and I don't say this to defend him. Like I said, I'm just trying to add a little perspective.

Yes, he's foul mouthed. No, that is not illegal.

Yes, he and his Deputy had several very bad conversations. Did the conversations amount to an agreement enough to become criminal conspiracy? Maybe. Fitzgerald doesn't seem so sure. See above.

Yes, he seems to be discussing some real negotiating between his side and Candidate #5. Do those discussions amount to criminal conspiracy in that they include that extra step going forward with an illegal plan? Maybe. There have to be discussions with someone on Candidates #5's end. We have seen no evidence of such. Again, Fitzgerald himself isn't so sure. He failed to indict Blagojevich and he failed to name Candidate #5, or indict him, and he says he's not going to. Jesse Jackson Jr. categorically denies engaging in any negotiations for the Senate seat, but admits to being candidate #5. Is Jackson Jr. just a witness or crime victim who's being treated like a perp in the press? Could be.

Finally, I just need to ask. Even if all of the claims in the affidavit attached to the complaint are true, and all of the evidence exists, and Blagojevich is in fact guilty and proven so in court, what does that mean? It means he was a lousy corrupt governor who engaged in self-dealing for his own illicit pecuniary gain and wasn't even good at that. Don't get me wrong. That's all bad. The law needs to deal with him as it will.

Now lets look at the Bush adminstration and the self-styled future Senator from Illinois Mark Kirk. They started a war based on lies that they knew were lies when they said them. Mark Kirk said he was in a position to know about WMD in Iraq because of his position in Naval Intelligence. Kirk also said that with that insider information, he personally knew there were WMD in Iraq. He either lied about knowing or lied about the WMD. He also went on the House Floor in October 2002 and did a sales pitch before fellow House members. The Dan Seals campaign found out Kirk was one of 9 House republicans chosen to sell the Iraq war in Congress and that's exactly what he did. Thousands of American soldiers died, over one thousand American civilian contractors died, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. Unrest spread across the region and hundreds more died in assorted skirmishes and terrorist attacks.

Don't care about war dead? How are you loving our new economy courtesy of eight years of Bush and Kirk?

Compare the two.

None of this exculpates Blagojevich. He deserves what he deserves and will have his day in court. However, it does cause me to ask why are we hearing 24/7 Blagojevich and why Democrats are scurrying around throwing away our senate seat in order to attone for his sins, when no one ever called Bush or Kirk on the sale of the Iraq war to the American people based on lies. republicans never gave up an ounce of power until ousted in 2006 and again just this past November.

Oh, and Blagojevich needs to resign. That is what Illinois Democrats need to work on. Absent that, impeachment would be a pretty good idea.

*******************************

On tonight's news (a variety of local stations), the media was hammering away at the Obama transition team without evidence, and contrary to the evidence on the table, which looks more like they were not playing ball and that was what Blagojevich was so mad about. Little things like facts, law and perspective never seem to matter at times like these. We can easily loose the change for which we fought for over 2 years. A lot of very wealthy and powerful people do not want to see that change happen. The press is poised to hammer this scandal into the public consciousness with or without evidence, and the public, including many Democrats, is lapping it up like Pavlov's dog reminicent of a scandal in 1996 that brought us to the Bush republicans and the failure we suffer today. Speculation and a general overblowing of the consequences of the Blagojevich scandal compared to the general damage the country is currently suffering is overriding economic recovery, and the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bigger new today was that republicans derailed the auto bailout. That news will affect far more people than anything Rod Blagojevich managed to do, but I barely heard a word about it on the local news. I saw it on the Internet. Have fun when your manufacturer isn't around to honor your car warranty. Before the American people get swept away in another media driven expansion of a scandal, they need to ask themselves, where will we end up when the dust clears?

Looks Like the People of the State of Illinois Will Have to Speak Louder

Tell Governor Blagojevich to resign. His Springfield number is 217-782-0244. His Chicago number is 312-814-5220. He can be sent an email here.

Tell Rod that there are more important issues than him. Tell him that Senate republicans are stripping the environmental provisions out of the auto bailout. If he causes us to send another republican to the Senate, there will be no change, but more of the same. Remind him that there were no republican politicians standing with the workers of Republic Windows. If he causes us to send another republican to the Senate, there will be no change, but more of the same.

Sorry, Rod, you did a lousy job. You're fired. Do we have to call security to escort you out of the building?

This is an interesting possibility

UPDATE:

Here's the rule:

Rule 382. Original Actions in the Supreme Court Pursuant to Article IV, Section 3, and Article V, Section 6(d), of the Constitution

a) Institution of proceedings. Proceedings in the Supreme Court when the court has original and exclusive jurisdiction under article IV, section 3, and article V, section 6(d), of the Constitution, which relate to redistricting of the General Assembly and to the ability of the Governor to serve or resume office, shall be instituted by filing a motion for leave to file a complaint, which motion shall be accompanied by the complaint and a brief in support of the motion. The complaint may be supported by affidavits or other pertinent documents.

(b) Subsequent Procedure. Thereafter the case shall proceed in the manner ordered by the court. Whenever appropriate, and subject to order of the court, the rules governing cases in the circuit court shall serve as a guide to the procedure to be followed. The court may dispose of the case on the papers filed or may order further briefing or may order oral argument on the motion for leave to file or on the complaint or on the pleadings or on the pleadings supplemented by pertinent documentary evidence, or may call for additional evidence and for briefs and argument after such evidence has been received. If the court determines that disputed issues of material fact must be resolved on the basis of oral testimony, it may appoint a judge or retired judge of any Illinois court to take testimony and to report his findings of fact and recommendations to the Supreme Court.

(c) Briefs, Pleadings, and Other Documents. Briefs, pleadings, and other documents filed with the Supreme Court in cases covered by this rule shall, to the extent appropriate, conform to Rules 341 through 344.

Some are arguing it only applies if the Governor is ill or nuts. The latter is debatable, but I do not see why being accused in a criminal complain does not affect the Governor's ability to serve.

********************************

The state's chief law enforcement officer is prepared to invoke an obscure Illinois Supreme Court rule under which the state's seven justices could vote to oust a sitting governor deemed unfit for office.

I'd rather see Blagojevich resign, but if he doesn't and quickly, Madigan should move with all haste to remove him.

Time to Resign, Gov. Blagojevich. There are more important things than you.

I do believe that like republican George Ryan before his conviction and like any other criminal defendant, Rod Blagojevich deserves his day in court before losing his freedom, and should not be presumed guilty. However, that does not mean he should sit there in the governor's office and wait it out. Frankly, I don't care if he's guilty or not on one particular overriding point, there are more important things in this country, and in this world, than Rod Blagojevich. He needs to resign right now so the important issues of the day can be addressed.

Blagojevich promised us reform and someone to care about the people of Illinois. He let us down, and now needs to start keeping that promise. The only way he can do that now is by resigning and allowing Illinois to remain a full participant in the reforms that need to come out of the US Senate. There are jobless, homeless, disabled, elderly, hungry, wartorn, terrorized and murdered people that require and demand justice from the failed national security and economic policies of the Bush administration and its supporters. We need to stop the bleeding caused by the neo-con and free market liars together with the fake independents who helped them, who still freely roam our nations capitol despite their crimes. This is the larger issue and the rest of Blagojevich's story will be decided by the courts.

Gov. Blagojevich, it's time to do something for your state and for your country. Resign. Resign today. Resign now.

SCHAKOWSKY CALLS ON GOVERNOR BLAGOJEVICH TO RESIGN -- Me too! But I have a different thought on that Senate Seat.

I just got home. Updates later.

************************

Here's the criminal complaint. I'd hope people would read it before they go spouting off about it.

***********************

Here's my message to Democrats. I know we are all very angry at Blagojevich and that he's brought embarrassment to our party. However, there is more at stake here than just one bad apple. He will get his day in court and that will be that. That is what courts are for.

More important, we finally have some hope of undoing the mess of needless war and flawed economics created by republicans over the past several years. They've destroyed our economy, hurt working people and took funds away from the most vulnerable among us. There was just a legislative breakfast on issues regarding the developmentally disabled. Bottom line: There is no money to help these people in need. That's not to mention seniors, the ever increasing numbers of unemployed and homeless, children whose schools lose money when people cannot pay their property taxes or property values just go down and the list goes on and on.

We mortgaged ourselves to China for Bush's wars and Illinois republicans including Mark Kirk not only went along with it knowing it was all based on lies, but participated in spreading the lies.

This is no time to put on sackcloth and bemoan Blagojevich's alleged misdeeds. He's his own problem now. We should not give up that Senate seat to a special election in a post Blagojevich arrest environment. You better believe republicans wouldn't if the shoe was on the other foot, and it has been on that foot far more times and you know they've never given up a seat without a fight.

What needs to happen? Blagojevich needs to resign quickly. Pat Quinn is our Lt. Governor. He needs to take over and appoint someone worthy to that Senate seat.

Here's the succession rule in the IL Constitution:
SECTION 6. GUBERNATORIAL SUCCESSION
(a) In the event of a vacancy, the order of succession to the office of Governor or to the position of Acting Governor shall be the Lieutenant Governor, the elected Attorney General, the elected Secretary of State, and then as
provided by law.
(b) If the Governor is unable to serve because of death, conviction on impeachment, failure to qualify, resignation or other disability, the office of Governor shall be filled by the officer next in line of succession for the remainder of the term or until the disability is removed.
(c) Whenever the Governor determines that he may be seriously impeded in the exercise of his powers, he shall so notify the Secretary of State and the officer next in line of succession. The latter shall thereafter become Acting Governor with the duties and powers of Governor. When the Governor is prepared to resume office, he shall do so by notifying the Secretary of State and the Acting Governor.
(d) The General Assembly by law shall specify by whom and by what procedures the ability of the Governor to serve or to resume office may be questioned and determined. The Supreme Court shall have original and exclusive jurisdiction to review such a law and any such determination and, in the absence of such a law, shall make the determination under such rules as it may adopt.
(Source: Illinois Constitution.)

About Time

I only have a few minutes this morning, but I wanted to add my two cents on the Republic Windows labor sit-in. It's about time workers once again stood up for themselves in this country. I have been sick and tired watching working Americans take everything on the chin, sitting back and letting management get away with anything for fear of a job loss or because they've been brainwashed into believing that wealth trickles down or because they've bought into race and immigrant hate pushed by politicians and corporations to distract from the real issues.

I'll also note that while Mark Kirk was all about jobs in his media blitz two weeks ago, he has nothing to say now. Since silence is assent, I imagine he has no problem with $25 billion of taxpayer dollars going to Bank of America to fund bank mergers rather than credit as Congress intended. Kirk was a vocal supporter of the financial bailout, while not keen on helping the auto industry because God forbid a union worker is not cut loose. It's his true colors showing through. As much as he wants to look moderate and independent, when push comes to shove, he's a Bush league republican, out there for the big guy, and the rest can go squat except for one day every two years when he's your best buddy and makes the sun shine. Hey Mark, if no one can afford to buy products, how do you expect us to have an economy? To whom will your buddies in China sell?

Bye Bye Trib. Dilbert's on the Internet Anyway.

I knew the Chicago Tribune was in trouble when my parents recently decided to terminate their subscription. They had been loyal newspaper readers my entire life. When I was young, I sometimes went to work with my dad at his store in the loop. On the way home he always bought a Daily News. When the Daily News went out, they switched to the Sun Times and then the Trib. They had home delivery for years and Dad would go out and get his copy every morning in all sorts of weather. My parents instilled an interest in newspapers in their daughters, but mine waned in the 1990s when news became easy to find on the Internet. It eliminated the recycling mess and the inky hands, inky kitchen table and inky clothing that annoyed me so much.

I think my parents became disenchanted with the Tribune when it first started shrinking. My mom called it an advertising circular. I was always fairly disenchanted with the Tribune for its extremist political bias that peaked in 2004 when the editors endorsed George W. Bush over John Kerry for no stated reason other than he existed. Then, they shrunk the comics so small I could barely read them even with my glasses on and there was no longer any reason to pick up a copy or even scan an available copy in a waiting room.

In the end, I think the Tribune fell into the same trap other mainstream media sunk into; they stopped investigating and reporting news and instead relied on source access and press releases from politicians and corporations. Opinion pages started to exceed news pages and even in the news sections, if they liked you and you made them seem connected to something official, they printed whatever you put out there without fact checking it or putting it into perspective. If not, you didn't exist.

They also oversimplified everything to the point where reality disappeared. I imagine it saved paper, but I've known several attorneys who have complained over the years that our local papers rarely get even basic, hard cold facts about a case right. I've known about a few myself.

For real news, a person does far better looking at several sources, including international sources that are less lazy and either have much less of a status quo axe to grind, or at least are more honest about their bias. Seeking a wide variety of news sources is more conveniently and cheaply done on the Internet. By seeking news from a wide variety of sources, one can hopefully get to some semblance of the truth. In any event, searching for news on the Internet is a lot more fun than inking up one's hand and clothes to read a bunch of republican party press releases.