Illinois, meet your next junior senator

Its good to be king.

CHICAGO - Public records show Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias (juh-NOO'-lee-as) used money earned by a state college savings program to purchase a $26,000 government vehicle.

The Chicago Tribune reported Sunday that Giannoulias used the state's Bright Start fund to pay for the SUV. The treasurer's office offers the program to allow families to save money for college. The program's investments lost $85 million last year.

Looks like Obama’s hand picked successor for his senate seat, Alexi Giannoulias, has learned well the way of Illinois politics.

Lesson Learned

Illinois, the wrong State to do this in:

MACOMB — Two men were stopped for speeding early Thursday in a truck filled with loaded guns, ammunition and military-style paraphernalia, and a comparable amount of weapons was found at one of their homes, authorities said.

Bryce A. Standley, 25, of Macomb and Nicholas R. Holik, 20, of Mount Prospect were charged Thursday in McDonough County court with three counts each of aggravated unlawful use of weapons and unlawful use of weapons.

A sheriff's deputy stopped their pickup truck northwest of Macomb near McDonough County roads East 750th and North 1700th at about 2:40 a.m. Thursday.

Prosecutors said the truck was stopped in the roadway near a home but made a U-turn and drove away as the deputy approached. The pickup was then stopped for speeding 70 mph in a 55 mph zone.

A later search of the vehicle turned up two rifles and two loaded pistols, most or all with paraphernalia including silencers, optical sites and laser pointers attached. One of the pistols, a .22-caliber, was under the driver's seat, while the other was under the passenger's seat.

Also in the vehicle, police found two military gas masks, two sets of military night vision goggles, 22 AR-15 loaded magazines and nearly 250 ammunition shells. Both men were also wearing bulletproof vests.

What’s the lesson here? KNOW THE GUN LAWS IN YOUR STATE AN OBEY THEM! No one but law enforcement can CCW and even with a general class 3 license from the ATF, silencers and fully automatic weapons are illegal in Illinois.

Another equally important lesson is NEVER GIVE THE POLICE THE PERMISSION TO SEARCH YOU OR YOU VEHICLE. Even if you get caught with a fucking M-60 and 1/2dozen HEDP AT4's, the state cannot convict if you get a decent enough lawyer who demonstrates that there was no probable cause or reasonable suspicion for the search. Dont look like an asshole and dont act like an asshole and the polcie will have no reason (legal or otherwise) to search you.

Before someone jumps down my throat about these guys having an arsenal, let me remind everyone of a few things. Standley is a veteran of Afghanistan, and if we can’t trust a combat vet with a recreational weapon out of the uniform, what does that say? Some people might say OMFG! that the two had bulletproof vests with them, but I never go shooting, indoors, outdoors, public or private, without a my Level IIIA vest (with front and back Level III ceramic insert) on. To many idiots at the range, too many things can go wrong.

Rahm's calls on tape

Recently heard on a wiretap:

Sneed hears rumbles President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is reportedly on 21 different taped conversations by the feds -- dealing with his boss' vacant Senate seat!

But rememeber folks, I am sure he was only in there to get directions on how to get away from there. He He.

What happens now with Blagojevich?

A lot of people are wondering what happens in Springfield now. Even as more and more pressure is put on Blagojevich to resign, he just retained Ed Genson and looks to be ready for a fight.

There are a lot of ways for this to end, a combination of events could either take down the Democratic Party in Illinois or let everyone, including Blagojevich skate free.

Option A: Impeachment

The Illinois Republicans have been pushing realty hard for impeachment, and have been getting no where. A real impeachment trial would be long, and would be very damaging to the Illinois Democratic Party. A long public impeachment trial combined with a scorched earth mentality for Blagojevich could wind up revealing many secrets about the political machine in Illinois, damaging not only the Illinois Democratic party, but our new Dear Leader himself. How good would the new administration look if everyone got to see the shit that the fertilized the fields his political carrier grew in.

If impeachment proceedings were to drag on and on look for Blagojevich to continually drive up the stakes. Remember, that his wife Patti, did work with Rezko, and even the threat that she could spill the beans (even if she knew nothing) on Obama would be a strong hand to play.

A good legal team could keep Blagojevich in trial and out of jail for years. He is going to be looking for a promise from the Obama administration for a pardon after Obama leaves office.

Option B: Removal, the Lisa Madigan Way

Lisa Madigan was all over the TV the other day. She was floating the idea of using Article V, Section 6 of the Illinois constitution to oust Blagojevich from office challenging his mental fitness. This is a bit of a long shot, and several legal scholars have taken Madigan to task for the weakness of the brief.

This is a long shot, but one worth trying. Mike Madigan, Speaker of the House and AG Madigan’s dad (cozy nepotism) would like to keep his skeletons clean in any impeachment trial

Option C: Resignation

Blagojevich quits, leaves office. I don’t think he will do this unless someone throws out some carrots, because there aren’t any sticks left to hit him with. As above, the longer he waits to do this, the more desperate the Illinois Democratic Party will be to cut a deal with him.

No one would accept the Senate seat if Blagojevich gave it to them, and the longer he is the governor, the more pressure there is going to be to hold a special election. A special election in this climate would mean that a guaranteed democratic seat in the Senate would be put in doubt (I don’t think they could win it, but the Republican party in Illinois sucks ass too, so who knows).

Also, the longer this goes on, the more pressure there is going to be for an impeachment, and the democrats don’t want that either .

My bet, resignation with a deal. Fight it out in federal court, do a few months in jail and have Obama pardon him.

If this doesn’t happen by Christmas though, it will be well into February before it does.

Governors 4 - Mayors 0

What do George Ryan, Daniel Walker, William Grant Stratton all have in common? They and the newest inductee of the club, Rod Blagojevich, are all members of the Illinois gubernatorial felon team.

The fact that four governors have gone to jail in the past 50 years and not even one Chicago mayor has been indicted demonstrates where the real power in Illinois resides. Governors are expendable in Illinois and mayors of Chicago are not. It also demonstrates the bullet proof nature of the Chicago political machine in that no matter how deep a nosey prosecutor or FBI task force digs they never quite get the goods on the real power brokers because so many of their underlings are willing to fall on their swords to protect them.

We all knew this was going to happen, and I am not surprised that Fitzgerald did this before the inauguration and his subsequent dismissal or reassignment at the DOJ. History being a roadmap of future events, I am sure that Fitzgerald took the lesson that his predecessor Jay Stephens learned back in 1993 to heart: if you want to indict a political crony of an incoming president, do so before he can fire you.

And let us all keep in mind that this would have never happened without former Senator Peter Fitzgerald.

How does the Dear Leader react to yet another political crony going to jail? No one knows. Considering that the investigation has now spread to the appointment of Obama’s replacement this could get very interesting.

Change.Gov

Where would Obama get the idea to use governmental resources to wage nonstop campaining through Change.gov?



From his one of his mentors, and soon to be indicted, Governor Rod Blagojevich back in Illinois of course.