Events

On a flight this evening I read the actual Illinois Supreme Court opinion in the matter of Burris v. White, and found, at the end, this helpful bit of advice for His Royal Ego the Appointee: The registration of the appointment of Mr. Burris made by the Secretary of State is a "record of paper" within the meaning of [15 ILCS 305/5(4)]. A copy of it is available from the Secretary of State to anyone who requests it. For payment of the normal fee...Petitioners could obtain a certified copy bearing the...

The Illinois Supreme Court denied Roland Burris' motion to compel Secretary of State Jesse White to sign Burris' appointment to the U.S. Senate. The court said, in essence, we can't compel him to perform a ceremonial function: "Because the secretary of state had no duty ... to sign and affix the state seal to the document issued by the governor appointing Roland Burris to the United States Senate, petitioners are not entitled to an order from this court requiring the secretary to perform those acts,"...

Despite Illinois' remarkable record of political corruption, today is the first time we've actually impeached the governor: The vote by the House was 114-1.... Rep. Milt Patterson (D-Chicago) was the lone vote against impeachment. A spokesman for the governor said he won't resign. (I assume the spokesman meant the governor won't resign and the reporter was just being sloppy.) The GOP once again fails to grasp the magnitude of impeachment as a last resort, and also the limitations of the legislature's...

...just left $153 million on the table: Chicago and CTA officials have only themselves to blame for forfeiting a $153 million federal grant pegged to help ease traffic gridlock, U.S. transportation officials said Thursday. The fumble marks a major setback in efforts to improve mobility in the nation's second most congested region. It means Chicago will be forced to put on hold a promising plan that would use bus-only lanes, special quick-boarding stations and high-tech traffic signals until city...

The soon-to-be ex-governor of Illinois got one step closer to getting thrown out this morning: The Illinois House impeachment committee has drafted a report calling for the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The report could still be amended when the committee meets later today. But it is expected to be sent to the full House, which would then take up impeachment of the governor. In the 69-page report, committee members noted that the governor refused to testify and rebut any of the allegations...

Via reader TW, The Onion on Apple's latest innovation.

This short, from Ball State University graduate Jaron Henrie-McCrea, won the 2005 Student Academy Award in the Experimental category:

No details yet, but it looks like "Tombstone" will get to sit after all. Update: OK, not quite, but either the Majority Leader blundered today, or he blundered yesterday. It's not easy to tell.

I have gone on the record in my opinion that both Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich are unqualified hacks not fit for public office. I've further gone on the record saying Blagojevich should not have appointed anyone to fill Obama's U.S. Senate seat after being arrested for corruption last month, and that anyone accepting such an appointment would remove all doubt as to the appointee's vanity, stupidity, and lack of qualification for the office. The sad fact is, though, nothing has persuaded me that...

Via Paul Krugman, imagine what would have happened had the Greedy Old Party (GOP) succeeded in pushing through Social Security privitization. But why imagine? We can just look at Italy: Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn't have been worse. The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to...