Posted on 12/30/2008 9:25:49 AM PST by ConservativeMind
Edited on 12/30/2008 1:38:29 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
WLS just broke in to say Roland Burris, a former Illinois Comptroller, has been named to the Senate by Rod.
(Excerpt) Read more at wlsam.com ...
I wonder if Rhamie is on tape reccomending Burris???
That’s a very good question. I sure hope so. Just heard on Fox that there’s been no response from the Obama camp-wonder why-lol
Cause they’re shaking in their boots...Burris leads to Reynolds and Reynolds to Obama....Blank-O just fingered BHO very publicly.
The Swamp
Senate won’t accept Blago choice Burris
by James Oliphant
In a statement released minutes ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats would not allow Roland Burris, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s apparent choice as Illinois’ next senator, to be seated as a member of the Senate.
Reid’s statement makes good on a threat issued two weeks ago by the Democratic Caucus, which will hold a commanding majority in the new Senate, that anyone named by the embattled Illinois governor would not be allowed to take office. The U.S. Constitution arguably grants the Senate the power to bar Burris from assuming the position. However, in the past, that power has been used in the past only when the senator in question was elected through fraud or corruption.
In this case, there is no evidence that Burris, a former state attorney general, figured in any way in Blagojevich’s alleged scheme to leverage Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat for personal gain. And Burris would be been appointed, not elected. But Reid said Tuesday that does not matter.
“It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety,” Reid said. “We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.”
On Dec. 17, citing the threat from Senate Democrats, Blagojevich’s lawyer, Ed Genson, said the governor would not be making an appointment. Blagojevich apparently did not receive that memo.
Blagojevich is set to announce the appointment of Burris this afternoon, according to the Chicago Tribune. The question now becomes whether Burris will accept the appointment, and then whether he would choose to somehow challenge the Senate action. An Illinois state legislative panel is also determining Tuesday whether to recommend the impeachment of Blagojevich.
Posted by Jim Oliphant on December 30, 2008 2:30 PM
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/12/senate_wont_accept_blago_choic.html
crazy stuff — hey, America, this is a “black” Senate seat and don’t anyone dare think otherwise.....
OK, Bobby, whatever you say, we don’t want to see the Black Panthers getting wild again.....
“Watching the news conf live...Bobby Rush AA-Chicago is rambling along in very slurred speach, that this is a BLACK Senate seat, started BLACK by PEOBAMBA...so it MUST be seated as a black seat, “whatever it may takes”...Roland Burris stands head and shoulders above most other politicians in this country, says Bubbly Rush...NO senator must deny this BLACK SEAT to the Senate, will go to BLACK Caucus and Dickie DUrbin who’s a FREN’ of mine...
What a disgusting display of idiocy and PURE RACISM...the most inarticulate and buffooooonish display”
I was yelling the same thing at the t.v.! Can you imagine if someone else had said those same things but replace “black” with “white”? GRRRRR, is right.
SHouldn't be too hard to prove...WOnder if Fitz has had his, Craig Robinson or Jim Reynold phones tapped, and for how long!?!?!?
________________
Here's some interesting dots to connect thanks to Maggie F (you rock):
...Last year, Loop paid Burris & Lebed Consulting — the firm of powerbroker and former Illinois Attorney General Roland W. Burris — $5,000 a month to obtain municipal bond business ...
PLUS:
... Craig Robinson is Barack Obama’s Brother-in-Law ... He was also a managing director and partner at Loop Capital Markets,...
http://news.muckety.com/2008/11/20/penny-pritzker-reportedly-passes-on-commerce-post/7191
(Penny) Pritzker first met the Obamas in the late 1990s when her son and daughter played in a summer basketball league at a Chicago YMCA coached by Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s brother, who introduced them.
..
http://www.suntimes.com/news/sweet/1297550,CST-NWS-sweet25.article
‘She has this great ability to do things world class’
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Author: Lynn Sweet, The Chicago Sun-Times
Dipping into their close circle of Chicago friends to find the new White House social secretary, President-elect Barack Obama and wife Michelle named business executive Desiree Rogers to the job Monday.
Rogers , 49, is a former Illinois Lottery director, Peoples Energy chief and current president of Allstate Financial’s Internet play, who has been a major social and civic figure in Chicago for years.
Rogers will have one of the most important jobs in the East Wing — the domain of the first lady — which oversees the social events in the White House.
“She just has this great ability to do things world class,” said her former husband, John Rogers , another close friend of the Obamas who will be one of the Inauguration co-chairs. The Rogers have a daughter, Victoria, 18, a Yale freshman.
Desiree met Michelle Obama through John — he attended Princeton with Michelle’s brother Craig Robinson and later met Barack. Rogers would go on to become close friends with Valerie Jarrett, who grew up on the same block on South Greenwood Avenue as John Rogers .
(snip)
So journalism is nothing more than pounding unfavorable events into a state in which the opposition to Democrats can not take advantage.
So journalism is nothing more than pounding unfavorable events into a state in which the opposition to Democrats can not take advantage.
Building a money machine - Barack Obama’s impressive fundraising for his presidential bid is no fluke: He has cultivated insider donors since early in his political career.
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Friday, April 13, 2007
Author: David Jackson and John McCormick, Tribune staff reporters
EXCERPT
A friend to money managers
Elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, Obama crafted a reputation for serving the disadvantaged — and for drawing sustained support from Chicago's flourishing black-owned financial and investment firms.
Officers and employees of Holland Capital Management donated more than $40,000 to committees that directly supported him from 1999 through last year, for example, and directors and workers at Ariel Capital Management gave more than $50,000 over that period.
Those firms and others met with Illinois officials beginning in 2001, asking to manage a larger portion of the state's multibillion-dollar pension funds. And they found an ally in Obama. Among other initiatives, he served for three months, from September to December 2003, on the seven-member Senate Select Committee on Public Pension Investments, which recommended ways for state pension funds to use more minority- and women-owned financial firms.
During Obama’s three months on the panel, Ariel directors and employees gave him $14,500, records show, and Holland officers and employees donated $1,500.
If some self-interest was perhaps at play, so too was a sense of shared experience that inspired many African-American professionals. Many of them had never before raised money for a candidate but found common ground in Obama’s Ivy League education, in social networks that crisscrossed the city and in an ethos that celebrated the accumulation of wealth — if it was used to address the broad inequities faced by black Americans.
“You had people who had never participated at this level before. Not just their own contributions, but also rallying other people,” said Ariel President Mellody Hobson.
She recalled hosting an early Obama fundraiser at her cramped Near North Side apartment in about 1995. As the one-bedroom overflowed with a “mixed group” of people, she said some of the furniture had to be moved out into the hallway to make room for the crowd.
By 2003 and 2004, she said, the buy-in from African-American professionals was so strong that fundraising became relatively easy. “They felt the time was now to get behind one of our own,” Hobson said.
In a typical pattern, Hobson said she met Obama’s wife through Obama’s brother-in-law Craig Robinson , a Princeton University grad like her, and a 1990s board member of a foundation for inner-city students created by Ariel executives.
Obama’s brother-in-law also served in 1999 as a managing director at the bond underwriting firm Loop Capital Markets, which was co-founded by Obama’s neighbor, friend and political financier James Reynolds Jr. Several of Obama’s most active financiers — black and white — say they were first introduced to him by Reynolds.
Among those is investment adviser Barbara Bowles, who had given close to $9,000 even before Obama started his presidential bid, and former Chicago Stock Exchange Vice Chairman Andrew Davis, who with his wife gave $24,000 to Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. Davis served on Obama’s Illinois finance committee for that campaign.
Reynolds also brought Obama to Les Coney, who recalled hosting a late-1990s Obama reception at the Mid-America Club in Chicago where they greeted about 15 guests and raised roughly $5,000.
He appeared to be drunk to me.
No, he is just stupid
"Those firms and others met with Illinois officials beginning in 2001, asking to manage a larger portion of the state's multibillion-dollar pension funds. And they found an ally in Obama. Among other initiatives, he served for three months, from September to December 2003, on the seven-member Senate Select Committee on Public Pension Investments, which recommended ways for state pension funds to use more minority- and women-owned financial firms."
Yep. That's pretty much it.
Why? He was apparently pressing to be appointed even after the arrest.
Nah. You are describing Urinalism. Journalism died back in the 1980’s save for a few throwbacks like Dr. Thomas Sowell and Mark Steyn who can still reason and write.
I believe that Blago has done this to stick it to his enemy IL AG Lisa Madigan who is chomping at the bit to become the next governor of Illinois.
Now Burris will be in a good position to run against Madigan in the Democrat Governor primary in 2010.
"the last Illinois Attorney General people actually LIKED"
No one liked poor Jim Ryan? :-?
And I bet Mike Madigan is REALLY kicking himself now for refusing to name a special election and calling Blago's bluff that there's NO WAY he'd name a Senator in the current political environment. Uh oh, looks like Blago's got some brass balls, eh Mike?
Foolish mistake. The 'logical' thing from Blago's POV would certainly be to appoint a Senator. Especially a respected black man like Roland "unqualified white boys" Burris. I'd love to hear Blago and wife taking about this appointment in private.
I hope that many reporters will remind people that Burris isn’t the same race as Obama. Obama is half white & half black, but Burris is black.
Blagojevich defies Senate, names Obama replacement
By DEANNA BELLANDI – 53 minutes ago
CHICAGO (AP) — A defiant Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday appointed a former state attorney general to Barack Obama’s former Senate seat, a suprise move that put his opponents in the uncomfortable position of trying to block a veteran political trailblazer from becoming the Senate’s only black member. Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris injected race into the drama surrounding the embattled governor, who sought to make the issue more about the man he selected rather than the seat he’s accused of trying to sell.
“Please don’t allow the allegations against me to taint a good an honest man,” the governor said, turning to the smiling 71-year-old standing by his side.
Burris said he discussed the appointment with Blagojevich Sunday night. “I was asked if he would appoint me, would I accept, and the answer is yes,” Burris said.
Burris said he has no connection to the charges against Blagojevich, who was arrested earlier this month on charges that he tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder.
Burris was the first African-American elected to major statewide office in Illinois. He served as comptroller and ran for governor three times — the last time losing to Blagojevich.
The Democratic governor’s announcement may be an empty gesture. Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who must certify the appointment, said Tuesday he will not do so. And Senate leaders reiterated that they would not accept anyone appointed by Blagojevich.
In a statement Tuesday, Senate Democrats maintained that Blagojevich should not make the appointment because doing so would be unfair to Burris and to the people of Illinois.
“It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety,” the statement said.
“Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic caucus.”
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said Blagojevich’s decision to appoint Burris is an “insult to the people of Illinois.”
“We believe in clean government, and Rod Blagojevich has unclean hands,” Quinn said.
But Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, dared Senate leaders in Washington to block Burris’ appointment, pointing out that Burris would be the only black man in a chamber populated overwhelmingly by white senators.
Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 after federal prosecutors allegedly recorded conversations in which he discussed appointing someone Obama favored in exchange for a position in the new president’s Cabinet or naming someone favored by a union if he got a high-level union job.
The governor has faced a flood of calls for his resignation, and the Illinois House has begun impeachment proceedings. He maintains his innocence, and has vowed to stay in office.
Blagojevich’s own lawyer said recently that there would be no point in the governor naming someone to the Senate because leaders there would reject his appointment.
Democratic state Rep. Mary Flowers, a member of the impeachment committee, said Burris is qualified to sit in the Senate, but she is not swayed in her decision concerning impeachment.
“One has nothing to do with the other,” Flowers said.
White, who handles the state’s paperwork, said he would not formally certify any appointment made by Blagojevich “because of the current cloud of controversy surround the governor.”
It’s not clear whether White’s refusal would be enough to prevent a Blagojevich appointment from taking effect.
Burris is a native of Centralia in southern Illinois who graduated from Southern Illinois University before earning his law degree from Howard University.
He served as Illinois’ comptroller from 1979 to 1991 and as the state’s attorney general from 1991 to 1995. He also served as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1985 to 1989.
More recently, however, Burris has had a string of political disappointments.
He lost campaigns for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1994, 1998 and 2002 — the last time losing to Blagojevich. In 1995, he was badly beaten when challenging Chicago Mayor Richard Daley in the primary.
Before taking public office, Burris worked in banking and served as national executive director and chief operating officer for Operation PUSH, the Chicago-based civil rights organization.
He failed in his first brush with politics — a 1968 run for the Illinois House. But five years later, his political service got him appointed as an aide to Gov. Dan Walker.
Burris has been a consistent donor to Blagojevich, giving thousands of dollars to his campaign in recent years. Burris donated $1,000 to the Friends of Blagojevich fund in 2005, $1,500 in 2007 and $1,000 in June 2008, according to Illinois campaign finance data.
On a national level, Burris has given to Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as several members of the Illinois congressional delegation, including Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty, Laurie Kellman and Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report from Washington.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hVNAcA-xtCA6PKQ8h5s7dBlD_BKwD95D9PF80
Then you have Lisa Madigan, who the media loves, but if you ask the sheeple that voted for her to name one thing she's ever accomplished besides being Mike's daughter, they can't.
That leaves Roland Burris, and when he and Jim Ryan ran against each other for A.G. back in 1990, Burris won. He grew up in downstate Illinois and pro-gun, so some conservatives tolerated him. When they had the Dem primary debates for Governor in 2002, all sides agree that Burris gave the most warm and geninue performance and won those debates by a clear margin over Blago and Vallas.
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