Rod Blagovich - a symptom, not a disease

Rod Blagovich, former Illinois governor, was convicted of trying to sell the former senate seat of The Teleprompter Jesus to the highest bidder.  There was plenty of other stuff involved, but that was my favorite of the indictments. 

He's the 4th Illinois governor (see: Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and George Ryan) to be sent down the river in about 35 years. 

So why do people want to keep giving more money and power and responsibility to politicians? 

It costs far, far more to win the election than the job pays.  In return for their contributions, most supporters of a candidate are going to be wanting far more than they've contributed. 

What results are we expecting?  Who are these angels that we apparently believe are going to flap down into these roles and govern honestly after spending millions to get a job that pays in thousands? 

The only solution to this problem, IMAO, is based on libertarian principles:

1) Institute a Flat Tax, with no exceptions for saving the environment, employing more people, growing wheat for ethanol, or saving the whales.  Anyone granting a tax break to a constituent can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors. 

2) Shrink the size of government to the size of an infant dachshund.  They're going to spend about two billion on the next presidential election campaign.  Why?  Because it's worth it. 
If the government were to be involved in roads, infrastructure, the court system, defending the borders, and nothing else, (see: U.S. Constitution) the opportunities for graft would shrink exponentially.
Any politician wanting to get the government involved in activities in which government sucks (education, energy, housing, literacy, nutrition, changing the weather, etc.) can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors.   

3) There is no #3. 

Illinois or Mexico? Guess who has to pay higher interest

From Bloomberg News, via Newsalert, via Instapundit:

Illinois capital-markets director John Sinsheimer and Citigroup Inc. bankers took a globe-girdling trip from the U.K. to China in June to persuade investors that the state’s $900 million of Build America Bonds were a bargain.


The seven-country visit worked. The state sold one-fifth of the federally subsidized securities abroad the next month, tapping investors who are the fastest-growing source of borrowed cash for U.S. municipalities. Illinois, with the lowest credit rating of any state from Moody’s Investors Service, dangled yields higher than Mexico, which defaulted on debt in 1982, and Portugal, which costs more to insure against missed payments.

In other words, the children of the state of Illinois are going to be forking out Payday Loan-type interest rates.  All so their parents can support the political culture that produced Barack Obama, Rod Blagojevich, these 3 governors who have been to jail, Dan Rostenkowski, and the next mayor of Chicago. 

Mexico is a better investment.  I repeat, Mexico is a better, safer investment.  Look at these three guys.  Would you purchase a used hubcap from any of them???  Let it roll around in your brain for a few minutes.  According to people who evaluate risk, Mexico is a safer investment than Illinois. 

CAVEAT EMPTOR, dammit ! !

If you purchase the Illinois bonds, Obama is eventually going to print some money, give it to Illinois, and they are going to pay you back with .50 cent dollars.  Hide and watch.   
Mexico is a better investment. 

******
The Wanted Poster came from here. 

Healthcare Hypotheticals

I read about the merits and demerits of the upcoming healthcare bill on a lot of other websites. The Comment Field debates usually wind up with the Statists accusing their opponents of selfishness and mean-spiritedness.

Well, let's assume that convicted swindler Bernie Madoff has been released from prison. Bernie gets together with Louisiana televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and former Chicago governor Rod Blagojevich.

These guys come up with a healthcare plan that will ensure that all Americans have healthcare coverage. It's 2,000 pages long, and no one involved in the process of compiling the plan will admit to reading the whole thing. It's identical to the plan under review in Congress, but with Bernie, Jimmy, and Rod administering the system.

The U.S. government is seriously considering implementing the Madoff/Swaggart/Blagojevich healthcare plan, and allowing those three gentlement and their followers to run the program.

If you oppose this plan, does this mean you want to see uninsured babies die?

Does your opposition to this con game mean that you are mean-spirited or selfish?

Is their anything, anything at all, in the past history of Madoff/Swaggart/Blagojevich that leads anyone to believe they could honestly and effectively administer something as massive as the American medical system

And finally, the U.S. government has spent $12,000,000,000,000.00 more than its income. (That's 12 trillion, if you lose count of the zeroes.) At worst, Madoff/Swaggart/Blagojevich have cost their unfortunate followers 20 billion. At best, they have displayed a certain (ahem) entrepreneurial zeal.

Are you a selfish bastard if you oppose the genuine healthcare reform program or the M/S/B reform program? And if you had to choose one over the other, which one would it be?

The cool pics came from Photobucket.

Rod Blagojevich and [The President-elect]

I have been called a cynic, an anarchist, a nihilist, and, in the words of one memorable email, someone who "irresponsibly spew(s) vitriol".
But every now and then, someone pulls back the curtain to show me that government really is worse than I have feared.
The National Post has the best summary of the Illinois Governor's indictment so far. The Post is a Canadian outfit, so they at least mention which political party Rod Blagojevich is affiliated with, a fact that's curiously absent from a lot of the U.S. press coverage.
(Hint: This might have been your first guess, but Blagojevich is NOT a Libertarian. So guess again.)

The picture of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, former Senator Barack Obama, and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley came from this article in Salon, the last few lines of which might become funnier with age. We'll see.

Back to the National Post:

Reuters reports that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on criminal charges on Tuesday, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by fellow Democrat President-elect Barack Obama, federal prosecutors said.
Blagojevich was also accused of threatening to withhold substantial state assistance to the Tribune Company in connection with the sale of the Chicago Cubs' baseball home Wrigley Field "to induce the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members sharply critical" of him.

I'm not going to go off on why The Great State of Illinois needs to provide "substantial state assistance" to The Chicago Tribune in their sale of a ballpark. Especially when The Chicago Tribune is supposed to be a watchdog over the shady goings-on in The Great State of Illinois. But, as my friend Dr. Ralph tells me, they do things differently up there.

The 51-year-old Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were charged in a 76-page federal indictment with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery. Both were taken into custody at their homes in Chicago.

The FBI's criminal complaint doesn't give any names of the senatorial candidates under discussion, but refers to them as [Senate Candidate #1] through [Senate Candidate #5]. To protect the privacy of the individual who vacated the Senate seat that was for sale on Ebay, the FBI omits his name and calls him [the President-elect].

Here's an example, from an intercepted conference call. This has people all over Chicago trying to guess who's who:

ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that the consultants (Advisor B and another consultant are believed to be on the call at that time) are telling him that he has to “suck it up” for two years and do nothing and give this “****** ******** **** **** **** [the President-elect] his senator.

**** him.

For nothing? **** him.”

ROD BLAGOJEVICH states that he will put “[Senate Candidate 4]” in the Senate “before I just give ****ng [Senate Candidate 1] a ****ing Senate seat and I don’t get anything.”

I'm not condemning the profanity on these calls. At my workplace, we have to say worse than that to get one box on a UPS truck. I merely wanted to illustrate that the Illinois governor wasn't going to simply appoint the best person for the job and not even get an ambassadorship out of it. Here's the Chicago Tribune:

....Blagojevich is quoted in the affidavit as frequently speaking of the president-elect with profanity and scorn. But there is an overlap among some of their top political confidants.

Axelrod ran Blagojevich's successful 1996 campaign for a Northwest Side U.S. House seat, though the two later had a falling-out. When Blagojevich was elected governor in 2002, his replacement in Congress was Rahm Emanuel, now Obama's designee as chief of staff. Emanuel and Blagojevich have since worked closely on several initiatives.

This is a link to the entire FBI complaint. If you have time, skim the first few pages, then flip to page 60, and read to the end.

Good Lord in heaven. These people are urban Snopeses. (Also, you might not be familiar with the SEIU, a group frequently mentioned in the complaint. SEIU stands for the "Service Employees International Union". They spent more than 16 million dollars getting [the President-elect] elected.)

Until January 21st, or until further complaints are filed by the FBI, I intend to refer to the individual who vacated this controversial senate seat as [the President-elect].