Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (pronounced blah-goy-ah-vich) has been arrested on Federal corruption charges.    He “allegedly conspired to sell U.S. Senate appointments, engaged in ‘pay-to-play’ schemes and threatened to withhold state assistance to Tribune Company for Wrigley Field to induce purge of newspaper editorial writers” [pdf]

I’m predicting that the big question rolling around the minds of wingbat conservatives is “How can we connect this to President elect (ex-Illinois Congressman) Barack Obama?”

More to surely follow.

Hope the headline didn’t scare you too much… Let me rephrase- Florida’s Former-Gov. Jeb Bush is considering a run for the Senate seat that first term Senator Mel Martinez will be giving up in 2010.  Martinez has not been exactly popular, and when 2010 rolls around, the Republicans are going to be looking to pick up as many seats as possible to swing away from a Democrat majority in Congress and Bush has become a name brand in the Republican party.

Of course the question becomes, with the name recognition Jeb Bush carries would he be a favorite, or would his famous brother diminish his chances of success?

If I were a high member of the Republican party, I’d try to distance myself from any ties to the highly criticized and poorly favored recent memory and try to revitalize the party as the Dems have done with Obama.  Of course Jeb isn’t George W. we all know this, but the question becomes how much difference would that make to the voting public?  Is it possible that Jeb is looking to remain in politics long enough to make his own run for the top seat some day?  Regardless of what happens, he’s going to have a handful of obstacles to overcome should he choose to run.

A reporter asked John McCain if he was willing to support President-elect Obama’s agenda as President.  To which Senator McCain replied, “Obviously“.

In a joint statement issued after their first meeting since the presidential election, the former rivals said they hoped to work together on challenges such as the financial crisis, creating a new energy economy and protecting the country’s security.

“At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time,” the statement said.

“It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family,” they said.

I’m curious to know if the two rivals would be so cordial if the economy wasn’t in such a dump-hole.  Or if there wasn’t a two front war still raging.  Or if the auto industry wasn’t about to collapse.

Then again, Sen. McCain was known for his across the aisle discussions in the Senate.   That’s where he got such a “Mavericky” nickname.  Of course he spoiled all of that by pandering too far to the conservative right during his Presidential campaign.  So does that mean we’ve got Sen. McCain back as he used to be?  It’s nice to see the McCain that I had a vast amount of respect for two years ago (and honestly considered voting for at the time).  I think you’d be hard pressed to argue that the man didn’t change to fit the GOP mold during this last year.  It’s what cost him the Presidency in the end.

A bigger example couldn’t have been set than the meeting between McCain and Obama today.  After only two weeks after election day, they made amends with no time to spare.

I’ve gotten used hearing rumors about Barack Obama like how he’s a Muslim, or that he swore on the Koran when elected to the Senate.  All of which have been proved INCORRECT without a shadow of doubt.

It was recently brought to my attention that ANOTHER rumor is developing.

Apparently some voters in Iowa argue against voting for Barack Obama for fear that he’ll change the United States flag if elected President.

You’ve. Gotta. Be. Shitting. Me.

I can only assume that this rumor has spawned from old news items like when Obama wasn’t wearing the tiny American flag pin during public appearances like all the other candidates last year.  Or when his campaign airplane was outfitted with his campaign logo instead of the American flag.

I have no link to the story that there are some Iowa voters who believe Obama will change the American flag if elected President because it was something directly told to me by those voters.

But does it shock anyone that something so absurd is swinging votes?  Then again, I think some people are looking for any reason to cast their vote for “anyone other than Obama”.

UPDATE:

I came across a site called “Conservapedia” designed to mimic Wikipedia except catered specifically for, you guessed it, “conservatives”.

Check out what it says in the Barack Obama entry.  No wonder people are all backwards on the truth:

Obama is likely to be Muslim because:

• Obama’s background and education are Muslim
• Obama’s middle name remains Muslim, which most Christians would not retain[8]
• Obama recently referred to his “Muslim faith”[9]
• Obama uses the Muslim Pakistani pronunciation for “Pakistan” rather than the common American one[10]
• Obama, in his autobiography “Dreams from My Father” (1995), descibes Muslim Malcolm X as his favorite black leader
• Obama’s claims of conversion to Christianity arose after he became politically ambitious, lacking a date of conversion or baptism.[11]

The odds of Obama being truthful in his claim that he converted to Christianity are less than 100 to 1 against it, as fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.[12]

Yes, it’s true. The $700B bailout passed along with several other perks. In order for another vote to take place, law makers taped the bailout to an old bill that the senate never got around to voting on before.

Along with the bailout passing they also passed extending tax breaks for individuals using renewable energy (good!), a research and development credit for businesses (uhh… shrug), and another year free from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Right, so best quote from Senate debate:

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the Senate will have “failed the American people” by acting hastily. “I agree we need to do something. … [But] we haven’t spent any time figuring out whether we’ve picked the best choice.”

Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain both voted in favor of the bailout, btw.

Now the bill heads to the House where the politicians are even more spineless.

UPDATE:

More details on what other completely unrelated laws were passed with the $700B bailout bill:

• Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
• Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
• Sec. 113. Temporary increase in coal excise tax; funding of Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.
• Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
• Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.
• Sec. 405. Increase and extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax.
• Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
• Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
• Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
• Sec. 503 Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.

[hattip: theagitator]

On Thursday the House shocked everyone- including itself, with it’s votes on a 3-part war funding bill.

The surprise action left antiwar activists on and off Capitol Hill exultant, Republicans gloating and Democratic leaders baffled. Recriminations from all sides quickly followed.

House leaders had broken the war funding bill into three separate measures. The first, to continue funding combat operations, needed Republican votes to pass over the objection of antiwar Democrats. The second would impose strict Iraq-related policy measures strongly opposed by President Bush, and the third would fund domestic priorities, including a new G.I. Bill and levees around New Orleans.

That legislative legerdemain became the plan’s undoing. Rather than go along, 131 House Republicans voted “present” on the war funding provision, saying they were incensed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and a few of her lieutenants had drafted the bill in secret, then expected them to play along.

Reps say their action is a boycott of shady Dem dealings, Dems say the Reps had a choice between funding the war, or not funding it, and they chose to wash their hands of it altogether.

(T)he impact is likely to be short-lived. The Senate will take up its version of the war funding bill next week; it is expected to restore the war funds and strip out the policy prescriptions most disagreeable to the White House. The White House reiterated its veto threat of the overall package yesterday morning, demanding a new version stripped of policy prescriptions and domestic spending, including the bill’s $52 billion expansion of veterans’ education benefits. The supplemental appropriations vote is the last major clash on Iraq policy between Congress and Bush.

Had it become law, the House bill would have brought the total cost of the war in Iraq to around $660 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service, more expensive than any U.S. military effort except World War II.

As passed, the House bill would require troop withdrawals from Iraq to begin within 30 days, with a goal of removing all combat forces by December 2009. The Iraqi government would have to match U.S. reconstruction funding dollar for dollar, and would be required to offer the U.S. military the same fuel subsidies it provides its own citizens.

Basically as it stands, rather than continue to flush money in a situation that taxes our country’s resources and money more than we can afford, this bill will improve scholastic options for troops who have served, begin bringing the troops home as well as giving them more time off inbetween deployments to recouperate, and make the Iraqi gov’t begin to pull it’s actual fair share of the load. Sounds pretty reasonable to me, but of course reasonable dealings have never been the current admin’s strong point, as evidenced by the fact that the White House has promised to veto this thing to death should it even reach their door.

And while the improvement of educational benefits to the troops sounds like something anyone, regardless of political affiliation could get behind- leave it to Prez hopeful John McCain to try to use it as a tool for keeping the troops in the military (which in turn makes it all the more difficult to use the benefits to get to college, because, you know- deployments tend to make it hard to get to get to class on time).

The measure has attracted broad bipartisan support, but it is opposed by Bush because of its cost, its tax increase and fears that its generosity could entice service members to leave the military rather than reenlist at the end of their tours. Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the presumptive Republican nominee, has put forward a less generous alternative that would save its richest benefits for service members doing multiple tours.

But McCain’s efforts have run into bipartisan opposition — from lawmakers, veterans organizations and educators. Former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, a close McCain ally, came out for Webb’s measure yesterday.

“I have tremendous regard for Senator McCain, but I can’t figure out where he is right now,” said Dartmouth College President James Wright, a former Marine who helped negotiate the Webb-Warner language. “It seems to me our posture as a nation cannot be to say to servicemen and -women, ‘We do not value you unless you reenlist.’ That wasn’t the contract they signed.”

But no matter what happened in the House, expect the Senate to sink the whole thing and bring it right back to war spending where this gov’t seems to think it belongs.