Blago, Etc.

Roland Burris will likely be sworn in this week, now that he put Reid and Durbin to shame with their stalling tactics.

The "necessary" paperwork has been done, and therefore the idiot duo had no more reason to keep Burris out.

Blago, Etc.

I have to agree with this post that it may be time for a new Senate majority leader, despite the fact Harry Reid is my senator:

We now have two vacant Democratic Senate seats, the one duly won by Al Franken in Minnesota and the one vacated by Barack Obama, to which Roland Burris has been appointed by "embattled" Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Regarding the Franken seat, this is over. There is no reason beyond Republican petulance not to seat him at once. But Republicans will always choose petulance over cooperation, and so they are doing now. Senator Franken's vanquished opponent, the incumbent Norm Coleman, has pointlessly challenged the result of Minnesota's meticulous recount in court even though, were Coleman to win every challenge his people have been able to concoct (mostly out of whole cloth), still he would not earn enough additional votes to prevail.

If we wanted to show some strength and create a Senate environment where we will actually be able to move this country properly in the right direction, we would forcefully attempt to seat Franken and let the Republicans try to mount a filibuster. If their filibuster succeeded initially, we should use their obstructionism to change the Senate rules to revert to the OLD filibuster rule, the one we saw in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and during the civil rights struggles of the '60s, where the minority must actually physically hold the floor for cloture to enter into the mix, and otherwise the majority can just wait them out. Or abolish the filibuster entirely.

Under the rules, this would require only a MAJORITY of the Senate, with the concurrence of the President of the Senate (currently unavailable to us because Dick Cheney wouldn't agree, but this will change in less than two weeks when Joe the Biden is sworn in). The Republicans would scream bloody murder but would not be able to avert the attainment of a quorum to enact the change. If we succeeded they would try to shut down the Senate, but without Democratic defections they do not have the numbers to make it stick. This would present some public relations complications but in my opinion it would be worth it in the long run, making compromise with evil so much less of an issue when we try to enact the Administration's various badly needed proposals. Remember, they snookered us out of the filibuster when they held a Senate majority, and I say sauce for the goose...

The current cloture rule is NOT a long-standing Senate tradition and should not be viewed with any particular reverence. To require a supermajority to prevail over an obstinate, obstructionist minority is not reasonable and is not an effective means of governance.

The second seat, the one in Illinois, is demonstrating rather conclusively that the current Senate leadership is too weak to be permitted to endure. Whatever one may think right now of Rod Blagojevich, I might urge that you reserve judgment on that point until more is known, given the partisan nature of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's history (remember, he protected Karl Rove and Dick Cheney from scrutiny during the Valerie Plame scandal, allowing Scooter Libby to become the lone scapegoat for illegal actions that originated right at the top) and his highly improper grandstanding in the current case. I have not heard the entire contents of his wiretap tapes, but what I have heard lends itself to a variety of alternative, less incriminating interpretations than would warrant Fitzgerald's jury-tainting public behavior. Remember, it is unethical for a prosecutor to bring charges or order an arrest unless he has a substantial reason to believe that he would prevail in court, and it is entirely unclear if any illegal act was committed or planned by Rod Blagojevich.

Be that as it may, Mr. Blagojevich remains the duly elected Governor of Illinois with not only the power, but the sworn DUTY, to appoint a successor to fill Barack Obama's now vacant Senate seat. To do otherwise would be an unforgivable breach of his responsibility as governor to serve the needs of Illinois citizens, particularly during this period when legislation plays such an important role in recovering from Bush's various messes and quagmires and a single vote in the Senate may prove decisive in determining the difference between a return to prosperity or a deepening depression.

There is no evidence whatsoever that Roland Burris has done anything even remotely illegal or unethical. Even if Patrick Fitzgerald's worst allegations of wrongdoing by Mr. Blagojevich prove to be true, that does not relate in any way to Roland Burris's qualifications or fitness to hold the Senate seat to which he has been duly appointed.

Harry Reid has been made to look the fool in this, and not for the first time. His whole reaction to it has been inexplicable, childlike in its whinyness, wimpy in its flaccid weakness, and counterproductive of not just the current power but the future stature of the Democratic Party. It is time that we voted in a new, more effective leader more attuned to the needs of the dangerous present and uncertain future.

I have several candidates for the post, each of whom provides various strengths that seem to be absent in Mr. Reid. To name three: Charles Schumer of New York, whose seat is safe and whose willingness to go to the mat against Republican obstructionism (except in the weird matters surrounding the treatment of Wall Street income as tax-favored capital gains instead of earned income) is impressive; Dick Durbin of Illinois, whose intelligence and predilection for partisanship might serve us well against our Republican adversaries; Carl Levin of Michigan, whose record on security and defense are unassailable and whose positions on social matters, particularly worker rights, are exemplary, and who positively drips intellect from every pore.

Maybe Harry Reid was the right man for the times when we were in the minority and needed conciliation in order to preserve whatever we were able to save from the predations of the Republican right wing, but that time is past and we need stronger leadership, leadership that remembers which party won the last few elections and which way the people of the United States want us to go with our legislative affairs. This is NOT served by denying Democrats the seats in the Senate they were elected or appointed to fill.

There are also some good suggestions of what Obama and Congress need to do to get the economy back on track. Trying to "reach across the aisle" with the GOP whose policies created the mess we are in is not the way to go.

The problem is too serious for band-aid solutions.

Blago, Etc.

After some Democratic senators decided to make absolute asses out of themselves over not seating Roland Burris to Obama's vacated Senate seat, there is a possibility he will be seated anyway.

More.

Senate "leaders," and I use that term loosely, deny these reports.

This saga is like something out of the Keystone Kops. If Reid is trying to be crafty and thinking about quashing GOP criticism over the Democrats being the "party of corruption" when the seat becomes open again next year, he's failed miserably.

Blago, Etc.

It has taken me a long, long, long, long time to question Harry Reid's competence, although many bloggers have been questioning it for years. Well, he and the Senate Democrats finally officially jumped the shark by not seating Roland Burris, who hasn't done ONE GODDAMNED THING WRONG, and Governor Blagojevich has not been proven to have done anything wrong, either, and had every GODDAMNED RIGHT TO APPOINT BURRIS to Obama's seat. I have said this and I will say it again, that Fitzgerald created this mess at the behest of the GOP in order to create a mess with the Democratic Party and with the hopes of creating a special election, which the GOP can exploit and attempt to steal.

The timing was everything and made me do an almost 180 on Obama with regard to the so-called Operation Board Games. I am still very critical of his jumping into the situation when he should stay clear of it except to get rid of Fitzgerald.

Reid is yapping about a procedural question as to why Burris won't be seated:

'Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state of Illinois,'' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in his speech opening the new session of Congress.

Burris, 71, earlier confirmed that Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson had informed him in a private meeting that his credentials lacked a required signature and his state's seal.

''I will not be accepted, I will not be seated,'' Burris told a mob of reporters who had followed him across the street for a news conference in a cold and steady rain outside the Capitol.

The former Illinois attorney general said he was ''not seeking to have any type of confrontation'' over taking the seat that he was appointed to by embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich. But Burris, who would be the Senate's only black member, also said he was considering a federal lawsuit to force Senate Democrats to seat him.

But what if the procedural problems are corrected? What then, Harry? Are you STILL going to fuck it up?

Blago, Etc.

The only explanation I have for Harry Reid's stupid behavior regarding the Blago mess is he is looking out for himself when he comes up for re-election in 2010, assuming the GOP in Nevada has anybody now that Brian Krolicki is in legal trouble.

This is stupid, completely and utterly stupid. Reid needs to stay far, far away from the Illinois situation, which is nothing more than a trap against the Democrats anyway.

Roland Burris is qualified for the Senate job, and he should be allowed to take the Senate seat. Blago has not been convicted, he has not been impeached, and he has every right to appoint a person to the seat vacated by Barack Obama.

The Democrats have seriously fucked this case up and leave it open for the Republicans to exploit. Patrick Fitzgerald did the GOP's bidding in his ridiculous arrest stunt in order for the Democrats to be put on the offensive. Well, THEY are the ones hurting themselves.

Blago, Etc.

Democrats in the U.S. Senate really ought to shut up about Blago's appointment of Roland Burris to Obama's seat.

The Republicans WANT, desperately WANT, a special election for them to steal. Durbin and the rest need to shut the fuck up and let the drama unfold.