That’s Right Nate

Pat Quinn is now free to begin work on his own scandals.

Today, in a unanimous vote along party lines, Illinois’ Senate voted to impeach Governor Rod Blagojevich and wasted no time swearing in Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn to start his own scandal plagued tenure as the state’s governor.  While no date has been scheduled for Quinn’s own impeachment hearings, the odds of an Illinois Governor enjoying a quiet retirement are basically the same as those of a Philadelphia crime boss.  Blagojevich still has a lengthy legal process to look forward to followed by possible prison time trying to avoid getting shivved by former Illinois Governor George Ryan who looked poised for a Bush pardon before Blagojevich brought the governorship back into the news.

The real tragedy is the end of Blagojevich’s once promising political career.  Like South Africa’s Nelson Mandella and India’s Mo Ghandi, Blago was a man of vision.  Blagojevich made an impassioned plea to the senate to ” “Think about the dangerous precedent of removing me without any proof of wrongdoing,” but the senators appeared to have their minds made up possibly by all the recordings of him Blagojevich demanding bribes from children’s hospitals and the like.

Blagojevich was also singled out for some odd statement he made such as naming Oprah Winfrey to fill Obama’s senate seat, a seat that she would be as qualified for as a bus driver would be to run a school system.  Chicago’s own Mayor Daley called Blagojevich crazy for that one.

“The ordeal is over,” Quinn said. “The citizens of Illinois can be extremely proud of our elected representatives … who carried out their responsibility with serious purpose.  I have not engaged in any illegal activity and I welcome any investigation of corruption during my time as governor.  I am looking forward to the facts finally coming out.”

There’s a lot going on today and none of it really merited a whole article, so I thought I’d make some short and sweet posts on the news today.

There are exactly 27% of the American population that is sane.   I saw a poll this morning that showed that 27% of the American population thought George W. Bush did a good job as President.  Later this evening I saw a poll that said 27% of Americans thought the government should do nothing about the current economic situation.  I believe that they are the same 27% and these people represent the best and brightest of this country.

I wrote about Adolph Hitler Campbell and his family a few weeks back when Walmart had to save the kid’s birthday (I love that store!).  Now it seems that the authorities have removed little Adolph along with his sisters JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie  from the Campbell home.  It’d be really tempting for some children to be resentful of being taken away from the only family they’ve ever known even if it was for their own good, but I do hope the children will use the time productively to meet new people, learn about other cultures, and work on their manifestos.

Today in Illinois I was reminded of Senator Edmund Ross, the Republican who crossed party lines to save Andrew Johnson from impeachment.  Today we saw a similar show of bravery in Illinois when in a 117-1 vote the Illinois House voted ruthlessly to impeach Rob Blagojevich.  The brave dissenter was Blagojevich’s sister-in-law the newly elected Deborah Mell who crossed her own father Chicago Alderman Dick Mell–One of Blago’s most bitter political enemies.

Without George Bush’s veto threat today the tax and spend liberals in the House caved into the sick children lobby and approved funding to expand children’s health insurance.  We had our own insurance plan when I was a kid.  It was called, “Rub some dirt on it and walk it off.”  I don’t want to be working Saturdays because some 8 year old has a case of the sniffles.  Nearly 80% of this country’s children are living out of poverty.  When is enough enough?