Say it ain't so, Roland
By John Amato Sunday Feb 15, 2009 1:45pmJust when you thought this was all put to rest.
Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois acknowledged in documents made public Saturday that the brother of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich sought campaign fund-raising help from him in the weeks and months before his appointment to succeed Barack Obama as the state’s junior senator.
Mr. Burris said he provided no money to Governor Blagojevich’s campaign in response to the brother’s request.
The disclosure was different from Mr. Burris’s earlier descriptions, including one under oath, of his conversations with those closest to the former governor. It raised new questions about events that preceded Mr. Burris’s unusual appointment in late December and prompted some Republican lawmakers in Illinois to immediately demand an inquiry into whether Mr. Burris committed perjury.
Roland, Roland, Roland....
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Just give the corrupt, criminal Reslugs a reason to smear Dem's at any cost, even when they know they're full of shit.
Shocked. I am shocked to discover there was a Quid Pro Quo.
He said that he didn't give them anything. He was just asked for it. Of course there is always next week.
Bye bye corrupt politician. But, I repeat myself.
A Senator? Telling lies? That never happened before Burris got to DC.
How did they find out? Did they find it chipped into his Head Stone?
according to Burris, so this goes all the way to the top.
It's not like he was screwing prostitutes.
His ego is bigger than his values.
...pay his taxes?
Shows how much you know. In Illinois, Burris is a known scumbag, hang'em prosecutor and general corrupt creep who should have gone to jail long ago. There are innocent people in jail because this guy never let up, to the point where staff prosecutors RESIGNED rather than work for him. He needs to do some serious rotting in jail, and if this is one way to get him there, so much the better!
The only God that wanted him in the Senate was the god of hubris and deception. And here we are busting our ass in this state trying to clean up after Blago and now this. What's the deal, Roland, are you trying to help the Repubs here make a comeback?
Will Governors all over the country suddenly be impeached for selling Senate seats in exchange for political contributions?
Srsly! Why are people pretending this isn't corrupt politics as usual?
Here in Illinois the Repugs are saying that with this admission the whole stimulus plan should be negated because of Barris giving the Senate the 60 votes needed. They grasp for any straws that they can.
Barris lied and now Quinn should be able to seat another in his place. When oh when is Minnesota going to seat Frankin?
The GOP intends to be sure he is never seated. It will be up to the people of Minnesota to end this I think. Let's hope they don't wait too long.
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How could anyone have ever believed that, in the current money politics culture, that two IL politicians like Blago and Burris would not have had at least tentative money deals in play? Reid may indeed have been unartfully categorical in saying that, in light of the bribery scheme Blago had been revealed to have intended to follow in disposing of this appointment, that the Senate would not seat anyone he appointed. But as a practical matter, there really was no way that any pick of his, except perhaps of someone with no previous connection to politics (and Mother Theresa was no longer available to take the job), could ever quiet perfectly reasonable suspicions that he or she had gotten the appointment by cooperating with Blago's bribery scheme. Of course any such pick would deny that the nomination was a quid exchanged for some quo, but professional politicians from the same state exchange things that could be construed as quos all the time. When you have one politician on tape saying that he has this quid he intends to turn into gold, there's no way that any other politician who lives in the same culture of frequent quo hook-ups should ever have been allowed to take the seat.
The Constitution makes the Senate the final judge of elections to its membership. They should have done their duty and not seated Burris, or any other Blago appointee, until and unless they were satisfied that the nominee had not participated in the bribery scheme for that seat that Blago was known to have formulated. Bribery is presumably not a part of the IL legal scheme for having their governor elect a replacement Senator when a seat becomes vacant between popular elections. An appointment that was part of a bribery scheme would presumably be as invalid as a popular election won by stolen votes. Reasonable people would never have been satisfied that Burris did not get the seat by bribery, and they never would have let him take the seat.
I'm in Illinois and I can't even begin to tell you how unhappy we all are about this crap. I feel personally violated - soiled. Not unlike when Bush stole the 2000 election.
I have actually withheld my vote for governor in Illinois when the choice was too sordid - - but I can't wait for the next senatorial election. This man's ass is grass.
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And I voted for Rich Whitney, the Green candidate for Gov. in 2006.
at this level
the man is an idiot
Taint misbehavin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL6NN65sVpE
Roland knew he would get caught so he rushed the decision. It worked as he quickly used the Race Card. Now he only wanted the Senate Seat to put on his grave stone. More will be released about Mr. Burris as Fitz is be releasing more stuff.
Oh , you mean the granite covered bus stop shelter that the crazy man erected for himself?LOL!
I'm from Chicago too, and you've gotta admire the how comfortable this guy is with what seems to be a complete lack of conscience. Had no problem taking the appointment in the first place. But then, he wanted it so bad, he figured there wouldn't be a problem lying to the panel impeaching the man who appointed him as long as he straightened it out once he was seated. Hysterical.
As I said before, if Harry Reid had located his testicles and turned this guy away last month, Gov Quinn would have appointed someone new by now and Roland Burris would be trying to raise money (from whom?) to finance a loosing battle in the Court of Appeals.
Childe Roland?
... consider blagojevich illinois' darkest hour...
i consider it our finest hour. this crap goes on in every state in the union. here in illinois, we finally said, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH."
ya'll would do well to follow our example.
and patrick fitzgerald is illinois' gift to america...
Remember that they weren't able to impeach Clinton for anything he actually *did* while in office, just for lying while under oath when testifying about it.
And here we go again. The record shows Burris didn't actually *pay* any money or exchange any favors for the nomination, Republicans are going after him for what he said while under oath testifying about what he did or did not know.
Same M.O.. Can't get them for actually DOING anything wrong, so get them on a technicality... just so long as you "get them".
Good point. There's still no indication that Burris gave Blago any money - we just now have Burris saying that Blago did ask for "fundraising assistance." What a shock, Blago asked for money LOL.
If Burris had any sense - or any kind of competent staff - he would have simply said that he didn't feel it was appropriate to have gone into any more detail at the hearing since there is an active criminal investigation going on, but that on further reflection, he felt that it's necessary to clear up the record. If he was really smart, his office would have at least gone through the motions of contacting the prosecutor and asking if speaking publicly would impede the case in any way.
Hmm, maybe I'm in the wrong line of work LOL
might have been right not wanting to sit this POS from Illinois? Considering all the flak that he got, just wanted to mention that.... He still deserves props for seeing this disaster before it happened....
Rick Beagle
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