Let it be known that the yesterday’s removal of Rod Blagojevich from the office of governor had very little to do with the integrity of the Illinois state legislature. In fact, the case the state legislature made, outside of what they borrowed from the federal complaint, was fairly weak. Quite frankly, the legislature could not have made this happen on their own. The removal was more the result of the media doing its job and the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI doing their jobs.

We voters don’t take much time to get to know the difference between an honest hard-working politician and a sleezy backroom dealer. We owe the media and the U.S. Attorney for hitting us over the head with such thud that we could not ignore it, so that our outrage got the wheels turning in Springfield.

As far as I’m concerned, there is a lot more work to be done. As many as 182 other state elected officials were put in office under the same crooked campaign finance system. And while they all certainly aren’t criminals, a good chunk of them surely are. Its time for us voters to do our job, and demand immediate reforms to campaign finance in Illinois, so we can start to see ordinary people run for office and serve their state, instead of some of these content career politicians who make a career out of doing the wrong thing, except when the spotlight is on them.

Good citizen that you area, make an effort in the next few months to find out what your representatives are up to. Find out who they’re taking money from, and how they’re voting on bills. You might be a little surprised.

When I opened my browser, I was horrified to see in the select list of Yahoo! headlines that somehow Mitt Romney of all people grabbed attention for criticizing Obama on abortion, of all things.

First and foremost, the Associated Press, which wrote this piece (of crap) should take note of the fact that 1) nobody gives a shit about what Mitt Romney says, and 2) Mitt Romney, according to Mitt Romney, is pro choice.

I won’t pretend to be above horse-race politics, because politics is always about the future. But Obama was inaugurated last week, and there is a lot happening in Washington D.C., none of which has anything to do with Mitt Romney. How is anything he says even remotely considered newsworthy, again?

Well, instead of resigning with dignity at the start of the week, Blagojevich made a fool of himself and continued to make a mockery of the State of Illinois with his talk show tour. Yet the governor was actually fairly successful in stirring some doubt about the impeachment case against him. Whether or not he did a good enough job giving 20 senators the political cover to vote against his removal from office remains to be seen.

And while I’m not convinced that Blagojevich is any less guilty, I do think he has moved this impeachment from a slam dunk to now more of an easy lay-up.

Blagojevich, oddly enough, has been aided by the U.S. Attorney’s office, which restricted FBI Special Agent Daniel Cain’s testimony to the point of pointlessness, where some pretty significant questions went unanswered. The recordings that were played in court were merely audio versions of what was found in the original criminal complaint and somehow a little less convincing and less shocking when played out loud. And not to mention that nobody has yet come forward and said “I was offered the senate seat in exchange for a bribe”. After three days of testimony, it has become very difficult to escape the fact that there is an element of bullshit to the U.S. Attorney’s complaint and the articles of impeachment. I’m beginning to wonder if this impeachment wasn’t rushed and is now beginning to buckle under scrutiny.

However, I don’t think any of this should stop the senators from voting for removal, because the real question here is, not whether he did anything criminal, but “Is Blagojevich able to effectively carry out the duties of his office”. That answer is clearly “No,” and being an all-around lousy, incompetent governor is reason enough to remove him.

Based on her non-denial, it sounds like State Rep. Sara Feigenholtz was indeed behind a poll that suggested that Rep. John Fritchey is funding his campaign with tax-payer money and took money from a PAC tied to organized crime, which Fritchey denies. The phone call also tried to smear Mike Quigley by tying him to Todd Stroger. Watch the video here

I wonder if the poll said anything negative about Ald. Pat O’Connor, noting his wife’s magical success in real estate deals that require zoning changes, which happen to require approval from the alderman.

In the Special Election to replace Rahm Emanuel, today is the last day voters can file objections to any of the 26 candidates. By objecting, the voter contends that the person is for one reason or another not a valid candidate. The objection process is generally used by insiders to keep newcomers out of the political process, and examples of objections that are actually warranted are somewhat rare.

Nevertheless, as of the start of the day, there were no objections in the race, but look for a flurry of activity around 5 p.m.

http://www.elections.il.gov/ElectionInformation/SelectSearchType.aspx?id=26

Update: 5:07PM

Surprising light traffic at the Illinois State Board of Elections today. Four Democrats, one Republican and no Greens were objected to:

Monteagudo (D)
Dagher (D)
Thompson III (D)
Wheelan (D)
Pulido (R)

Justin Oberman, by the way, withdrew his candidacy on Friday of last week.

Could today be the day Gov. Rod Blagojevich calls it quits? With his senate trial set to begin tomorrow, and the gov. telling the media all week that he expects to be removed from office and to not get a fair trial, resigning would be the common sense thing to do. But is it the Blagojevich thing to do?

After all, why go through a trial that you’re destined to lose if you don’t have, one that is pretty much designed to highlight what an ass you are and gives the state’s 59 senators a chance to affirm your incompetence as a governor with a floor vote. And while Blagojevich loves a good fight, he is not even going to show up for the trial, nor are his lawyers. Unable to prove his innocence, unable to take some last jabs at his fellow elected officials who have turned their back on him, what does he stand to gain by a trial, at this point?

Perhaps the Blagojevich thing to do just might be to make them do all their prep work, write their speeches, make them gather all the evidence until the eve of the trial, the pull the rug out from under them by resigning right as they are about start, rendering all their work frivolous.

Riding out the week and waiting for the other shoe to drop, however, seems a little too anti-climactic for this governor. Whatever he does, there is little doubt there are many more bizarre antics to come.

While most of us will be enjoying the day off to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the folks at the Illinois Board of Elections will be hard at work, accepting petitions for last-minute filers for the Special Primary in the 5th Congressional District.

There are a couple of big names who have yet to file: Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley, labor attorney Tom Geoghegan and Ald. Patrick O’Connor (40th Ward).

At least half of the known Green candidates have yet to file, including 2008 candidate Alan Augustson and political activist Matt Reichel.

There may be a smattering of Republicans as well, including a former professional wrestler named Jon Stewart, who in his homepage photo appears to be playing air guitar.

Updates will be posted as they are available.

UPDATE 1 P.M.

This was a pretty active morning at the IBOE, with a few new names surfacing. Here are the candidates who filed:

Democratic

Pete Dagher
Jan H. Donatelli
Frank Annunzio
Carlos A. Monteagudo – A doctor of some sort
Paul J. Bryar – Yet another doctor, an eye surgeon.

Republican

Jon Stewart
Gregory A. Bedell
Rosanna Pulido

UPDATE 1:27 PM

A real estate agent named Roger A. Thompson III just filed a few minutes ago. All I could find on him was his Facebook page.

UPDATE 3:40 PM

Tom Geoghegan has filed as a Democrat. Oddly enough, his petitions have been viewed by Rob O’Connor (as in Ald. Pat O’Connor). However, O’Connor’s filings have not been posted, but we do have evidence that the O’Connor clan is hanging around the election office. Maybe there’s some psychology to waiting until the very last minute, although, I’m not really sure what that would be.

Republican Daniel S. Kay (Karkusiewicz) of Northlake has filed.

UPDATE 4:15 PM

David J. Anderson, who according to the Cook County GOP blog is a real estate businessman, has filed. Still wondering about O’Connor, Quigley, a couple lesser-known Dems and the other two Greens. There might be a last-minute run on the Board of Elections, the way this is shaping up.

UPDATE 4:18 PM

Spoke too soon. Greens Matt Reichel and Alan Augustson are now official. It will be a four-way race for the Green nomination.

UPDATE 5:09 PM

Quigley, O’connor and Cary Capparelli finally filed for the Dems, along with a previously unknown Green candidate, Simon Ribeiro of Evanston.

This is probably the #1 problem facing DuPage County (from the Naperville Sun):

DuPage County now ranks 11th in the state for foreclosure filings, with 6,184 properties filing in 2008.

The #2 biggest problem facing DuPage is can be extracted from the final few paragraphs:

Measures taken by the federal government so far have done little to help struggling homeowners, [Rep. Judy] Biggert [R-13th] said.

“Putting $300 billion in the mortgage problem starting Oct. 1 has had a pretty dismal result,” Biggert said. “That’s why I think if we could use more clout to get to some of these lenders, it would help.”

Getting lenders to sit down and talk with homeowners is one of her biggest concerns, she said. And there is no penalty in place for the lenders failing to do so.

“That’s the problem, and there’s no transparency,” Biggert said. The money, she said, was to put liquidity into the banks so they could make loans.

“We thought they would do it, and they didn’t,” Biggert said

As someone who was head and ranking member of the House Banking committee for many years, Biggert was in a pretty good position to set requirements for lenders to renegotiate troubled mortgage. Instead, she was doing the opposite: Deregulating the finance services industry, so they could do whatever the heck they wanted, the good of the country be damned.

Biggert, you’ll recall, was one of the handful of key swing voters that ultimately pushed Bush’s massive $750 billion giveaway to the banks. Again, as a member of a key committee, she could have pushed for the kind of oversight this thing needed. So what happened there?

I’m a little puzzled by this Wheaton Leader article, with the headline “Roskam calls for tax cuts”:

As Washington weighs plans to jump-start the economy, U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-6th, of Wheaton, today called for sensible tax cuts and tight oversight of spending as House Democrats unveiled a $825 billion stimulus package.

Roskam, a member of several House committees and Republican work groups that are discussing economic plans, said he is encouraged that President-elect Barack Obama has emphasized tax cuts, but noted that the cuts must be the right kind to foster long-term growth.

Roskam is one of 100 members of the House’s Republican Study Committee, which on Wednesday offered a plan that would cut personal income tax by 5 percent and reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. Earlier today, Roskam sat on another Republican panel that heard from economic experts.

So let me get this straight. Obama puts together a stimulus package that involves tax cuts, spending and oversight, and somehow Roskam is the focus of the story for basically agreeing with that? Or maybe not? Maybe what would help are some details on the stimulus package and specifics on how Roskam would like to see it changed. Without that, it’s really not a story, let alone a front page story.

Physician Victor A. Forys filed as a Democrat this morning, and Northwest Side community activist Mark Arnold Fredrickson filed as a Green in the special primary for 5th Congressional District.

The last day for filing is Monday (yes, the Illinois Board of Elections will be open, even though it is MLK day).