Selling license plates should be next for Blago

Note to Rod Blagojevich: If at first you don’t succeed, then just keep trying.
So you weren’t able to sell President Barack Obama’s senate seat to the highest bidder as you had hoped to. No big deal.
There’s always make-up or the manufacturer of the hair-care product you use to maintain that impeccable coif.
Better yet, how about selling license plates? This way you don’t have to risk committing a felony. And even if you did, what would it matter? You’d already be doing the time.
Considering the level and severity of the allegations against Blago—not to mention the empirical evidence stacking up against him—his next stop after impeachment ought to be a federal court room to face trial on charges of corruption and conspiracy to commit election fraud.
The Illinois legislature did the right thing impeaching and removing the democratic governor from office. The amount of incriminating evidence against him—including months of taped telephone conversations—is more than enough to warrant a vote of no confidence in the chief executive of Illinois. And it should be sufficient to bring about a criminal indictment as well. All that’s left unanswered is whether or not the Illinois politicians have the cojones to take their grand-standing to another level by condemning one of their own to a criminal court and possibly prison.
Indeed, how many of the state’s powerbrokers, including the attorney-general, might have skeletons in their closets, blood on their hands, and mud on their shoes that they wouldn’t want Blago exposing in a court of law? I mean, really, what’s to stop the now-disgraced former democratic governor? He’s got nothing more to lose. And besides, if he’s going down, then to hell with them all, he’ll take as many down with him as he can.
If Blago’s actions are taken beyond impeachment—and I think they should be—then get ready for the biggest circus show since the Ringling Bros., because you will see grand-standing, high-wire acts, juggling and political acrobatics like you’ve never seen before. Who knows? The whole rotten political system in Chicago could be exposed and brought to ruin thanks to its sacrificial lamb, Rod Blagojevich.
And if I were President Barack Obama, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, or any other high-profile politician from Chicago, I’d better warm up the shredder and start paying off the right people now to keep their mouths shut or to shut the mouths of potential snitches. I’m not saying that the President is corrupt. But, then again, how do we really know he is or isn’t?
Up until last Thanksgiving, Blago was a hero of the people. He was looked up to, admired, and probably even worshipped the way Obama has been. Now, of course, Blago’s no better than a piece of disguarded gristle that has been chewed up, spit out, and generally rejected by the body.
And yet, the fallen Blago is not too terribly different from Obama.
Both appealed to the masses as candidates for the people. Both campaigned as harbingers of change, champions of social justice, and self-righteous opponents of political corruption. Both are young, relatively good looking, and ambitious. Both are Illinois state democrats. And both are from Chicago, which has a very long, dark history of molding ordinary people into corrupt politicians.
From former U.S. Rep. Dan Rostenkowski to the Governors Ryan and now Blagojevich, the Windy City has a pretty poor track record of producing high-quality politicians.
Kind of makes one wonder about President Obama, Chief of Staff Emanuel, and others in the new White House Administration who hail from the city that Al Capone built. What skeletons are lurking in their closets, and who will be the unwitting stooges that open them?
I have yet to see a politician without dirt under his or her fingernails—especially one from a big city like Chicago.
The bottom line is that Blago isn’t alone in his corruption. He isn’t the first—and he certainly won’t be the last—politician caught doing something illegal. He has sufficient company.
Politicians seem drawn to corruption the way flies are to a pile of … well, you know.
There’s former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned amidst a prostitution scandal; former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA, who was caught on tape accepting a bribe and found with $90,000 in his freezer; former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, who was convicted of felony corruption stemming from unproper political gifts he received; U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-ID, who illegally solicited gay sex in an airport public restroom; former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-FL, who resigned from Congress after he was caught sending sexually explicit emails and instant messages to teen-aged Congressional pages; Rostenkowski, who was convicted of mail fraud while serving as a democratic Congressman from Chicago at the time; and, of course, former democratic President Bill Clinton, who was found guilty of committing perjury in front of a federal grand jury as part of a sexual harassment lawsuit brought against him and was impeached by the House of Representatives.
There are so many other examples, of course, the list of which would be so long it would literally take an act of Congress to name them all here.
Speaking of an act of Congress, I have one: Why don’t We The People insist on a dress code for all elected federal officials? I’m thinking orange and yellow jumpsuits with a serial number across the chest and the acronyms “USC” or “USS” printed on the back—denoting, of course, U.S. House and U.S. Senate. Senators can be orange and representatives yellow, while the president and vice-president wear denim blue.
This would be one way to keep our politicians honest. They’d be dressing the part and they’d have no choice in the matter.

Worms sliding down a hill

When the federal government proposed a $700 billion bailout of financial lending institutions in September 2008 as a way to stave off massive closures and bankruptcies, I said to myself that this was only the beginning. Once Uncle Sam handed over the bailout money, it was only a matter of time before other industries came crawling to Washington, D.C., on their hands and knees like street beggars looking for spare change to buy their liquor with.
Sometimes, I just hate being right.
No sooner had President Bush and Congress passed legislation approving the bank bailout then other entities began to whimper. We heard from the National Automobile Dealers Association, the Big Three automakers, as well as the state of California and several county and municipal governments seeking life preservers to stay afloat amidst budget deficits threatening to burst their infrastructures.
A can of worms had just been opened and the federal government was about to create a slippery slope.
It happened just before Christmas 2008 when President Bush authorized $350 billion in bailout money to the Big Three automakers. The bill had actually been killed in Congress, but the President gave the auto industry the money anyway.
Now, as late as this week, another industry has come forward to claim its share of the federal coffers: pornography, of all things.
What’s next, the Aryan Nation, the Klu Klux Klan, ELF, La Raza, NAMBLA and other extremist groups?
Heck, if Uncle Sam so much as even considers giving cash to porn kings, then he might as well just start giving money to any and all fringe elements of society—regardless of their levels of depravity. If the perverts in the porn industry can get a hand-out from Uncle Sam, then those who practice bestiality or man-boy love probably could, too.
The worms are out of the can and sliding down the slope fast.
If Congress actually bails out porn, then there’s no limit to how low it will go to usher in the era of American socialism.
That porn kings would even have the gall to beg from Uncle is an insult to the taxpayers, who have to foot the bill. Haven’t we always been told by the makers and purveyors of smut that it is market driven and that the perverts are simply providing what the people want?
Well, if that’s the case, then evidently the people don’t want porn any more, because they aren’t buying it and the perverts are losing money. And this is why they are now going to Washington to beg for bailout funds.
Without being too candid here, if porn is in jeopardy of disappearing from the marketplace, then hallelujah and amen. Let it go out of business. America would have been better off without it to begin with. Good riddance.
Quite frankly, I never endorsed or even understood the logic behind the federal bailouts in the first place. What makes our elected officials and the industries being bailed out think that they will be able to remain afloat with bailout money if the American consumer is not buying? Just how long will the Big Three stay in business after all the bailout money is used up on infrastructure if the consumer is not yet ready to buy a new car? A few months, perhaps.
Then it will be back to the floor of the House, begging for more money.
Bailing anybody out in a sick economy is like trying to bail water out of a boat riddled with holes. It is futile.
I have to wonder whether or not it would be better in the long run for companies to file bankruptcy, reorganize and then start over, rather than continue to patch holes.
All the bailout money does is give temporary relief. It’s kind of like putting ointment on a burn: The relief will eventually wear off and the wound will start hurting again, requiring more ointment.
What happens when that money runs out and the bailed out companies are still in the red? Will they come groveling back for more? How many times will this need to happen before businesses are in the black again?
There’s a vicious cycle being started with the bailouts—a cycle of dependency on government to provide the funds to keep operating.
Sooner or later, such a cycle becomes permanent. And when that happens, we no longer have free markets, but rather a government-controlled economy…otherwise known as socialism, which is an authoritarian, and not republican, form of government.
Do we really want to go down this road? I caution against it.
But I fear any warnings, either coming from me or elsewhere, may be too little too late. The can has been opened, the slope is slippery and the worms are sliding fast down the hill toward ruin.
I’m afraid that we may be looking at the sunset of republican democracy, the cornerstone for which has been free-market capitalism. As the free market goes, then so goes the United States of America and its beloved republic.
At that point, the light from the city on the hill will cease to shine and hope will fade with it.
Long live the Peoples Republic of Amerika.