Burris in ethics probe

And you thought the Blagojevich show is over?

As Burris was vying for the Senate seat, he tried to raise money for then-Gov. Blagojevich. Sen. Burris is now under investigation by the state and Republicans are calling for actions to dig deeper into the situation.

When is Chicago style politics going to be cleaned up???

Bye bye, Blago

Unsurprisingly, the Illinois Senate voted to remove Rod Blagojevich from office, 59-0. It's the first time in the state's history that its governor has been impeached.

Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn is now promoted to Illinois Gov. Quinn.

Hopefully the people of Illinois can put all this negativity behind them now...

Blagojevich impeached by state house

The Illinois House voted 114-1 to impeach Gov. Blagojevich. Now we wait for the trial in the Illinois Senate to begin on January 26.

No surprise there. Since the scandal broke, there has been strong criticism from state lawmakers to remove Blago from office. And what was the governor doing? Jogging, getting in shape for a good fight. He's already fought the media, the Senate Democrats in Washington, and now his own state legislature. He's one tough Chicago politician for sure...

Blago 1, Reid 0

Senate Democrats bows to public and caucus pressure to seat Blagojevich-appointed Roland Burris. Majority Leader Reid comes out looking like a fool.

Commerce secretary seat now open

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced his withdrawal to be Obama's commerce secretary citing a federal investigation of how some of his political donors won a major state contract.

So there's the Blagojevich mess, and now this embarrassment. It's not even that close to Inauguration Day yet!

Leggo my Blago

Okay, so I'm just trying to come up with a clever title than "Way to go, Blago"...

Evidently Roland Burris (D), Blagojevich's senate appointee, has a history of wrongfully convicting death sentences. Of course, that's not the reason the Democrats are going berserk over the appointment. They're going berserk because they'd warned Blagojevich not to proceed with an appointment. Worse yet, Burris is enjoying the media spotlight and gladly waits to be seated in the Senate amid Majority Leader Harry Reid's threat.

The Democrats have a hot potato in their hands with this one. The appointment is completely legal, and Burris stands to win if this goes to court. The best plan is to negotiate for Burris' promise not to run for re-election in 2010, but who knows, maybe Burris has greater political ambitions. One thing is for certain, Chicago-style politics is as flavorful as its pizza!

Pelosi meets her match

After reading this piece, I think House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may actually wish Rahm Emanuel gets caught up in the Blagojevich scandal and ends up outside of the White House and maybe even Congress.

Arrogant Obama lectures reporter

The president-elect should learn to take the heat instead of lecturing a reporter about wasting his questions! How rude.

Will there be a brewing backlash from the media? The mainstream media was enamored of Obama and helped him get elected. With the latest Blagojevich scandal it seems Obama and his team aren't very fond of the media anymore...

Illinois Democrats show some love to Blagojevich

This is almost unbelievable... Illinois state legislature with a Democrat majority decided not to strip the governor of his power to fill the vacant senate seat for now. The main reason? They fear that a Republican may actually win the seat in a special election.

So it's back to square one for the people of Illinois, underrepresented in the Senate with just one senator.

E. J. Dionne seems pretty sure that Obama and his aides have nothing to do with the corrupt governor. Let's hope so.

Emanuel had talks with Blagojevich's aides

All right, so Obama was correct in saying that none of his aides discussed the vacant Illinois senate seat with Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The truth is that Rahm Emanuel had such discussions with Blagojevich's aides. So technically Obama didn't lie.

Being a product of the Chicago political machine and considering his past (and current) questionable associates like Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, I would not be a bit surprised if he gets in trouble one of these days. Plus, I really don't think the Clintons would mind bringing him down, either.

The immediate tasks following Obama's presidency may not be dealing with the economy and foreign policy, but rather hiding and avoiding skeletons in the closets of his inner circle.

Obama transition team officially in damage control mode

First, President-elect Obama held a press conference declaring that he and his aids have not spoken to Illinois Gov. Blagojevich about the open senate seat. Now his campaign lawyer Bob Bauer is doing an "internal review" so see who contacted the governor and said what... But the biggest leak is that Rahm Emanuel may have had several conversations with Blagojevich about the open senate seat!

Obamaniacs help with censoring on transition site

Obama's transition team launched a feature called "Open for Questions" on its site, Change.gov, for users to submit questions and vote on the top ones, much like Digg. But users are also allowed to flag inappropriate questions to remove them from the list. It looks like Obamaniacs are abusing such a feature to remove questions relating to the recent Federal investigation of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Again, change we can believe in!

Obama and Blagojevich

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is still the governor and can still appoint a replacement senator to fill Obama's seat, unless the state legislature works fast enough to impeach him. The buzz about this whole ordeal, however, is if any of this ties to Obama or his aids?

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly opines that all of this makes the president-elect look better because of his "commitment to ethics reform." But it's a fact that Obama and Blagojevich knew each other, perhaps quite well, as they crossed paths in their political efforts. Obama and Blagojevich and Obama have supported each other politically.

And why doesn't Obama release a statement demanding Gov. Blagojevich's resignation? That's the point Jennifer Rubin of Commentary brings up, and a very good one. Who on the transition team has the Governor's number on speed dial?

FBI arrests Illinois Governor and aide

Dirty. Chicago. Politics.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat (but you wouldn't read it elsewhere on mainstream media), and his chief of staff have been arrested by the FBI on federal corruption charges. Evidently the governor and his aid were soliciting bids to fill Barack Obama's senate seat. However, investigators revealed that allegations may go well beyond just that...

Remember, corruption always loses in politics.