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    For Sale by Governor

    By CJP | December 9, 2008

    For sale:  One Senate seat, currently vacant. Amenities include Washington office space, platform for higher office, chance to give advice and consent to President of the United States, and numerous opportunities to ride in parades on national holidays.  Asking price negotiable.  Seller (at left) extremely motivated….

    Oh Janes, if you love a criminal complaint as much as we do, feast your hungry eyes HERE on the case against Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, arrested at his home this morning at 6:15 a.m. on charges that the prosecutor describes as hanging “a for sale sign” on the Illinois Senate seat formerly occupied by Barack Obama.  

    Among other details, we read that the governor is accused of:

    • Trying to get a lucrative job with a union after his term ended, in exchange for appointing a senator whom union officials would like;  
    • Withholding as much as $100 million in state funds from the Tribune Company in exchange for the resignation of members of the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board who had criticized him;
    • Trading state contracts for campaign donations for a potential presidential campaign.
    A few things for the Janes to know:
    • A wire tap traced all of his conversations over the course of several weeks.  In one conversation he said of the Senate seat, “It’s a f-cking valuable thing.  You don’t just give it away for nothing.”
    • One key witness in the case is Tony Rezko, a very close associate of the governor, who also raised money for Barack Obama;
    • When Blagojevich ran for governor, he vacated the House seat next occupied by Rahm Emanuel.

    Here is one local news report we dug up on the governor from 2007 that details the significant problems he had in Illinois before the feds ever showed up:

    Such a tangled web, gals.  Stay tuned on this one…

    Topics: The Democrats

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