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Hey, I'm a fan. Insolence rulez. Rock your style, VLE.
if he was white i would've said "they sent his white/honkey ass home". i'm an equal opportunity offender, mr hole. you should really read and comprehend your first sentence, mr contradiction.
Hey, I'm a fan. Insolence rulez. Rock your style, VLE.
so this guy didn't have his "credentials in order"? and that's why they didn't let him in? how long did he know this day was coming? ok i'm seeing a current trend. edwards ran for president, yet had an affair. richardson ran for president, yet pulled out of the obamanet 'cause of a federal investigation, now this dunce that didn't "have his credentials in order". maybe carville is right. this is going to be a great 4 years. do as i say, not as i do to everyone of you.
no, the term "drive-by" is appropriate because that's what the liberal media does. , they're doing it with Obama now that they don't like his appointment choices.
why would Republicans use him as a "football"? he's a democrat.
-Mars
You can find the evidence upstream. Mr. Burris got used as a tackling dummy in the GOP's ongoing war against racism.
? i personally don't believe this has anything to do with race...though it is humorous that they are denying an African American, it doesn't mean that that is the reason.
-Mars
Feh, Republican politicians count on the ignorance of their supporters -- and you guys never disappoint.
no, the term "drive-by" is appropriate because that's what the liberal media does. , they're doing it with Obama now that they don't like his appointment choices.
Case in point.why would Republicans use him as a "football"? he's a democrat.
Case in point #2.-Mars
The best media summarization of the circus that has been unfolding that I've heard came from Juan Williams who pointed out that Blago has managed to get the US Senate and the President elect dancing on strings like a puppet. Whether it's called brazeness, gumption, or just really big balls, you can't help but be impressed at how Blago has played his hand. In the end though I'm sure Blago will get his in spades, he's pissed off alot of people by winning this round.
Can the Senate nix Burris?
January 11, 2009 Those of us who enjoy legal thrillers sometimes get ahead of the plot: We think we know what a court will rule. Witness the conventional wisdom in Illinois and elsewhere that the U.S. Senate is legally obliged to seat Roland Burris as the junior senator from Illinois. Hey, the governor appointed him.
That kind of thinking also had a nation of would-be Judge Judys convinced that the Illinois Supreme Court would tell Secretary of State Jesse White to certify the appointment. On Friday, the court said no way.
Amateur exercises in Judging Without a Long Robe can be perilous. Which raises this question: By what grounds might members of the U.S. Senate now reject the Burris appointment—and prevail in the courts?
This case might turn on both criminal and cons utional law. We asked Ronald Safer, a former Justice Department prosecutor who now heads a big Chicago firm, to hypothetically take the Senate as his client. Safer's hunch is that Burris' fate will be decided in the political realm—the world of race, races, political parties, press conferences, presidential agendas and other concerns. But, setting aside whatever he thinks about Rod Blagojevich or his attempt to appoint Burris, Safer did help us draft three arguments the Senate could advance in court:
• The U.S. Cons ution lets Congress set the rules for who is "qualified" to stay in their Congressional seats. But can Congress stop people from taking those seats in the first place? In the 1960s, Adam Clayton Powell was refused a seat in Congress when he was re-elected; a congressional committee said he used his post to steal federal funds.
The U.S. Supreme Court countered that Congress could not fail to seat a duly elected representative. But Powell had been chosen by voters in New York: Congress couldn't thwart the will of the electorate.
Burris' path to Washington, by contrast, started not with an election, but with an appointment by a governor who's out of jail on bail. The Senate could say the two cases are crucially different: Where's the potentially wronged electorate of Illinois? Here, the voters had no voice whatsoever. A federal court might agree that Powell isn't a precedent—and start from scratch.
• The governor who chose Burris is charged with federal felonies in a complaint and, yes, he's still the governor. But the Senate could argue that the key charge in this discussion isn't just any felony, for example, violating campaign finance laws or stealing money. The complaint accuses the governor of a fraudulent scheme to sell the very Senate seat to which he's trying to appoint Burris.
The Senate could claim that the question of Burris' "qualifications," as that term is used in the Cons ution, isn't only about him: It's also about who appointed him, and under what cir stances.
• Turn now to something criminal lawyers call "lulling." In certain schemes, it's a clever element of the ongoing fraud: The perpetrator tries to lull, or reassure, the victim that nothing is wrong. That is, lulling hides the crime by establishing an atmosphere of calm. The perp hopes the victim doesn't notice that his wallet has been lightened.
In Fitzgerald's complaint against Blagojevich, the victim is the public. You. Allegedly you've been deprived of the honest services you elected this governor to provide. (Let's not forget the presumption of innocence; the governor has not yet been indicted, let alone convicted.)
Creative Senate lawyers could allege that the governor's appointment of Burris was lulling: the concealment of a crime. By this light, choosing Burris was an attempt to tell the public that everything is okey-dokey: "I have appointed a non-controversial, qualified person who didn't even have to slip me an envelope under the table. I never intended to sell this appointment—and I didn't."
The Senate's argument essentially would be that choosing a new senator was integral to the alleged crime—not some unrelated event that just happened to come later: The public was being lulled into thinking there was no crime at all. That argument would cast Burris as an unwitting victim, the Senate could say—but certainly not as a senator.
Burris' attorneys would answer that the governor was in a no-win situation: Even if he appoints someone qualified and does so for nothing in return, his actions are labeled criminal. To which the Senate could retort: If the governor really did try to sell that "golden" seat, who put him in a no-win situation?
If U.S. senators make one or more of these arguments, will a federal court agree?
Hmm. We'd like to see them try.
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