Update at 9:53 a.m. ET: Here’s the formal complaint [.pdf] and news release that we received from the Justice Department.
Update at 9:47 a.m. ET: USA TODAY’s Judy Keen has confirmed with prosecutors that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested this morning on federal corruption charges.
The U.S. attorney’s office says the Democratic governor and his chief of staff, John Harris, are accused of soliciting bribes and committing wire fraud.
“The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald says. “They allege that Blagojevich put a ‘for sale’ sign on the naming of a United States Senator; involved himself personally in pay-to-play schemes with the urgency of a salesman meeting his annual sales target; and corruptly used his office in an effort to trample editorial voices of criticism. The citizens of Illinois deserve public officials who act solely in the public’s interest, without putting a price tag on government appointments, contracts and decisions,” he adds.
More to come, no doubt.
#31 – Mr. Deisel
Don’t forget to bury some guns and canned tuna in the back yard. Bottled water as well That way, when Obama comes to take away your guns (along with all the rest of the freedoms you fought so hard for), you can dig them up, go down into your reinforced bunker, and hold off the bastards for as long as it takes.
Change we can believe in!
I read some of the transcripts from the wiretaps. He’s toast.
#33 MM – the only keeping me from having a bunker is damned high cost of concrete.
It could server dual use as a Man Cave.
#22 Fusion:
“If you didn’t vote (which I suspect) you don’t get an effen right to bitch.”
Quit repeating this stupid meme. You can bitch if you didn’t vote – you can bitch that all the candidates were terrible.
Here’s what pisses me off: people who don’t vote in local elections, who never write letters to their representatives, and who have never read the Constitution, rolling off their asses every four years to vote for tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum, and blathering “if you didn’t vote you can’t complain!”
gag.
Hey, gang!
Guess what time it is.
It’s time to play “Guess the Political Party”
http://bit.ly/KURI
#37 brm – good point.
My wife thought it might be a good idea to run for a local board. She got appointed instead and served a month before resigning. The elected officials were so corrupt and fucked up she didn’t want anything to do with it.
Big surprise, the board controls a lot of money.
We vote and we carry guns (legally of course).
>> Mr Diesel said, on December 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
>> I have my guns and ammo and before Obomba bans them I will buy more.
What has Obama said that makes you believe he’s going to “ban” your guns?
You gun fantasy guys won the gun debate about ten years ago and you have no fears. Now, even after a mass slaughter, like Virginia Tech, there is no longer a serious debate about gun control.
#40 Greg Allen
I collect things I like. Guns and tools. I’d be pissed if he wanted to take away my Craftsman wrenches as well since I could kill someone with them.
Obama’s stance seems clear and I won’t even use the NRA’s rhetoric.
http://tinyurl.com/3o3jyn
But is you have some useful insight I’d be happy to hear it.
# 41 Mr Diesel said, “But if you have some useful insight I’d be happy to hear it.”
Is “head in the sand” a useful insight?
#41 – Mr. Deisel
>>Obama’s stance seems clear and I won’t even
>>use the NRA’s rhetoric.
I can see why you’re worried, Deis. Part of Obama’s stance is that “We can make certain that those who are mentally deranged are not getting a hold of handguns.“.
Other than that, his stance seems pretty OK to me.
“The complaint also said that the grand jury wanted information on Mrs. Rezko’s checking account and loan file and that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) had audited the Rezko file”
Obama better have Bill pull a “vince foster” on old Rod. You watch, the chicago gangland house of cards is about to fall and this shit will make the Clintons and Arkansas look like a food fight. First black president led away in hand cuffs in two years. Watch…
# 44 Fedup said, “First black president led away in hand cuffs in two years. Watch…”
Why do you think he made the appointment he did for Atty Gen?
#44 – FuckUp
>>Obama better have Bill pull a “vince foster”
>>on old Rod.
Time to get out the tin foil hat, son.
Now it gets even better.
On Nov 23 Obama’s top campaign aide said that Obama had talked to Blogo about the open Senate seat and today Obama says he has never talked to him (I didn’t hear him say ever or just about this fiasco).
Someone is lying. A politician lying from Chicago. Go figure.
The way the FBI talked about Illinois and Blogo today in the news conference I’d be ashamed to live in the state.
If it were there I would rather have my head in the sand than planted firmly up my ass like the libs on this site.
Another example of media bias. The stories had a habit of leaving out the fact that this guy is a Democrat. One even adds in how Democrats were upset about this, without mentioning the guy'[s party.
I notice the later editions of the story have seen this updated.
#47 – Mr. Deisel
>>If it were there I would rather have my head
>>in the sand than planted firmly up my ass
>>like the libs on this site.
Pffft. Your head is ALREADY up your ass, son. Blagojevich is an asswipe with a 4% approval rating. And he was never particularly liberal. To try and somehow link him to “the libs on this site” shows the depths of despair that the wingnuts have sunken to.
Sad. Very sad.
#48 – Lyin’ Mike
I knew that you, DeiselHead, and Paddy-RAMBO were all related, but until now, I didn’t know exactly how.
ps: ALL the stories on this mentioned that he was a Democrat. Maybe the little snippet posted at the top of the blog didn’t (back then), but if you took the time to RTFA, it was clearly stated.
Damn this is funny. You know Obama is tied up in this shit.
So the only two Democrat presidents in 30 years resulted in having the governors of their states arrested.
#52 – Lyin’ Mike
>>So the only two Democrat presidents in 30
>>years resulted in having the governors of
>>their states arrested.
You should keep going with the theory about how QB and I are related, Lyin’ Mike.
As random and nonsensical as that was, it made more sense than this.
Well Diesel is certainly the cartoon character of someone with too much time on their hands and is crafting the perfect asshole.
Not so with #30–John Rudy. John, if you take a spin back thru this thread, pleas tell us how in the world you could insult a person before voting for them? YOU make no sense at all. It sounds like “personality voting” or based on looks?? What was your BASIS for accepting or rejecting EITHER candidate??
Course, OTOH, modern two party politics can rapidly come down to that. Still, you had your pants down around your ankles for saying anything more than “I’m voting for you because I’m a loyal Dem.” whether you are or not.
Diesel==buy some dynamite too and learn how to make bombs. You know what the odds are on happening right?
The real story is that the preceding Govenor George Ryan was serving 6 years in prison right now, and this guy had the balls to try some funny business of his own.
Apparently he’s got quite a mouth on him.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/130477.html
From an ABC News account:
“I’ve got this thing and it’s f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f***in’ nothing…” [said Blagojevich].
Told by two other advisers he has to “suck it up” for two years, the FBI says it heard Blagojevich complain he has to give this “motherf***er [the president-elect] his senator. F*** him. For nothing? F*** him.”
The governor is heard saying he will pick another candidate “before I just give f***ing [Senate Candidate l] a f***ing Senate seat and I don’t get anything.”
Mr fusion
we republicans did loose and I did accept it
all I hope is that President elect Obama is only half as good a President and the press and his followers have built him up to be
As for this scum bag Karma is a bitch for the dems , Prosecutor Fitzgerald is the guy the dug his heels into the so called Valery Plame case and I hear he is one of the few non political partisan prosecutors so for once we might just maybe see some justice
#55 – Bobo
>>Still, you had your pants down around your
>>ankles for saying anything more than “I’m
>>voting for you because I’m a loyal Dem.”
>>whether you are or not.
\/\//Bobbo, I think you must have been sniffing Diesel fumes.\\\ You make no sense at all. wtf would he say “I’m voting for you because I’m a loyal Dem” for, instead of telling the ///truth\\\?
Blago is an asshole, the other guy was a bigger asshole, so Mr. Rudy voted for the littler asshole. Not everyone adopts your stance when faced with that choice, staying home with a fresh bottle of Astro-Glide
http://tinyurl.com/5con78
and some Simpson-porn.
#53,
it’s a fact. Jim Guy Tucker, and now Blago.
I have no idea if anything happened to Carter’s replacement.
So who tried to bid? Wouldn’t surprise me if Jesse Jr was taking up the family business.
#59 – Lyin’ Mike
I never said those two guys weren’t arrested. Don’t be lyin’, Mike I said your post (noting that two governors were arrested while one Democratic president was in office and a Democratic president-elect had been elected) made absolutely no sense.
wtf are you saying? That Democratic presidents are big on law and order? That the spectre of a Democratic president-to-be is so malignant that it causes politicians to engage in criminal acts, which they are then caught for after the president is elected?
No sense at all. Usually you’re just lyin’, Mike, but this time you seem delirious.
No one was bidding, yet. This was a discussion between Team Obama and Blagojevich.
To quote James Ard from the Reason.com boards.
Here’s how it went down:
Obama’s people: We own the party now and we want Number one.
Blago: The f*** you do! I’m getting some F***ing cash for this.
Obama’s people: You do know you’ve been wired like a motherf***er.
Blago: So f***ing what, you can’t touch me.
Thus, today’s arrest.
#21 no your mistaken its the lesser of two weasels. My dear home state oopsies.