Comments on: Burris Refused Seat in Congress — Let’s Play Racial Chicken!

By: spirit_55z

spirit_55z — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:09:02 +0000

CPL, I stand corrected. LOL!

By: CPL

CPL — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:58:19 +0000

"will place the interests of working class people over corporations."

Didn't you mean: "will place the interests of the CORPORATIONS, over the interests of working class people"?

Cause he sure as hell screwed over Memphis for ten years, and tried to take that screwing over to the Senate. Fortunately, Bob Corker derailed his ass.

By: spirit_55z

spirit_55z — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:09:02 +0000

CPL, I stand corrected. LOL!

By: CPL

CPL — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:58:19 +0000

By: Political Pete

Political Pete — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:37:29 +0000

It's over

They have agreed to appoint him. Harry Reid . . . Remarkable.

http://politicalmusic.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/...

By: Against Race Politics

Against Race Politics — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:04:50 +0000

:-)

By: Amaliada

Amaliada — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:20:25 +0000

But Burris didn't apply the law when he tried, as Attorney General, to execute an innocent man who suffered from prosecutorial errors in his first trial. Burris went so far as to re-assign the prosecutor who wouldn't play along.

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the people of Illinois deserve better on the merits of representation, rather than whether or not a specific person should be seated or not.

By: rorysmomma

rorysmomma — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:31:13 +0000

Much like anything else…… Right Job, wrong time.

By: Justice58

Justice58 — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:15:22 +0000

The rule of law is on Burris' side

Then, Seat. him. Reid swore to uphold the Constitution!

Like Rikyrah quoted:

"EITHER we are a nation of laws AGAIN after 8 years".

or we are not.

End of Story

By: pjamma

pjamma — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:10:03 +0000

It's funny you mention Bush still appointing people because tonight on I think the Hardball repeat they were talking about all the Bush appointees being “tainted”. I had to laugh because it really is the word of the day.

By: Mr. Noface

Mr. Noface — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:01:33 +0000

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying and have been saying is the exact opposite. The rule of law is on Burris' side, but the taint (or what ever you want to call it) is still there and is only going to be a minus for Burris (and possibly the democrats of Illinois) in the end.

By: cheryl aka jill tubman

cheryl aka jill tubman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:33:58 +0000

Agreed wholeheartedly. I understand Burris' temptation but I think he would have done well to pass on the circus in Congress.

By: cheryl aka jill tubman

cheryl aka jill tubman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:32:02 +0000

Agreed — this has been mis-handled badly on all fronts and no one is likely to come out smellin rosy…

By: cheryl aka jill tubman

cheryl aka jill tubman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:29:43 +0000

Yes, I agree — I'm not sure I would have accepted the seat appointment either. Even if you're clean, there's the chance that the association with Blago ultimately may prove damaging. It's a risk for Burris to be sure.

By: cheryl aka jill tubman

cheryl aka jill tubman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:25:48 +0000

Agreed — Burris saw his opportunity to take the national stage and took it. We'll have to see how he plays his hand.

By: cheryl aka jill tubman

cheryl aka jill tubman — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:20:17 +0000

This post has definitely been controversial and generated a lot of discussion. It's true – I don't know Burris as well as folks in IL might be. Seems clear that Burris has placed himself in a challenging position here. I think the whole thing is a complete mess frankly. Few appointees of Blago's would find a warm welcome in DC and Burris' many contributions to Blago weaken his claim to the Senate seat given the pay-for-play accusations. Thanks for your thoughts, y'all

By: whiterosebuddy

whiterosebuddy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:46:22 +0000

That scenario you describe is different from the one with Blago. You have Blago getting sex. But if we used your scenario, what it would be is that the memo said you had to bring him a box of his favorite cigars every week. Now if you know it was only going to cost you $60.oo a month to bring him those cigars and they were going to pay you $6k dollars more a year...don't you think you would take it?

Especially, given with the memo and all...you wouldn't even have to buy him cigars, cause he was under investigation...AND you would still get the $6K in salary?

My guess is you wouldn't wait, cause if you did, someone else might get the promotion when the smoke cleared. And even if they moved you back to your old position after 6 months...you would still be $3K dollars richer.

So, how could you lose?

And that is precisely why Burris said yes to the Senate seat. He has nothing to lose.

By: ju

ju — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:18:55 +0000

You could probably spend your whole life arguing with Paul Krugman but every once in a while the great Nobel Prize Winner comes up with a doozy that can't be ignored. (He won the prize for international trade, not political analysis.)
Last week Krugman announced the Republicans have become a permanent minority and it's their own fault. The reason is that the only issue Republicans have going for them is race:
Forty years ago the G.O.P. decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party's champion, to the Bush administration's pervasive incompetence, to the party's shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.
Does that surprise you? Did you know that in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviets, welfare reform, budget deficits, international trade, immigration, Islamic terrorism and financial meltdowns, all we've really been talking about is race? (It you want to find a race-obsessed tribe you could do no better than to look among Krugman's editorial-page staff at the New York Times, but that's another story.)
How to deal this argument? Here's one approach. The other day I came across a bio of Larry McDonald, the five-term Georgia Congressman who died aboard KAL Flight 007 when it was shot down by the Soviets in 1983. Here's what Wikipedia says about him:
Larry McDonald was known for his conservative views, even by Southern standards. [O]ne study named him the second most right-wing member of either chamber since 1937. He . . considered [Communism] an international conspiracy…a view later echoed in the words of President Ronald Reagan who called the Soviet Union an "Evil Empire". In another sense, McDonald [was] a precursor of the Reagan supply-side revolution….An admirer of Austrian economics, he was an advocate of tight monetary policy [and] a passionate advocate of laissez-faire or market based policies.

His staunch conservative views on social issues attracted controversy. For instance, McDonald is noted for using amendments to stop government aid to homosexuals. He also advocated the use of a non-approved drug Laetrile to treat patients in advanced stages of cancer.

Now here's something else interesting about McDonald. He was a Democrat. In fact in 1983 just about every Congressman from Virginia to Texas -- the boundaries of what was once called "The Old Confederacy" -- was Democratic. On economic, social and foreign policy issues they were probably the most conservative constituency in the country. Yet all of them voted with the Democratic Party and had been doing so for over 100 years. Why? The explanation comes in one word -- r-a-c-e.

The "Solid South," which gave the Democratic Party its most reliable base from the last half of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century was there for one reason -- because the Democrats had fiercely defended the Confederacy during the Civil War. After 1865, the Democrats were the party of "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" -- meaning the anti-prohibitionists, the city immigrants, and the former Confederacy. The Solid South gave Woodrow Wilson the Presidency. (Wilson, originally from Virginia, was virulently anti-Negro.) It formed the biggest electoral bloc of the Roosevelt Coalition and gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives for half a century from 1954 to 1994. All this was payback for the Democrats supporting the South during the Civil War. Most Democratic governance during the 20th century would not have been possible except for this historic anomaly.

What happened in 1994 was that -- under the guidance of historically conscious Congressmen such as Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm -- white Southerners finally forgot their Civil War allegiances and joined their natural constituency in the Republican Party. As Gingrich said at the time, "the Civil War is finally over."

By: Piepiepie

Piepiepie — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:12:46 +0000

what does a man's pastor have to do with your faulty analysis of “rule of law,” and appointments etc.

smh.

By: Webb

Webb — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:06:24 +0000

Thanks Spirit!