From the publisher's jacket blurb, as quoted by Amazon.
CAUTION: protect your monitor - swallow all liquid beverages before you read any further.
THE GOVERNOR provides the most comprehensive look to date at the life of a twice-elected public official in the notoriously complicated world of Illinois politics. We take a tour through the segregated neighborhoods of Chicago, a city of great ethnic diversity, and see firsthand how those divides can evolve into cabals that rival anything found on the national political scene.
We follow the governor as he is awakened early one morning --his young daughter sleeping peacefully beside him -- and unceremoniously arrested by FBI agents without knowing the charges being brought against him. We see the harsh glare of the spotlight, the media whirlwind already staking out his home and family, rushing to judgment before even the governor himself knew what crimes he'd committed been accused of committing. We follow him through the maze of political conspiracies that threaten to unseat and impeach the governor of the fifth largest state in the U.S. -- forces brought to light by the ambition of an attorney general and the greed of her Democratic State Party Chairman father -- as well as the zeal of a federal prosecutor and the manipulations of a disloyal lieutenant governor. "Ahh, but the senate seat that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes and called me mad, mad, MAD I SAY! but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the Senate DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled Burris out of action...."
The behind-the-scenes workings to fill the Senate seat vacated by the most popular President-elect in decades becomes something much more incendiary when wiretapped conversations are used by authorities to commit the arrest. But, as the governor soon learns, those tapes are not allowed to be played at his impeachment hearings in the House or Senate. What is on those tapes? Was he too drunk to remember what he said? And why will the prosecution not let them be heard if they were the primary factor in initiating the arrest that started this political scandal in the first place?
Quoting from sources as diverse as Jim Wallis' God's Politics to Aeschylus , Shakespeare, Lady Chatterly's Lover, Barney's Big A-B-C Book, Love Story, and Roget's immortal Thesarus II: This Time It's Personal, to The Purpose Driven Life, THE GOVERNOR provides not just an inside look at politics on a state and national level but a treatise on the proper place of government in the everyday lives of its people.
It is a mandate for healthcare reform, which the governor feels is the civil rights issue of our lifetime. It is a clarion cry, remarkably, against cynicism in modern governing and a return to a more thoughtful and informed sense of government that views its state budgets as "moral documents." "It's the old Golden Rule: we gots the gold, and we writes the rules!"
It is a lament against the current state of the political landscape, one that too often is wracked by scandal and interwoven with a media-driven culture obsessed with scandal and snap judgments. "That's scandalous!"
"Don't be so judgmental."
"Oh, snap!"
And it is a proclamation that one man will not shut up already be silenced, that his side of the story must be heard and that the fight for his phony-baloney job and the graft that comes with it American liberties and freedom must sometimes occur within its own borders.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2009 17:22 ||
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#1
Arrrrugh! Meant to tag this one for the "Seedy Politicians" page. Sorry, mods. Don't hurt me (much).
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2009 17:38 Comments ||
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#2
Coming up next: The Governor II: Prison.
What a country...
NY Post story reports on millions of bucks going to shovel-ready projects involving toilets across This Great Land of Ours. Critics have branded the fund "potty pork." $2.8 million is being spent in New Mexico for toiders in national forests, the woods being reserved for bears to poop in.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/28/2009 09:02 ||
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This one actually does stimulate the economy. If properly located those toilets (actually stool/vaults for the poop, periodically pumped out) are a benefit to the recreation community and the small businesses in the area. There are too many users in Forest Campgrounds to allow everyone to "be one with the bears". Since the Forest Service is no longer a multiple-use organization (no logging, much less grazing) the local economies rely on recreation to survive.
Let's see if the Donks have real guts, put a federal luxury tax like the federal gas tax on all cosmetics. Now that would certainly raise revenue. Shorten many careers too, but as they say, that's a feature, not a bug.
#3
So San Fran Nan owes about $20,000 in back taxes?
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/28/2009 11:02 Comments ||
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#4
Don't forget the 'junior senator' from Massachusetts. He would have the same 'liability', too.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/28/2009 11:42 Comments ||
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#5
May God forgive those who ask for a "revenue raiser", and to "redistribute the wealth", when they really just covet their neighbor's property. To covet your neighbor's property is an ancient evil and is wrong, even if your name is Obama.
#6
When she ran for Governor, adult entertainment star Mary Carey proposed taxing cosmetic surgery (but deregulating adult entertainment for reasons of job creation and economic growth).
Posted by: Lord garth ||
07/28/2009 13:28 Comments ||
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I look forward to the cries from the media when women having re-constructive surgery after breast cancer find out they'll pay extra tax.
#9
The Senate Finance Committee has discussed imposing a 10 percent excise tax on cosmetic surgery deemed unnecessary for medical purposes. The idea was broached in a meeting with OMB Director Orszag in mid-July, after which Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus told reporters he had heard some "interesting," "creative," and "kind of fun" ideas.
Kid's braces, burn victims (Fire Fighters), weapon damage (Police&Soldiers), kid born with 5 and thumb not only will she live but it will be fun!, ton of other examples of what could be considered cosmetic.
Pulling a face back to look younger and prevent excessive blinking while reading lines, well pelosi and sebilius will make sure that is covered.
#10
I don't know, I sometimes feel that we could use a few more sumptuary laws. It would encourage the status-conscious poor to not waste their scarce dollars on stupid bling, and the wealthier to put more money into maintaining their property and less into ill-kept extravagance.
But then, I've been in a Savonarola-esque mood these days...
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/28/2009 18:31 Comments ||
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Meh. It'll either move out of country to the Caribbean, Mexico, Costa Rica, or even Venezuela. As for Pelosi, et al, it'll just become another 'sweetheart deal'.
#12
It's been there for decades, Pappy. As far as I can tell, nobody consumes plastic surgery like the middle and upper classes south of the border. My girlfriend's Mexican husband's nieces were given nose jobs and had their ears pinned back as needed when they turned thirteen, breast implants at sixteen or so... My girlfriend had her own first couple of improvements done while down south while visiting husband's various relatives in Mexico, Venezuela, etc.
AP story sez Dem Senators Chris Dodd (Conn) and Kent Conrad (N. Dakota) were both told from the start that they were getting VIP loans from Countrywide. Both have denied they knew they were getting anything but routine treatment. Dodd still sez he got no preferential treatment. Save money on your mortgage! Ask us how!
#6
The fact that we have assclowns like Waxman and Pelosi and Dodd and Rangel running Congress, and that narcissistic POS Obama as President, and are sending an affirmative action case like Sotomayer to the Supreme court... that's plent proof that the world isn't just unfair, its damned stupid too.
Problem is, nature isn't kind to the stupid in the long run. Punishment comes harshly.
#7
I don't think anything will happen to Dodd or Conrad. Congress is careful to insulate themselves against any shit from back-flowing. The so-called Health Care reform is beginning to look like a hugh governmental affirmative action and vote-buying scheme. Sotomayor's views are as biased and prejudiced as BO's. She blew the firefighter's original case. He inserted himself into the Cambridge affair for his buddy, Prof Gates and was way, way off base. The appointment of Sotomayor is a naked attempt to obtain the Hispanic vote (legals and potentially legals) and enscounce the donks in power for years to come.
(as opposed to grab as much money and power they can).
I think the Legislature, executive,and Judicial branches need a big 'RESET'. Fire them all and hold new election - and none of the current or past crop can participate.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
