illinois

[UPDATE: I originally misidentified Fiorinia's abortion stance. She's pro-life.]
Josh Kraushaar notices that Republicans have gotten the U.S. Senate candidates they wanted in New Hampshire and Illinois, where they “lacked a deep bench of viable recruits — and their political hopes were largely dependent on one specific candidate running.” This feeds this week’s meme that Republican [...]

You may have thought that you had heard the last of him after his appearance on “The View,” but it looks like Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is back in the news. Today, his former chief of staff, John Harris, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, thus implicating his former boss in the pay-to-play [...]

Approaching the end of a week already dominated by judiciary events, The Associated Press is running an intriguing story announcing that Chicago-based U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is poised this afternoon to announce new public corruption charges against an unnamed elected official.
According to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office, there are two separate criminal cases. [...]

Andy Martin, the Chicago “Internet powerhouse” (his own words!) who started the unfounded rumor that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim and later pushed the unfounded rumor that he wasn’t born in America, has launched his umpteenth campaign. He’s running for Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat in 2010. From Martin’s Website:
Andy Martin is a candidate [...]

Last night voters in Illinois’ heavily Democratic 5th congressional district voted in a primary for candidates to replace former Rep. Rahm Emanuel, now the White House chief of staff.
Mike Quigley won the Democratic primary, while Rosanna Pulido won the GOP primary.
Who’s Rosanna Pulido? She was a founder of the Illinois Minutemen, a wing of the [...]

If you’re near a television set, pick up your remote and go to CNN or MSNBC right now. In one minute Rod Blagojevich will have the floor of the Illinois State Senate, and the ear of the nation, for an hour and half as he delivers the closing argument to his corruption/impeachment saga.
Will he resign? [...]

Have Illinois legislators read the draft stimulus bill? They might want to:
None of the funds provided by this Act may be made available to the State of Illinois, or any agency of the State, unless (1) the use of such funds by the State is approved in legislation enacted by the State after the date [...]

The planned federal economic stimulus package will include billions of dollars for transportation and infrastructure programs, much of which will ultimately be doled out by state and local governments. The ongoing saga of disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich may be an object lesson on the potential pitfalls of that strategy.

Senate Democratic leaders have agreed to seat Roland Burris after a week-long battle to prevent him from replacing President-elect Barack Obama as the junior senator from Illinois.
Burris was appointed Dec. 30 by disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, less than a month after the governor was arrested for allegedly scheming to “sell” the seat.

Following his impeachment this morning, Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-Ill.) gave a press conference that addressed everything under the sun — except the charges of corruption and abuse of power for which he was impeached. It was an utterly bizarre spectacle that left CNN’s Rick Sanchez asking, “What the hell was that?”
“The House’s action today was [...]