As of roughly 4:38 PM central time, Rod Blagojevich was no longer the Governor of Illinois. Almost immediately after, Democratic Lt. Governor Patrick Quinn was sworn into office. Sure, Blagojevich, made a pointless hour long speech today, trying to say he did nothing wrong, but if he really wanted to prove his innocence… maybe he would have wanted to show up at the trial instead of running around New York making talk show appearances.
What I find really interesting to see is how quickly Senator Roland Burris threw Blagojevich under the bus – “it shows loud and clear that there were serious hurdles keeping the governor from doing his job.” It didn’t keep him from doing his job when he appointed you to the vacant Senate seat, did it now Senator Burris?
I know that political machine of today seems to have corruption interwoven into all aspects of it, but when the corruption is finally stopped – when the blatant abuse of power is confronted – it’s a wonderful thing to see.
See ya, Blago.
The Stimulus Plan
So I am having a hard time finding specific information regarding all aspects of the Stimulus Plan, and I don’t really have the time to read it line by line right now, but I may have to in order to dig up the facts.
The two things I did find, however, I am rather bothered by.
- Undocumented immigrants who are not eligible for a Social Security number can file tax returns with an alternative number. A House-passed version of the economic recovery bill and one making its way through the Senate would allow anyone with such a number, called an individual taxpayer identification number, to qualify for the tax credits.
- The Make Work Pay Credit also would be refundable, meaning that even tax filers without any income tax liability — typically very low-income workers — would receive one.
The point of number 1 could be seen a number of ways. Being the cynic that I am, I see a large push by the Democratic party to buy the votes of hundreds of thousands of potential voters. Why potential? The “undocumented immigrants” is a nice way of saying “illegal”. Eventually the Democratic majority will push to legalize “undocumented immigrants”, and they will be successful, and when the next round of elections comes calling they will remember who fought for, and successfully provided them, money.
As for point number 2…If you do not pay income taxes, you should not be getting income taxes back. That is the whole point of a tax refund – you are refunded money you gave in the last year. Kinda hard to refund something you didn’t pay, isn’t it? In order to provide the capital for a refund to those who didn’t pay income taxes means the country will need to add additional debt and/or raise taxes.
Let’s cut through the political speak and call it what it is: socialism.
People should read up on Marx to see what comes after socialism.
Obama’s Letter to Iran
I find this to be very, very interesting.
President Obama is drafting a letter to Iran, specifically to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , in hopes of opening official US-Iranian relations. I find the choice of Khamenei to be very interesting because the US administration is bypassing the President of Iran. Could this be a political move to have the Ayatollah support another candidate, say like Seyd Mohammad Khatami, who happens to be seen as a reformer as well as a positive force in US-Iranian relations…
If this letter is sent, does this also mean the US foreign policy of not talking (well, negotiating) with terrorist organizations? If that is the case, I wonder what the impact of such a decision will be AND does the U.S. Department of State have a plan in place for any positives or negatives?
This has the potential to be a huge political win for President Obama… or a major embarrassment….