The Daily Parker

Holy {bleep}:

Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan filed a motion with the Illinois Supreme Court today aimed at removing Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.

Such a motion is untested in the state's history. The case could determine whether the governor is fit to serve.

Madigan will hold a news conference at 11:15 a.m at the state office complex in downtown Chicago.

More details to come.

Unprecedented. And (full disclosure) even though I've already contributed to Madigan's own campaign, I'm not sure this is the kind of precedent we really want.

On the other hand, what in all of Christendom will convince Blagojevich he needs to resign? Maybe he really has left the realm of the sane.

Our public debt has topped $10.6 trillion:

But at current interest rates, it's like a license to print money!

President-elect Obama says Blagojevich must go:

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says the president-elect agrees with other prominent politicians in Illinois and elsewhere that "under the current circumstances, it is difficult for the governor to effectively do his job and serve the people of Illinois."

In response to questions from The Associated Press, Gibbs said Obama believes the Illinois legislature should consider a special election to fill the seat. Gibbs says the hope is to put a process in place to select a new senator who will have the trust and confidence of the people of Illinois.

Care to bet the governor holds a press conference tomorrow morning? Care to wager on its content?

Lots of speculation today whether Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) is "Senate Candidate 5" from the Federal complaint against Gov. Blagojevich, but he was asked to "share some thoughts" with the FBI:

Jackson said this morning he was contacted Tuesday by federal prosecutors in Chicago whom he said "asked me to come in and share with them my insights and thoughts about the selection process."

Jackson said, "I don't know" when asked whether he was Candidate No. 5, but said he was told "I am not a target of this investigation."

Jackson said he agreed to talk with federal investigators "as quickly as possible" after he consulted with a lawyer.

...

The FBI says that during an Oct. 31 conversation, Blagojevich described an approach from an associate of Senate Candidate 5: "We were approached 'pay to play.' That, you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him [Senate Candidate 5] a senator."

On Thursday, the FBI says Blagojevich "was giving Senate Candidate 5 greater consideration for the Senate seat" because he might "get some [money] up front, maybe."

It goes on:

Jackson said Tuesday that he met with Blagojevich Monday "for the first time in years" and voiced his desire to fill Obama's empty Senate seat. He said he was "shocked" to find gambling in this establishment by Blagojevich's arrest, adding that "if these allegations are proved true, I am outraged by the appalling, pay-to-play schemes hatched at the highest levels of our state government."

Another sad point to all of this, as Josh Marshall pointed out earlier: Blagojevich isn't just a former lawyer, he's a former prosecutor.

The biggest controversey about today's news at my client's office comes down to this: who is actually the stupidest governor in the US, Blagojevich or Palin? The morning's events bring this important question to the fore.

Exhibit A: The governor.

On the issue of the U.S. Senate selection, federal prosecutors alleged Blagojevich sought appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the new Obama administration, or a lucrative job with a union in exchange for appointing a union-preferred candidate.

Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of Blagojevich in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.

Blagojevich and Harris, along with others, obtained and sought to gain financial benefits for the governor, members of his family and his campaign fund in exchange for appointments to state boards and commissions, state jobs and state contracts.

"The breadth of corruption laid out in these charges is staggering," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement. "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."

U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald's office put out a press release (pdf) that is worth reading.

Exhibit B: The newspaper.

Mr. Zell isn’t the only one responsible for this debacle. With one of the grand old names of American journalism now confronting an uncertain future, it is worth remembering all the people who mismanaged the company before hand and helped orchestrate this ill-fated deal — and made a lot of money in the process. They include members of the Tribune board, the company’s management and the bankers who walked away with millions of dollars for financing and advising on a transaction that many of them knew, or should have known, could end in ruin.

It was Tribune’s board that sold the company to Mr. Zell — and allowed him to use the employee’s pension plan to do so. Despite early resistance, Dennis J. FitzSimons, then the company’s chief executive, backed the plan. He was paid about $17.7 million in severance and other payments. The sale also bought all the shares he owned — $23.8 million worth. The day he left, he said in a note to employees that “completing this ‘going private’ transaction is a great outcome for our shareholders, employees and customers.”

Well, at least for some of them. Tribune’s board was advised by a group of bankers from Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which walked off with $35.8 million and $37 million, respectively. But those banks played both sides of the deal: they also lent Mr. Zell the money to buy the company. For that, they shared an additional $47 million pot of fees with several other banks, according to Thomson Reuters. And then there was Morgan Stanley, which wrote a “fairness opinion” blessing the deal, for which it was paid a $7.5 million fee (plus an additional $2.5 million advisory fee).

Good times, good times.

The Tribune is reporting this hour that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has been taken into Federal custody in Chicago.

Blagojevich joins a long line of Illinois governors hosted by Club Fed going back to the early days of the Republic.

First, hoping to capitalize on their sterling reputation for honesty and good management, Tribune claims that the Cubs sale will continue as planned:

Tribune Co. did not include the franchise and Wrigley Field in its bankruptcy petition, allowing the media company to retain control of the sales process. Nonetheless, Tribune Co. will have to keep creditors informed about the auction, and the winning bid will have to be signed off by a bankruptcy judge, sources close to the situation told the Chicago Tribune.

Moreover, the bidders are unsure of how to proceed. "I really don't know enough to comment," said one bidder. "Some very complex issues have arisen."

Some issues, yes. I'm sure publisher Tony Hunter can clear things up:

What does all this mean for our readers, viewers and advertisers? As a practical matter, very little. Tribune is continuing to operate its media businesses, including its newspapers, television stations and websites. And, at Chicago Tribune, we remain dedicated to providing you with the level of service and news coverage you've come to expect from us every day.

The decision to restructure our debt was driven by the dramatic and unexpected operating conditions we've encountered this year. We have experienced the perfect storm -- a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy has coupled with a credit crisis, making it extremely difficult to support our debt. All of our major advertising categories have been dramatically impacted.

In other words, we had no way of knowing that taking on $8.2 billion in debt during a credit crisis while denuding our news departments of reporters under the direction of a man who doesn't actually read newspapers could, in any way, get in the way of us transferring vast amounts of wealth to our major shareholders. Hoocoodanode?

Sad. Very sad.

After eight years of having a president who could barely speak English, and having him say the most reactionary, anti-labor things possible when he did manage to croak out a polysyllable, this overwhelms me with joy:

"When it comes to the situation here in Chicago with the workers who are asking for their benefits and payments they have earned, I think they are absolutely right," [President elect] Obama said Sunday....

"Have we done everything that we can to make sure credit is flowing to businesses and to families, and to students who are trying to get loans? And to homeowners who have been making payments on their homes but are still finding their property values so depressed that it becomes very difficult for them to make the mortgage payments?

"That's where the rubber hits the road and that's going to be the central focus of my administration."

I could cry, I'm so happy. For the first time in, I think, ever, I feel like my vote wasn't a compromise.

Some of my friends and I have a running conversation about the differences between us in Gen X (born 1964-1978) and the two generations on either side of us (Boomers, 1946-1964; Millennials or Gen Y, 1978-2000). We've concluded that both display a sense of entitlement, in different ways, not present in other generations.

Thomas Friedman sees some of this, as well as how the Boomers are sticking us Xers with their bills, as are the Millennials:

What book will our kids write about us? “The Greediest Generation?” “The Complacent Generation?” Or maybe: “The Subprime Generation: How My Parents Bailed Themselves Out for Their Excesses by Charging It All on My Visa Card.”

Our kids should be so much more radical than they are today. I understand why they aren’t. They’re so worried about just getting a job or paying next semester’s tuition. But we must not take their quietism as license to do whatever we want with this bailout cash. They are going to have to pay this money back. And therefore, we have an incredibly weighty obligation to make sure that we not only spend every stimulus dollar wisely but also with an eye to creating new technologies.

But what Friedman doesn't quite get is that my generation is going to pay for the mistakes of his, and the succeeding generation (the Millennials) will enjoy the benefits of that investment a lot more than we will. We've seen it all their lives: Boomers got rich on computers; Xers did the grunt work to make them as common as light bulbs; Millennials have grown up taking the technology for granted.

I'll develop this further and write more at some point.