I have to tell you, this Burris pick is absolutely made of awesome. Just watch:

More fun stuff here, and here for more race-baiting goodness – and, really, by this point the entire blogosphere, most of which is by now utterly fascinated at the prospect of actually getting to watch the big ship hit the iceberg. Has it been mentioned yet that Burris has been a long time Blagojevich donor? Or that Blagojevich’s General Counsel (not his personal attorney; the administration official) just quit? Or that both Reid and Obama are busily writing the GOP’s campaign ads in 2010 for us by their earnest, but quite likely toothless, opposition?

What a way to start the new year, huh?

Moe Lane

PS: Hey, you know what would have short-circuited all of this? A special election. Shame that Illinois Democrats don’t trust democracy, huh? I invite the voters of Illinois’ Fifth District particularly to keep that in mind, what with the special election there to replace Rahm Emanuel.

Before you ask: it’s only because the US Constitution requires a special election for vacant House seats: Article I, Section 2. Otherwise, Blago probably would have appointed his horse, or something.

If someone was sending rockets on my house where my daughters were sleeping at night, I would do everything to stop it, and I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.

That particular quote comes from President-elect Barack Obama, and I offer it up as a goad to anybody who was deluding him or herself that the new administration was going to finally rid the world of those meddlesome Jews Israelis (you can view one of the epicenters of said self-delusion via this fellow: no way I’ll give Greenwald a direct link). Hate to break it to some of our lurkers, but we just don’t do Jew-hating in this country. And while I’ve heard some things about the new President that I don’t like, I’ve never heard all that much about how he’s signed off on the antiwar movement’s dream of sweeping Israel into the sea.

Don’t like that? Who cares? I mean, what are you going to do, vote Repu…

(pause)

Actually, we don’t want your kind, so go see Zionist conspiracies in your breakfast cereal or whatever and leave decent folk alone.

Moe Lane

Apparently not: they have chosen to betray themselves. Or at least their front-line troops have. Via Glenn Reynolds:

Last week, the group’s members chose their top four priorities for the organization, winnowed down from a top-10 list culled from 50,000 suggestions. The decisions they weighed would determine in large part whether the group would become a friend or foe of the Obama administration, a player or a gadfly in progressive politics, a piece of the Democratic machine or a thorn in the party’s side.

What they chose: universal health care; economic recovery and job creation; building a green economy; stopping climate change; and end the war in Iraq.

What they didn’t: holding the Bush administration accountable; fighting for gay rights and LGBT equality; and reforming campaigns and elections.

Yeah, I know: that’s five listed up there. You’re surprised that either progressives or the Politico can’t count?

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After all, one mustn’t allow the peasantry to get caught up in any sort of superficiality, such as lack of eloquence. So this:

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(H/T: Instapundit) It’s been obscured by the Christmas season, but it looks like that incoming State Senator Hiram Monserrate’s (D) recent attack…

What? Oh, you missed it? Well, as I noted, it was obscured by Christmas. They arrested the guy after he broke a beer bottle (deliberately broken so that it’d scar more*) and then carved up his girlfriend’s face with it*. Twenty stitches around the woman’s eye, but hey: Monserrate’s supposed to be “hot-tempered” and the woman had another guy’s business card in her purse*.

You could hardly expect him to excuse that, right?

Anyway, the New York Democratic organization’s closing ranks*:

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And will he hit the bottom? Sure. Single-digit approval ratings and the instinctive public shunning by the national Democratic Party leadership is fairly diagnostic – hey, I’m not going to be on his jury; no harm in me saying what we all know already. Blago’s dirty, he’s finally gotten caught on something that we can hammer him for, and he’s going to get hammered.

But he isn’t going down alone.

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Blagojevich crony, by the way. Mentioned in passing in this WSJ article, so I took a look-see, and hey: acts like you’d expect a Blagojevich crony would.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez has made more than $420,000 on real estate deals
Many are done with campaign contributors

When U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez was looking to buy in the sizzling Bucktown real estate market, he teamed up with a developer and longtime political donor who sold him a plot of land and built him a new home.

And when the congressman decided not to move into the home, the developer, Krzysztof Karbowski, was there to buy it back.

Gutierrez walked away with nearly $200,000.

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He’s not resigning.

He’s not going to get declared mentally incompetent by the Supreme Court of Illinois.

He’s not going to pick Obama’s replacement in the Senate.

He’s not going to be successfully impeached for months.

He’s going down swinging, including petitioning to use campaign funds to pay for his defense.

He’s, in fact, thoroughly messed up the mojo of the Illinois Democratic Party, and causing the Illinois Republican Party to gleefully point out the former’s utter hypocrisy:

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I saw this yesterday at the Corner, meant to bring it up, forgot until I read Instapundit today: not only is Al Sharpton against Card Check, he’s against it for the very sensible reason that the secret ballot is a potent tool against disenfranchisement. From the transcript:

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Not because she wants to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine.” That’s merely idiotic of her. No, she’s an idiot because she wants to extend it to cable and satellite stations.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP:

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (pictured), D-Palo Alto, said Monday she will work to restore the Fairness Doctrine and have it apply to cable and satellite programming as well as radio and TV.

[snip]

Eshoo said she would recommend the doctrine be applied not only to radio and TV broadcasts, but also to cable and satellite services.

For the benefit of any other idiots that might have wandered in, confused: cable and satellite television are privately owned entertainment/information networks. Congress is explicitly forbidden to interfere with them:

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Scare quotes because I, like Allahpundit, don’t even remotely think that she had a choice in the matter.

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Note my bolding. Oh, my, yes, note my bolding:

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (CNN) — Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who was cited in a criminal complaint against Rod Blagojevich — has been an informant for at least a decade with the U.S. Attorney’s office, and has informed on the embattled governor of Illinois, though not in the case currently under investigation, Jackson spokesman Kenneth Edmonds told CNN Tuesday.

In addition, two sources close to Jackson told CNN that, in 2002, Blagojevich — then running for governor of Illinois — solicited a $25,000 campaign donation from Jackson, which he did not get.

Via Dan Riehl.

Let us now all sit back and contemplate all those possible times that Jackson could have been wearing a wire: no, I don’t know how often, or whether he ever did. Then again, neither does anybody who has ever talked to him.

Anybody.

Moe Lane

And I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to his family. Fortunately, the good guys won the domestic front of the war, which means that Ambassador Sumaidaie is free to smack down antiwar idiots:

But don’t cry, ye members of the antiwar movement: there’s always 2012. Or 2016. Or 2020, but by then an increasing number of you will be dead of old age, right?

Moe Lane

PPS: Hot Air has more.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines, via Michelle Malkin) It’s a very nice golf course, sure:

Black Lake Golf Club is the newest addition to the UAW’s Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center, situated on 1,000 heavily forested acres along the southeast side of Black Lake, one of Michigan’s largest inland lakes near Onaway, Michigan.

Black Lake Golf Club complements the Center’s recreational facilities, which now include a beautiful gym with two full-sized basketball courts, an Olympic-size indoor pool, and exercise and weight room, table-tennis and pool tables, a sauna, beaches, walking and bike trails, softball and soccer fields and a boat launch ramp.

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In the process of implying that 55% of the population are lunatics, Eugene Robinson takes the time to demonstrate that his grasp of the bailout situation is only “matched” by that of his editors:

Funny, I don’t recall a cry from Senate Republicans for salary caps on the stockbrokers whose jobs were saved in the Wall Street bailout…

As Iain Murray helpfully notes, Robinson’s conveniently forgetting Senators Martinez, McCain, and McConnell – you have may have heard of that last one, Mr. Robinson? He’s the guy who Harry Reid answers to, and he was pretty clear on the topic:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., laid out four principles for a deal with the White House: a limit on executive pay, more protection for taxpayers, a guarantee any possible profits from asset sales be devoted to deficit reduction, and greater transparency.

The really distressing part? I expect this kind of behavior from regular print media these days – but I expect better than this from Real Clear Politics. For everybody’s sake, I’m hoping that it’s a one-time aberration.

Live by the opinion poll, die by the opinion poll:

Majority of Public Opposes Auto Rescue
Poll Finds Most Blame Industry for Problems, Believe Failure Won’t Hurt Economy

Most Americans continue to oppose a government-backed rescue plan for Detroit’s Big Three automakers as majorities blame the industry for its own problems and are unconvinced failure would hurt the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overall, 55 percent of those polled oppose the latest plan that Chrysler, Ford and General Motors executives pitched to Congress last week, on par with public opposition to earlier, pricier efforts. But with 42 percent support, the new request for up to $14 billion in emergency loans has more backers than previous proposals to secure up to $34 billion in loan guarantees.

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[I probably should have fronted it to begin with. ML]

Blagojevich to SEIU to Card Check, via the folks at the Workforce Fairness Institute:

When you think about it, this makes perfect sense: after all, somebody that hates secret ballots as much as Big Labor does probably has a lively contempt for the rest of our democratic institutions, too.

Note the lack of capitalization, there. When it comes to this particular policy position, pro-EFCA Democrats… aren’t.

Via the Denver Post (and Hot Air) it’s being reported that Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado is looking likely for Secretary of the Interior:

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar is a leading contender to become President-elect Barack Obama’s Interior secretary, two sources have confirmed.

Reuters News Service used even stronger language in a report Sunday, saying Salazar had become the top candidate for the job.

Alas, Ken Salazar has no child to take his seat, in accordance with the tradition exemplified by Houses Biden or Kennedy* (or the lesser Illinois House Madigan), so he is seeking to have anointed as his heir his older brother John, who is currently the Representative for Colorado’s Third District. I actually support this: CO-03 has a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+6, after all. It the idea pleases you, too, the Colorado GOP site is here. Just in case they actually do us this favor.

Moe Lane

PS: When your gasoline bill goes up again next year, remember: it’s because Ken Salazar hates oil shale development more than he likes American fuel consumers.

Hey, I’m just the messenger.

*Say what you like about the Bush Dynasty, but at least they have the common courtesy to actually run for office in different states each time.

I know that your self-appointed burden can be sometimes hard for you to bear. Not enough people seem to care about what you care about, and you wonder whether you’re just shouting to the same people over and over again. That’s the sort of thinking that leads to solitary drinking in cheap apartments at 3 AM; but if you’re doing that, well, stop. It’s just not true.

Why, you are part of a whole world community of environmental lunatics whose own politicians routinely kick them in the face.

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The Illinois GOP is certainly happy to keep running with this theme, huh?

What makes this especially fun is that they included Illinois AG Lisa Madigan in the above montage of politicians that are supposedly for the special election.