I am happy to tell our loyal readers here that on Christmas morning I asked my girlfriend Beth to marry me…
…and she said yes.
I have lots more to say… but I also have an apartment that is in serious need of cleaning after a long battle with wrapping paper and scotch tape… so I will tell you all more later.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Congratulations, Matt and Beth!!!
UPDATE, by Matt Margolis: …and for those who have been asking about the ring:
The Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel notes something Mark and I know all too well, that the Blagojevich scandal is just the typical iceberg of Democrat corruption…
A note to all those visitors who will soon flood Washington for the inauguration: Be careful of the “swamp.”
That would be the swamp Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to drain when she led her party to victory in 2006. The GOP had been rocked by scandal, and Mrs. Pelosi and Democrats won, in part, by promising to clean up the “culture of corruption” that pervaded Washington.
Instead, Democrats now have an image problem. The real issue isn’t so much Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Senate-seat auction, as it is the focus that his scandal has directed toward a wider assortment of Democratic troubles. This isn’t great timing for Barack Obama, who campaigned on cleaner government.
The Blagojevich drama is titillating enough, and local Democrats’ dithering over how to fill Mr. Obama’s seat guarantees it will remain a storyline longer than is comfortable. But the Illinois drama has also thrust new light on the ongoing ethical controversies of House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel. At the rate the House Ethics Committee is receiving complaints — over Mr. Rangel’s real-estate problems, tax problems, his privately sponsored trips to the Caribbean, and donations to his center in New York — this too will make headlines for a while.
This is actually something Mark and I mentioned in our book, Caucus of Corruption. Since Republicans were in the majority in 2006, it was easier for the Democrats to charge corruption against the majority — while their own rampant corruption went unreported on. Perhaps now that the Democrats will be in total power for the next two years the media will shift focus back on the corruption that has been rampant in the Democratic Party for years.
To do our part to help, of course there is our book, which still has lots of relevant information, and there is Democrat Corruption, our new, rebranded and relaunched version of No Agenda, which chronicled Democrat corruption between 2005 and 2007. This new site includes all our earlier content, as well as new material recently added, that will continue to grow.
The recount in Minnesota has been a bizarre roller coaster, with Team Franken finding new ways to steal the election. Coleman has had a slim, but regular… yet Franken’s finagling. including mystery ballots being discovered in bizarre places.
Recent reports have Fraudulent Franken up… but it is far from over.
But major issues remain in the race, including some 5,000 withdrawn challenges that won’t be allocated to the candidates until next week. Coleman’s attorney, Tony Trimble, said those could throw the lead back to the Republican.
“We’ll let them enjoy the weekend,” Trimble said. When votes from those challenges are restored, he said, “You’ll see our ship come in.”
There’s reason for him to be optimistic. Franken withdrew more challenges before this week, leaving a larger pool of potential votes for Coleman in the next stage. There are 400 to 500 more ballots where Coleman could find votes compared with the batch available to Franken.
Al Franken is trying to steal this election… Help Coleman fend off Franken’s Fraud by donating here.
Now, Rod Blagojevich has been under a dark ethical cloud for a long time now. He was corrupt enough that Mark and I gave him a dishonorable mention in our book, but that didn’t stop Barrack Obama from associating with him for the past few years.
But, now that Blagojevich is on the verge of going down, Obama is trying to claim he had “no contact” with the disgraced governor — who would choose his successor in the Senate.
Of course since his claim, various sources have revealed the opposite. David Axelrod had said last month that they had in fact met and discussed who would replace him — only to claim this week he “misspoke.” Then woe found that it was reported the day after the election that Obama and Blagojevich had a meeting.
To be honest, I did not originally think Obama had any knowledge or involvement in the auctioning off of his Senate seat to the highest bidder. But, there is no point pretending that he never had any contact with him about who would replace him.
So why not be honest about the contact they did have, if the corrupt dealings weren’t a part of their conversations, Obama has nothing to hide.
Well, apparently the reason why Obama is lying about having no contact with Blagojevich is that he may have had knowledge of Blagojevich’s pay to play scheme:
Barack Obama insists that he and his staff were not involved in the alleged schemes Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich cooked up to sell off the president-elect’s vacant Senate seat.
But the timeline of activity outlined in the FBI’s 76-page complaint against Blagojevich suggests Obama’s team was aware that his home-state governor was playing political hardball in the weeks before his arrest.
That’s because shortly after Blagojevich allegedly told his advisers, in an expletive-laced conference call, that he would not appoint Obama’s pick to the Senate absent huge favors in return, Obama’s apparent pick promptly dropped out of the running for the Senate and joined the new White House staff.
“Reading between the lines … clearly somebody from (Obama’s) operation did have a conversation with Blagojevich,” Democratic strategist Bob Beckel told FOX News. He added that Obama’s representative evidently wasn’t trying to cut a deal since Blagojevich indicated he was “getting nothing out of the Obama people.”
FOX News has confirmed that Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama adviser, is the individual identified in the Blagojevich affidavit as Senate Candidate 1.
The affidavit states that Senate Candidate 1 was likely to be supported by Obama for the seat, and that the Illinois governor was mulling a variety of ways to capitalize on such an appointment. Blagojevich allegedly wanted a corporate board appointment for his wife or millions in donations to a non-profit organization for his benefit, or even an appointment as secretary of health and human services, in exchange for appointing Senate Candidate 1. (Obama nominated former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle for the Cabinet post Blagojevich wanted on Thursday.)
But in the series of wiretapped conversations detailed in the complaint, Blagojevich and his advisers made clear that Obama was not willing to trade anything for the appointment of Senate Candidate 1.
Corrupt to the core. If Obama was in the dark about Blagojevich’s scheme, he wouldn’t have lied about the contact he did have with Blagojevich that was so quickly determined to be lies.
So, Obama, what are you hiding?
First, IL Governor Rod Blagojevich has been arrested on corruption charges.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents on federal corruption charges Tuesday morning.
Blagojevich and Harris were arrested simultaneously at their homes at about 6:15 a.m., according to Frank Bochte of the FBI. Both were transported to FBI headquarters in Chicago.
In one charge related to the appointment of a senator to replace Barack Obama, prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought appointment for himseld 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.
Another charge alleges Blagojevich and Harris conspired to demand the firing of Chicago Tribune editorial board members responsible for editorials critical of him in exchange for state help with the sale of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium owned by Tribune Co.
And, back in October, a grand jury issued subpoenas on the Obama/Rezko land deal.
A former Illinois bank official, now claiming whistleblower status, says bank officials replaced a loan reappraisal that he prepared for a Chicago property that was purchased by the wife of now-convicted felon Tony Rezko, part of which was later sold to next-door neighbor Barack Obama.
In a complaint filed Thursday in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Kenneth J. Connor said that his reappraisal of Rita Rezko’s property was replaced with a higher one and that he was fired when he questioned the document.
Mr. Connor, a real estate and commercial credit analyst at the Mutual Bank Corp. in Chicago, also noted in the complaint that the bank received a grand jury subpoena in October 2006 requiring it to produce information concerning Mrs. Rezko’s purchase, including the bank’s files on the property.
The complaint also said that the grand jury wanted information on Mrs. Rezko’s checking account and loan file and that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) had audited the Rezko file – although Mr. Connor’s lower reappraisal had been replaced with a higher amount.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson has called on Barack Obama to “uphold his pledge of expanded transparency and release any records of discussions between the Obama-Biden transition office and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich regarding the appointment of Obama’s successor to the United States Senate.”
UPDATE: Obama talked to Blagojevich about Senate replacement
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Democrats go into full damage control mode.
Political newcomer Anh “Joseph” Cao, a Republican, has beaten nine-term incumbent William Jefferson, a Democrat, in the 2nd Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.
With 79 percent of the district’s 492 precincts reporting, Cao, a Venetian Isles attorney who has enjoyed strong backing from local and national GOP organizations, is leading 53 percent to 43 percent over Jefferson. Green Party candidate Malik Rahim has 3 percent, while Libertarian Gregory Kahn is trailing with less than 1 percent.
The district, which was drawn to give African Americans an electoral advantage, covers most of New Orleans, most of Jefferson Parish’s West Bank and parts of south Kenner. About two-thirds of the district’s voters are registered as Democrats.
It is a good day when a corrupt Democrat finally gets defeated… one down… a lot more to go.
Next up… trial and conviction.
I think a celebratory glass of Cabernet Sauvignon is in order.
UPDATE: How sweet it is.
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Also noted is that the Democrats seem to have lost the other runoff House election in Louisiana. The reason does appear to be lower-than-necessary black turnout – one wonders that now there’s a black man to be in the White House will black turnout drop off heavily for all the special and off-year elections? For the 2010 mid-terms? The test will be in next year’s Virginia governors race.
I finally decided it was time to create a Twitter account for Blogs For Victory. So here it is if you would like to follow us:
and here are a few others you should follow:
@mattmargolis my personal Twitter account
@marknoonan Mark’s Twitter account
@thebuffalobean my Western New York blog
@hubpolitics my Massachusetts blog
@demcorruption old account for Caucus of Corruption
Despite an enormous amount of help from Comrade Obama, Georgia Democrat Jim Martin was handily defeated by Senator Saxby Chambliss.
And despite attempts by Al Franken to steal his election, it looks like Norm Coleman will be returning to the Senate as well.
Blogs For Victory 
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