My state is worse than your state!

[singlemalt]

Where do I even begin?

Well, our former governor of the great state of Illinois, Republican, George Ryan is cooling his heels in the pokey becuse of multiple coruption convictions.

And our current governor, Democrat, Rod Blagojevich was just arrested and is being held by the FBI, no less, for essentially trying to sell the senate seat being left behind by Barack Obama.

In Chicago we now have the highest sales tax in the naiton due in part because the Cook County Board President, Todd Stroger, Jr. took over the position during his father's re-election campaing after his father suffered a massive stroke and the party tried to cover the whole thing up. So our wonderful mayor now uses Stroger, Jr. as a pawn to jack our taxes up.

And we also are home to Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and the always popular Louis Farrakhan.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Yeah. Try to top that! Louisiana and West Virginia ain't got nuthin' on the Land of Lincoln.

Illinois is a fucking joke. In my next life, I'm living somewhere nice. Like Boca.

[stilltrucking]

Oh please don t tell me about some pissants

I live in Texas, the mother of presiverts. The man who trashed america.

The man who said the thing he will really miss when he leaves office is no longer going to see the families of slain soldiers, because they make him feel better about the war.

And what makes it really sweet is he will never be arrested he will probably give himself a medal and retire with horor.

Yeah if this is about bragging rights your state would not make a pimple on my state's ass. fuck your state
I am proud to be from Texas where Bob Wills is still the king.

And it don't matter who's in Austin Lady Bird is still the queen

[stilltrucking]

Sorry

I am a little uspet about the former govenor of Texas.

[UMBERTO UMBERTO]

Years ago, friend Truck:

I found the emblematic equivalent of GW's presidency-- it simply vibrates with orgasmic similitude.

It came in the form of a NATIONAL LAMPOON advertisement ( ironic, of course) for Greyhound bus travel.

I traveled almost exclusively on Greyhounds and saw every smelly bus station in Oregon, Washington and Nevada ( wheh-yew!) between the ages of seven and sixteen.

It went like this:


"TAKE THE GREYHOUND!

Speed through scenic countryside-- fast, efficent, quiet . . .

Seated next to a 400-pound wino with chiggers!"

I wore my OBAMA button to the Mexican restaurant last night I'm so pleased to be rid of the BUSHKO gang . . .

Nice to see you tip your ten-gallon at me again.


--Umberto

[stilltrucking]

The saddest thing for me about Blagojevich's arrogance, studpidity and greed is that it will be used to smear Obama.

Questions Arise About the Obama/Blagojevich Relationship


The innuendos will proliferate it will be a field day for Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

[mtmynd]

Talent always has it's enemies lurking in it's shadows awaiting anything to besmirch Talent's name... a shame but no blame... it's the game that will remain always the same.

[stilltrucking]

Rush got talent too.
I am sure everything will be fine.

[mtmynd]

Rush HAD talent but frittered it away in meaningless republican ego trips to satisfy his economic substitutes for freedom he was unable to attain.

[stilltrucking]

I hope you are right Cecil. I have not listened to Limbaugh in years.

For me this is the most important story coming out of Illinois

Much has been made about the prospect that Barack Obama's presidency might, due to economic necessity and the president-elect's interventionist inclinations, be a reprise of the New Deal era.

But there will be no "new New Deal" if Americans simply look to Obama to lead them out of the domestic quagmire into which Bill Clinton and George Bush led the country with a toxic blend of free-trade absolutism, banking deregulation and disdain for industrial policy. Just as Roosevelt needed mass movements and militancy as an excuse to talk Washington stalwarts into accepting radical shifts in the economic order, so Obama will need to be able to point to some turbulence at the grassroots.

And so he may have it.
After the Bank of America -- a $25-billion recipient of Bailout Czar Hank Paulson's "Wall Street First" largesse -- cut off operating credit to the Republic Windows and Doors company, executives of the firm announced Friday that they were shutting its factory in Chicago.

Instead of going home to a dismal Holiday season like hundreds of thousands of other working Americans who have fallen victim to the corporate "reduction-in-force" frenzy of recent weeks -- which has seen suddenly-secure banks pocket federal dollars rather than loosen up credit -- the Republic workers occupied the factory where many of them had worked for decades.




http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/ ... in_chicago

I am going to hear more about Blagojevich then I want to,

[mtmynd]

i've been meaning to ask 'malt' why the state of Illinois continues to vote these scoundrels into office. seems like there have been so many over the years that the voters would learn to distinguish between the corrupt and the correct. or is the voting system so corrupt that the voice of the populace is ignored... year after year after year?

[mtmynd]

truck... re: limbaugh. i remember when he first came on national radio several years back. i listened to him almost every day while at work. i don't think back then he was quite as obnoxious as he later became. once i saw how tilted he was towards the right, mercilessly so, he lost a listener.

i often thought he could've been a 'people's radio personality' akin to a Will Rogers. he had the licks to see the crap on both sides but chose to stick to that gawdawful republican/conservative tripe despite what that side was up to. surely he could see thru dubya and all his shit, but he didn't, doesn't and resists. solid asshole... that's what he is. i have no respect for that man at all.

[stilltrucking]

I must appologize to Singlemalt for rambling all over his thread. At least Ryan got those innocent people off of death row. Nothing to redeem that trogdolyte Blagojevich.
____________________

When we say Illinois we really mean Chicago I think.
I don't know what it is about Chicago either,
maybe the culture of corruption is a legacy of the Daly machine.

I have a different opinion of Limbaugh Cecil. I started listening to Limbaugh in the nineteen eighties. He was on a station in Sacramento, California, I could see the guy was a genius at self promotion. He was no Will Rogers back then Cecil, unless Will Rogers was a big fat pompous asshole.

[mtmynd]

yes, truck... i, too, think Rush is a genius of self-promotion. no doubt about it. he went from an unknown to a very wealthy known person in a relatively short time.

the Will Rogers comment perhaps wasn't written clearly. i really meant to say had he widened his scope and used his cutting comments towards both sides of the political news, and not so singly against the so-called left, he could've been a well-respected commentator in general... acceptable to both sided. that's just a speculation on my part and will never be one that Rush will accept to do, of course. and yes, i agree completely with your "big fat pompous asshole" comment wholeheartedly.

[stilltrucking]

Geez Cecil my memory is not what it was. I am trying to remember how Limbaugh sounded over twenty years ago. Pretty much the same as now I think. I can not ever remember Rush Limbaugh being a critic of any corporate interest or republican.

Can you refresh my memory?

I used to listen to a lot of talk radio back then Cecil, in the middle of the night it was something to do to make the miles go by. At the time Larry King was the top rated talk show in the country.

Limbaugh was pretty much unknown except to long haul truck drivers. What he would do is have his ditto heads call into the Larry king show and ask old Larry what he thought of Rush Limbaugh. King would say "never heard of him" but after a while I think they screened the calls out.

I have always thought Limbaugh was a shill for corporate interests. For example:

During the California energy crisis when the rates for electricity were doubling and tripling he blamed the environmentalists for the debacle saying they had blocked the construction of new power plants. Turns out it was just what the governor of California said it was, a criminal conspiracy. Enron buying the electricity off the California grid and running into another state than selling it back to California at piratical rates. .


You betcha this thing with Blagojevich' is going to be red meat for Rush.

[mtmynd]

i think this is a good time... nah.. a great time to rescind what i had said about rush having the talent to become another Will Rogers. he forfeited that talent for the republican/conservative agenda... which could have been when he was working for the KC Royals as far as i know.

i haven't listened to that s.o.b. for years... and that's not long enough.