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Well, our State Senate has convicted Rod Blagojevich and removed him from office, in a complete and utter travesty of a procedure.
Personally, I can't stand Blago, and I think we are well rid of him. But not like this.
Not with "jurors" who made it crystal clear that they'd made up their minds even before the House impeached him. Not with no standard of proof. Not with an outsider (the U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois) deciding whether, and which, witnesses could be called on certain counts (and with the ability to direct a witness not to answer questions). Not when the Senators were not permitted to vote on the individual articles of impeachment, but were forced to vote "yea" or "nay" in a general verdict. (That means, you see, that there might not have been any single charge garnering the necessary 2/3 votes.) And, of course, the joke of seeing people attack the governor for implementing programs which they themselves had voted to fund, people who are proud to proclaim in legislative debates that they know a bill is unconstitutional, but are voting for it anyway because they're scared of their constituents.
They say one shouldn't watch sausages or laws being made. Same for this impeachment process. It turned my stomach.
Personally, I can't stand Blago, and I think we are well rid of him. But not like this.
Not with "jurors" who made it crystal clear that they'd made up their minds even before the House impeached him. Not with no standard of proof. Not with an outsider (the U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois) deciding whether, and which, witnesses could be called on certain counts (and with the ability to direct a witness not to answer questions). Not when the Senators were not permitted to vote on the individual articles of impeachment, but were forced to vote "yea" or "nay" in a general verdict. (That means, you see, that there might not have been any single charge garnering the necessary 2/3 votes.) And, of course, the joke of seeing people attack the governor for implementing programs which they themselves had voted to fund, people who are proud to proclaim in legislative debates that they know a bill is unconstitutional, but are voting for it anyway because they're scared of their constituents.
They say one shouldn't watch sausages or laws being made. Same for this impeachment process. It turned my stomach.
