The IL Senate voted unanimously to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) from office for abuse of power, reports The Washington Post:

One by one, Republicans and Democrats stood to call for the governor's ouster, rejecting his last-minute pleas and criticizing him as a liar and a hypocrite before voting in the late afternoon.

With that vote, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn (D), a former running mate who hasn't spoken with the increasingly isolated Blagojevich in 17 months, became Illinois' 41st governor.

By a matching 59 to 0 vote, the Senate also voted to bar Blagojevich for life from holding Illinois political office. …

Blagojevich pointedly missed a deadline to challenge the impeachment allegations and call witnesses, sending no attorney to file legal motions or otherwise represent him.

The New York Times reports that “through the day, Mr. Blagojevich was, by turns, furious over the methods of the trial, morose … and brimming with an odd gallows humor long before the lawmakers cast their votes”:

All the while, his assistant packed his belongings into cardboard boxes - among them, family photographs, a bust of Lincoln and a statue of Elvis.

“I’m still governor for now, and I say you take the afternoon off!” he cheerily told employees, many of them tearful. At another point, he pondered the more practical consequences of losing his job. “I wonder if we’ll have to hitchhike home,” he said. “Maybe we could take the bus.” …

At moments during the day, Mr. Blagojevich reflected on what was ahead, most immediately how best to pay his mortgage come March 1 without his $177,000-a-year salary. He spoke of the guilt he felt toward his family for entering a political life, the “personal Greek tragedy” that he said he saw as his circumstances, and, all the while, his love of his job. His biggest error, he said, was the friends he had picked.

“I come out of the alleys of Chicago politics,” said Mr. Blagojevich, 52, who entered Democratic politics in 1992, first as a state representative, then a United States representative. “That’s a tough place. The politics there is not motivated by idealism or high purpose. It’s nuts and bolts, and you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I came up that way.”

For his part, Washington Post columnist David Broder sputters indignantly that Blago “has become a media star, warmly and affectionately treated by people who ought to know better”:

When Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, charged Blagojevich two months ago and released excerpts from court-approved wiretaps showing the governor obscenely calculating how he could cash in on the opportunity to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat, the initial public and press reaction was, "What a sleaze."

But even as Blagojevich has abandoned any pretense of mounting a legal defense of his actions, he has launched a full-scale public relations campaign, hitting the morning talk-show circuit to parade his impudence under the guise of proclaiming his innocence. …

To my chagrin, the PR offensive seems to be working, not only with TV talkers who often confuse celebrity with more serious attributes, but with journalists who ought to know better.

In a single edition of The Post, two of my most admired colleagues, Eugene Robinson and Dana Milbank, treated Blagojevich as if he were a kind of lovable rascal, a scamp to be enjoyed for the laughs he provides.

The Stiletto admits that she hasn’t gone ballistic over Blago, because she hasn’t read a complete transcript of the tapes  and cannot know for certain whether he broke any laws or did anything those who voted to impeach him haven’t done to one degree or another; because leaving him in place would remind people (journos, in particular) that Barack Obama came out of this same political cesspool and can’t be all that pristine (second item), so they should keep both eyes open and their hands on their wallets; and, yes, because The Stiletto does have a soft spot for a man who can – and does - recite poetry at the drop of a hat.

And one more thing: Perhaps Blago is benefitting from a certain amount of public sympathy because  Fitzgerald’s unjust prosecution of Scooter Libby still rankles.

The “Do-Nothing” Congress Does The Wrong Thing

Contrary to what some would have you believe, there was bipartisanship on the $819 billion “stimulus” package in the House of Representatives: It passed 244-to-188, with 177 Republicans and 11 Democrats voting against it. The Wall Street Journal reports:

House Republican leadership aides said the vote should force Democrats to compromise in the Senate, but White House aides were more sanguine. They said the package in the Senate has already moved toward Republican positions on key issues, making GOP votes more likely. Mr. Obama has said he wants a final compromise version by Feb. 13.

By providing enormous sums for social programs and changing many of the rules to allow more people to take advantage of the programs, the Obama plan has prompted some Republicans to complain that the bill is becoming a back-door way to expand the social contract. The long-lasting nature of some of the items, say Republicans, has as much to do with pent-up policy demands of a Democratic Congress and White House as reviving a flailing economy.

This Boston Globe graphic shows what the money will be spent on:

The 647-page American Recovery And Investment Act of 2009 has got something for just about everyone, but The Globe points out it’s lacking a certain something:

Five weeks before becoming president, Barack Obama urged passage of a massive economic stimulus package, vowing that it would "create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

But the bill passed by the House yesterday dedicates only about 5 percent of the $819 billion measure to highway, mass transit, and rail projects, analysts said. …

Many economists have argued in recent weeks that spending on infrastructure would do more to quickly create jobs and pull the country out of recession than tax cuts for individuals and businesses, or investments in healthcare and alternative energy - such as grants for health information technology and for a smart electricity grid. …

The American Society of Civil Engineers said in a report released yesterday - ahead of schedule to try to influence the stimulus debate - that the nation's infrastructure is so degraded that it gets a grade of "D." The report urged $2.2 trillion in spending, not including money for high-speed rail, which Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, have said is a priority.

And here’s the kicker: An analysis of the “stimulus” plan by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that what little money has been allocated to infrastructure projects will not impact the economy before 2011 – well after the recession is expected to have run its course, but just as the 2012 mid-term elections are gearing up.

Editorial Note: Another proposed provision the bill is missing – thanks to the insistence of rebellious Repubs – would have provided contraceptives and other family planning services to low income women through Medicaid. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was channeling Bill Bennett when she defended the allocation after “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos asked, “how is that stimulus?”:

The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children's health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. … [T]he contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.

The Telegraph (London) noted that “Pelosi, the mother of five children and grandmother to six, did not spell out exactly how fewer babies would help the economy,” but it seems clear enough that she believes in an economic eugenics that suppresses the number of poor and minority babies coming into the world so states have to shell out less for their upkeep – a suggestion Dems once condemned as racist.  

In 2005 when Bill Bennett ruminated on a “Freakonomics,” theory that crime and abortion rates have an inverse relationship ("You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”) Dems were up in arms and John Conyers (D-MI), for one, demanded that his radio show, "Bill Bennett's Morning in America," be taken off the air.

Note that Pelosi thought it was a good idea and Bennett thought it was a bad idea, but Bennett was tagged as a racist.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

Life Imitates “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”

Since January 12^th “hordes of ravenous caterpillars” numbering in the “tens of millions” have infested Liberia, “destroying green crops like cabbage and collard greens" and contaminating the water supply with a “huge volume of feces,” reports CNN:

The state of emergency covers the three northern Liberian counties of Bong, Lofa, and Gbarpolu, Liberian officials said.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told legislators Monday that 350,000 people in 62 communities in those three counties may have been affected.

There are also indications the bugs have spread to neighboring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.

[Hat Tip: The Heel, an Ivy-educated attorney with a prestigious New York firm, and occasional contributor to this blog.]

Go Cards!

Editorial Note: Though hardly as scientific as a Rasmussen survey, every conservative The Stiletto knows is rooting for the Cards. More than one called the Steelers a bunch of thugs.