Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich arrested for trying to sell senate seat vacanted by now Mr. President Obama

CHICAGO - Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich embarked on a "corruption crime spree" and tried to benefit from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the U.S. Senate, federal officials said.

Rod Blagojevich

At a news conference in Chicago on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called it a sad day for the citizens of Illinois and alleged that the governor tried to "auction off" the Senate seat "to the highest bidder."

Blagojevich had been arrested hours earlier and was released later in the day after posting a $4,500 bond.

A 76-page FBI affidavit said the 51-year-old Democrat was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps over the last month conspiring to sell or trade the vacant Senate seat for personal benefits for himself and his wife, Patti. Fitzgerald said federal investigators bugged Blagojevich's campaign offices and placed a tap on his home phone.

Obama

In Illinois, the governor selects a successor when there is a mid-term Senate vacancy. Obama resigned from the Senate soon after winning the Nov. 4 presidential election. With the governor's arrest, Illinois Senate President Emil Jones, Jr., said he will call the Senate back in session in order to create a special election for the U.S. Senate seat.

*****************************************

Must read following Ultra SHOCKING article
mindlessly copied from The Smoking Gun:

The criminal complaint filed today against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich contains a remarkable section detailing the Democratic politician's alleged attempt to cash in on his ability to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. Attached to the U.S. District Court complaint is an FBI affidavit, excerpted below, alleging that Blagojevich was caught on wiretaps noting that the Senate seat "is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing." He was also recorded saying that unless "I get something real good," he would appoint himself to the vacancy. "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying. And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself." According to surreptitiously recorded conversations, Blagojevich spoke with associates about the possibility of trading the Senate post for either an ambassadorship or a Cabinet post. The politician, according to the affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Daniel Cain, "analogized his situation to that of a sports agent shopping a potential free agent to various teams." During a wiretapped November 10 call, a frustrated and financially strapped Blagojevich referred to Obama as a "motherfucker" and said that he would not appoint an ally of the President-elect to the Senate vacancy if "I don't get anything." Referring to Obama, Blagojevich exclaimed, "Fuck him. For nothing? Fuck him." In a November 11 conversation, Blagojevich remarked that he knew Obama wanted Valerie Jarrett, a longtime confidante, to succeed him, "but they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation. Fuck them." Blagojevich, 51, and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested this morning on political corruption charges. While the affidavit does not specifically name the six prospective Senate candidates discussed by Blagojevic, Harris, and the governor's aides, it appears that several are easily identified. "Senate Candidate 1" is Jarrett. "Senate Candidate 2" is Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Emil Jones, an Illinois state legislator, is "Senate Candidate 5." [The Chicago Tribune and ABC News are reporting that "Senate Candidate 5" is Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.] And "Senate Candidate 6" appears to be J.P. Pritzker, a wealthy Chicago businessman. Additionally, Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, is referred to in the affidavit as "President-elect Advisor." (21 pages)

Click here to read the full detailed 21 paged article

*****************************************

Click here to read the Blagojevich criminal complaint (PDF)

*************** Thanks for reading this article **********

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is the first Chief Minister in the country to have been questioned on a criminal complaint

CM Narendra Modi on 27 March 2010 after getting interrogated by SIT

It is the first time in Indian history that a sitting Chief Minister has been accused and interrogated for a crime such as mass murder. The “will he won’t he” suspense eventually ended on March 27 when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi presented himself before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to be interrogated for his alleged complicity in the 2002 riots. Modi is the first Chief Minister in the country to have been questioned on a criminal complaint.

Close to 1,500 people lost their lives in the days of rioting that followed the burning of a coach of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra, in which 59 kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya died. The investigation into the Godhra

incident and the Gujarat riots has been going on for eight years.

For a man who holds such a high office and, more importantly, is known for his power and control, this was a humbling experience. He is accused of aiding and abetting riots in Gulberg Society, a residential colony in Ahmedabad, where 68 people were killed in a mob attack on February 28, 2002. Modi has been indicted in a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress Member of Parliament, was killed in the attack on Gulberg Society. Zakia Jafri has accused Modi and 62 others of instructing officials not to heed cries for help by Muslims during the riots. She says her husband made frantic calls to Modi and several police officers and politicians, but no one came to their aid. She believes that the attack on Gulberg Society was a planned one and that her husband was targeted.

Zakia Jafri

internet black holes = restricted web and press

This map was commissioned by **Reporters Without Borders, which also publishes a World Ranking of press freedom. As the list of the 15 internet-restricting countries (followed by their ranking on said list) indicates, internet censorship is a strong indicator of press censorship in general:

1. Maldives (144)
2. Tunisia (148)
3. Belarus (151)
4. Libya (152)
5. Syria (153)
6. Vietnam (155)
7. Uzbekistan (158)
8. Nepal (159)
9. Saudi Arabia (161)
10. Iran (162)
11. China (163)
12. Myanmar/Burma (164)
13. Cuba (165)
14. Turkmenistan (167)
15. North Korea (168 and very last on the list)

**Reporters Without Borders, or RWB is a Paris-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985 by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Reporters Without Borders publishes the Predators of Press Freedom list.

"Iraq War Ends" - says "New York Times" ??

New York: The U.S. Defence Department on Wednesday declared the end of the Iraq war and the immediate withdrawal of all troops, prompting an admission from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Bush administration had known all along that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, according to the “New York Times.”

Sorry, folks, the Iraq war isn’t over (sob sob !!), at least not yet. In an elaborate hoax, pranksters distributed thousands of free copies of a spoof edition of The New York Times on Wednesday morning at busy subway stations around the city, including Grand Central Terminal, Washington and Union Squares, the 14th and 23rd Street stations along Eighth Avenue, and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, among others. The spurious 14-page papers — with a headline “IRAQ WAR ENDS” — surprised commuters, many of whom took the free copies thinking they were legitimate. The paper imagines a liberal utopia of national health care, a rebuilt economy, progressive taxation, a national oil fund to study climate change, and other goals of progressive politics. Dated July 4, 2009, and boasting the motto “All the news we hope to print” in a twist on the daily’s motto “All the news that’s fit to print,” the fake paper looks forward to the day the war ends, and envisages a chain of events that would be manna from heaven for American liberals. In one story ExxonMobil is taken into public ownership, while in another evangelicals open the doors of their mega-churches to Iraqi refugees.

The hoax was accompanied by a Web site (click here to visit the spoof site) that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site (click here to visit the original site) . A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition. (A headline in the fake business section declares: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.” Uh, sure.)

The Associated Press reported that copies of the spoof paper were also handed out in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, and that the pranksters — who included a film promoter, three unnamed Times employees and Steven Lambert, an art professor — financed the paper with small online contributions and created the paper to urge President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises. Software and Internet support were provided by the Yes Men, who were the subject of a 2004 documentary film. `Yes Men` issued a statement about the prank, stating, in part: "In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street."

Original NYTimes Website

There is a history of spoofs and parodies of The Times -> Probably the best-known is one unveiled two months into the 1978 newspaper strike. A whole cast of characters took part in that parody, including the journalist Carl Bernstein, the author Christopher Cerf, the humorist Tony Hendra and the Paris Review editor George Plimpton. And for April Fool’s Day in 1999, the British business executive Richard Branson printed 100,000 copies of a parody titled “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The New York Times.” A 27-year-old Princeton alumnus named Matthew Polly, operating a “guerrilla press” known as Hard Eight Publishing, edited that 32-page spoof of the newspaper.

Spoof of NYTimes Website