Morning News: The Beginning of Blagojevich’s End?
Last night an investigative committee of the Illinois House voted unanimously to impeach Governor Rod Blagojevich. A vote from the full House is planned for today. Once the matter is settled, the Senate will try the governor. A two-thirds vote of guilty will be needed to remove him.
Tom Daschle fared better yesterday than the poor governor of Illinois. His first hearing in the confirmation process for Health and Human Services secretary was a fair success. In it, he laid out some ideas for reforming the healthcare system, including reducing the influence of politics on science, increasing funding for community and rural healthcare centers, speed up the release of generic drugs, encourage the use of health information technology, increase Medicare and Medicaid payments to healthcare providers and promote prevention of disease.
What he didn’t say was how he would pay for all that.
It probably won’t be through the rental of his DC digs for the inagural events. Apparently, though it is true that in the early days following the election, some DC residents scored big bucks for the use of their homes by inaugural guests, these days, demand has ebbed. You can barely squeeze $600 per night for a bed right on Capitol Hill, according to the Washington Post. We can vouch for this ourselves. The official Strollerderby HQ on the Hill has been booked for one tarot-card reading per night.
Have you been getting a lot of emails alerting you to Hallmark e-card deliveries from “your friend” lately? You are not alone. Apparently, when the economy tanks, phishing schemes rise. The big ones of late involve facebook and twitter. When in doubt, don’t click that link!
