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By RightMichigan.com Posted in Barack Obama | Breaking News | Carl Levin | Hillary Clinton | Kwame | Michigan | Primary | Scandal | senate — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Cross-posted on Right Michigan at www.RightMichigan.com.

I'm sitting at home yesterday afternoon watching the Wings hang on against a pesky Nashville team when my phone blows up.  It's a text message from a friend. The sort of message that contains startling statements and life altering revelations. The sort of text that'll change the way one looks at the universe from that moment on into perpetuity.  

It stated:

Shocking news tonight in the D:  The Mayor is corrupt.

Clearly I was taken aback.  In fact, I fell right off the couch.  I couldn't believe what I was reading.  Hizzoner?  The second most prominent Democrat in the State of Michigan?  Corrupt?  Say it ain't so, Kwame.  

Actually, he is saying it ain't so.  But he said he never had an adulterous relationship with his chief of staff too, didn't he.  Guess he's sorta blown the trust factor.  So what's a guy to think when he reads the latest dirty laundry to emerge from the Mayor's growing text message scandal?  This time it's not perjury or adultery... it's contract fixing.  The Associated Press reports:

Records and text messages obtained by the Detroit Free Press indicated that Bobby Ferguson and companies he partnered with have collected at least $45 million in city contracts.

The text messages from 2002 and 2003 show that then-chief of staff Christine Beatty provided Ferguson with bid strategies and sensitive information on potential projects, the newspaper said. The mayor was directly involved in at least one discussion about Ferguson's bid strategy, the Free Press reported.

Oh, and there weren't any text messages to any other people or companies about those bids and contracts.  Looks like Bobby was special.  Actually, we know he's special.  

The Detroit News reminds us this morning just how special:

In the mayor's first term, Ferguson, whose company demolishes homes for the city, was criticized for not cleaning up the sites after demolition.

The mayor had appointed him to the Downtown Development Authority and the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority, but in 2005 Ferguson pleaded guilty to assaulting an employee by hitting him with a handgun. A Wayne County jury later awarded the employee $2.6 million.

He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and five years' probation, but was criticized when he was allowed out in the weeks leading to Super Bowl XL so he could run his company.

Guess it pays (literally) to be Kwame's friend.  Meanwhile, the Wayne County Prosecutor, Kym Worthy, still can't decide whether or not to press perjury charges against Kwame and Beatty.  Sort of like how the regressisphere still can't decide whether or not to even talk about the biggest scandal in the State.  A scandal that seems to grow in scope and audacity with every day that goes by.  

Could that have anything to do with the fact that Kwame is a Democrat?  Because something tells me that if a Republican's legal... indiscretions... were leading the news every night they'd be leading the lefty blogs every morning.  But alas.  Consistency and intellectual integrity has never been their strong suit.  

And apparently common sense isn't Worthy's.  The News also reports:

She declined to delve into the scope of her investigation but vowed to do her job. "If I can't stand up and do the right thing, I don't belong there. Doing the right thing is not hard for me."

Worthy launched her investigation after the media disclosed text messages sent and received from the city-issued pager of Christine Beatty, the mayor's former chief of staff.

The text messages contradict sworn testimony by Kilpatrick and Beatty in the whistle-blowers trial in August, when they denied they had a romantic relationship and when they denied they fired former Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown...

Open and shut, madame prosecutor.  The Mayor committed perjury.  If a normal, average, work-a-day joe commits perjury he'd wind up in jail.  Every time.  But Kwame walks?  With nearly $9 million worth of checks written by taxpayers to cover up his offenses to boot?  

Perjury isn't a joke.  Without assurances that folks are actually telling the truth under oath the integrity of the courtroom is sort of eradicated, ya dig?  So when someone lies under oath you've got to punish them.  You've got to send a message.  You've got to seek justice.

I'm really glad that Worthy thinks she can stand up and do the right thing but geez louise, she can start any time now.  

Heaven knows we could use a Democrat somewhere in the State willing to stand up and do the right thing.  We sure as heck aren't seeing any of that in the continuing discussions surrounding a re-do of the Democrat Presidential Primary here in Michigan.

For the last week or so I've actually agreed (probably for the first time in my life) with what Carl Levin had been saying.  He's argued fairly consistently that the DNC should simply seat Michigan's already legally elected delegates and that a re-vote would be the wrong way to go.  

But as Desmond on Lost would tell you, "the universe has a way of course-correcting."  (Sometimes I hate the universe.)  No sooner did I note, intellectually, that Levin and I seemed to agree on things he goes on national TV and completely loses his mind.  The Ivory Tower reports:

U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, who has been fighting for years to break the dominant role that Iowa and New Hampshire have on the presidential nominations, said on the Sunday ABC-TV news show "This Week" that the only practical and fair way to conduct a Democratic do-over would be to hold a vote-by-mail election.

"Only a mail kind of vote will work, and there still are a lot of logistics involved," he said...

State Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer said Friday that an all-mail vote would be difficult because Michigan voters don't register their party affiliation.

"It won't be cheap," he said. "More than the money, the logistics are going to be difficult."

Of course there's that little bit about the integrity of elections, too, Mark.  Senator.  A vote-by-mail election?  Oh, yeah, there's no chance anyone could wield any undo influence over someone's vote that way, is there?  No chance for shanahanigans, cheating, voter suppression, intimidation...

If that's the "only" way to conduct a fair election why not just dispose of polling places and ballot boxes altogether?  Who needs them.

You know what, we hear so much lamenting about how more people vote for the next American Idol than vote for the American President... let's use their trick of the trade.  Pick up your cell phones and start texting.  I'm serious.  This is nothing to LOL about.  It could be the WTF (no, this is a family blog... that stands for Wave of The Future).

So open up those cellies and warm up your thumbs.  If you like Hillary text IHHC (I Heart Hillary Clinton).  For Obama a simple BB will do (Barack, Baby!).  Send your messages to 1-800-THIS-IS-THE-DUMBEST-IDEA-SINCE-FULL-SCALE-MAIL-IN-VOTING.  Standard text message rates apply.  No, that's not a poll tax.  QBSAH (Quit being such a hater).