—A relative of the tailor who made Blagojevich’s suits worth $2,000 or more sought a state job. She got it.

—Dozens of people Blagojevich met, as well as political contributors, friends and even his dentist, were invited to lodge at the governor’s mansion in Springfield.

—A taxpayer-paid travel aide appears to have been dispatched on personal errands, picking up the governor’s suits or delivering Scotch on a Saturday for another aide’s Christmas party.

—Blagojevich’s staff balked at allowing a Cook County commissioner to meet with him because an aide said she hadn’t helped his campaign.
The anecdotes give a glimpse of Blagojevich’s attitude toward an old-school view of politics and government that he promised to eradicate when he took over from George Ryan, the Republican.

Read more in the Mt. Vernon Register-News

But the Indiana school somehow has been crowned the “nation’s pre-eminent Catholic university”—a dubious claim considering the quality of other Catholic colleges. So everyone must have an opinion on the honors it will award to President Barack Obama while giving him a commencement podium to expound, if he wishes, his extremist positions on “reproductive rights.”

Read More at The Barbershop

• “The argument against unions–that they unduly burden employers with unreasonable demands–is one that corporate America makes in good times and bad. . . . There is a strong argument that the slack labor market of a recession actually makes unions all the more important. Without a united front, workers will have even less bargaining power in the recession than they had during the growth years of this decade, when they largely failed to get raises even as productivity and profits soared. If pay continues to lag, it will only prolong the downturn by inhibiting spending.”–editorial, New York Times, Dec. 28, 2008
• “In a striking example of corporate hardball, the New York Times Co. has threatened to shut down one of its journalistic jewels, the Boston Globe, unless the New England paper’s unions agree to sweeping concessions.”–Washington Post, April 4, 2009

More at the Wall Street Journal

Catholics can…(a) write the president, Rev. John Jenkins, CSC but will get a very nice letter back. They can (b) write the president of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George and they will get a very short, crisp letter back saying he does not have jurisdiction over Notre Dame, thank you and please pray for me as I pray for you as we pray for all etc.,etc., etc.

They can (c) write the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Bishop John Michael D’Arcy and ask him to pressure Notre Dame to change its mind. They will get a pro-forma letter back.

They can (d) make a list of the trustees of the university and write them, try to pressure them. Not very effective.

Finally, by organizing a group of alumni they can write to and visit the bishop, Bishop D’Arcy and urge him to employ the “nuclear option.” The nuclear option belongs to every Ordinary-the power to remove the Catholic identification from the offending school. A negotiation can begin where the Ordinary says that unless the university behaves like a Catholic institution, it should not misrepresent itself as one.

There is no doubt that for an Ordinary to do this is to go to war with the virulent secular “mainstream” media which will label him as a Torquemada (after Tomas de Torquemada [1420-98] who by dint of ancient myth is listed as being the arch-enemy of the free, speculative intellect and occupies the same level in secular media Hell as ugh! pro-lifers and ultimately Dick Cheney. Grossly untrue but given how much mythologizing the media do with Obama, how can you rectify 600 plus years? To media which oversimplify everything, a Catholic university doesn’t orchestrate fervently anti-Catholic, anti-life crusades, it is interfering with “academic freedom.” Not withstanding that the entire university system of the West was organized under Catholic, monastic auspices since the University of Paris and Oxford. Who cares? What is history to a liberal?

Assuredly, for an Ordinary to even raise the possibility of stripping Catholic identity will strike a match that could launch a revolution to reclaiming Catholic universities. And face it, it’s better for them and for the Church if they lose the ID since they won’t be falsely advertising their wares and we won’t have to endure the embarrassment of belonging to a Church that stands for one thing and seeing a so-called “Catholic university” like DePaul and Loyola doing another…such as the active promotion of Queer Studies: 101 aka how to become a gay.

You can write letters of protest until you’re blue in the face to presidents of universities and nothing will happen. For one thing, university presidents are prisoners of the system…they’re fund-raisers named for malleability a and diplomacy to get along with faculty, trustees, big givers. Universities are run largely by all-powerful faculties, meaning they’re on auto-pilot…all powerful trustees composed of fat cat Babbitts and callous pols. The name of the game is big bucks but that only comes from “prestige.” Line up a famous professor by paying him big bucks and your college has “prestige.” Line up a president to speak at your commencement and your college has “prestige”…and then crass graduating students can say “my college has the president of the United States as commencement speaker and yours doesn’t-nyaa, nyaa!”

But if there is a concerted program to find ONE bishop…ONE bishop…who will consider the nuclear option against an offending CINO Catholic-in-name-only university…a revolution can be engendered that will turn the thing around. It may or may not in the one in Fort Wayne-South Bend. I can tell you one thing: don’t waste your time in this town until a few years down the pike when there’s a change.

Obviously a net gain will be won if only one behemoth “CINO” factory that call themselves “Catholic”-Catholics-in-name-only…or CINOs…loses its Catholic designation. Better for the Church, better for us. Better for America.

**
Tom Roeser is the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Chicago Daily Observer

More on Obama at Notre Dame from Ralph McInerny

Read More from Dennis Byrne at The Barbershop

Some amusing analysis at the Beachwood Reporter

Others should be called to task by the President – and paraded before Congress for grilling – they are the very people whose actions gave birth to our present economic dilemma.  They are the men who headed and the men and women who sat on the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Those are the political appointees who fostered and profited by the sub-prime mortgages that eventually grew into the boondoggle called mortgage “bundling”, where mortgages were sold as good paper when they were, in fact, debt and caused banks to fail or teeter on the brink of failing and brought America’s economy to the brink of a possible depression.

Why is President Obama saying nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?  Why isn’t congress calling former board members to testify?  Why isn’t ACORN, the “grass roots” group, called before Congress?  After all, it was ACORN that protested in front of banks and bankers’ homes to force them into issuing sub prime mortgages to people who couldn’t afford such mortgages.

Does this absence of investigation fall under the heading of “politics”? After all, ACORN campaigned boldly for President Obama, illegally signing up people multiple times to vote.  Could their actions possibly be giving their group protection?

Is the same protection true of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac inside profiteers?  Directors walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars as did board members.  Their profits grew in accordance with the numbers of sub prime mortgages issued – and they kept pressure going for more such questionable mortgages, even over the objections of those who saw the economic storm gathering.  But where is the investigation into their actions?  Why aren’t they being called to task before special committees in Congress?  Is the answer “clout”?  Could be.  After all, people like Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley were among the politicians who sat on the Fannie Mae board while this profiting went on.

If Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd – who head powerful committees on banking in the House and Senate – can call private businesses to testify before them, why aren’t they calling Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac directors to testify? Why isn’t the President calling them to the White House for some answers on their giant bonuses? And where is the media in calling for such testimony?

If you trace the origins of our current economic plight, it goes back to President Jimmy Carter who signed into law a document to make it easier for all people to purchase homes.  President Bill Clinton strengthened the order, but eventually saw that some oversight should be established over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  President George Bush also saw that oversight was necessary to reign in Fannie and Freddie.  Mr. Bush, stating that he saw an “economic crisis” in the future if Fannie and Freddie weren’t reined in, tried five times, beginning in 2002, to have legislation to do just that.  The problem is, the legislation never got out of committees.  Why?  Is it because of the political ties congressional leaders had with members of Fannie and Freddie?  That’s a question every American should be asking today.  That’s a question that the President should be looking into.  That’s a question that should be posed on the editorial pages of every newspaper.

We are facing the toughest economic times since Jimmy Carter was in the White House, although unemployment hasn’t yet reached that record high.

There is a spending plan now before Congress that the administration is calling a “Stimulus”package, despite the fact that it won’t stimulate anything except bigger government.

It’s time for Americans to wake up and demand a stimulus package that seriously stimulates the economy through tax cuts which will allow companies to afford to hire again – not a package that simply  pays back political debts to unions and others who helped win the election.

Unless this stimulus package is seriously restructured, in the future the best American workers will be able to hope for will be government jobs.

After all, the government will be the only employer offering free health care and a job for life.

**
Mary Laney is a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Observer

Quinn told WLS-TV on Sunday morning that because of pending corruption charges, “there’s no way” Blagojevich can appoint someone to the seat.

In the criminal complaint released by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Blagojevich is quoted in a Nov. 11 tape recording as saying that you wanted him to name Senate Candidate 1 (since identified as your close adviser Valerie Jarrett), but that you and your aides were “not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.” How would Blagojevich have gotten the idea that this was your view? Were you or any of your aides aware, at any point, that Blagojevich wanted more than “appreciation”—such as contributions to his campaign fund or a seat in your cabinet—in exchange for appointing Jarrett? And why did she withdraw from consideration right after this conversation?

A special election isn’t cheap. The latest estimate is $30 million. Concern about the expense when the state faces a $2.9 billion deficit is understandable, but Illinois needs two senators who can represent the state on the myriad tough issues facing the new president and Congress. The people of Illinois deserve someone of their choosing, free of the taint that would come from being tapped by the governor. Could anger over the Blagojevich scandal turn the blue seat red in a special election? We don’t know. But it’s an odd game if you let people play only when you know you’re going to win.