Chicago Daily Observer

The plot thickens in the matter of Oprah Winfrey’s belonging to or attending Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th St. in Chicago, as mentioned in various places, including in a Chi Trib piece in January 2007:

In an action that is scrambling normal political alliances, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has decided to appeal a federal court order that overturned the state’s law on parental notice for abortions for minors.

Ms. Madigan’s office filed paperwork Thursday indicating that it will ask the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to reinstate a statute that generally requires underage girls to get parental permission to have an abortion. The law had been tossed out by U.S. District Judge David Coar, who ruled last month that the statute is incomplete and defective.

From Chicago, it’s the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” brought to you with a little help from Illinois taxpayers.

A measure advancing at the state Capitol could make that a reality this year.

Some Chicago Democrats are pushing to expand a tax break for movie productions filming in Illinois to include talk shows that spend at least $5 million on their productions here.

That would include shows like Oprah’s and Jerry Springer’s that already film here and any other big-budget shows looking to start up or relocate in the Windy City or elsewhere.

Supporters say the goal is to encourage development in a weak economy and bring longer-lasting jobs than temporary film employment.

But critics say Illinois would benefit more from putting that money into other tax credits or key needs such as education funding and infrastructure improvements.

Let me offer a Swiftian (Jonathan, not Tom) perspective on the Clintons’ largely race- and religion-based assault on Barack Obama—a multi-pronged attack they notoriously told the New York Times would mean chucking everything at him including a very mucky kitchen sink.

I modestly propose that it’s a really good thing. It will actually help Obama—make him a stronger candidate if it doesn’t kill him off in the process. Sort of the way all those lightning bolts hitting Godzilla only made him more powerful.

They began chucking muck long before their official announcement. It started when the Clintons saw they were losing the Iowa caucuses.

The first muck-chucker was Bill Shaheen, their New Hampshire organizer, who hinted Obama not only used drugs—as confessed in his autobiography—but perhaps even peddled them. This was compounded by Clinton strategist Mark Penn tossing around the words “cocaine,” “cocaine” and “cocaine.”

Shaheen had to quit the ... Read More...

The Vatican chimed in on the ills of the day:

This latest update on how God’s law is being violated in today’s
world comes from Msgr. [Bishop in the non-Vatican term] Gianfranco
Girotti, head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary.

He pointed to ’‘violations of the basic rights of human nature’’
through genetic manipulation, the use of drugs that ’‘weaken the mind
and cloud intelligence’’ and the vast disparity between rich and poor.

’‘If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it
has a weight, a resonance, that’s especially social, rather than
individual,’’ Girotti said in an interview published Sunday in the
Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano about what he views as the ’‘new
sins.’’

I love the “penitentiary” business. Not as in Stateville, be it known,
but as in penance, which we do for our sins whether eligible for
... Read More...