The University of Illinois Alumni Association recently awarded it’s “International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement” to the current President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado.  Since the University of Illinois is the premier university for the state of Illinois, let’s see the list of accomplishments President Correa can boast of while claiming this prestigious award:

Transparency International listed Ecuador as one of the world’s most corrupt countries under Correa.
He has seized numerous TV and Radio outlets in his country.
He has jailed reporters critical of his government.
Organzied crime has had a magnificient rise during his reign.
He has …

Convicted felon Robert Creamer, who wrote the blueprint for the Democrats’ health care reform campaign, attended official health care signing celebrations in Washington, D.C. yesterday. He was joined by numerous activists and “community organizers” who have had their sights set on nationalizing health care and have finally achieved it. Creamer’s spouse, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, was one of the bill’s most vociferous proponents.

Read more at Big Government

The President is a man of principle. The WaPo reports:
Obama said he told House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) that his core goals — lowering health-care costs for businesses and individuals and expanding coverage to the uninsured — remained non-negotiable.

So what better way to increase productivity and lower costs than to add 111 new boards and commissionsto the slick infrastructure of health care provision in the US?
1. Retiree Reserve Trust Fund (Section 111(d), p. 61)
2. Grant program for wellness programs to small employers (Section 112, p. 62)
3. Grant program for State health …

At long last, Chicago has extended its arm twisting ways to the U. S. House of Representatives. President Barack Obama, his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, and advisor and strategist, David Axelrod, have reduced the people’s house to the status of the Chicago City Council. The only key difference is the vast scope of the swindle perpetrated in the name of the public welfare. Michigan Representative Bart Stupak has sold his vote for a scrap of paper as enduring as that waved by Neville Chamberlain upon his return from Munich.

The …

ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Highway Infrastructure Investment Grant: Urbanized Areas over 200K Population
Award Amount: $1,320,000
Reported Jobs: 4.66

HT Founding Bloggers and Newsalert

After the Chicago Sun-Times gossip columnist Mike Sneed reported a cute item last week that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan was at the White House and had taken home to her daughters “two boxes of presidential M&M candy,” I wondered if Obama aides Rahm Emanuel and/or David Alexrod had attempted to persuade Madigan that she should replace Alexi Giannoulias, the deeply flawed Democratic candidate for Barack Obama’s Senate seat–assuming that they could somehow elbow Alexi out for the good of his basketball buddy Obama and the party.

Read more at the Huffington …

There’s much much more, once you get Quinn’s capital spending plan into Excel format.  Feel free to download, sort and search on your own favorite example of how the budget crisis is being managed in Illinois.

Rockford/Infra. Improv. and Construction of the Manny Mansion education wing of the Burpee Museum of Natural History/$100,000
In Excel Format (large file)

DCEO City of Galesburg For all costs associated with construction of the National Railroad Hall of Fame $100,000

Read more here (large file)
Enjoy the National Railroad Hall of Fame

Is the Obama administration’s system of crony capitalism and political payoffs breaking up?

PhRMA has canned their chief lobbyist, Billy Tauzin
Caterpillar, BP and Conoco have dropped out of the (finally flummoxed) Climate Lobby, U.S. Climate Action Partnership.
The Financial Times notices that lobbying was bigger than ever in 2009, spending a total of $3.47 Billion, despite President Obama’s “promise to rein in the pervasive influence of lobbyists in government”.
Wal-Mart is feeling some heat from shareholders for lobbying in favor of the Democrat Party’s healthcare plans (and supposedly stifling union organization)
Even the Huffington Post is catching on, with …

On April 15, Jim Messina and Jon Selib, chief of staff to Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, convened a meeting at the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) with leaders of organized labor and health care groups, including PhRMA. At the meeting, the groups decided to form two nonprofit entities to promote reform efforts, Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality Care, that would be almost entirely funded by PhRMA. The two groups spent $24 million on their advertising campaigns; the contract to produce and place …