I live in Illinois and have always functioned as a pro-life activist on the wrong side of the politically corrupt government, and not just Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
But Blagojevich in particular has expressed not just hostility to pro-life measures but hostility to preborn life.
I hope U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will someday expose the theres I know are there and the whys behind Blagojevich's extraordinary impositions of anti-life laws and expenditures on the state.
The list is long, but there was one in which I was involved.
In 2005, when political interest in public funding of embryonic stem-cell research was peaking, Blagojevich apparently grew impatient with the Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly, which couldn't seem to get a law passed to authorize spending. Blagojevich signed an executive order. He found $10 million in a vaguely worded state budget line item and took it.
Newspaper editorial boards around the state decried Blagojevich's end run around the legislative process, as did members of his own party.
In light of this past week's revelations, I found this interesting, by Rich Miller, a liberal journalist, who wrote in July 2005:
[T]his was undoubtedly a secret deal cut by three Dem leaders and, perhaps, one GOP leader and, as a result, has to be the most well-hidden appropriation we've seen in a long time.
Chicago newspapers this past week have tried to explain to the world that the corruption is bi-party, communal and incestuous. Believe them.
The Republican is House Minority Leader Tom Cross, a pro-abort who was Blagojevich's college roommate and stood on the podium with Blagojevich when he announced his executive order.
The three Democrat leaders were Blagojevich, longtime ally State Senate President Emil Jones and House Speaker Michael Madigan. All eyes are now focused on Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings; and note they are being slow about it. They really, really want Blagojevich to quit. I wanted him to at first, but I'm now laughing that he doesn't. If they're forced to impeach him, they indict themselves. They're all guilty. They all have skeletons just like his. They all are worrying: What does Fitzgerald have on us?
Madigan is also father to Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who has long been known to covet Blagojevich's job.
But I digress. The Associated Press covering Blagojevich's stem-cell executive order at the time got the mother of all quotes from him, at the end of this snip:
Gov. Rod Blagojevich has ordered that $10 million in taxpayer money be spent to support stem-cell research, arguing that his moral compass forced him to circumvent a Legislature that has been reluctant to endorse the ethically sensitive work. …
"My sense of morality argues strongly to not simply sit back and do nothing when children are suffering from juvenile diabetes," Blagojevich said. "To simply be afraid to take a position or to act, I think would be immoral." …
Blagojevich said he welcomed the criticism.
"Anytime you do what is morally right ... however you get there is immaterial," he said.
There you go. Ends justify means.
In light of the revelation Blagojevich threatened to stop an $8 million reimbursement to Children's Memorial Hospital unless its CEO garnered him a $50,000 campaign contribution, we know Blagojevich was dumping a load of moral manure by his "children are suffering from juvenile diabetes" line.
Pro-lifers figured all along this was a Blagojevich scheme of some sort. Ten million dollars for human embryo experimentation was really nothing. Consider California appropriated $3 billion.
As Illinois Concerned Women for America pro-life coordinator, I wrote a Freedom of Information Act request asking Blagojevich, who was on the newly created Illinois Regenerative Medicine Institute board, how the money was being divvied. I received in response:
Please find enclosed documents responsive to your request. Some documents you request are exempt from disclosure. …
All I got was a copy of the Blagojevich's executive order.
In 2006, IRMI announced its grant winners. Did the board members have relationships to the grantees? Who knows? We don't know who they were.
I do note the largest grant, $2 million, went to a researcher at Children's Memorial Hospital.
Contact: Jill Stanek
Source: WorldNetDaily
Source URL: http://www.wnd.com
Publish Date: December 17, 2008
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