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No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won't give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front. Biden has described himself as a 30-year friend of a key figure in the Rezko trial who's pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in Chicago and is awaiting sentencing. When the Delaware senator began contemplating his own 2008 presidential run, he initially was helped by Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari Jr., who also served as Biden's Midwest field director in his failed 1988 bid for president. In 2005, Cari admitted to...

By Associated Press CHICAGO -- The Democratic National Committee has invited some high-ranking officials from Sen. Barack Obama’s home state to speak at the party’s convention in Denver next week — but not Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Those invited include Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, Comptroller Dan Hynes and Attorney General Lisa Madigan. All three are potential rivals of Blagojevich, should he run for re-election. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has also been invited to speak. **SNIP** Blagojevich’s administration has been dogged by a number of federal investigations. But neither the DNC or Obama’s campaign is talking about the reason he wasn’t asked to...

To make good on his offer to help Chicago combat violence, Gov. Blagojevich envisions putting speed cameras on interstates across Illinois -- and using the revenue to form an "elite tactical team" that would operate in Chicago and other cities. The idea is in its infancy, with no budget and no timetable. About 50 Illinois State Police employees have been assigned to work with Chicago Police on everything from tracking down illegal gun buyers to hunting for criminals on Chicago's expressways, Guerrero said. "I want to be judged not by the number of people we provide, but by the results...

Speculation is rife over who would be appointed to fill Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat should the Illinois Democrat be elected president, observers say. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, would make the call on who would succeed Obama in the U.S. Senate if the party's likely presidential nominee wins the White House in November. One name mentioned is U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., the Chicago Tribune quotes Congressional Quarterly as saying Saturday. Jackson is the son of the U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson Sr. and represents a district on the South Side of Chicago. He is national...

--snip-- Violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control," Blagojevich said at the bill signing ceremony. "I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help stop this violence," said the governor. The summer of 2008 will be remembered as especially violent. Blagojevich said there's been a child shot nearly every day since June 26, with 29 Chicago Public School students shot since last fall

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN? | Gov offers to send state troopers and National Guard copters to fight gang violence Calling violence in Chicago "out of control," Gov. Blagojevich on Wednesday offered to lend state troopers and National Guard helicopters to the city to augment the Chicago Police. The governor is considering forming an "elite tactical team" to help the Chicago Police fight gang problems, a source said, adding that the unit could later be sent across the state to deal with gang problems at any city's request. It's fair to say that violent crime in Chicago is out of control....

Gov: Chicago may get troopers, National Guard By DON BABWIN | Associated Press Writer 5:14 PM CDT, July 16, 2008 CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Wednesday raised the possibility of bringing in state troopers or even the Illinois National Guard to help Chicago combat a recent increase in violent crime -- an offer that Mayor Richard Daley didn't know was coming. Appearing at signing ceremony for a bill that toughens the penalty for adults who provide guns to minors, Blagojevich said "violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control." "I'm offering resources of the state to...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich used his amendatory veto power Monday to rewrite a House bill that would require medical costs associated with autism to be covered by insurance. About 26,000 children in Illinois have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and families often cover treatment costs using personal funds, according to a governor's office news release. Blagojevich and other supporters instead want insurance companies to cover up to $36,000 a year for diagnosis and treatment of autism, including speech therapy and psychiatric services, as well as doctor visits until a patient reaches 21. “Since most insurance companies do not cover the...

Ryan Lizza writes a New Yorker article entitled "Making it: How Chicago shaped Obama." If you ask me, Barack Obama does not come off well here. Calculating politicians, ready to find scapegoats and godfather to pull levers for him and shower money unto him. But more importantly, 15 pages later, I find no evidence that Obama accomplished anything other than helping out on Project Vote. My guess is that he allied himself with ACORN on that one, but we don't see any information on that. Lizza ignores his work on what he calls the two "liberal foundations" -- which is...

Ties to Illinois governor threaten DemBy JOSH KRAUSHAAR | 7/8/08 6:49 PM EST While Barack Obama figures to be an unalloyed asset to down-ballot Illinois Democrats this fall, another statewide politician is threatening to become an equally significant drag on one of the Democrats’ leading congressional recruits. Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich is proving so politically toxic that he has become a central issue in the campaign to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Jerry Weller. Democratic state Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson and Republican concrete magnate Martin Ozinga III are each accusing the other of having closer ties to the two-term governor,...

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Judge seals files on gov interviewBY NATASHA KORECKI Federal Courts Reporter nkorecki@suntimes.com June 28, 2008 A day after it was made public, a federal judge on Friday sealed a court filing that revealed that Gov. Blagojevich had been interviewed by federal agents. According to the document, Blagojevich denied having conversations described in court by two key prosecution witnesses in the corruption trial of Tony Rezko, a former Blagojevich adviser and fund-raiser. The witnesses testified that the governor made statements tying state business to financial support for his campaign. U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve ordered the document sealed again, without...

Barack Obama made one shrewd move this week, along with one risky one. In talking with reporters after the Supreme Court ruled that criminals who rape children may not be executed, Mr. Obama moved smartly to the political center. "I think that the rape of a small child, six or eight years old, is a heinous crime and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution," he said, siding with conservative dissenters in the case. Mr. Obama was on shakier ground when...

Blagojevich threatens $1.5 billion in budget cutsPosted by David Mendell and Ray Long at 2:20 p.m. Originally posted: June 24, 2008 Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to volley the state budget problem back at lawmakers Tuesday, threatening $1.5 billion in cuts he said he'll make unless the General Assembly comes up with more money. The governor, however, stopped short of saying he'll call lawmakers back to Springfield, instead urging the House to come back to the Capitol to approve revenue-generating measures the Senate approved in the spring. "As I've said before, the budget sent to me fails to meet the constitutional...

Democratic governors give Obama their priority listJune 21, 2008 By Abdon M. Pallasch, Sun-Times News Group U.S. Sen. Barack Obama started the day Friday with a Chicago gathering of 16 Democratic governors who all pledged to work hard to get him elected president - even those who backed Hillary Clinton in the primary races. Obama then flew to Florida to warn that U.S. Sen. John McCain's plan for off-shore drilling could corrupt the coastline and won't help American drivers for 22 years. **SNIP** Missing from Friday's gathering of 16 of the nation's 28 Democratic governors in Chicago was Illinois Gov....

Flider favors recall vote, not impeachmentBy RON INGRAM & MIKE FRAZIER - H&R StaffWriters Monday, June 16, 2008 7:57 AM CDT State Rep. Bob Flider, D-Mount Zion, has voiced frustrations and disagreements with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, but he thinks talk of impeaching the governor is "premature." During a meeting with Herald & Review editors last week, Flider reacted to news reports that House Speaker Michael Madigan had circulated a memo to legislative candidates spelling out how to call for impeachment hearings. The memo provided talking points that compared corruption under Blagojevich's administration with a tumor that must be removed. A...

Obama fundraiser attracts criticism from GOP, raises questions on ethicsBy Alexander Bolton Posted: 06/17/08 06:42 PM [ET] An event Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) headlined last week has prompted head-scratching among Illinois ethics experts and drawn sharp rebuke from Republicans because one of the main organizers participated in Antoin “Tony” Rezko’s old fundraising network. John W. Rogers Jr., the chairman of Ariel Investments who gave $22,500 in contributions to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) through Rezko, hosted a top-dollar special reception with Obama Thursday to raise money for the Democratic White House Victory Fund. Rogers has also pledged to raise over...

(Illinois) House Speaker Michael Madigan has sent a 14-page memo to Democratic legislative candidates that outlines "talking points" in favor of launching "impeachment proceedings" against Gov. Blagojevich. The memo, obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, refers to corruption under Blagojevich as a "tumor" and notes that "criminal activity in the Blagojevich administration is no longer theoretical -- it is proven." A Madigan aide said the document is not necessarily reflective of the speaker's personal views but was prepared by House Democratic campaign staff. "Candidates get incessant questions from the media about the impeachment process. Some asked staff if they could have...

There is a reason Mike Madigan has been Illinois House Speaker for 24 of the past 26 years (the exception being the hiccup of the Gingrich Revolution year of 1994 which Madigan quickly rectified in 1996). He has a shrewd political mind. He is not given to reckless behavior or careless, emotional excess. He demands and receives loyalty. And he is patient, plotting in the present for a payoff he anticipates years down the road. These qualities explain Madigan's success in methodically converting Republican legislative seats in suburban Cook County and the collar counties into Democrat ones. So it is...

House Speaker Michael Madigan is circulating a memo to legislative candidates spelling out how they can discuss whether Gov. Rod Blagojevich should be impeached - with talking points that compare corruption under the governor to a tumor that must be removed. The 14-page rundown of Blagojevich's alleged "misdeeds and malfeasance" is sure to deepen the feud between the two Democrats and lend substance to talk of impeachment. A memo sent to some House Democratic candidates, obtained Tuesday by the Associated Press, offers detailed talking points on the merits of impeachment. "One thing we learned from the (imprisoned former Republican Gov.)...

With the ink barely dry on the verdict form in one trial, a federal judge on Monday set a trial date for Tony Rezko's next case. The trial for the onetime influential political fund-raiser is set to start Feb. 2, 2009. It involves a $10 million loan fraud scheme. Rezko allegedly asked a former state official, Ali Ata, to doctor up a letter to help secure loans for his pizza franchises, as part of the case. On Wednesday, a federal jury convicted Rezko of far-reaching fraud tied to state deals. He surrendered to jail immediately. In limbo now is a...

Everything about the jury verdict in the Tony Rezko trial went pretty much as one might have predicted Wednesday, except for what happened right afterward. Rezko voluntarily surrendered to federal authorities. Rather than ask U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve to remain free on bond while he awaits sentencing, as is customary in federal court here, Rezko opted to go directly to jail. He did not pass go. He did not collect 200 excuses as to why he shouldn't have to start serving his sentence. Heck, he didn't even wait for his sentence. Even St. Eve seemed to raise...

Ex-Obama friend convicted in Chicago Antoin Tony Rezko, a former friend of Barack Obama and former top adviser to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted Wednesday on corruption charges. Rezko was charged with trading on his clout as a Blagojevich adviser and fundraiser. The Chicago Tribune reported the conviction could spell trouble for the governor, who made Rezko an important member of his kitchen Cabinet. A federal jury in Chicago convicted Rezko on 16 of 24 corruption counts after deliberating for parts of 13 days. Rezko was convicted of conspiring with Stuart Levine, a longtime GOP activist, to extort millions...

Gov. Wants Health Care Expansion Despite Unpaid Bills CHICAGO (CBS) ― Gov. Rod Blagojevich continues to push an expansion of state-subsidized health insurance, despite a new audit that found at least $1.5 billion in unpaid bills and the system is plagued by mismanagement. CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports among the health care programs affected by the state's delinquency in paying its bills is a treatment program for pregnant drug abusers. The Haymarket Center recently had to wait more than three months for payment from the State of Illinois, and in the meanwhile had to find $600,000 elsewhere to...

Politics produces a gap between words and deeds. Obama exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himslf as having a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done done a fair amount of zigzagging. He says it was the 1965 bloody attacks on civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. They had been married for years already. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he...

HOW DO we even begin to measure the degree of crassness embodied in Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s failure to show up at Wednesday’s Days of Remembrance Holocaust Observance at the Old State Capitol? There simply is no metric for an act of omission that so clearly demonstrates this governor’s lack of respect for so many things: for those who planned and participated in Wednesday’s event, for the history it represents, for the very office that he holds. The Holocaust observance is a 27-year tradition that, until 2004, always had featured the governor in attendance. Blagojevich missed it in 2004 because he...

CHICAGO — The high-stakes courtroom drama was all about politics, patronage and payoffs. Illinoisans watched in fascination as George Ryan, the once-mighty Republican governor, fought to avoid a one-way ticket to federal prison but lost. And now they wonder: Will his Democratic successor, Rod Blagojevich, be next? “I think the governor is in extraordinarily big trouble,” Cindi Canary, director of the nonpartisan, foundation-funded Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said last week as Blagojevich’s problems grew. The governor’s name has surfaced repeatedly in the federal corruption trial of Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer and fast-food tycoon who raised...

Illinois Democrat Governor Rod Blagojevich is facing impeachment talk from within his own party in the wake of the plea agreement of Rezko pal Ali Ata. The Chicago Sun-Times reports The impeachment drumbeat at the Statehouse grew louder Wednesday, a day after the blockbuster accusation by a former state official that he got his state job after pouring money into Gov. Blagojevich's campaign fund -- including a $25,000 check in an envelope he presented to the governor.Two House Democrats said discussions on a possible impeachment resolution targeting Blagojevich accelerated after Tuesday's disclosure by Ali Ata, whom the governor appointed to...

A former top official in Gov. Blagojevich's administration said Tuesday the governor gave him a $127,000-a-year state job in exchange for pouring cash into Blagojevich's campaign fund, including tens of thousands of dollars out of his own pocket. That bombshell from Ali Ata came as the onetime director of the Illinois Finance Authority pleaded guilty in a deal in which prosecutors plan to have him testify in the ongoing corruption trial of former Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko. » Click to enlarge image From left: Tony Rezko, Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Ali Ata. (AP/Sun-Times files) RELATED STORIESEx-Blagojevich aide pleads guilty Rezko...

Rezko Trial Witness Says Blagojevich Dreamed of White HouseLast Edited: Wednesday, 16 Apr 2008, 4:57 PM CDT Gov. Blagojevich was sitting across from his then-deputy governor, Bradley Tusk, on the New Jersey-bound private plane in 2003 when Tusk got up and asked well-known Democratic political fund-raiser Joseph Cari if he'd switch seats. Cari didn't know the governor well, he testified Tuesday at Tony Rezko's corruption trial. So Cari was surprised when Blagojevich offered a vision for his political future and told Cari he could play a role. "The governor wanted to know about my experience in the 2000 election" as...

CHICAGO, (AP) -- The government's star witness at the fraud trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko testified Monday that Sen. Barack Obama and his wife attended a party four years ago at the home of the indicted political fundraiser. Stuart Levine said the party took place in April 2004 and was held to honor Iraqi-born Nadhmi Auchi, a London-based billionaire who was visiting the United States at the time. Rezko, 52, was a major fundraiser for Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and the trial has been closely watched because of Obama's presidential campaign. But very little has been said about the...

The trial of Tony Rezko has promised an explosive look at Illinois politics, and yesterday it delivered a large detonation regarding Governor Rod Blagojevich. After an attempted shakedown of a Hollywood producer failed to generate the million-dollar payoff for Blagojevich’s campaign, fixer Stuart Levine testified that Blagojevich agreed to cut state business with Tom Rosenberg in response: A Chicago businessman-turned-Hollywood producer who believed he was being shaken down by two of Gov. Blagojevich’s campaign fund-raisers threatened to “take them down” if they didn’t back off, according to a recording played at the Tony Rezko corruption trial today.And the governor was...

CHICAGO – Governor Rod R. Blagojevich announced today that the State of Illinois will participate in Earth Hour from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. Earth Hour is a public awareness event created by World Wildlife Fund that encourages businesses and residents to join in turning off the lights for one hour on March 29th, 2008, to demonstrate that “individual action on a mass scale can help change our planet for the better.” More than 30 cities on six continents around the world are participating in Earth Hour. Chicago was chosen as the flagship Earth Hour city in the...

Hate crimes commission set to fail Blagojevich hasn't appointed anyone to panel By NGUYEN HUY VU THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published Tuesday, March 25, 2008 After religious divisions paralyzed a state commission on hate crimes, Illinois lawmakers wanted a fresh start. They created a new version of the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes, designed to promote tolerance within the state’s diverse population. But seven months later, Gov. Rod Blagojevich hasn’t appointed a single person to the overhauled commission, which will fail to accomplish its first major goal — presenting a report by March 30. Meanwhile, the old version of...

Witness at Tony Rezko trial talks about his connections Rezko witness Thomas Beck said yesterday he's cousins with former longtime ward boss (and former parks superintendent) Ed Kelly. When asked today, Beck laughed. He explained that Kelly is his mother's sister's husband's sister's son. That got a laugh in the courtroom. He calls Kelly his cousin: "to make it simple for everyone." The two have known each other their whole lives, said Beck, former head of the state's health planning board. Beck testified he set up Kelly with a lawyer, Jeff Ladd, who hired Kelly as a consultant to represent...

One whisper got hospital funding approvedMarch 11, 2008 BY NATASHA KORECKI Criminal Courts Reporter With a whisper, one board member had another change his vote to approve an $81 million hospital — the first to be built since the 1970s, according to testimony in the Tony Rezko trial today. Donald Jones, a section chief at the state Department of Public Health, said he had never seen anything like it. Jones’ testimony centered on an application to build Mercy Health Systems’ Crystal Lake hospital. The project needed support from five of the nine board members to go forward. But Dr. Imad...

CHICAGO -- Governor Rod R. Blagojevich today named two of the state’s most influential leaders, former Speaker of the U.S. House Dennis Hastert and Southern Illinois University (SIU) President and former U.S. Congressman Glenn Poshard, as co-chairs of the newly created Illinois Works Coalition. The new bipartisan working group will draw expertise from business, labor and local leaders across the state and will focus on helping pass a statewide infrastructure plan in Illinois. Last month in his annual budget address, Gov. Blagojevich proposed Illinois Works, a $25 billion capital plan, as the central piece of a statewide stimulus package aimed...

FBI agent says Rezko raised $1.4 million for BlagoPosted: Friday, March 07, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. CHICAGO (AP) -- An FBI agent testified Thursday that investigators have identified more than $1.4 million raised by political fundraiser Tony Rezko for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from 2000 to December 2004. Charles Willenborg was one of the first witnesses in Rezko's political fraud trial. A chart compiled by the FBI using the Blagojevich campaign's own records showed that Rezko had raised thousands of dollars from contractors, insurance people, lobbyists and individuals who later got seats on state boards that were involved in an...

Laying to rest the latest parlor game of Illinois politics, a federal judge on Monday made it crystal clear that "A" stands for Rod Blagojevich in the public corruption case against the governor's indicted fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve dispensed with an array of pseudonyms that had cloaked the identities of several people who allegedly benefited from Rezko's financial schemes, including Blagojevich. He had previously been referred to in court documents only as Public Official A. The nine-page ruling was heavy on political names and dealmaking, revealing for the first time...

Judge reveals Blagojevich is 'Public Official A'Rezko allegedly sought donations for governor By Jeff Coen, Bob Secter and John Chase | Tribune reporters 11:25 PM CST, February 25, 2008 Laying to rest the latest parlor game of Illinois politics, a federal judge on Monday made it crystal clear that "A" stands for Rod Blagojevich in the public corruption case against the governor's indicted fundraiser, Antoin "Tony" Rezko. A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Amy St. Eve dispensed with an array of pseudonyms that had cloaked the identities of several people who allegedly benefited from Rezko's financial schemes, including Blagojevich....

Obama is a product of the corrupt Chicago Machine. One of the key players in this corrupt machine is Tony Rezko - a Syrian real estate developer/slumlord who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the machine and to Obama's law firm and to Obama's various campaign funds - and was VERY connected to the governor of Illinois. We've covered it previously HERE. NOW, THERE'S NEW NEWS: The real estate agent who sold Obama the house he now lives in - for more than a million bucks - was a pal of Rezko, someone he'd been pressuring the guv to...

Here's a perfect example of the destructive power of government. It's also a representative example of why it's a canard that government ever gives anything away for "free" as that so-called free gift inflicts pain on everyone under that government. In this tale Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has pulled a fast one on the people of Illinois. He's agreed to a plan that hikes a tax that few people even know the existence of and he's added his own layer of cost just to get old people in the city of Chicago to like him. In pandering to this tiny...

CHICAGO, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. officials investigating alleged corruption in Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration now include the governor in their probe, a report says. He is accused of being part of a "pay to play" scheme where state contracts were offered in exchange for political favors, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.

The good news is that despite all of his bluster, Gov. Rod Blagojevich did not call lawmakers into special session in December. Blagojevich reportedly was ready to do so Thursday, but he was finally convinced it would be another embarrassment when large numbers of lawmakers thumbed their noses at him five days before Christmas. Now, regular special sessions will resume Jan. 2. The bad news is that lawmakers didn't meet in December. They whiffed on a chance to set a never-to-be-broken record for futility by meeting in every single month of 2007. Oh, well, there's always next year. What's it...

CHICAGO (AP) ― Federal investigators are looking into real estate deals involving Gov. Rod Blagojevich's wife, including the sale of a $3.2 million home owned by one of the governor's campaign donors, according to a published report. FBI agents asked real estate agent Mary Bennett to explain why she added Patricia Blagojevich, a licensed real estate broker, as a second agent in the 2004 home sale, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday. Bennett told the Tribune she did so at the request of the homeowner, John H. Simpson, a Blagojevich campaign donor. The governor's wife received about $32,000 in the deal,...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - It might seem incredible that as a former Illinois governor reports to federal prison, the current chief faces similar misconduct allegations, from handing out state contracts as political rewards to accepting money under suspicious circumstances. But this is Illinois. Democrat Rod Blagojevich, who won the chief executive's office five years ago on a promise to clean up former Gov. George Ryan's mess, has wound up besieged by accusations. Two people already have pleaded guilty to federal charges in a shakedown scheme that also ensnared one of the governor's closest fundraisers. And federal prosecutors have acknowledged they...

Patti Blagojevich Reportedly Got Commission On Contractor's Condo Sale CHICAGO (AP) ― The wife of Gov. Rod Blagojevich got a commission from a condo sale involving a man who later won $10 million in no-bid state contracts. The Chicago Tribune reports on the 2005 deal in its Sunday editions and on its Web site today. Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff says first lady Patricia Blagojevich received a standard commission in the sale of Mark Wight's property. The Tribune says a standard commission would have been between $26 thousand and $39 thousand. Patricia Blagojevich has not been accused of wrongdoing. The Tribune...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich and an Illinois congressman are standing behind a man who got a high-ranking state job despite serving prison time for refusing to cooperate in a federal investigation of a militant group. U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat, praised Steven Guerra on Friday for doing "excellent work" in private and public sectors pushing health and education issues. Blagojevich continues to support Guerra, who "unequivocally" condemns violence by the Armed Forces of National Liberation, identified by the acronym FALN, and denies he was ever a member, said spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff. Guerra, 53, is Blagojevich's...

Gov's aide did time in '80s terror case SPRINGFIELD | Blagojevich stands by Guerra, who refused to testify before grand jury September 7, 2007 BY DAVE MCKINNEY Sun-Times Springfield Bureau Chief SPRINGFIELD -- A high-ranking official in Gov. Blagojevich's office spent nearly two years in a federal prison for refusing to aid a government terrorism probe into a series of bombings in Chicago and New York City. Steven Guerra, Blagojevich's $120,000-a-year deputy chief of staff for community services, was identified by federal prosecutors as a member of the Puerto Rican separatist group, FALN, which was behind a wave of violence...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorAugust 29, 2007Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday signed a bill that would force taxpayers there to spend money on embryonic stem cell research. His signing the measure is the latest action going against the views of pro-life advocates on whether unborn children should be sacrificed to advance scientific research.The measure would set up an institute under the Illinois Department of Public Health to award grants for the research, which has never helped any patients.It also makes embryonic stem cell research legal and establishes procedures for couples to donate their "unwanted" human embryos for...