Odd

The much talked about "Memos of Understanding" which flew like confetti during the recent state budget negotiations, and which serve as a graphic reminder of how little even Democrats trust Blagojevich, have been posted online on Speaker Madigan's House Dem web site.

As the Sun Times explains:

The governor who campaigned against government waste and a powerful lawmaker who has criticized him for excessive spending tacked at least $20 million onto the budget for special projects demanded by rank-and-file legislators.

The extra spending, outlined in ''memorandums of understanding,'' was approved outside of the normal appropriations process.

Many of the memos posted on Madigan's site are pdf files which are clear and only contain the text of the memo, but many of them are just sloppy scans of faxed memos, and they list the "To:" and "From:" phone numbers, the state agency they were faxed from, and sometimes the sender's name. Pretty sloppy work from Madigan's staff. If someone really wanted, they could do reverse look-ups on line and find out whose phone numbers these are.

In poking around amongst the memos, I checked out one memo which dealt with a Millstone Dental Clinic. And strangly enough, the "From:" field of the fax was from "Huddleston McBride Drainage Co." Huh? What the hell does a drainage tile company have to do with funding a dental care project for the poor?

A bit of googleing showed that the firm is a large contractor for Cook county and the surrounding area, whose work often hinges on DNR regulations for reclamation of wetlands, etc.

And take a peek at this revealing memo to do with money to go to the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church for after school programs. Evidently Illinois tax payers are forking it over for "faith-based" projects.(another memo gives $150,000 to another church for the same thing.)

Notice the original amount the state was to cough up and the amount then written in at some later point by Lovana Jones, D-26th District, the legislator who was pushing for this. She does good work! Just cross out the original amount and write in an amount nearly 6 times larger!