Shock: Rank Corruption and Kickbacks Hiding in Plain Sight in Histories of Ambitious Chicago Machine Pol and His Grasping Wife

The new Tinkers to Evers to Chance guaranteed triple play -- Blackwell donates to Obama, Obama snuggles up with Michelle, Michelle's hospital hires Blackwell to do hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work.

And that's just the routine shenanigans. Blackwell hired Obama as a lawyer (or at least he funneled him $112,000) when Obama was in an admitted "dry period," but that had nothing at all to do with Obama's decision to fund Blackwell's pet project... a ping-pong tournament.

Yes, a ping-pong tournament.

When Blackwell sought backing for his table tennis tournament in 2002, other politicians, including U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, offered support for the event. But Obama was the only one who provided a letter that became part of the initial application for state funds, state records show. In addition, he wrote a state Senate proclamation heralding the first tournament and an official letter that welcomed “table tennis friends” to the 2004 contest and thanked spectators for helping to “make Chicago the table tennis capital of this nation.”

Initially, the idea of table tennis receiving funds from a state tourism program — designed to encourage overnight visits to Illinois — was met with skepticism by one Republican state official. But the funding was granted at the $20,000 level that first year, grew to $200,000 in 2003 and totaled $100,000 in 2004.

Before I add the obligatory "and the media will not report on this," let it be known that the almost-kinda-attempting-to-be-a-real-news-organization WaPo is the paper reporting this.

That said, I expect the rest of the MSM to devote the same level of flood-the-zone resources to this and other True Tales of Corruption and Graft in the Windy City that they did regarding Andrew Young's Love Baby.

Excuse here? How can you trust a tabloid like the Washington Post.

posted by Ace at 02:52 PM

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