Free Republic

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, his brother Rob and Christopher Kelly, a former top fundraiser for Blagojevich, were all indicted today on corruption charges, the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago announced. Also charged in the indictment were Lon Monk, a lobbyist and former Blagojevich chief of staff; John Harris, also a former chief of staff to Blagojevich; and William Cellini, a Springfield insider for decades. The indictment comes four months after Blagojevich was arrested and charged with engaging in pay-to-play politics in a sweeping federal complaint that accused him of trading state jobs, contracts and regulatory favors for campaign contributions. The...

Sun-Times and NBC5 exclusive: WIN-WIN LOSES | Everybody was supposed to benefit. But things didn't turn out as planned It was supposed to be a quintessential City Hall deal. Help the homeless. Remove an eyesore from a booming neighborhood. And help Mayor Daley’s pal build a multi-million-dollar condo development. The deal cost Chicago taxpayers at least $13.5 million. But it hasn’t worked out as planned. One of the city’s oldest homeless shelters left its crumbling home in Greektown for a new $25 million, state-of-the-art building. But the deal left the homeless shelter on the verge of bankruptcy, desperate to raise...

That was Dead Meat talking to the nation on Friday, letting America—and the Beltway media that have willfully ignored political corruption in Illinois—know just how low our politicians will crawl. "I will fight. I will fight. I will fight," said Gov. Rod "Dead Meat" Blagojevich, his hair helmet remarkably relaxed as he proclaimed his innocence. Portraying himself as the victim of a "political lynch mob," he promised to fight impeachment until his last breath, sending a none-too-subtle message to politicians in Illinois and Washington. *snip* With the nation distracted by Dead Meat's manic performance art, President-elect Barack Obama made a...

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was preparing to issue an executive order prior to his arrest last week that would have allowed union organizing of home-care workers that could have benefited a labor union with close ties to the governor. The existence of this executive order, though never signed, illustrates the close ties between the embattled governor and the powerful Service Employees International Union, the nation's fastest growing labor organization. Last week, Gov. Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges, including that his office suggested a deal in which he would be given a job with an SEIU-affiliated group in exchange...

William Cellini, a power broker and fundraiser for nearly 40 years, has become the 13th person charged in the pay-to-play probe William Cellini has spent four decades as Illinois' ultimate insider, cozying up to Republicans and Democrats alike as he wielded power and influence while trying to stay out of the spotlight. But the spotlight found Cellini on Thursday when a federal grand jury indicted the millionaire Springfield businessman and pulled him into the center of the ongoing probe of corruption in the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The indictment charging Cellini with extorting a Hollywood producer to make a...

Will Sen. Barack Obama declare that, if elected president, he would not pardon his fundraiser and personal real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, who was convicted Wednesday of multiple corruption charges in a Chicago federal court? Obama is Mr. Reform, isn't he? And that's a legitimate question, isn't it? The National Republican Party is making a big deal out of Rezko, with a snazzy new Barack-Rezko video, questioning Obama's judgment for buying that $1.6 million dream house, with the Rezkos purchasing the lot next door on the very same day in what looked like an old-fashioned back-scratching. "On the day Barack...