Guns and corruption in Sparta

Rod Blagojevich continued his week of astonishing hypocrisy by heading to downstate Sparta where the most anti-gun member of Congress a few years ago pretended to be pro-gun at the ribbon-cutting of the $50 million World Shooting and Recreational Complex. That came a few days after he was in Wheaton celebrating the widening corruption investigations into his "reform" administration.

Jim Muir of the Southern Illinoisan had a blog post this morning that pointed out those celebrating with Rod have links to the hiring problems he's facing.

So, what was it that turned my mood sour, pessimistic and cynical within 10 minutes of crawling out of bed? I can trace my change in moods to a specific moment -- my daily walk to the mailbox to get the morning newspaper.

As I sauntered back to the house, like I do every morning, I unrolled the paper and glanced at the front page and there staring back at me was the smiling faces of the politicos that had gathered for the ribbon-cutting at the World Shooting and Recreational Complex in Sparta.

And unmentioned is the contract that was awarded to build the facility. It went to Knight Infrastructure, a company owned by Peter and Kim Fox of Champaign that flew Blagojevich around in the closing months of the 2002 campaign. Peter Fox has raised at least $100,000 for Blagojevich and probably much more, and he has been subpoenaed in connection to the federal probe into the Blagojevich administration's handling of pension funds and bond deals.

It would be interesting to hear how Knight Infrastructure got that contract? Was it bid?

Technorati Tags: corruption, Illinois