Gov. Pat Quinn’s chief of staff resigned Sunday after the Chicago Sun-Times posed questions about a probe of three politically oriented correspondences sent from his government e-mail account in possible violation of a state ethics law.

In tendering his resignation, Jerry Stermer, 67, said he did not want to have findings against him by former Executive Inspector General James A. Wright overshadow the work of the governor, who is in a difficult election battle against Republican Bill Brady.
Read more at the Chicago Sun Times

From the BBC
If Rod Blagojevich serves jail time, he will be the fourth Illinois governor since 1960 to be sent to prison on corruption charges. Why are officials from Illinois and its largest city, Chicago, so often shady?

Political corruption and Chicago go together like fashion and Milan or surfers and Sydney: the association is deep, and it has shaped the city.
Most Illinois historians date the corruption back to 1869, when three county commissioners were convicted of fraudulently awarding a contract to paint City Hall with expensive long-lasting paint.
The contractor instead …

Chicago-based ShoreBank, which for more than three decades made loans to South and West siders who might not have gotten financing elsewhere to buy homes, apartment buildings and start businesses, failed Friday. It had struggled for months to raise sufficient funds to stay afloat.
Its deposits and most of its assets were acquired by a consortium of major U.S. financial institutions and philanthropic groups and will reopen under the name Urban Partnership Bank.

ShoreBank was the 15th Illinois bank to fail this year and the 118th to be seized by federal and …

The story I did a few days ago about the Gangland Bus cruising around with goggle-eyed tourists hearing crime and corruption stories this town savors—and advertises—almost came true yesterday in every respect when a jury of Blago’s peers found him guilty of only one of the 24 criminal corruption charges he faced.
The reason the former governor didn’t get convicted on all 24 was not due to ineptitude of the prosecution—or the ineffable brilliance of the defense (although I will grant the defense better understood Chicagoans) —but because of three …

CDOBS Syndicate

The Capitol Fax Blog:
Quinn to hold 6:30 pm presser
Illinois Review:
Brady on Blago Verdict
Dennis Byrne’s Barbershop:
The worst possible Blagojevich verdict
. . . With Both Hands:
Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald – What You Want Ain’t What You Get?
The Capitol Fax Blog:
*** UPDATED with Videos *** Blagojevich, prosecutors expected to speak soon – And Quinn
Illinois Review:
Blago guilty on one count: Lying to the FBI
Newsalert:
Blagojevich guilty of one count; jury hung on 23 counts
The Capitol Fax Blog:
*** UPDATED x9 *** Topinka: Justice will prevail, it’ll just take some time
Newsalert:
Feds Intend to Re-Try Blago on …

How do these people get elected?

George Ryan, Rod Blagojevich, Mike Madigan, Richard Daley. And many, many more. We know all about these people. And yet we elect them. And we re-elect them.
How do these people get elected? I have been asked this question many times since my book on Len Small, Illinois’ most corrupt governor, was published last year. Whether it’s Len Small in 1920, Rod Blagojevich in 2006, or Otto Kerner, Orville Hodge, Paul Powell or any one of a thousand others in between, how is it that the …

There’s a big question on the minds of many these days. The question: Is there one rule of law for citizens and another for elected officials? Consider what the average taxpaying adult has been watching playing out. Senators getting sweetheart deals on their mortgages from a company they voted to give business. A Treasury Secretary failing to pay his income tax for more than two years. Congress members voting on issues to give their private concerns bailout money, sending out private fundraising letters on Congressional …

First Lady Michelle Obama’s latest overseas jaunt is getting all the headlines. But President Obama’s money-grubbing junket to Chicago may cost taxpayers far more in the long run. With his Gaultier-clad wife sashaying around the Spanish seaside, the lonely fundraiser-in-chief returned to Illinois to take care of some birthday-week business. Job One: Filling the Senate campaign coffers of his corruption-tainted political protege Alexi Giannoulias.

Mission accomplished. Obama’s Thursday afternoon campaign event for Giannoulias, the beleaguered state treasurer of Illinois, reportedly raked in $1 million. Lagging behind his GOP opponent, liberal Republican …

From Bloomberg
ShoreBank Corp., the unprofitable Chicago lender to low-income communities, may be forced out of business after failing to win $75 million of federal bailout funds, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
ShoreBank raised more than $145 million in May from General Electric Co. and banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. That money was contingent on more federal funding that is now unlikely to be released, the people said, speaking anonymously because the matter is private.
“It looks like they are just out of …

Tomorrow, there will be a meeting between two guys who helped crooked developer Tony Rezko get his hands on millions of dollars.

Democrats Barack Obama and Alexi Giannoulias probably won’t talk about their old pal, convicted and now in federal custody, when they meet for tomorrow’s fundraiser to support Giannoulias’ campaign for U.S. Senate. But people who know about Obama’s career in Illinois politics will probably make the connection for themselves.
Rezko became Obama’s biggest donor early on because he was a developer of subsidized housing. He made his money from government. …