Table Tennis anyone? How Obama helped deliver $320,000 in state grants in exchange for ???

[Iceburg]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ki...

WASHINGTON -- After an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in 2000, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama faced serious financial pressure: numerous debts, limited cash and a law practice he had neglected for a year. Help arrived in early 2001 from a significant new legal client -- a longtime political supporter.

Chicago entrepreneur Robert Blackwell Jr. paid Obama an $8,000-a-month retainer to give legal advice to his growing technology firm, Electronic Knowledge Interchange. It allowed Obama to supplement his $58,000 part-time state Senate salary for over a year with regular payments from Blackwell's firm that eventually totaled $112,000.

A few months after receiving his final payment from EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Killerspin specializes in table tennis, running tournaments nationwide and selling its own line of equipment and apparel and DVD recordings of the competitions. With support from Obama, other state officials and an Obama aide who went to work part time for Killerspin, the company eventually obtained $320,000 in state grants between 2002 and 2004 to subsidize its tournaments.
...

Killerspin's owner, Blackwell, was a political supporter and friend as well. Both men lived on Chicago's South Side. Blackwell, a savvy and successful entrepreneur, was one of the first donors to Obama's early campaigns, including the state senator's failed bid for a congressional seat in 2000. In the presidential race he is credited on Obama's website with committing to raise $100,000 to $200,000 for Obama's campaign.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ki...

[yourguide]

1. PING-PONG-GATE!! Alert teh intrawebs!!!1!1! This is HUGH!!!11!1!

Not.


Fail.

[ruggerson]

2. What's the point of that picture?

are you using it a sig line to show what a foul human being you are?

[yourguide]

7. Have already explained it a million times.

When Hillary runs a fair and decent campaign that photo comes down, either that or when there is a nominee.

Until then it stands.

You can say I am a foul human being, I would say the same about the way she and her staff has run her campaign.

[WeDidIt]

9. What's wrong with the picture?

[tbyg52]

8. Re the sig - I'm coming to loathe Hillary and Bill, but

I think the fact that she is tired (I would be, too) is beside the point.

[thunder rising]

3. Where are the hookers? The drugs and murder? Ping Pong that's it?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. Boring, let it drop

[JoFerret]

13. Thread kept alive

by an offensive sig pic.

[lapfog_1]

5. Funny how the "payback" went from $50K (previous post) to $320K in this post

And, of course, it was immediately pointed out that spending $112K to get $50K in grants isn't very smart.

Now, how was it again that the Clintons made $100 MILLION in the last 5 or 6 years?

[Botany]

6. This hugh I'm series

[Adelante]

10. Bring on the live boy or the dead girl

and spare us the ping pong balls.

[BlueIdaho]

11. STOP THE PRESSES

There is money in Politics!!!!!!!!!

Now, guess how HRC is going to be able to retire her campaign debt after losing the primary...

[Leftist Agitator]

12. You spelled Iceberg wrong.

Unless you're trying to insinuate that you're an Ice'burg' as in a town with the appellation "ice".

[struggle4progress]

14. Pretty thin gruel

[ChimpersMcSmirkers]

15. Thin indeed...n/t