Rush blasted:

An Englewood community center founded by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), a key player on telecommunications legislation, received a $1 million grant from the charitable arm of SBC/AT&T, one of the nation’s largest phone companies.

The chief of a congressional watchdog group says Rush’s ongoing association with the Rebirth of Englewood Community Development Corporation and his role in shaping telecommunications law as a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee is a conflict of interest. Using charitable giving as a backdoor way to curry favor with lawmakers is coming under increasing scrutiny, figuring in controversies associated with former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), who was forced to temporarily step aside as the ranking Democrat on the Ethics panel.

· McSweeney may have goofed:

Republican 8th Congressional District candidate Dave McSweeney put himself in an unusual political position this week. Newly-nominated congressional candidates tend to play it safe politically, staying above the fray in internecine conflicts. Not McSweeney. He waded into the battle over who’d become the next Lake County Republican Party chairman. McSweeney backed Tom Gooch, the Cuba Township highway commissioner, over Dan Venturi, the Lake Villa Township supervisor. McSweeney’s guy lost, and McSweeney loses a bit of face as a result. With even House Speaker Dennis Hastert admitting it’ll be an uphill climb against Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean this fall, McSweeney needs every Republican vote he can get. Risking the ire of Venturi backers definitely did not follow the political playbook. I asked McSweeney Friday to explain the unorthodox move. He said he “made some phone calls for” Gooch. Loyalty, it seems, was the reason. “It’s not a question of looking weak, Eric. Tom was one of my original supporters,” McSweeney said. “He was there Day One for me.”