Connecting the Dots - Local Edition

If then His providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil.
John Milton (1608–1674), Paradise Lost - The First Book

From Roger Simon's weekly column from Politico.com -

N.Y. Daily News, "Welcome to AIR RUDY:

Rudy Giuliani jets to campaign stops using casino kingpin's plane," By David Saltonstall:

"The Republican presidential hopeful anted up more than $122,000 last summer alone for jets traceable to casino kingpin Sheldon Adelson, whose Las Vegas Sands empire has made him the third-richest American, a Daily News review of campaign records shows. Last quarter, The Sands' innocuously named Interface Operations LLC was the top provider of corporate jets to the frequently flying Giuliani, who was whisked around the country on the casino's plush Gulfstream G-IV in late August and early September, records show. 'You have to follow the money and ask, 'Why is Sheldon Adelson partnering with Rudy Giuliani?'' asked Stacey Cargill, an anti-gambling and Republican Party activist in Iowa, where the nation's first presidential caucus is set for Jan. 3. Cargill, who views even legal gambling as a magnet for crime and vice, said, 'If Rudy Giuliani wants to be the crimefighting candidate, why is he partnering with a large and growing gambling empire?' "

Above and beyond the appropriateness of a Presidential candidate accepting favors from a player in an industry not noted for its Puritan pedigree (it isn't an accident that the "legitimate" Michael Corleone wound up in Las Vegas...), this story has local dimensions as well.

For who was hanging about the State House importuning legislators in the Senate Reading Room on behalf of Deval Patrick's Cerebrus Gamble-Port plan? Why, it was one Sheldon Adelson!

It would appear that in his race to the bottom, Gov. Patrick doesn't even know who he has gotten into bed with anymore.