Today in news that should not be surprising to anyone ever, Jesse Jackson Jr. is in plea deal talks with federal agents, according to the Chicago Sun-Times’ sources. That can tend to happen when you spent $40,000 of your campaign money to buy a Rolex for a friend of the female persuasion and use more of your funds to decorate your sweet digs in D.C. Scandal is nothing new to Jackson, though. As the Sun-Times points out, his name also came up in the Blagojevich scandal, though charges were never pressed.

This gives us a nice opportunity to pause and spend a moment remembering the laughably high levels of corruption in Illinois and Chicago politics. The University of Illinois released a report early this year concluding that the Windy City was the country’s most corrupt federal jurisdiction. And Chicago Mag did an extensive investigation of the often-cozy relationships between gang leaders and aldermen that makes for good Friday afternoon perusing.