Cross-posted at Athens Runaway

Remember when Ohio had 100 Congressional districts (District 00 through District 99)?  My good friend Lynn Walsh from Ohio Watchdog does, and she’s been hard on The Case of the Phantom Stimulus Money ever since.  Because she gets paid to annoy people by sticking her nose into—and disinfecting with sunlight—the gears of government, and probably because her letterhead is scary-looking, she gets a lot of good stories.  But this one is more interesting than most.

In most government corruption cases, money disappears into thin air.  However, rarely does government corruption… make money appear out of thin air.

Yeaaah.  I’m scratching my head just like you.

According to Recovery.gov, the official federal clearinghouse for all the Hope and Change databases you can choke down, the Ohio Legal Rights Service was given a $300,000 grant using Stimulus money.  The national Social Security Administration says that the OLRS did not receive any money from the Stimulus.

The Ohio Legal Rights Service has absolutely no idea what the heck the feds are talking about, and have no idea where the money came from.  In the words of an anonymous Ohio Inspector General official that Walsh talked to, “they don’t know if ARRA money is funding the program or not. For five years it has been running on non-ARRA funds. As long as the program is running they didn’t ask any questions.”

Kind of a “ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies” situation, maybe?  Who knows.  Go read Lynn’s report over at Ohio Watchdog for the full Monty (Python).