Time for some 'anti-corruption' protests here in America
Brave Russians take to the streets to protest their country's political corruption. Here at home, pay-to-play is business as usual.
To put it in popular Philly parlance...why can't us?
It's hard to say what's more frustrating about America's endemic political corruption: How pervasive it is, or how hard it is to being the bad guys to justice. Just hours after Russians put their necks on the line to speak out against systematic graft, Pennsylvania's so-called justice system looked at our quid-pro-quo politics and said...meh.
In a case that ended the political career of former Pennsylvania treasurer, now convict, Rob McCord, the businessman accused of bribing McCord with massive campaign contributions to get government contracts was given a free pass by a fairly respected federal judge. Judge John E. Jones III said that evidence by prosecutors -- that businessman Richard Ireland considered funneling campaign cash to McCord the cost of doing business, that he funneled donations through his executives and even through charities -- just didn't rise to the level of a crime. Even McCord admitted on the stand that he struggled to grasp what was wrong about pay-to-play politics.
In America in 2017, almost no level of corruption -- especially when the wealthy business class is involved -- is considered a crime. Remember when Wall Street wrecked the world economy, and pretty much no one went to jail.
Almost daily, U.S. newspapers carry stories of banana-republic style political corruption, which are quickly forgotten in 24 hours. Today's example: The New York Times found that billionaire Carl Icahn's role as a regulatory czar for President Trump hasn't stopped Icahn from pushing for government regulatory changes involving an oil refinery that he owns that would have saved him more than $200 million last year. Wasn't it Al Capone who said that if you're going to steal, steal big? Capone would be a two-bit petty thief in Donald Trump's America.
Increasingly, politicians and their millionaire donor class get away with stuff not because they're not doing bad things -- they are -- but because they're also the ones who write the laws about what you can get away with. Meanwhile, Russia's anti-corruption street protests were inspiring, and to paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, it can happen here.