I have been reluctant to write political obituaries the past year because Republicans seem to be getting away with everything from simple adultery with mistresses and prostitutes to threatening to throw a guy off a balcony. They just get up on the podium and say they are Christian and all is forgiven. When it comes to Democrats there were a few candidates as well, though most were nonames trumped up in the corporate press and the others were uninspired hasbeens or wannabes who lost elections for pretending they didn’t know Obama. I made that point previously and besides, as Obama’s poll numbers are booming along with the economy, I am saving this for a future article.
In the meantime we have two Republican politicians from different regions, offices and walks of life that were both convicted of conduct unbecoming of an elected official, fraud and bribery. The infamous Micheal Grimm, who won election despite being the guy mentioned above who threatened to throw a guy off of a balcony (for asking him about his fraud investigation) and the once top potential Vice Presidential pick Bob McDonnell, who once gave the rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address from his own Virginia legislative chamber as if he was already president. Today they are both headed for jail.
Grimm Day for Micheal Grimm
Republican Congressman, from Staten Island New York, Michael Grimm was indicted on 20 counts and faced up to 257 years in jail for: “five counts of mail fraud, five counts of wire fraud, three counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false federal tax returns, one count of conspiring to defraud the United States, one count of impeding the Internal Revenue Service, one count of health care fraud, one count of engaging in a pattern or practice of hiring and continuing to employ unauthorized aliens, two counts of perjury and one count of obstructing an official proceeding.” If even one of these things is true, it is beyond any decent businessman, let alone someone who once worked at the FBI, let alone someone who is a sitting US Congressman!
After realizing he was F’d in the A, or soon would be for 3 lifetimes, he plead guilty to a felony tax charge. Then he tried to stay in Congress until he realized he had been abandoned. They were willing to stick beside him for threatening to throw a young reporter off a balcony on camera and on tape, but getting convicted was the last straw. The Republicans have moral values to defend after all. So he succom the more of the inevitable and finally resigned.
It is safe to say that Grimm will not be around for a long time and if he does return, it will only be the obscure frontier of Conservative Talk Radio, if it’s even still around by then.
This Virginia Ham is Well Done
Bob McDonnell was cocky as a Virginia Governor. He gave the State of the Union rebuttal from his own chamber with a fake crowd of Republican suckups, then helped push forward mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasounds for women who wanted an abortion. He and his wife however got tangled up with a wealthy health supplement manufacturer who gave them $177,000 in gifts and other goodies in exchange for government access and favorable nods on legislation. McDonell’s wife may have even had an affair with the industrialist as the late and desperate days of the trial pitted husband against wife.
McDonnell preached that people should never live beyond their means, though piled up hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt that made him vulnerable to corruption. Then he threw the mother of his kids under the bus to save his own skin, leaving his kids without a mother because she is as guilty as he is. Like rats leaving a ship, all abandoned him. All but some weird sort of religious right that offered the court to spare the corrupt man and give him privilege if he could go work at a charity because it was such a waste to let a man as brilliant as McDonnell go to prison.
If he was so brilliant, he wouldn’t have been guilty of corruption charges and headed to prison. Yet the judge defied federal law and reduced his sentence from 8-12 years to a mere 2 years. Entitlement at its best for the White Christian power base, uhm, I mean victims of America, that rule this great nation with corruption and hypocrisy.
May his short stay in Federal Prison include a nice little “breaking-in” that will introduce the fraudulent politician to a whole new kind of invasive ultrasound.
Obit
They were short-lived rising stars who betrayed the American people and especially the people who elected them. They sold out for quick corruption. They were unexceptional politicians that most people will unfortunately forget as they are a bright shining example of the plunder that is going on in Washington at the behest of billionaires who intend to corrupt and corrupt people who intend to get rich. May their political deaths remind us all of how truly easy it is to corrupt a sitting US politician.
They got elected. They got corrupted. They went to jail. Good riddance!
If only all the politicians in Washington that are corrupt could be as stupid as Micheal Grimm and Bob McDonnell.
Amen!