Is there any limit to what can be excused or over looked?

1. 70

   Kathleen Cochranposted 9 days ago

   https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infin … corruption
   
   https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/ne … s-interest
   
   https://campaignlegal.org/update/trump- … corruption

   replyreport
   1. 81

      Kyler J Falkposted 9 days agoin reply to this

      This is a difficult question to answer because I can't find a single politician who isn't using their position as a way to enrich their own financial well-being. They're the proverbial whores of Babylon incarnate.
      
      Where they manage to seal loopholes to prevent this corruption, they do so as a way to fool the public and only at the point in time they find and create the next loophole.
      
      The only solution I see is an authoritarian approach, one where you'd have to limit politicians to only receiving income from the federal government itself and it would need to be capped, as well as sanctions placed upon all of their privately owned assets and individuals tied to those assets.
      
      There is no realistic way to address corruption, because even if you imprisoned them they'd be swiftly released by the corruption of others.

      replyreport
      1. 83

         My Esotericposted 8 days agoin reply to this

         Corruption will never be eliminated but gross corruption, mob boss-type corruption can be fought and eliminated. Remember, this level of corruption is unique to the Trump presidency.
         
         The closest things that come to it are the corrupt administrations of Nixon, Grant, Harding, and Jackson.  While Nixon was personally corrupt like Trump, I don't think the other three were, just those that worked for them.

         replyreport
         1. 81

            Kyler J Falkposted 7 days agoin reply to this

            Corrupt is as corrupt does, I don't think moving the goalposts to excuse one form as lesser is any more or less effective than punishing all of it to the highest extent of the law.
            
            Whether you're taking bribes from the ACLU, ADL, Russian oligarchs, Saudi princes, your son's friends, PACs, lobbyists, pseudo-insider trading as you sit on a panel that oversees regulation of an entire industry....
            
            If you are willing to partake in corruption in any of its forms for personal gain, you are unfit to serve the people in earnest. Corrupt action that serves the country as a whole is acceptable in many cases, like bending the law for corporations around the world to grow their opium poppies and using taxpayer dollars to defend those resources, but the insider trading, lobbyist gifts, foreign donations, dual-loyalty citizenship, etc. that needs addressing immediately.
            
            It's rampant on all sides.

            replyreport
            1. 83

               My Esotericposted 6 days agoin reply to this

               Then why bother with any laws at all since they don't actually stop anything?

               replyreport
               1. 81

                  Kyler J Falkposted 6 days agoin reply to this

                  I ask myself this question quite often, and the only real answer I come up with is, "We make laws to regulate the bad actions, not to stop them."
                  
                  We don't want to eliminate corruption, we just want the right types of corruption to occur. You wouldn't chop your own limbs off hoping the enemy would do the same, but if losing a finger means many of your enemies lose their limbs, that's pretty effective. Unfortunately, the definition of, "enemy," isn't universal, so we continue to allow corruption and loopholes to utilize it.
                  
                  Complex issue, and that's why I don't see anything short of authoritarianism stopping it. Even then, I wouldn't trust the enforcement under such circumstances.

                  replyreport
   2. 83

      My Esotericposted 8 days agoin reply to this

      So long as MAGA allows this corruption, it will continue and get even worse until it consumes all of government.
      
      Those on the Left predicted this would happen, but we garbled the message (Trump would say he rigged the election).

      replyreport
2. 70

   Kathleen Cochranposted 9 days ago

   https://www.armytimes.com/news/pentagon … -to-trump/

   replyreport