Power Corrupts

Jazz Shaw and I joke regularly about the corrupt politicians in our respective home states. When you consider that those respective home states are New York and Illinois, we have ample ammunition.

However there is another state with a grand and glorious past - when it comes to political corruption and that is the Logical Husband's home state of Pennsylvania and they are in the corruption news again (HT Michelle Malkin).

A SORDID TANGLE of corruption, cash and sex rocked the Statehouse yesterday in a political scandal that left one current and one former legislator and 10 current and former staff members facing criminal charges.

Among the accusations leveled by two state grand juries: Former top legislative staffer Mike Manzo got his lover, a twenty-something former rural beauty queen, a $29,000 job and $7,000 bonus mostly for doing her schoolwork.

State Attorney General Tom Corbett announced the charges against the 12, all Democrats, in a news conference in Harrisburg.

Now this is not a bash democrats piece....we all know that the corruption goes both ways. What this IS however, is a plea for voters to start paying attention to what their politicians say and do. During our BTR show yesterday, Jazz and I had a long chat with a listener in the UK. One of the things that we discussed was the $tate of politic$ and campaign$ and how the high cost of running for national office has made for an environment rife for corruption.

I have no doubt that there were plenty of hints that there were problems with the reps in question. I also have no doubt that there were plenty of hints of problems with the staffers. What we voters need to do is to remain vigil and every time we see these hints of impropriety, we need to speak up. Instead of returning the incumbent year after year after year just because he or she has "seniority" we need to make sure that the incumbent is indeed worthy of our votes. We the people have the power, when we choose to use it. We need to grab it back and use it - daily!