Tuesday, April 08, 2014

What? Their Salaries Aren't Sufficient?


Yes, another cartoon from Ted Rall, this time from his blog post of April 3, 2014.  I've been watching the news on this subject, specifically the federal indictment of Leland Yee and two other state legislators for corruption.  Yee's is the 'sexier' story because he was party to a plan to smuggle arms into the U.S.

The genesis of today’s cartoon is a barroom argument I found myself having at least 20 years ago with a Chicagoan. “The Illinois state legislature,” he stated confidently, “is the most corrupt in the country.” I made cases for my home state of Ohio and my adopted home of New York. Overhearing us, a third man approached, loaded for bear, to make clear that anyone who challenged Harrisburg, home of Pennsylvania’s state house, as the stinkiest cesspool in all of American politics would have to deal with him and his voluminous knowledge of the Keystone State’s seemingly infinite list of dirty deeds.

There was never any doubt that this week’s piece would be about Leland Yee, the pro-gun control state senator accused of attempted arms smuggling. As they say, you can’t make these things up. To think that people still ask me where I get my ideas! ...

...Rather than single out Yee as a bad apple (whom, thanks to the FBI, we can feel happy has been extracted from the newly virtuous political gathering in Sacramento), I depict his corrupt colleagues bemoaning their own lack of ambition and scope compared to Yee’s staggeringly over-the-top perfidy. Given the string of recent scandals out of the state capital, from Roy Ashburn (the gay state senator who voted against gay rights, arrested for DUI) to Michael Duvall (the family values conservative caught bragging about his affairs over an open mic), Yee’s arrest does not likely signal a 99-44/100ths pure state assembly.   [Emphasis added]

What really upsets me is that all three of the most recent busts are three Democrats.  So much for the "but we're the better party" that seems to be the prevailing meme this election cycle.

I picked the wrong decade to quit drinking.

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home