Easy Sunday: Don't normalize corruption
Call it "hospitality." (Justice Clarence Thomas.)
Call it "hiring a wife." (Senator Bob Menendez.)
Provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of exotic travel for Thomas. Provide cash to Menendez.
Buy a home for Thomas' mother. Buy gold bars for Menendez's wife.
Don't talk about or report the travel and home purchase gifts. Hide the gold and cash gifts in a closet.
Offer congenial friendship, conversation, and eye-to-eye decision-making with that benefactor who has cases in front of the Court. Offer friendship, conversation, and eye-to-eye decision-making with that generous benefactor who has matters of concern to the Senate.
It looks bad because it is bad.
Republicans are defending and excusing Thomas. They have Thomas' back and he isn't resigning. That disappoints me.
This is a test for Democrats. Democrats shouldn't defend and excuse Menendez. I hope they don't pivot to attack the prosecution and call it "weaponized" for investigating and prosecuting crime by one of their own. Be better. Please be better.
Former Republican U.S. Rep Joe Walsh tweeted:
So a Democratic Senator is indicted on serious charges, and no Democrats attacking the Justice Department, no Democrats attacking the prosecutors, no Democrats calling for an investigation of the prosecution, and no Democrats calling to defund the Justice Department.
Weird, huh?