Do you believe the Democratic Party when it says it offers something sweeter than the vitriol and racist rhetoric of the Republicans? The GOP was sold decades ago. The Democrats say that they want to kill the oil companies, they want to nationalize the health insurance industry, and they want strict regulation of banks and hedge funds. So these industries give big to the GOP circus clowns, who play endless games to distract the voters from these popular Democratic platforms.

But who exactly are these Democrats? Do we believe this is what they want? Senator Robert Menendez of the liberal state of New Jersey. What did he want? An American Senator is a powerful person. Just 100 Senators have to pass the budget every year. The U.S. government has spent $5.5 trillion in fiscal year 2023. That’s a tasty amount of money. Menendez has been accused this week of accepting bribes for official actions. How much does it take to bribe a man with his hands in a $5.5 trillion pot?

Menendez has been accused before but he slipped out of those charges – mostly because largely bribery is legal thanks to modern legislation. This time, for some reason, he went too far. He was too brazen. This time, according to the latest from the New York Times, he got:

1. “$480,000 in cash stuffed throughout the house in envelopes and in the pockets of jackets that were embroidered with the senator’s name”
2. “More than $100,000 worth of gold bars”
3. “A shiny Mercedes-Benz convertible sat in the garage.”
4. “Two exercise machines”
5. “An air purifier”
6. Putting his wife “on the payroll of [a] halal meat company”

Corruption also has hints of the hilarious. But is this just the tip of an iceberg? Menendez denies the charges, and I’m sure his lawyers do too. It’s worked before. Senators don’t go down easy. But this is a Democrat. I never voted for this scumbag. But what can be done? Are the other Democrats any better? We know the GOP is corrupt. But is everyone in Congress? Not all freshman Congresspeople are millionaires but when they retire, they are worth tens or hundreds of millions.

Menendez is accused of old-fashioned tit-for-tat corruption. But we all know that it’s the legalized corruption that eats our country day by day: Citizens United, “corporations are people”, Super Pacs, dark money donations. And no transparency so we don’t know what country or entity the money originates in! What Senator is not on the take? Send me to their camp??? What President doesn’t need billions to get elected? Not in my lifetime.

Remember the words of Thomas Paine who founded our country:

Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her [freedom]. – Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

Well – today Europe suffers division and corruption instead of welcoming freedom. Asia and Africa have yet to embrace freedom. South America lies stuck halfway jammed on the door towards freedom. And America no longer wants to receive the fugitive and seems to no longer be interested in being an asylum for mankind. Instead our generation is dismantling the scaffolding of that asylum built by the bloody work of previous generations. Are the Democrats any better?