Congrats to any area that manages to put away a local crooked politician. Some of these jokers go decades without a slap to the wrist. There are way too many of these "public servants" running about free in our country.
There are so many local politicians in my neck of the woods (Northwest Indiana) that need to be outfitted with orange jumpsuits. There have been a few convictions here and there but there are so many that need to be investigated.
It doesn't help we are just outside of Chicago, so all the nonsense going on there provides great cover for our local crooks. We have little in the way of local media that isn't really Chicago's. Not that it matters, the local two papers have shown little interest in local corruption. My brother gave one paper a huge lead in a local case he unwittingly uncovered. They could have blown it open but have given it very little attention. We thought they would be interested since this crook is unfortunately a Republican. (I don't care about the party of the crook, your crooked, you have to go). But no, they have done as little as possible. We have since discovered that papers leadership owes the crook too much (tax break on new press).
Both papers are failing, you would think they could gain readership by exposing politicians (and do a public service at the same time). But no.
You should see the amount of Democrats round here that need a room with striped sunlight. Some are out in the open due to the lack of anything happening to stop them.
In MN the Dems are called DFL, for Democrat-Farmer-Labor. It's the "L" that makes me sure as shinola that we have the same corrupt sh*t going on here, in spades.
The infuriating thing (aside from the corruption) is that the DFL in MN enjoys this surreal squeaky-clean image. Saints aren't as good as the media and political culture portray these bastards. It's really a tough thing to overcome, when a huge constituency are out-state farmers, miners, and blue-collar folks.
It seems that the state GOP is trapped in trying to "outnice" the DFL, which, of course, the media makes impossible, because, ya know, Satan isn't nice like the DFL is nice. When a Republican wins, it's an aw-shucks nice guy that they can abuse with impunity.
