Menendez is Evidence of Broken System

Alleged Corruption Grows from Poisoned Soil

Hank Kalet Sep 24 ∙ Preview

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U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez should resign. Immediately. There’s no wiggle room here. The indictment handed down yesterday by a federal grand jury, details an array of alleged crimes that disqualify him from holding office — especially when one considers earlier charges and rumors about Menendez’s avarice.

This is a question of morality and ethics, though political considerations will become a central part of the discussion. Even though this will need to be adjudicated in a court of law, the depth of greed and the disregard for the public — demonstrated by a willingness to trade the well-being of his constituents for cash, cars, and gold — being alleged will make it impossible for Menendez to be trusted and for him to be function in office.

Public corruption damages public trust, not just in the corrupt official but in government. And when trust in government is eroded, players like Donald Trump can enter the arena and offer themselves as a singular savior. Corruption becomes spectacle and gets filtered through the partisan lens, and the system unravels. This is how fascism seeps in, metastasizes in formerly healthy cells, spreads.

As for Menendez, these questions have dogged him since his earliest political involvement. They often were chalked up to his playing in the deep and dirty waters of Hudson County politics. A trial over a 2015 indictment on corruption charges ended in a mistrial, with prosecutors opting to drop the charges rather than seek a new trial.

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Grassroots: Surfing the Strike Wave

UAW Walkout Can Help Define a Newly Revived Labor Movement

Hank Kalet Sep 19 ∙ Preview

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UAW members on the picket.
The following is a preview of my next Progressive Populist column. It is available now for paid subscribers. My columns appear twice a month. You can subscribe to the Progressive Populist here.

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Surfing the Strike Wave

It looks like Red Hot Union Summer is stretching into the fall. The United Auto Workers have kicked off a “targeted strike” against the nation’s Big Three automakers, seeking to win back basic work rights given up under past leadership.

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