"My name is Bob. I engaged in corruption for the duration of my political career. I took money from people who wanted me to use my power to help them make an absurd amount of money.
I was wrong. I should not have done this...
However, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I was tempted by money and power. If you were in my position, wouldn't you do the same.
I was wrong... I'm very sorry. I should not have engaged in this behavior. The American people deserve better.
Again, I'm sorry, and I will take the punishment that is handed down to me from a jury."
If Senator Bob Menendez read that statement tomorrow, all would be forgiven. I get it. He's idiot... and corrupt to the core.
But forgiveness is earned.
Bob is going the other direction.
He's telling people to look the other way...
Menendez claims that the reason why he keeps cash in envelopes with the DNA of the people who allegedly bribed him... is because his family lived in Cuba before Fidel Castro took over.
Menendez was born in New York City... five years before the Cuban Revolution. This man has zero shame.
He's been a senator for more than a decade. If he was worried that the U.S. might turn into Cuba, he could have stopped the very policies that might eventually turn the U.S. into Cuba.
I have zero empathy for him. If he is convicted, he should spend the rest of his life in prison...
And anyone defending him - for political convenience - should spend their remaining days in shame.
We're in the late-stage phase of the empire. Corruption runs rampant. If he was smart, he'd have just raided the treasury and allowed his kids to be take advantage of his family name. Then he could have just claimed that he was ignorant to the situation.
But he got greedy. Very greedy.
America is now a banana republic. Officials are selling access like bottled water. We're running $2 trillion deficits that are mandated by corrupt politicians who aren't just taking money under the table... they're doing it in the open.
Menendez had envelopes of cash and gold bars. His wife was bankrupt a few years ago, which is why it was suspicious that she was selling hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold.
And he had the audacity to sit around and blame the collapse of the Bautista regime in the 1960s? How high does this guy think
we are to even consider this as a defense.
I'm Over This Place
I'm over America. Its exhausting to watch the same things haeppen over and over again... and no one goes to prison.
Menendez is just part of the rot. There was a story this week that the U.S. is fining Deutsche Bank for money laundering...
MONEY LAUNDERING.
The "company" doesn't have to admit guilt... and we will pretend that it's not run by human beings who are breaking the law.
Look the other way. No one is accountable. Zero. Nil.
When you see that the fine is just a fraction of the amount of money that these banks made from their crimes... you realize that it's not a mistake.
It's a business model.
In the Florida Republic, we expect that this will be par for the course. We can't spend our days being angry about it. This is how the world works.
I'm very appreciative of the Federal agents who have the conviction and the conscience to go after people like Menendez.
I can't imagine what people seeking justices feel when they find out that these people skate free with so much evidence hanging over them.
This world isn't just.
We must do our best to get over it.
Stay positive,
Garrett Baldwin
Florida Republic Capital
Secretary of Finance