Word of the Month for January 2019: Corruption

It's that time again - time to come up with some new year's resolutions that will, undoubtedly, be broken by the end the of month (if not sooner).  

I know, I know - that's pretty pessimistic but when the average is at 64% of persons who break their resolutions by the first month, I'd say I'm OK with that prediction.

So when you make up your resolutions, what do you typically resolve to (or not to) do?  Over eat?  Lose weight?  Get up earlier?  Exercise?  Make more money?  Not steal money from your constituents' pockets?  

You know, it's funny about this last one given that there are a whole lot of politicians who think they're above the law.  Of course, this brings us to our word of the month:  CORRUPTION.  

According to Black's Law Dictionary, CORRUPTION means:

Depravity, perversion, or taint; an impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle; esp., the impairment of a public official's duties by bribery.  The word 'corruption' indicates impurity or debasement and when found in the criminal law it means depravity or gross impropriety (Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 855, 3rd ed. 1982)

I mention this only because I came across an website detailing the 10 most corrupt U.S. politicians. that's corrupt in that they lined their collective pockets with public funds in the way of bribes and kickbacks. They are, in order:

1. William "Boss" Tweed: Representative of New York (convicted in 1873 for his role in a corruption ring that stole at least $1 billion in today’s dollars)
2. Ray Blanton: Governor of Tennessee (pardoned 24 convicted murderers and 28 prisoners of other crimes in exchange for money)
3. Budd Dwyer:  Pennsylvania (state) representative (a jury found him guilty of taking $300,000 in campaign donations in a quid pro quo exchange for a $4 million state contract)
4. Edwin Edwards: Governor of Louisiana (indicted by the federal government and found guilty on 17 of 26 counts of extortion, fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy)
5. Spiro Agnew: Vice President of the United States (formally charged with accepting bribes of more than $100,000)
6. Carroll Hubbard: Kentucky (state) representative (indicted for misusing government property and personnel)
7. George Ryan:  Illinois Governor (indicted on 22 counts including racketeering, bribery, money laundering, extortion, and tax fraud)
8. James Traficant: Ohio representative (convicted of 10 felonies involving bribery, tax evasion and racketeering)
9. Randy "Duke" Cunningham: California (federal) representative (took bribes of at least $2.4 million)
10. Huey Long: Louisiana Governor (bought votes to push through his pet projects)

I suspect that had these politicians actually made resolutions, they might not have had to deal with pesky prosecutors and criminal juries.  

Had they kept in mind that they were representatives of the people (and not human vacuums sucking off the public teat), they would not have met with their respective nefarious ends.

Just, maybe.