Are you getting as tired as I am about scandal after scandal coming out of Washington. In he past, despite divisions, Senators and Representatives managed to right the ship and move forward representing the country’s citizens in legislation that would live up to the promise of the Founders.

Now, outside influence has taken the place of honest legislative debate, and money has taken the place of integrity.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accepted extravagant travel gifts from Texas Billionaire Harlan Crow without reporting it, as required by the high court each year.

Justice Samuel Alito failed to make known “an all-expenses-paid, high-end fishing trip to Alaska, complete with private jet travel, courtesy of hedge fund titan Paul Singer, a major Republican donor, who has been involved in 10 appeals to the Supreme Court.”

Thomas’s wife, Virginia petitioned Arizona legislators to overturn the 2020 election.

George Santos has been “indicted on seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the House of Representatives on May 10, 2023 in federal court.”

Now, we have Robert Menendez, the Democratic Senator from New Jersey indicted for bribery in exchange for favors to his state’s businessmen and Egypt.

As reported in The New York Times, “Mr. Menendez also ghostwrote a lobbying letter from an Egyptian official in 2018 asking US senators to release a hold on $300 million in aid, prosecutors said.

“Prosecutors noted that, at the time, the United States had been withholding additional aid money until Egypt was able to prove it had made improvements on human rights issues.

“The indictment quotes text messages from Ms. Menendez bragging about the senator’s influence. In March 2020, Ms. Menendez texted an Egyptian official, ‘anytime you need anything you have my number and we will make everything happen.’”

Let’s re-read that last text message from the Senator’s wife:

“Anytime you need anything you have my number, and we will make everything happen.”

Of course, Menendez has vehemently denied all charges against him, so I have no doubt that he will happily explain why the FBI found bars of gold bullion and $500,000 in cash in Menendez’s home.

This is why much of America has lost faith in so many Washington officials.

Character is a word you don’t hear much these days, and America’s integrity used to be something the world could count on. We fought wars for moral reasons; stood up for the rights of others for moral reasons. Today, the country is at war with itself for reasons that make no sense to me.

We’re not a perfect country, but we have always demonstrated the moral will to resolve our differences, and live up to our highest aspirations. But it begins with character, courage and integrity.

God knows we need that today, more than ever.