When Khrushchev denounced Stalin, it sent a powerful jolt through the Russian political firmament, a jolt that eventually led to the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the eclipse of Russian communism. As I pointed out yesterday , the political elites repaid Khrushchev by banning his corpse from a Red Square resting place and banishing it to the less prestigious-- in Communistic minds at least-- to Moscow's storied Novodevichy Cemetery. It's unlikely to be as earth-shakingly consequential, but the long overdue rousting out of corruption-in-politics icon Debbie Wasserman Schultz, on the eve of the Hillary Clinton convention, may have major consequences for the Democratic Party.





You probably recall that one of the instances of Wasserman Schultz's authoritarian decision-making that turned the party's grassroots against her, was diktat-- likely at Hillary's urging and Obama's condescension, reintroducing lobbyists into the upper echelons of DNC power. In a world, like Wasserman Schultz's and most Beltway hack politicians', where corruption is an integral part of the status quo, Obama's banning of lobbyists 7 years ago was looked upon as something outrageous that would have to be dealt with by someone less reform-minded, someone like Hillary Clinton. Let me remind you of this chart that helps define American political corruption since 1990:









Public Citizen and several other good government reform groups, all of whom are no doubt celebrating the downfall of Wasserman Schultz, were also celebrating reforms the Democratic Party platform is incorporating this week. "We will," the platform states, "crack down on the revolving door between the private sector-- particularly Wall Street-- and the federal government. We will ban golden parachutes for those taking government jobs. We will limit conflicts of interest by requiring bank and corporate regulators to recuse themselves from official work on particular matters that would directly benefit their former employers. And we will bar financial service regulators from lobbying their former colleagues for at least two years." That may not seem like enough to a sane, rational person but it's a giant step away from the world that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer, Joe Crowley, Jim Himes and Chuck Schumer have created inside the Democratic Party as they turned it into a cauldron of corruption to match the cauldron of corruption presided over by the likes of Mitch McConnell, John Conyers, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. (Note: the GOP was quicker to get rid of their human sewage-- at least in terms of Boehner and Cantor-- than the Democratic Party has of theirs, this week's Debbie dénouement notwithstanding.





Public Citizen contends that "the platform gets to the root of a critical problem in America: Wall Street’s capture of the financial services agencies charged with regulating it. Inappropriate corporate influence at the highest levels of government is not compatible with protecting Main Street Americans, the groups maintain."





Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, has been in the forefront of this fight to reform government (and the Democratic Party). "We applaud the DNC platform for its commitment to ban government service golden parachutes and limit conflicts of interest by Wall Street regulators," he told the media. "Government service golden parachutes are backdoor bribes to future government officials. They should be illegal-- plain and simple. We strongly support Senator Baldwin’s and Representative Cummings’ Financial Services Conflict of Interest Act. As long as the practice remains legal, we intend to keep pushing as shareholders to ban government service golden parachutes at the Wall Street banks."





Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, was as excited as Trumka. "We are thrilled," she said, "that the DNC platform took this landmark stand on the issue of personnel-- recognizing the inextricable link between who runs our banking regulators and how tough we are on Wall Street. Closing the rapidly spinning revolving door between government and industry and doing away with conflicts of interest are a necessary step the next administration must take to start repairing trust in government."

It certainly lays out a standard that Democrats need to hold the Clinton administration to over the next 4 to 8 years, a standard, there is every reason to believe, that will not come naturally to Clinton world. Still, Max Stahl, director of political engagement at Democracy Matters, was effusive: "We thank the Democratic Party for taking steps to realign the incentives of our government by closing the revolving door between representing elected power and representing industry. The platform language is a great first step and is a testament to the electoral power of democracy-driven messaging. However, it is vitally important that this platform leads to action. Democracy Matters students across the country will be watching." They'll need to be-- closely. Kurt Walters, campaign director of the Rootstrikers project at Demand Progress, didn't mince words or make nicey-nice.

The platform’s strong language on shutting down the revolving door is a dramatic turnaround for the Democratic Party. Still today, multiple agencies in the Obama administration are run by individuals who took millions in golden parachute bonuses from Wall Street for joining the government. Now, the official position of the Democratic Party is that those golden parachutes should be prohibited; cutting off a major way Wall Street works to rig the rules in its favor. We look forward to applying these standards during the transition to the next Democratic administration."

Politico yesterday, How serious a problem is this likely to be in a Hillary Clinton administration? Well, keep in mind that the Financial Sector (i.e., the banksters who hated Franklin Roosevelt so much that they tried financing a coup d'état against him ) has written Hillary Clinton $47,519,521 worth of checks. Ben White penned a post foryesterday, Wall Street Takes A Road Trip To Philadelphia , that makes you realize their bad behavior isn't being reported on by Chuck Todd and the other TV anchors, who would rather talk about angry, rowdy Bernie Sanders delegates. "Wall Street," wrote White, "is taking the Acela down to Philadelphia this week. Hordes of industry executives will descend on the city to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s nomination for president and renew close associations that vexed the Democratic standard-bearer throughout her primary battle with Bernie Sanders.