Minnesota Republican Party: "Let the bidding begin"

For the last several years anybody who has been paying attention to politics has seen the increase in corporate or interest money in the political process, but previously these "donations" have been veiled in secrecy. Despite the fact that every politician must now take corporate donations in order to survive, there has at least been a modicum of privacy to these donations in order to preserve the possibility that all of our country's political decision aren't bought.

You always hear that you can follow the money to determine the reasons for every decision in politics and that sometimes the policy supports the highest bidder, but now the MN Republican party is LITERALLY auctioning off time with politicians for "consulting" to the highest bidder. As reported in several online news outlets such as ThinkProgress, the MN GOP has come up with an interesting new way of determining access to their candidates, a high bid auction similar to eBay in format.

I have three simply questions in reaction to this story

1. Have we reached a point as a country where are politicians are now little more than corporate prostitutes that must sell themselves in order to get elected, and we are either stupid or lazy enough not to do anything about it?
2. Is there any way to charge the politicians and lobbyists criminally for there actions, as well as kicking them out of office?
3. Where are the "grassroots tea parties", media, and ethics investigators with this blatant and disgusting corruption? Doesn't this event merit immediate and severe action to prevent it from ever occurring again? 

We need a complete overhaul of our politics in order to remove or limit corporate and interest lobbying in our policy. Our politicians are no longer representing us but rather a small group of multinational corporate interests and we seem unwilling or unable to stop them.

The Sarcastic Liberal