Friends in High Places
I have only just begun to read Peter Schweizer’s Secret Empires, but I have already learned what I had previously only suspected, which is that these days, it’s unusual for politicians to openly accept bribes.
I have only just begun to read Peter Schweizer’s Secret Empires, but I have already learned what I had previously only suspected, which is that these days, it’s unusual for politicians to openly accept bribes. Of course, there will always be exceptions, such as the Clintons or New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, who somehow beat the corruption rap he so obviously deserved, but most political hanky-panky these days has come to involve third parties.
Instead of bribing a politician directly or even donating to his campaign, those entities that wish to influence him hire one or more of his friends or, more often, his relatives.
Unfortunately, the influence isn’t always benign, something you can just laugh off as being the nature of politics and politicians. As Schweizer makes clear in chapters titled “American Princelings” and “Nuclear and Other Consequences,” when Hunter, the son of Joe Biden; Chris Heinz, the stepson of John Kerry; together with Chris’s roommate at Yale, Devon Archer, went into business together, their company definitely had advantages that other start-ups lack.
While it’s nothing new that the offspring of rich and influential parents receive perks in life that commoners can rarely even imagine, fortunately very few of them enter into business arrangements with China.
As Donald Trump has been saying about that country’s unfair trade practices, when it comes to China, you’re not dealing with various businesses or industries, you are dealing with the central government.
The Chinese call it capitalism, but it’s all state-owned.
What’s more, it’s a state that actively engages in the theft of intellectual property. When it comes to technology, including that which involves nuclear and weapon development, sometimes it simply has it handed to it the way that President Clinton did in 1996, in exchange for a sizeable campaign donation. Sometimes, it relies on espionage conducted by industrial spies. And often, at least in recent years, it gets its hands on it through investing and gaining control of tech companies owned and operated by the likes of Biden, Kerry and Archer.
All the while that their young heirs were conducting million- and even billion-dollar deals with the Chinese, their fathers, who just happened to be the vice president and the secretary of state, were busy negotiating with China, allegedly on behalf of the United States.
Even someone as cynical as I am find it hard to accept that those who are supposed to be primarily invested in maintaining the nation’s security seem to be less concerned with its actual survival than they are with the size of the fortunes their offspring are accumulating.
Thinking about personal relationships got me to thinking about friends. To begin with, we use the term to cover any number of relationships, just as we use or misuse “love” to cover everything from soulmates to sports, from our children to our favorite pizza toppings.
Under the general heading of friends, we would probably include everybody from people we’re thrown together with at the office, at PTA meetings or even, as was the case with me, at poker and tennis games. But once I gave up poker and could, post-surgery, no longer play tennis, I never again saw or particularly cared to see those individuals.
That led me to think about the nature of friendships. In my case, because politics, which directly affects America’s future, plays such an important role in my life, it is next to impossible for me to remain friends with people who voted for Hillary Clinton.
I also have a hard time with people who lack a sense of humor. I don’t mean that they themselves have to be funny, but they have to at least grasp irony. Otherwise, it means they take everything literally and therefore lack nuance when it comes to language. Not to be unkind, but speaking to such people is like speaking to our dog. That’s not to be taken as an insult to Angel, who is very bright for a dog, but I wouldn’t want to have lunch with her.
I also find that I can be friends with people who aren’t entirely virtuous. In other words, I can be friends with people I’d never think of marrying, just as I can vote for people I’d never place on a pedestal.
However, I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am totally lacking in standards. I wouldn’t be friends with a criminal, assuming I was aware of his criminal activity. But so long as I believe a person is basically honest and that I could depend on him in a situation where I really required his assistance, that would be sufficient.
I mean, who am I to be so picky? Even though I suit myself just as I am — as I would otherwise change or at least try to change my ways — I have to admit I am easily bored and therefore tend to be impatient. And although I can deal with people who are guilty of some of those seven deadly sins we were discussing recently, I cannot tolerate people who aren’t punctual, as I consider lack of punctuality to be the eighth sin, and far worse than gluttony, greed or sloth.
I can respect people without wanting to be in their company, just as I assume there are those who don’t wish to be in mine, as hard as that is for me to imagine.
Also, there’s no getting around the fact that some people simply push our buttons.
Blame it on chemistry or personality, but they can barely say or do anything without annoying us. I’m sure we all have relatives who fit in that category. We find ourselves hopelessly puzzled by the fact that there are actually people in the world who like them and who spend time with them of their own volition, and not because unavoidable circumstances conspire to throw them together at Christmas, weddings or funerals.
For years, we conservatives used to complain that judges, particularly those seated on the Supreme Court, were legislating from the bench. Thanks to the partisan division that now exists in Congress, the justices are now the only people with the power to legislate. And unless Mitch McConnell follows the example of Harry Reid — who employed the nuclear option in order to install Obama’s federal judges with just 51 votes, instead of the traditional 60 — and uses the nuclear option to make 51 votes sufficient to pass a bill, the logjam will continue at least until the Democrats resume control of the Senate and Chuck Schumer pulls the trigger.
It was bad enough hearing it from Hillary Clinton, but it’s unbearable to hear the lie parroted by other women that the reason men refrained from voting for Hillary Clinton was because of sexism. If that were the case, shouldn’t we conclude that women who chose not to vote for Donald Trump were equally sexist?
One of my humbler subscribers who chooses to retain her anonymity sent me a revised version of George Bernard Shaw’s axiom that now reads: “Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach; those who cannot teach, teach teachers.”
I received a pair of jokes that are oddly related.
The first, which was provided by Jada Sumner, involves a woman in a taxi on her way to the airport. Feeling the need to ask a question of the driver, she leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. The driver screamed, lost control of the cab, drove up on the sidewalk and braked just inches from a large plate glass window.
After managing to calm down, the driver turned and apologized to the woman. “I’m sorry, but you scared the daylights out of me.”
The badly shaken passenger replied: “I’m sorry, too, but it never entered my mind that a mere tap on the shoulder would startle you that way.”
“It’s entirely my fault. You see, today is my first day on the job. For the past 25 years, I’ve been driving a hearse.”
According to Bert Black, a college student told his professor he’d be unable to take a final exam because of a funeral.
The professor granted him a postponement to the following Wednesday, but on exam day, the student once again begged for a postponement because of another funeral.
The professor reluctantly granted him a reprieve but demanded the student promise to show up. The grateful student agreed, saying: “So long as nobody dies.”
“How is it that you know so many dead or dying people?”
“I don’t know any of these people, Professor, but I’m paying my way through college by working as a gravedigger.”
And now, for a change of pace, we’ll turn things over to Russ Mothershed of Knoxville, Tennessee.
According to him, a married Irishman named Sean entered the confessional and told Father Timothy: “I almost committed adultery yesterday.”
“What do you mean, almost?”
“Well, we did get undressed and rubbed together, but then I realized all I was risking, and I didn’t, you know, put it in.”
The priest was outraged: “Rubbing together is the same thing as putting it in. You’re not to see that vixen again. For your penance, say five Hail Mary’s and place $50 in the poor box on your way out.”
Sean left the confessional and walked directly to the poor box. He paused for a moment, but then headed for the door.
Father Timothy, who’d been watching, rushed over and confronted him. “I saw that! You didn’t put any money in the box!”
“True enough, Father, but I rubbed the fifty-dollar bill on the box, and apparently that’s the same as putting it in.”
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