You gotta love New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.
Police raided his home and found gold bars squirreled away here and there, as well as $550,000 in cash hidden in the clothes in his closet. The feds say he was taking bribes from three Egyptian businessmen.
He said it came to him in the normal course of doing the work of a U.S. senator.
Every senator in Washington, D.C., must have spilled coffee on their laps after reading that.
Did Nevada’s Sens. Catherine Cortez Mastos and Jackie Rosen tell aides to go through their closets for stacks of cash and hunt down any stray bars of gold that didn’t go into the “constituent services” fund? Of course not.
Innocent or guilty, for Menendez to assert that this was “normal” should earn him a rebuke from the U.S. Senate. It also serves as a wake-up to all those who have maintained that there is nothing to see in the weird notes contained in the ongoing saga of Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Hunter was a drugged-out kid, for sure. But, Democrat defenders have consistently said that there is no way he pulled off a sophisticated scheme that extracted money from savvy foreign agents involving off-shore bank accounts and dummy corporations.
The idea that the vice president of the United States was any way on the take with his crack-head son as the point man is too far fetched. Not believable, they say.
Yet, ladies and gentlemen, behold Sen. Menendez. He did, in fact, have gold bars in his house and wads of cash stuffed into coat pockets.
Nothing’s too far-fetched these days. Sen. Mendez is going down hard just based on what little we know at this point. You can bet there will be more coming out at trial.
Maybe, out of an abundance of caution, we should take a deep dive into Hunter’s laptop. Trace the money, if any, from start to finish. After Mendez, anything is possible.
That’s how I’m seeing it.
GROCERY PRICES
The Nevada AG’s office has opened an investigation into the merger of Grocers Kroger and Albertsons. The state is checking out whether the combination will result in higher prices at the check-out line.
Of course, it will. The less competition the higher the price. But I doubt there is anything the AG can – or should – do about it.
In the meanwhile, maybe the AG would be better served by looking at the prices of gasoline in Nevada. It’s become absolutely unaffordable.
FREE SPEECH
Thomas Jefferson said that if he were forced to choose between “a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Of course as a journalist, I completely agree.
But where would old Tom be today in this Wild West age of social media? I’d like to think he’d feel the same. Even with the excesses of platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook and Reddit, I fancy that he’d still stand up for the right to speak, write and publish thoughts without the abridgments of “do-gooders” because freedom of expression remains at the center of liberty.
I fear, however, that people under 30 in this country have become more interested in the “right” to have fast internet service than robust and unfettered expression.
I hope I’m wrong, but a recent poll conducted by the folks at Real Clear Politics suggests otherwise.
One question in the poll asked people whether they agreed with the statement: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Only 31% of Democratic voters “strongly agreed” with that sentiment and only 51% of Republicans.
And, the poll goes on to find that three-fourths of Democrats believe the government has a responsibility to limit “hateful” social media posts, while Republicans are more split, with 50% believing the government has a responsibility to restrict hateful posts. (Independents, once again, are in the middle.)
These are stunning numbers, more pronounced when comparing age groups.
“Those under 30 are most open to censorship by the government,” the poll’s author said, adding that 42% of that group deem it “more important” to them that the government protect national security than guard the right to free expression. Among those over 65 years old, the corresponding percentage was 26%.
For all teachers reading this, I beg you to teach your kids what life would be like in a world ruled by the majority as opposed to the rights of the individual. Explain to them what the phrase “tyranny of the majority” might look like.
Americans still cherish the right to free expression by overwhelming majorities. But the warning flags are up and the wind is picking up. If we don’t start preaching why Thomas Jefferson feared government more than newspapers, we’re headed for trouble.
ONE MORE THING
Thanks for reading a Battle Born Media newspaper. Until next time, avoid soreheads, laugh a little and always question authority.
“Properly Subversive” is commentary written by Sherman R. Frederick, a Nevada Hall of Fame journalist and co-founder of Battle Born Media, a news organization dedicated to the enhancement and preservation of community newspapers. You can reach him by email at shermfrederick@gmail.com.
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