America 1982

"I think Mr. President will not cause trouble for himself. He will only support the investigation, but will not express more personal opinions. As for what Congress thinks, whether it will set up a committee to investigate KeyBank, he will not interfere, nor is he interested. However, it is very likely that Republican Congressman Mike Bradley came forward to set up the investigative committee. The president does not like him, and Mr. Cheney does not like him. This guy has been calling in Congress to cancel the resolution that the South African National Congress designated as a terrorist organization. He doesn't care at all. If this resolution is canceled, many American interests in South Africa will be damaged. He should be taught a lesson that he is an American black man, not a South African black man." Charles Salmon sat on the sofa opposite Tommy. He gently rubbed his lips with his fingers and looked at Tommy.

Tommy leaned on the sofa and stroked the docile orange cat that was snoring in his arms. This was the little guy he picked up in Beverly Hills Park during his morning run: "I know Mr. President can't jump on his own. You come out to look for trouble, but what you are saying now makes me feel that Mr. President is replicating the experience of President Reagan and your future father-in-law falling in love and killing each other. This is what Reagan did to deal with your future father-in-law, and let people arrange some difficult things. Leave the investigation to him. If Mr. Cheney had not been smart enough, Reagan would have used this method to end his political life. I hope Mr. Mike Bradley is not so smart."

Charles Salmon’s girlfriend is Liz Cheney, the daughter of Dick Cheney, the current Secretary of Defense. Speaking of which, they are able to talk about marriage today thanks to Tommy, who was once a student at Stanford University. Rice sponsored a charity dinner for veterans to raise funds. At that time, Congressman Dick Cheney, chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, who was being severely suppressed by President Reagan, came to the platform.

Charles did not attend that dinner because he had already graduated and left Stanford. He had already gone to Yale to study at that time, but this did not prevent him from getting Cheney's contact information through Ted and Ian, the directors of SSD at the time. In the name of a student organization, Yale invited Cheney, a Yale alumnus, to return to his alma mater to give several lectures. Initially, Charles was not prepared to have too close contact with Cheney until one time when he invited Cheney, he discovered that Cheney brought his family with him. , and then he discovered that Cheney had a baby daughter, Lizzie Cheney. That year, Lizzie was eighteen years old and this guy was twenty-four.

Liz Cheney was in her final year at McLean High School in Washington. She was the captain of the cheerleading team, the most beautiful woman in McLean High School, and the top eight in the National High School Cheerleading Championship. Whether it was her body or face, she was all on Charles...or should I say. It has grown on the aesthetics of all boys.

Blonde, fair-skinned, smart, and cheerful, in Charles' words, the first time I saw her, I felt that it was time for my dick to say goodbye to other women.

At that time, Charles had not yet thought about what it would be like to compete with a cunning Republican congressman's father-in-law, but he had already thought about the name of the child he had with Liz.

This guy has been dating Liz since 1984. When they first started dating, Charles was making crazy money while maintaining his studies. The money he earned was spent on visiting his little girlfriend. After all, he was in While studying in Connecticut and Liz attending college in Colorado, Charles flew back and forth for weekly dates.

If Tommy and the SSD brothers who were engaged in computers had not found out later and suggested that this guy buy some company stocks and make a lot of money, I am afraid that Charles would have been squeezed out by his part-time job before he could be squeezed out by his girlfriend.

On this point, all the SSD brothers are convinced by Charles, because he can definitely ask his family to give him a high-limit credit card. His family runs a battery manufacturing factory. Even if he does not have billions in assets, he still has tens of millions, but this guy He just didn't ask for money, and insisted on using the money he earned to pick up girls and pursue his girlfriend. With the remaining money after his own expenses, he could buy a Mystic scooter as a gift for his girlfriend.

At first, the Cheneys were not very optimistic about their daughter's relationship with Charles, because Cheney himself graduated from Yale, and he knew the virtues of men from Yale. Whether they were talking to each other or picking up girls, they were absolutely full of tricks.

He couldn't watch his daughter being toyed with her feelings by the assholes from Yale. After all, in terms of shamelessness, except for Harvard, no other American university could compete with Yale. For example, he, Dick Cheney, was so shameless that he avoided going to Vietnam to avoid military service. He died, chose to postpone his graduation many times, married a wife who became pregnant before graduation, gave birth to a daughter immediately after graduation, and then completely got rid of the American military service on the grounds that he was over twenty-six years old, married and had a new child to support.

So during that time, Charles flew out for dates every week, and Cheney made long-distance calls to her daughter every week, encouraging her to take the initiative to meet other outstanding boys in college. She was still young and could slowly discover and find the one who really suited her. boy.

The problem is that there is no comparison between the boys at Colorado College and Charles, who has been a student leader all the way from Stanford University and Yale University. Even if his daughter is blind, she can tell which man is better. So in the next two years, the Cheneys has given up, and Charles successfully completed his degree from Yale, joined a large think tank in Washington, started his career with a well-known political theorist, and gradually demonstrated his abilities, the Cheney family accepted that Charles would marry their baby. My daughter's reality is that now the two families have spent Christmas together, and they are just waiting for Liz to graduate from college and report a wedding.

Later, Cheney became the whip of the House of Representatives. Until Reagan left and Bush came to power, Cheney, who had been Reagan's number one supporter before, gradually exchanged insults with Reagan and blocked each other. Reagan privately complained that Cheney was suddenly a jerk. After being appointed Secretary of Defense from the House of Representatives, Charles became the future son-in-law of the Secretary of Defense overnight.

Although Charles and Liz were not officially married yet, after Cheney became Secretary of Defense, he resolutely arranged for his future son-in-law and Yale alumnus to join the management and budget of the Executive Office of the President of the United States in line with the good virtue of not avoiding relatives. The Economic Policy Office under the office receives a salary, which does not affect his research work at the think tank, and also gives his in-laws’ battery factory the status of a Pentagon contractor.

So strictly speaking, Charles can be considered a young member of the President's huge staff system. In other words, this guy has already been marked by the politics of the Cheney and Bush families.

"You said you knew that Mr. President would not jump out. Is this a guess? Or..." Charles took off his hand, leaned forward, and asked with a focused expression.

Tommy slowly put the cat in his hand on the carpet. The orange cat shook its fur lazily, and then walked slowly to a well-lit area. Tommy looked at the cat's crawling back and said, "Gore, Stephen, they don't care about the president. Mr. Rice’s thoughts, so I didn’t tell them about the several private conversations I had had with Ms. Rice before. Ms. Rice would not hide anything from Mr. President, and he was obviously aware of it. But speaking of it, Rice She’s another mentor of yours, right? She’s paid by a Republican think tank in Washington.”

Condoleezza Rice, professor of political science at Stanford University, mentor to Susan Curtis, independent director on the board of directors of Actor, co-founder of the SHP Women's Care Foundation, new expert on the Soviet Union at the U.S. National Security Council, veteran The adviser on Soviet and Eastern European affairs in President Bush's staff is an eternal pain in the hearts of some conservative Democrats.

She was once a staunch Democrat and a moderate conservative. She left the Democratic Party because she was dissatisfied with the governing philosophy of Jim Carter, a Democratic president who won the praise of the vast majority of black people. She believed that Jim Carter placed too much emphasis on democracy. Regarding freedom, if the Democratic Party, which has been conservative and tough before, begins to soften and is always open to the people, the illusion that freedom has no taboos will only multiply the greed of the people, which will make American society develop in a bad direction, and everyone will They are greedy. They are now demanding that same-sex marriage be legal. If they can easily get the support of the president, their demands may not be long before they want to marry clones. She hates that the Democratic Party has given up its previous insistence for votes.

Rice supports citizens' legal gun ownership and opposes same-sex marriage. She believes that the United States should not simply show pure goodwill to the world, but should emphasize that during the period of the gradual decline of the Soviet Union, it should use a tougher rather than a softer attitude to instill the United States into the world. Universal values ​​allow the world to accept the values ​​of the United States. She insists on a tough invasion of ideology, which will be very effective in today's world structure. The Soviet Union is already crumbling. Only the United States will last. Other countries have no other way but to accept the values ​​of the United States. Optional.

And although she is a black woman, she chose to abstain from the racial equality movement in the United States, neither supporting nor opposing it.

Let's put it this way, in Tommy's eyes, he never regarded Rice as a black man. If he really wanted to find an adjective, it would be that if this black female professor did not show up or speak out, and only read some of her words, You would think she was a white male.

Every time Gore talked privately with his friends about his future plans, he would scold Carter. Without Carter to put photos of black people in the hall of Congress, and without Carter supporting equal rights for black people, Rice, a fake black man, would not have left the party. If he had still stayed in The Democratic Party is definitely the best vice presidential partner for a white racist running for president.

Charles shook his head slightly: "We are not very familiar. We have attended some meetings together. And as you know, Mr. Cheney actually doesn't like her. He thinks she is too young, has only empty theories, and lacks practical experience and sufficient depth in solving problems."

"That's true, Mr. Cheney obviously prefers American exceptionalism." Tommy smiled understandingly when he heard Charles say that Cheney didn't like Rice. Cheney is an extreme conservative in the Republican Party, and unlike Rice, who is moderate, Conservatives have many ideas with which they disagree.

"I thought you wouldn't talk about too detailed topics with black people." Hearing Tommy mention that he had already told Rice some inside information, Charles nodded clearly: "But that's not the focus of our chat today, let's talk about you. Come on, Tommy, you have too much appetite. The Fox TV network, the John Kruger family will help you buy back the holdings, Fox Film Company, and Shriver will help you arrange for French Vivendi to take shares. You are already big. To win, you always have to share some food with others. Vultures always appear in groups in front of carrion. How long can you hide your little thoughts? Once one day is exposed, you will be crazy by those fools who have come back to their senses. Bite, but if you separate some carrion today, when the day comes and they see your fellow vultures, they may not dare to act rashly.”

"You know you can say whatever you want here." Tommy picked up the light beer on the table, handed one to Charles, then opened another bottle and took a sip.

Charles drank a beer: "Well, specifically, Mr. Jim Pierce of McCall Publishing Company, I hope you can agree that McCall Company and the newspaper companies under Ted's name will discuss the newspaper business together. If you agree, the investigative report will be able to play its due role quickly. If you refuse, it will be just gossip. The investigation will be launched in a long time, and the investigation will not make waves. Most of those newspapers may continue to belong to Murdoch, at least Murdoch can provide a large amount of political donations every year."

"McCall Company?" Tommy muttered the name.

"It's an old newspaper and magazine publishing company, and with the information I provided, it has made some adjustments in time to ensure that its development history looks very inspiring, uh... and also, the boss's surname is Pierce, Jimmy Pierce."

"Barbara Pierce's Pierce? That's great. Show the whole nation on TV that the First Lady wears a fake pearl necklace to show her frugality and frugality, and then comes to eat carrion with me in private? Those gossip newspapers were right, The Pierce family is the family that perfectly inherited all the shortcomings of the British, and Franklin Pierce is the worst president in the history of the United States." Tommy was not surprised when he heard what Charles said, but complained a little unhappily:

"So, since when have you been waiting to jump out at this moment?"

The Pierce family, Bush's wife Barbara's family, also had a president in their ancestors. He really hadn't paid attention to the fact that the first lady's family also had an old newspaper company. After all, the Bush family's previous method of making money was mainly oil. Energy, industry or banking.

"When you just promoted Rupert Murdoch as a KGB on TV, her brother Jimmy Pierce, as a publishing tycoon, realized that you couldn't curse an Australian for no reason, and then... Ms. Barbara's assistant found me easily. , and then I told her what I knew, which might be faster than Ms. Rice’s phone line, because I felt that if I didn’t tell her, she could let her husband, who was the director of the CIA, figure it out.” Charles He looked at Tommy and shrugged.

Tommy didn't speak, but sipped his beer and looked into the distance.

Seeing that Tommy didn't respond, Charles continued:

"I know what you want to do, Tommy. You hope to organize a large enough media network and use public opinion as a bargaining chip to negotiate cooperation with those politicians so that Gore can help you promote the computers you want in Congress as soon as possible. Industry-related bills were introduced. Before the Internet was truly popular, we had to weave a network to lock out latecomers, but you always had to give others some benefits. Like I said, vultures always go out in groups, so think of McCall's company as your original actor. What’s the name of my partner, Jason, and that girl?”

"Holly," Tommy whispered.

Charles nodded: "That's right, think of McCall's Company as Holly, and if you share some of the benefits, it can save you a lot of trouble."

"Brother, no problem." After Tommy drank up a bottle of light beer, he turned to look at Charles, who was looking worried, and smiled: "We are brothers, no problem. Just like you said, I can't Literally eat it all, I might even give away more, but I need something else in return.”

Tommy's statement surprised Charles. He was originally worried that Tommy would suspect that he was just here to act as a lobbyist for others and take away the benefits he had worked so hard to earn.

At this time, Charles grinned when he heard Tommy's words. He waved the wine bottle in his hand towards Tommy: "Honestly, you were silent just now. I was really worried that you would say to me with a straight face, hey, Charles, you have done a lot for your boss, why don’t you do something for your brother, you only know how to take the benefits from him, you don’t regard me as your fucking brother at all.”

Tommy walked over and sat down next to Charles, then put his arm around Charles' shoulders and said softly: "If I were McCall's Company, I wouldn't come to the door to chat. I just need to directly release a message obtained from you, telling everyone that John - Kruger signed a contract with me, and I paid enough benefits every year in exchange for the other party continuing to hold the Fox TV network in the name of the Kruger family. The consequence is that the three major TV networks will immediately turn around and bite me and cause trouble for me. Coupled with the current turmoil at KeyBank, it’s enough for me to be overwhelmed and unable to cope.”

"I understand that you did a lot of persuasive work for me where I couldn't see it, preventing the other party from directly releasing the news and making me passive. Thank you, Boss. Tommy Hawke is not an idiot who doesn't understand the world. "Tommy smiled and stretched out his hand towards Charles, curling two fingers, which was the SSD's internal handshake gesture.

Charles shook his hand with him in the same gesture, and said with a smile: "It's not as selfless as you said. I persuaded you to give up some of the benefits, and I can actually gain something."

"What about?" Tommy said.

"For example, if I convince you, Barbara is willing to let Liz start an internship at the US Agency for International Development, so that she can stay with me in Washington. If I can't handle you, I guarantee that she will let Mr. Cheney take Liz Arranged to work in a financial company in New York, it’s hard to say whether my fiancée will be abducted by a group of rich white faces on Wall Street,” Charles said.

Tommy laughed out loud: "It sounds like your reward is too stingy. Well, then I can't ask for generosity. I hope that in return, a certain amendment to the Communications Act can be passed in Congress as soon as possible. I Don’t be greedy, just one.”

"Which one? I can write it down, then go back and study it, and find an opportunity to help you understand the general situation of the stagnation." Charles was a little surprised when he heard that this guy only mentioned one amendment clause, Tommy didn't Like a person who gives up on the lion because the other person is stingy.

Tommy looked at Charles: "Defining information services as providing the ability to generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize, or make available information without being subject to discriminatory regulation by the FCC."

Charles no longer knew anything about information networks. He also spent four years at Stanford University. He was surrounded by many brothers who were developing in this industry. It took him a long time to come to his senses after hearing Tommy's words: "This is your real purpose. What are you doing?" These benefits are actually what I want to change this sentence.”

"I need a period of wild growth that is temporarily unsupervised." Tommy looked at Charles with twinkling eyes: "In order to pass it, I can burn any amount of money and talk about anything."