Thursday, February 8, 2007

Libby Trial: Prosecution Rests--Strongly


From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

It was Hail Mary time for Ted Wells, an attorney for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, as the prosecution moved toward resting its case in the perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. On Thursday, Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert was back on the stand to be cross-examined by Wells. The previous day, Russert had kicked Libby's cover story in the groin. He had disputed Libby's claim that in the days before the leak that outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer he (Libby) had learned about her CIA connection not from official sources but from Russert. No way, the newsman said. The Russert call is critical for Libby, who has maintained he never shared official (that is, classified) information about Valerie Wilson with other reporters and only passed along gossip he had picked up from Russert. But on the stand Russert stuck to his version: he didn't say anything to Libby about Wilson's wife during a phone call on July 10 or 11, 2003, because he knew nothing about Wilson's wife until the leak appeared in a July 14 Robert Novak column.

So what was Wells to do? He started off Wednesday by taking shots at Russert's memory. (See here.) He made little progress. On Thursday, he tried to undermine Russert's credibility on other fronts. Wells attempted to make an issue of the fact that until Russert appeared as a witness in this trial he had never divulged publicly that he had talked to the FBI about the CIA leak investigation in November 2003. Wasn't Russert's call with the FBI a "newsworthy event?" Wells inquired, hinting that Russert had for years hid part of his involvement in the CIA leak case. Russert explained that he had not reported the conversation because the FBI agent had asked him to keep it confidential.

Wells then tossed far-fetched theories at the jury. On the stand, Russert had said that none of his NBC colleagues had told him anything about Wilson's wife. What about David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell? Wells asked. None meant none, Russert noted. But Wells still was holding out the possibility that Gregory received leaked information on Wilson's wife from then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and then quickly relayed it to Russert, who shared it with Libby. It's a thin theory--especially because neither Russert nor Gregory reported any news about Wilson's wife at the time. And the timing of real-world events may undermine the theory. But Wells keeps hammering at this possibility.

To buttress this part of his case, Wells tried to play for the jurors a video clip of Andrea Mitchell saying on CNBC in early October 2003 that she had known about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment prior to the Novak leak. But Mitchell, in two later interviews on Don Imus's radio show (which also aired on MSNBC), said she had misspoken and she retracted the comment. Wells suggested that Russert and Mitchell had conspired to undo Mitchell's remark so Russert's statements related to the leak case would not be undermined. He asked permission to show all these tapes to the jury. "This is nitpicky at best," Judge Reggie Walton complained. He ruled the tapes could not be played.

Next Wells took another shot at Russert's credibility. He pointed out that during Russert's appearance the previous day he had testified that Libby used the words "hell" and "damn" when he had called Russert in July 2003 to complain about Hardball host Chris Matthews' on-air criticisms of Cheney and Libby. Yet, Wells said, when Russert gave a deposition to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in August 2004 about this conversation with Libby he had not referred to these curse words--as if Russert had somehow suspiciously changed his account. Russert explained that during his deposition he had said that Libby had been "venting" and that word covered the cursing.

Such small stuff did not seem to impress the jurors; many appeared to be unriveted by Wells' questioning of Russert. Finally, Wells played his last card. Was there, he dramatically asked the witness, "bad blood" between Russert (and all of NBC News) and Libby? "No, sir," Russert replied in the quiet tone he had used throughout his testimony. But Wells had evidence to suggest otherwise.

It was another Imus clip. On the morning of October 28, 2005, hours before Fitzgerald was to announce indictments in the CIA leak case, Russert was on the show (via telephone) telling Imus about the mood of anticipation within the Washington press corps and his own NBC News bureau: "It was like Christmas Eve last night. Santa Claus is coming tomorrow. Surprises. What's under the tree?" Citing this comment, Wells contended that Russert was "elated" that Libby was about to be indicted. No, Russert said, he was referring to the fact that a "big news day" was coming and that no one knew for sure what Fitzgerald would announce. Was Russert equating an indictment of Libby with Christmas "presents under the tree?" Wells asked. No, the television host said. "You looked very happy" in the Imus clip, Wells countered. That was a "still picture," Russert noted. The cross examination was over

One more swing and a miss for Wells. In the first three weeks of the case, Wells and co-counsel Bill Jeffrey have suggested there have been a Variety Pak of plots against their client: a CIA conspiracy against Libby, a State Department conspiracy against Libby, a White House conspiracy against Libby, and, now, an NBC News conspiracy against Libby. But they have introduced no evidence to back up any of this. Wells' attempt to transform Russert's Christmas comment into proof that Russert and NBC News were bent on ruining Libby was typical. It was silly. But Wells is merely acting as a defense attorney should. Pull on any thread you can. Raise any matter that might sow confusion or doubt among the jurors. Nevertheless, he failed to undercut Russert, Fitzgerald's final witness.

The prosecution ended strongly. Fitzgerald has presented a parade of witnesses who have contradicted Libby on the key points: what he had known about Valerie Wilson and what he had told journalists. The defense is expected to call its first witnesses on Monday. The lineup will probably include several reporters who spoke to Libby before the CIA leak happened and who will testify that he said nothing to them about Valerie Wilson's wife. But Wells might need more than that--and more than word games and hints of plots--to beat back Fitzgerald.

Posted by David Corn at February 8, 2007 04:14 PM

27 comments:

David B. Benson said...

David Corn --- I am finally getting a grip on this trial. Thanks you.

Gerald said...

Libby's Defense Team will bring out the powerful to protect Libby. The Team will confuse the jurors to the point of having them become babbling idiots.

Verdict: NOT GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS!!!

David B. Benson said...

Gerald --- Maybe a hung jury, but a verdict of not guilty?

kathleen said...

From Afghanistan to Iraq: Connecting the Dots With Oil
By Richard W. Behan
AlterNet

Monday 05 February 2007

In the Caspian Basin and beneath the deserts of Iraq, as many as 783 billion barrels of oil are waiting to be pumped. Anyone controlling that much oil stands a good chance of breaking OPEC's stranglehold overnight, and any nation seeking to dominate the world would have to go after it.

The long-held suspicions about George Bush's wars are well-placed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not prompted by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. They were not waged to spread democracy in the Middle East or enhance security at home. They were conceived and planned in secret long before September 11, 2001 and they were undertaken to control petroleum resources.

The "global war on terror" began as a fraud and a smokescreen and remains so today, a product of the Bush Administration's deliberate and successful distortion of public perception. The fragmented accounts in the mainstream media reflect this warping of reality, but another more accurate version of recent history is available in contemporary books and the vast information pool of the Internet. When told start to finish, the story becomes clear, the dots easier to connect.

Both appalling and masterful, the lies that led us into war and keep us there today show the people of the Bush Administration to be devious, dangerous and far from stupid.

The following is an in-depth look at the oil wars, the events leading up to them, and the players who made them possible.

@ Truthout


THE FIREDOGLAKE WEBSITE IS THE PLACE FOR GETTING ON THE INSIDE OF THE LIBBY TRIAL

capt said...

Pelosi May Decline Air Force Flights Over Plane Issue



House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she might decline the use of Air Force planes to travel from Washington to her San Francisco district because the Pentagon won't guarantee her an aircraft that can make the trip non-stop.

``I have said that I am happy to ride commercial if the plane they have doesn't go coast to coast,'' Pelosi said today.


More HERE

*****end of clip*****

Well there you go!


capt

capt said...

"If they do it, it's terrorism, if we do it, it's fighting for freedom." - Anthony Quainton, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1984: Anthony Quainton - Source: Off the record response of the Ambassador to a group of concerned U.S. citizens when asked to explain the difference between U.S. government actions in Nicaragua and the violence it condemns as terrorism elsewhere in the world.

=
It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know--or care--about circumstances in the colonies: Bertrand Russell

=
The president has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy: Arthur Schlesinger.

=
The aim of military training is not just to prepare men for battle, but to make them long for it: Louis Simpson

===
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell: William Tecumseh Sherman.

===
"The greatest spiritual practise is to transform love into service": Sai Baba

===

NEW - NEW - NEW

ICHBLOG.EU - Click here for text only version of the site (great for dialup users)!

http://www.ichblog.eu/text/

===

Read this newsletter online http://tinyurl.com/dy6yy

Thanks ICH Newsletter!

David B. Benson said...

Good lord, the waste in the Pentagon budget proposal before Congress!

Complain about unnecessary ships and airplanes proposed. Complain about more military base construction in Iraqi.

Enormous sums can be cut while still 'supporting the troops'...

capt said...

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms isn't spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of their scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.


~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)

David B. Benson said...

Disasterous rise of mis-placed power has occured, IMO...

Saladin said...

Mr. Benson, we were warned by Eisenhower about the threat of the military complex, he was absolutely right, we are in seriously deep shit that no amount of taxation will save us from. Get ready for the dawn of the new America, and hide any assets that will buy food that you can.

Hajji said...

Spanky called today to say they'd turned in their weapons and ammo. 3-4 day of sittin' 'round camp Ramadi before that big bird takes 'em back to the good 'ol FRG!

peace,

-T

Hajji said...

Official's Key Report On Iraq Is Faulted
'Dubious' Intelligence Fueled Push for War


________________

By Walter Pincus and R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A01

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community, according to a report by the Pentagon's inspector general.

Feith's office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith's activities as "an alternative intelligence assessment process."

An unclassified summary of the full document is scheduled for release today in a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin chairs. In that summary, a copy of which was obtained from another source by The Washington Post, the inspector general concluded that Feith's assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a "mature symbiotic relationship" was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.

At the time of Feith's reporting, the CIA had concluded only that there was an "evolving" association, "based on sources of varying reliability."

In a telephone interview yesterday, Feith emphasized the inspector general's conclusion that his actions, described in the report as "inappropriate," were not unlawful. "This was not 'alternative intelligence assessment,' " he said. "It was from the start a criticism of the consensus of the intelligence community, and in presenting it I was not endorsing its substance."

Feith, who was defense policy chief before leaving the government in 2005, was one of the key contributors to the administration's rationale for war. His intelligence activities, authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and coordinated with Vice President Cheney's office, stemmed from an administration belief that the CIA was underplaying evidence of then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's ties with al-Qaeda.

In interviews with Pentagon investigators, the summary document said, Feith insisted that his activities did not constitute intelligence and that "even if they were, [they] would be appropriate given that they were responding to direction from the Deputy Secretary of Defense."

The report was requested in fall 2005 by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), then chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Although the committee and a number of official inquiries had criticized the administration's prewar intelligence, Democratic senators, led by Levin, demanded further investigation of Feith's operation.

"The bottom line is that intelligence relating to the Iraq-al-Qaeda relationship was manipulated by high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense to support the administration's decision to invade Iraq," Levin said yesterday. "The inspector general's report is a devastating condemnation of inappropriate activities in the DOD policy office that helped take this nation to war."

The summary document confirmed a range of accusations that Levin had leveled against Feith's office, alleging inaccurate work.

Feith's office, it said, drew on "both reliable and unreliable" intelligence reports in 2002 to produce a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq "that was much stronger than that assessed by the IC [Intelligence Community] and more in accord with the policy views of senior officials in the Administration."

It stated that the office produced intelligence assessments "inconsistent" with the U.S. intelligence community consensus, calling those actions "inappropriate" because the assessments purported to be "intelligence products" but were far more conclusive than the consensus view.
__________

for "MORE" google...duh!

-T

Gerald said...

DBB, when it comes to our federal government, I've become very cynical. Too much of Bush, Cheney, and their goons and thugs!!!

Hajji said...

Mellencamp on Charlie Rose tonight.


The dichotomy of a single voice...vs...commercial success..

priceless, in its own way..

-
t

capt said...

Senate Intel Chair: Pentagon Office DID Break The Law


As vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) was often outmaneuvered by GOP chair Pat Roberts (R-KS), when it came to prewar intelligence. In response to the Pentagon inspector general's report on the Office of Special Plans, however, Rockefeller is hinting that era is fully closed. From a Rockefeller statement, just released:

"The IG has concluded that this office was engaged in intelligence activities. The Senate Intelligence Committee was never informed of these activities. Whether these actions were authorized or not, it appears that they were not in compliance with the law.

"In the coming days, I will carefully review all aspects of the report and will consult with Vice Chairman Bond to determine whether any additional action by the Senate Intelligence Committee is warranted."


More HERE

capt said...

Bending to George W. Bush's Will



Editor's Note: When Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put forward two Republican-sponsored resolutions -- one opposed to the Iraq War "surge" and the other for it -- he was met with the bizarre spectacle of GOP sponsors of the resolutions joining a filibuster against a debate on their own measures, unless a third Republican resolution from Sen. Judd Gregg was added to the mix.

Two of those senators -- John Warner of Virginia and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska -- effectively put loyalty to President George W. Bush ahead of their stated desire to spare American troops unnecessary death and injury from a war escalation that neither Warner nor Hagel believes is justified.

In this open letter, Democratic political analyst Brent Budowsky -- who urged Reid and other Senate Democrats to shelve their partisan doubts and work with Warner and Hagel -- expresses his dismay over having trusted these two Republican senators:


Dear Senator Hagel and Senator Warner:

For four years of failure and bloodshed in the Iraq War, you have issued warnings, concerns, sage advice and major suggestions for change.

For four years, the man who calls himself the Decider has given you nothing but contempt for your views, confident that in the end, you would vote with your party.

For four years, you have proven him brilliantly right in his judgment of you, as he was deadly wrong in his conduct of war.

For four years, you advised no and voted yes.

Three years ago, you issued more warnings, counsel and sage advice and were treated with the same disrespect that was shown to our commanders when their advice, too, was ignored.

Three years ago, you advised no, and voted yes, again. Two years ago, again. One year ago, again. And now with this latest tragedy and spectacle in the Senate, again.

You issued warnings, advice, and sage counsel again. You said no and voted yes, again. You were disrespected, again, by the President who ignored your advice, again, and you voted to enable yet another escalation that you know
is wrong, again.

You were reduced to voting against your own resolution.

Let's not hide behind procedural excuses or genteel evasions. You know the Senate rules. I worked for congressional leaders and senior senators and know them too.

The Majority Leader in a show of good faith and bi-partisanship supported including the key provision in the Gregg proposal into the Warner proposal. He made a mistake. I made a mistake in advising senior Democrats to work with you in good faith.

And you know very well that the only reason the Republican leadership, in league with Karl Rove's shop, demanded a vote on the Gregg proposal was that it would help promote the escalation that you oppose, but enabled, again.

My mistake was one of character judgment. Senator Reid's mistake was an attempt at statesmanship. Your mistake was putting a party-line vote designed to promote the escalation over the high principle of trying to prevent the escalation you oppose.

Four years ago, Three years ago, Two years ago. One year ago. And now this week. Again.

So you voted against your own resolution, in the name of demanding a second resolution designed to promote the escalation that you oppose.

And this from the party that criticized John Kerry for flip flopping?

The senator from Arizona accused you, and me, and Senator Reid of favoring a vote of no confidence in the troops. Once upon a time, when Senator John McCain was younger and truer and his idealism trumped his ambition, he
would have known such a statement to be untrue.

The advocates of this escalation have learned nothing from mistakes, except to believe that their short-pants McCarthyism can bully and intimidate good men into doing bad things.

If there are two men who should never be accused of voting no confidence in the troops, it is you, Senator Hagel and Senator Warner. But then again, if there are two men who should have made public votes consistent with their private views, after four years, it is you, as well. Again.

How more powerful and right it would have been for you to charge like lions to the Senate floor and answer the defamation that you would vote no confidence in the troops, in terms as strong as the false accusation. Instead you retreated to the Republican cloakroom, and cast a party-line vote. Again.

For four years, you have been wiser, smarter, more knowledgeable and experienced than those who disrespected your advice, as much as they disrespected the advice of military leaders.

For four years, you said no and voted yes.

For four years, you enabled policies in war you knew were wrong.

For four years, the failure became more deadly, the carnage became more ugly, the casualties became more painful, the damage to our troops and our country and our credibility around the world, and our military force structures, and our deterrent, and our national unity became more grave and extreme.

Yet for four years, the senators from Virginia and Nebraska issued their words of warning and their counsels for change, but in the end, for four years, based on the real votes on the floor of the Senate, Virginia and Nebraska might as well have been represented by Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman.

What a shame. What a waste. What a tragedy for our country.

More HERE

*****end of clip*****

I would think the Democratic party should have come out swinging. Just look at the beating they have taken since 2000 - instead we get the same BS as when they D's were the minority.



capt

Gerald said...

G.K. Chesterton said, "The greatest stumbling blocs for Catholicism are Catholics"

Gerald said...

Will Christian Fascism Destroy American Democracy?

Gerald said...

We now live in a nation where the top 1 percent control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, where we have legalized torture and can lock up citizens without trial. Arthur Schlesinger, in "The Cycles of American History," wrote that "the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense -- not only for their acquiescence in poverty, inequality and oppression, but for their enthusiastic justification of slavery, persecution, torture and genocide."

Gerald said...

This statement is a very serious indictment of religion, all religions!!!

Arthur Schlesinger, in "The Cycles of American History," wrote that "the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense -- not only for their acquiescence in poverty, inequality and oppression, but for their enthusiastic justification of slavery, persecution, torture and genocide."

Saladin said...

Capt, One advantage to having low expectations where politicians are concerned is, you are never let down!

Saladin said...

Thirty-Six Sure-Fire Signs That Your Empire Is Crumbling
The Daily Reckoning

"You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated."

by David Michael Green

So. You've built yourself an empire, eh?

Well, bully for you!

What's next, you ask? Well, now you've got to do what everybody does when they have an empire, of course. You've got to worry about it falling apart, mate!

But how to tell for sure? Let me see if I can be helpful. Here are some rules of thumb to keep in mind, thirty-six sure-fire indicators that your empire is falling apart:

You know your empire's crumbling when the folks who are gearing up their empire to replace yours start blowing up satellites in space. And then they don't bother to return your phone calls when you ring up to ask why.

You know your empire's crumbling when those same folks are cutting deals left, right and center across Asia, Latin America and Africa, while you, your lousy terms, and your arrogant attitude are no longer welcome.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending your grandchildren's money like a drunken sailor, and letting your soon-to-be rivals finance your little splurge (i.e., letting them own your country).

You know your empire's crumbling when it's considered an achievement to pretend that you've halved the rate at which you're adding to the massive mountain of debt you've already accumulated.

You know your empire's crumbling when you weaken your currency until it looks as anemic as a Paris runway model, and you're still setting record trade deficits. (Hint: Because you're not making anything anymore.)

You know your empire's crumbling when "the little brown ones" (thank you George H.W. Bush - certainly not me - for that lovely expression) in country after country of "your backyard" blow you off and proudly elect anti-imperialist leftist governments.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't topple those governments and replace them with nice puppet regimes - like in the good old days - even if you wanted to. And you badly want to.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of their leaders comes to the United Nations and makes fun of your emperor, calling him the devil, and joking about smelling sulphur where he just stood. And though a few folks cringe, everybody laughs.

You know your empire's crumbling when just about your entire military land force is tied up in a worse-than-useless war launched on the basis of complete fabrications, that every day is actually making you less - not more - secure from external threat.

You know your empire's crumbling when almost half the soldiers in that war are high-paid mercenaries, and you don't dare institute a draft.

You know your empire's crumbling when you send soldiers into war with two weeks training and a lack of armor, and then you keep them there for three, four and five rotations.

You know your empire's crumbling when a member of the Axis of Evil can test missiles and explode nuclear warheads, and all you can do about it is mumble some pathetic warnings about how they better not do that again or there will be consequences.

You know your empire's crumbling when you even think that there is an Axis of Evil.

You know your empire's crumbling when a rag-tag military hodge-podge of irregulars has you pinned down in an endless fight you can't win, but also can't lose.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're too dumb to even ban Humvees as a first step toward ending your dependency on a foreign-owned crucial resource.

You know your empire's crumbling when you trade your prior moral leadership on human rights issues for global disgust at your torture, 'extraordinary rendition' (a.k.a. kidnaping for torture) and the dismantling of nine centuries worth of civil liberties progress.

You know your empire's crumbling when you blow off international law that you once helped create, and undermine the institutions of international governance that you once helped build.

You know your empire's crumbling when opinion polls confirm that every month you're more and more despised throughout the world.

You know your empire's crumbling when you can't even pull off the hanging of a tin-pot murderous former dictator without turning him into a hero.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're the richest country in the world, but nearly 50 million of your people don't have basic health care coverage.

You know your empire's crumbling when the World Health Organization ranks your healthcare system 37th 'best' in the world, just above Slovenia, and just below Costa Rica. (And far below Colombia, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.)

You know your empire's crumbling when instead of making it easier for citizens to obtain a higher education, you're making it harder and more expensive.

You know your empire's crumbling when your government gives tax breaks to industries as a reward for exporting your jobs elsewhere.

You know your empire's crumbling when the so-called 'opposition' party can't even turn that obscenity into a viable campaign theme and use it to clobber the worst emperor in your history.

You know your empire's crumbling when your middle class has been stagnant for three decades, while the wealth of the hyper-rich continues to climb through the roof.

You know your empire's crumbling when your reaction to that is to exacerbate the problem by enacting tax policies that massively increase further still the gap between the rich and the rest.

You know your empire's crumbling when the predatory class has taken over your government and is stripping the country of everything not bolted down to the floor. And then it sells the floor itself, as well, to your rivals.

You know your empire's crumbling when you're spending tens of billions of dollars you don't own on new nuclear warheads and space weapons that don't work, to be used against an enemy you don't have.

You know your empire's crumbling when one of your cities drowns and your government does next to nothing before, during and after.

You know your empire's crumbling when a massive environmental nightmare is looming around the corner, and your emperor not only ignores it, but claims it isn't real while taking steps to exacerbate it.

You know your empire's crumbling when your emperor is warned by a CIA briefer of an imminent terrorist attack of vast proportions, and responds by remaining on vacation and dismissing the briefer with the words: "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

You know your empire's crumbling when the same emperor drops everything to fly across the country from his vacation home in order to sign a bill intervening on the wrong side of a personal medical drama involving a single family.

You know your empire's crumbling when gays and immigrants are used as diversionary issues to keep people from thinking about the pillaging of their country and their wallets actually taking place. And it works.

You know your empire's crumbling when people are getting more religious and less scientific, not the other way around.

You know your empire's crumbling when your political leaders start to be chosen by dynastic rules of succession.

And you especially know your empire's crumbling when the most idiotic child of one of the least accomplished leaders in its history is not only crowned as the next emperor, but is even revered for a time by most of the public as a great one.

Rome? Britain? Spain?

At this rate we'll be lucky to end up like Belgium.

capt said...

"you are never let down"


And yet they politicians find a way to best themselves at being a let down.

UGH!


capt

corky said...

Hola Amigos!

Good to you see you guys are still at it! Trolls killed the MSNBC Countdown message board.Karl Rove has unleahed an army of hate filled young Republican frat boys to disrupt the free exchange of truth. They are everywhere. You think Libby will get any justice or just a few weeks at federal country club? We have imprisioned millions for smoking weed yet people who commit treason get squat. What a world, what a world!

Saladin said...

Corky! How the heck are ya??

capt said...

Hey Corky!

Hope you are doing well.

If convicted I am certain there will be a pardon.

The multi-millionaire sellers of lies have a huge market share and their childrens children will sing songs of praise for the most excellent liars on the planet.



UGH!

capt

capt said...

Two new threads!