[Audio Version]

(2007-02-02) — The prosecution in the perjury trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former vice presidential chief of staff, today continued to cast doubt on Mr. Libby’s claim that he “misremembered” details about events that led up to his failure to break a law against leaking a CIA agent’s name to reporters.

The prosecution called an FBI agent to the stand yesterday to testify that Mr. Libby, who is not charged with illegally revealing the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, “feigned surprise” during an FBI interview when reminded of conversations he had with reporters during which he broke no laws.

In a dramatic moment, the prosecutor turned from the FBI agent to the jury and said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, if you were given the amazing privilege of speaking to a real journalist from a famous publication or TV network, wouldn’t you remember every detail, every word, every gesture, every pregnant pause? Of course you would. That brush with greatness would be seared in your memory — a treasured story you would pass on to your children and your children’s children. And yet, Mr. Libby wants us to believe he can’t recall what he said to reporters about deeds for which he now appears before you unindicted.”

[Audio Version]

(2007-01-02) — President George Bush today weighed in on the controversy over the treatment of Saddam Hussein in the final moments before the former Iraqi president’s hanging last Saturday.

A cellphone video of the scene on YouTube.com, and elsewhere online, records several male voices in the death chamber shouting insults at the soon-to-be-late former dictator.

Mr. Bush, who has previously hailed the execution of the tyrant as another step in Iraq’s march toward freedom, said today that perhaps those who insulted Mr. Hussein should have been “penalized for taunting.”

“I think the ref should have thrown the flag,” said Mr. Bush. “There’s a certain professionalism and protocol you expect when a man who slaughtered your friends and relatives is about to die before your very eyes. I believe they probably hurt Saddam’s feelings and the ref should have given them 15 yards of rope, backed them up and made them take the down over.”

(2007-01-01) — Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi today defended Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, as “the ideal pick for judiciary committee chairman” after the House Ethics Committee sanctioned Rep. Conyers for using taxpayer-funded staffers for political campaign work, babysitting and personal errands.

“I can think of no one better to head up oversight of the federal courts and law enforcement,” said Rep. Pelosi, “than a man like John Conyers who understands the subtleties of the law, the gray areas of ethics, and the potential for corruption even in the hearts and minds of those with legal training, who have sworn to uphold that law.”

“The country doesn’t need a naive neophyte,” she said, “but rather someone with demonstrated experience in pushing the ethical envelope, blurring the line, and in fact stepping over that line. Only a mind forged in the cauldron of ethical transgression will have the insight to spot opportunities for corruption in our judiciary system.”

Mrs. Pelosi, who has already said that impeaching President George Bush is “off the table”, nevertheless noted that if circumstances should change her mind, Rep. Conyers could “boldly lead the charge in drafting articles of impeachment thanks to his deep, personal understanding of what makes a politician unfit to serve.”

(2006-12-22) — A day after eight U.S. Marines were charged in connection with the killing of 20 Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, al Qaeda and Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr announced they would begin prosecuting their own fighters who “inadvertently cause civilian deaths” in a series of “jihadi atrocity trials.”

On the morning of November 19, 2005, Marines in a convoy responded to an ambush that killed a member of their unit by conducting a house-to-house search for enemy fighters, who often hide among women and children, and always dress as civilians. If convicted by a military tribunal of unpremeditated murder, four of the Marines charged could face life in prison.

In a joint statement, Mr. al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda in Iraq said, “If the Great Satan can bring its troops to justice for violating rules of engagement, then so can we. It’s against our rules and our religion to inadvertently kill innocent civilians in war time.”

“We will prosecute any suicide bomber who accidentally, rather than intentionally, kills civilians,” the statement said. “We have sent them to commit premeditated atrocity and massacre and we expect them to operate according to those rules of engagement.”

The terror groups acknowledged they may have to conduct some of the trials posthumously, “but if any of our martyrs are found guilty, we can always execute justice on their surviving relatives.”

(2006-12-21) — Clinton administration National Security Adviser Samuel ‘Sandy’ Berger today said he “still can’t say for sure” what happened to several classified documents he removed from the National Archives in October 2003, but that they may have gone up in smoke.

Mr. Berger, who was convicted of the crime, fined $50,000, sentenced to 100 hours of community service and barred from the Archives for three years, allegedly smuggled out some of the documents in his socks.

Today his attorney released a statement from Mr. Berger in response to this week’s report on the Inspector General’s probe of the case.

According to Mr. Berger’s own account: “Twas nigh upon Christmas, and down in my socks I secretly stuffed those archival docs. My stockings I hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that the FBI wouldn’t look there.”

Later in his testimony he admits the documents may have fallen from his stockings into the fireplace: “As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; so up through the chimney in ashes they flew. Thus my secrets were safe, and Bill Clinton’s were too.”

A spokesman from the Inspector General’s office expressed skepticism about Mr. Berger’s new story, but said “it has a ring of familiarity.”

In unrelated news, the New York Historical Society announced today it would launch an investigation into the disappearance of its copy of Clement Clark Moore’s poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.

(2006-12-16) — After a botched execution that took 34 minutes to end a convicted murderer’s life, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has suspended all death sentences until a commission can review lethal-injection procedures “to ensure they don’t inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their helpless victims.”

In a gesture of goodwill, Florida’s leading association of murderers also announced a temporary hold on premeditated and/or serial killings as well as brutal rapes, according to a spokesman, “until we can determine if some of our victims experience discomfort or pain.”

The Sunshine State Coalition of Capital Criminals released the statement through its ACLU attorney, pledging “a full-out investigation of our procedures to determine their constitutionality.”

Concerns about the comfort of the state’s execution method revived this week when Angel Nieves Diaz, who spent more than two and a half decades on death row for a 1979 murder, seemed to clench his jaw and grimace during the normally-painless death penalty procedure.

The eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishments, however experts note that 27 years on death row is not unusual.

(12-15-2006) — Democrat Gov. Jon S. Corzine today celebrated the New Jersey state legislature’s approval yesterday of a homosexual civil union bill which had been mandated by the state Supreme Court seven weeks ago.

“We rejoice to do the will of our wise, black-robed guardians,” said Gov. Corzine. “We have moved a step closer to true the progressive government enjoyed by our comrades in Iran, who also delight in complying with their Guardian Council.”

Democrats in the state House celebrated what one called “our eager obedience to the court’s mandate.”

“It’s so much easier to make laws when the court tells us what to write in advance,” said one unnamed Democrat, “It saves us months of wrestling with the issues, and we no longer have to discern the will of the ignorant masses. We just do what we’re told.”

(2006-09-29) — According to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 89 percent of Democrats believe it’s more likely that they will personally be subjected to NSA wiretaps and CIA waterboarding, than it is that Islamic terrorists will attempt another attack on U.S. soil.

The results come in the wake of Congressional passage of President Bush’s terrorist detainee and NSA wiretap proposals designed to prevent future attacks.

“The only thing we have to fear,” said one unnamed Democrat Senator, “is Bush himself.”

The source noted that al Qaeda is not a “legitimate threat”, since the so-called terror group has mounted only one successful operation on U.S. soil in the past six years.

“In that same time, Bush has ordered many wiretaps and the CIA has tortured lots of detainees,” he said. Then he asked rhetorically, “Which one presents a clear and present danger: Bush or Bin Laden?”

The anonymous senator also noted that the al Qaeda leader’s effectiveness has been neutralized because, “Bin Laden has been virtually dead since President Clinton nearly killed him years ago.”

(2006-09-16) — The Senate Armed Services committee this week will consider a bill designed to break the impasse with the Bush administration over the interrogation of terrorist detainees.

The new approach, dubbed ‘Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell’ by supporters, would sidestep thorny questions about compliance with Geneva Convention Common Article III, and “get the Central Intelligence Agency out of the intrusive business of prying into people’s personal lives,” according to the text of the proposed measure.

Four Republican senators on the panel, who have worked to block the president’s request for greater authority to extract intelligence data from terror suspects, are said to be open to considering the new protocol which would also prevent the CIA or the military from violating the separation of church and state.

“A terrorist detainee’s role in Islam’s jihad against the west is an inherently religious topic,” said one unnamed senate aide, “I believe it’s one of the five pillars of Islam. Questions about another human’s religious beliefs are what the Geneva Conventions call ‘outrages upon human dignity’.”

Republican Senators John McCain, Susan Collins, Lindsey Graham and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner have indicated they might support such a compromise measure, the source said, “especially if it would improve America’s image among the people who have committed their own lives to our destruction.”

“It would put the burden of moral responsibility on the enemy,” he said. “Ultimately, we believe it will win the hearts and minds of violent Muslim extremists so they will abandon their suicidal obsession with destroying the Great Satan and his minions.”

(2006-09-15) — Just a day after the Senate Armed Services committee rebuffed the Bush administration’s efforts to allow aggressive interrogation techniques on captured terror suspects, a spokesman for al Qaeda praised the committee’s 15-9 vote and said it would, in turn, make its prisoner treatment protocols more humane.

“We were inspired by the humanitarianinfidels in the Senate to update our own procedures,” said the unnamed al Qaeda spokesman in an audiotape released through Al Jazeera’s CNN news division. “We have approved a three-step plan aimed at improving our humanitarian image around the world.”

According to the source, al Qaeda has already issued the following new guidelines to its terror cells worldwide via overnight donkey courier:
1) Avoid taking prisoners.
2) Use a sharp sword and a brisk side-to-side motion.
3) Grant a speedy trial after beheading.

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who spearheaded the effort to block the president’s proposal, welcomed the al Qaeda announcement as “a positive and hopeful step toward full moral equivalency between the warring superpowers.”