Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
On January of 2001, regarding the pardon of Marc Rich by President Clinton, Rudy Giuliani said:
Well, I’m shocked that the President of the United States would pardon him. After all, he never paid a price. He got on an airplane, took all his records, and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, where he’s remained a fugitive, and has made untold efforts to try to get the charges reduced, including many, many overtures and entreaties based on the use of influence.
Today, in regards to the Scooter Libby case, Giuliani said:
After evaluating the facts, the President came to a reasonable decision and I believe the decision was correct.
The name of the lawyer who prosecuted Marc Rich?
Rudy Giuliani.
The name of the lawyer who appealed to President Clinton on behalf of Marc Rich?
Scooter Libby.
A circus of the inane.
Posted by Smithers at 10:23 pm in Politics | Permalink | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
Bike Biz:
Future Publishing of Bath has acquired the Australia-based international website Cyclingnews.com from Knapp Communications Pty Ltd.
Future recently bought the GPS-enabled Bikely.com to roll into its Bikeradar.com website.
Spinopsys continues:
The base will remain in Australia with Cyclingnews receiving a much needed make over. To say the site was a dogs breakfast is an understatement. This looks very promising for global cycling coverage.
I would agree that CyclingNews is in need of a new and modern look. The site had not changed much in the last 12 years. However, the benefit of the text driven pages was that it was easy to read and easy to navigate. I hope changes to the site do not make things more cumbersome.
Posted by Smithers at 7:43 pm in Cycling Biz | Permalink | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
Off the bike for 14 days now.
I feel like a fat slug.
Posted by Smithers at 4:14 pm in Training, Health, Fitness | Permalink | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
Astana manager Walter Godefroot will not be attending the Tour start in London. Apparently he has back problems but could it have something to do with former Astana rider and admitted doper Jörg Jaksche stating that Godefroot was fully aware of doping during his time at the helm of Team Telekom?
Italian ace sprinter Alessandro Petacchi’s Tour hangs in the balance after his non-negative test for the asthma drug salbutamol during the recent Giro d’Italia.
Preliminary start list can be found here.
4 days left to sign in for the 2007 Smithers MINNEAPOLIS Tour de France Pool!
Posted by Smithers at 9:38 am in Pro Cycling | Permalink | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
Even the jurors in the Libby case thought he was the unfortunate fall guy for Vice President Cheney. It’s of no surprise to me that the President would let Libby off the hook.
What was initially a bit of a surprise is that he did not pardon him outright. Then I was reminded of that fact that, while still under sanction (fine and probation) Libby can continue to plead the 5th Amendment if he is brought before Congress to testify before an investigative committee. A pardoned Libby would no longer have this 5th Amendment privilege if he no longer faced penalty for his crime.
Is the President (and obviously the Vice President) continuing to protect Libby during his term of office with a pardon coming along in January 2009 as this administration walks out the door?
James Madison once stated:
If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty.
I fully believe the President and Vice President are committing an impeachable offense in commuting the sentence of Libby. What will be done about it? Probably nothing.
Meanwhile we will continue to hear this crap:
Libby is a fine and upstanding person and did not deserve this penalty.
Libby is a liar and an obstructer of justice. He deserved what he got. The only unfortunate aspect is that others who shared this punishment got off.
There was no underlying crime here.
Due to Libby’s lies and mis-direction it was not possible to ever determine if there was an underlying crime.
Clinton pardoned more people who committed worse offenses.
Jesus ‘effing christ when are you people going to get over Clinton? Do you not understand that you lose all credibility to your argument when you point to some guy and say “yea, but he did it too, and way worse!” It would be laughable if it were not so pathetic.
Never-the-less, if you want to play the Clinton game, do you know how many members of the Clinton administration Clinton pardoned? I count only two.
One was Henry Cisneros for a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement for which Cisneros had already copped a plea. The other was John Deutch for leaving some classified information on a laptop for which he was never prosecuted. Both of these cases were basically settled when Clinton pardoned them both during his last month in office.
President Bush, with a year and a half left in office, seems to me to be protecting Libby from jail while also protecting himself and the Vice President from investigation. It’s really remarkable.
Few seem to care.
Posted by Smithers at 7:29 am in Politics | Permalink | No Comments »
