I mean, there is nothing better to be done with YOUR TAX MONEY, right?
"Stevens takes stand in own defense; Wife earlier faced tough questioning" by Neil A. Lewis, New York Times News Service | October 17, 2008
WASHINGTON - The defense posture was put to the test for most of Thursday with Stevens's wife on the stand. She is a well-known Washington lawyer. Under questioning by Robert Cary, a Stevens lawyer, she was self-assured and straightforward. Asked about some of the undisclosed gifts the family had received, she said they were unwanted. The grill was dangerous and scared her, she testified. The furniture provided in the house by Allen was tasteless, she asserted. She said she never knew that Bill Allen or Veco contributed heavily to the remodeling; she believed the general contractor was a man named Augie Paone, whose bills she paid.
But during cross-examination by Brenda Morris, a prosecutor, her composure wilted noticeably. Morris challenged Stevens's assertion that she did not know many of the laborers worked for Allen, not Paone. She also obliged Stevens to acknowledge that she used staff aides in the senator's office to keep track of her personal accounts at stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman-Marcus. --more--"
WASHINGTON - A combative Senator Ted Stevens jousted angrily with a federal prosecutor yesterday over his relationship with a crooked businessman who provided gifts and thousands of dollars' worth of free work on his house in Alaska.
The famously short-fused Stevens struggled to keep his temper in check as prosecutor Brenda Morris pressed him about the more than $250,000 in renovations and other gifts he received through millionaire businessman Bill Allen, who founded VECO Corp., an oil services company.
The renovations are at the heart of Stevens's corruption trial. The Alaska Republican appeared as his own star witness, trying to convince jurors that he paid every bill he received for his 2000 home renovation project and didn't know he received any freebies.
"I pay my bills wherever I am," Stevens said. "I don't let people buy my lunch or buy my dinner. Wherever I am, I pay my bills."
Nothing like LYING UNDER OATH, 'eh, Ted?
Allen testified earlier in the trial that Stevens knew he wasn't being billed for all the work being done and that he wanted invoices only to protect himself.
"That's just an absolute lie," said Stevens, who sat impassively during that testimony. "I heard it. It's an absolute lie."
That's when you know the other guy is telling the truth: when a politician says he's lying!!!
Stevens suggested that some details may have gotten lost amid the busy life of a senator: committee meetings, long hours and the challenges that come with representing a state four time zones away. And he said the renovations were essentially his wife's project. When renovation bills arrived at his office, Stevens said, his staff members forwarded them to his wife.
"What goes on in the house is Catherine's business," Stevens testified. "What goes on outside is my business."
Yeah, blame it one the wife with a supremely CHAUVANISTIC ATTITUDE!!!
The trial has jeopardized one of the Senate's storied careers. An imposing figure in Alaska politics since before statehood, Stevens is now fighting to hold onto a Senate seat he has held for decades. --more--"
And if Alaskans send him back, then to hell with this nation!!
Nothing like EATING YOUR OWN SHIT, America!!!!!!!
