Silvio Berlusconi to resign

[Ravi]

It's just a shame he can't be an American Vice President because he and Herman Cain would make a great tag team.

 

[blastoff]

He'll have more time to devote to hot young women.

 

[Si modo]

It's just a shame he can't be an American Vice President because he and Herman Cain would make a great tag team.

 

[Ravi]

It's just a shame he can't be an American Vice President because he and Herman Cain would make a great tag team.

This might be the truest thing I've ever posted.

 

[waltky]

Berlusconi reduced to havin' cronies grovel for pardon...

Italy ex-PM Berlusconi in angry tirade at jail ruling
2 August 2013 > Italy's former PM Silvio Berlusconi has broadcast an angry video message after his prison sentence for tax fraud was upheld by the country's highest court.

Berlusconi said he was the innocent victim of "an incredible series of accusations and trials that had nothing to do with reality". The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office. Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age. While he is expected to serve out his sentence as house arrest, he has the option of asking to do community service instead, with the deadline for the application not expected to fall until mid-October.

'Judicial harassment'

The ruling by Rome's Court of Cassation, against which he cannot appeal, came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court. In an emotional nine-minute video, Berlusconi denounced the decision as "based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights". "No-one can understand the onslaught of real violence that has been directed against me following an incredible series of accusations and trials that don't have any foundation in reality," he said.

He described the more that 50 court cases he has faced as "genuine judicial harassment that is unmatched in the civilised world". "In exchange for the commitments I have made over almost 20 years in favour of my country and coming almost at the end of my public life, I have been rewarded with accusations and a verdict that is founded on absolutely nothing, that takes away my personal freedom and my political rights."

He criticised the country's judicial record, saying: "Is this the Italy that we want? Is this the Italy that we love? Absolutely not." It is the billionaire businessman's first definitive conviction after decades of criminal prosecutions. The case concerns deals that his firm Mediaset made to purchase TV rights to US films. The former prime minister was sentenced to four years in prison at the conclusion of the trial in October last year, though this was automatically reduced to a year under a 2006 pardon law.

'Stay calm'

See also:

Berlusconi aides seek presidential pardon
Aug 3,`13 -- A Silvio Berlusconi loyalist warned on Saturday of a possible "civil war" if the ex-premier's punishment for tax-fraud conviction is not lifted, as his aides maneuvered to win a presidential pardon so he can avoid a prison term and a ban on holding public office.

Berlusconi stalwarts also urged the 10 million Italians who voted for the conservative leader in this year's election to fill the streets of Rome on Sunday. Italy's highest court on Thursday upheld Berlusconi's four-year prison sentence, the first time that the media mogul was definitely convicted and sentenced in two decades of trials and other criminal probes. A law to reduce prison overcrowding slashes his sentence to one year and since he is over 70, he can choose house confinement or perform social services instead of going to prison. Berlusconi insists he is a victim of prosecutors and judges who he says have leftist sympathies. "In this country, democracy has been mutilated" by the high court's decision, Daniela Santanche, one of Berlusconi's closest associates, told Sky TG24 TV.

His political associates and party officials pressed their `'save Silvio" strategy on several fronts after huddling with him on Friday evening. Berlusconi, in a recorded video message a few hours after Italy's supreme court upheld the conviction, had sounded shaken but defiant, vowing to galvanize his party's base. Renato Brunetta, a leader of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, said Saturday he and a former Senate president, Renato Schifani, have requested a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who can issue pardons. Napolitano hasn't publicly commented about the prospects of a pardon. But, according to the Italian constitution, only Berlusconi, his lawyer or a family member can ask for a presidential pardon, which could wipe out or lessen the punishment but not the conviction itself.

Fueling political tension was longtime Berlusconi loyalist Sandro Bondi's assessment that Italy "must find a solution or risk civil war" if the 76-year-old billionaire businessman is forced to serve time and is stripped of his Senate seat. Whatever the government's fate, Berlusconi isn't about to start serving his sentence or lose his seat. He has until mid-October to decide whether to serve the year's sentence at home or perform some socially useful service. And Senate procedures to strip him of his post will likely take months. Exposing raw nerves in Premier Enrico Letta's coalition, Deputy Economy Minister Stefano Fassina denounced the request for a pardon as "an unacceptable provocation" and Bondi's words as "bordering on subversion."

Letta's fragile coalition risks collapse if Berlusconi's party withdraws support. Berlusconi's political heir, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has said that maybe he and fellow ministers who support the media mogul should quit in a show of anger over the conviction. Letta's center-left Democratic Party won the most votes in February's election for Parliament but not enough to govern alone with a majority in both chambers of the legislature. Democrats reluctantly agreed to a coalition with Berlusconi's conservatives. The alliance has been fraught with tensions for weeks before Berlusconi's conviction made its long-term survival uncertain.

Source

 

[whitehall]

Bill Clinton was accused of just about everything that Berlusconi was accused of and Clinton is a hero to most democrats. What does that tell you about the power of the American liberal press?

 

[Antares]

It's just a shame he can't be an American Vice President because he and Herman Cain would make a great tag team.

This might be the truest thing I've ever posted.

Yes, you are a legend in your own mind.