Quotes from Steve Martini

declarations and clearance documents

The last thing the American president needed was news that China was about to erase his airpower edge in the Western Pacific.

their way to becoming

for divorce. You don't kill to prevent things you don't know about. His

Some US leaders invited the destitute of the world to cross their leaking borders with assurances that they would be entitled to the same.

They extolled America as the "great melting pot" and in the next breath engaged in dangerous games, pitting one group against another, then summed it all up by saying that "Americans needed to come together!

Susan Hawley, I suspect, is a woman much in demand in the rarefied zone of political nightlife in this city. She is the ultimate ornament to be hung from the arm of important political figures or captains of industry during quiet dinner meetings. In her commercial dealings, hundred-dollar bills appear in considerable quantity in her purse the morning after, like fishes and loaves in the basket after the Sermon on the Mount.

Every government on the globe was crawling up your behind to keep tabs on you like you were their puppet.

America was in decline. While the United States was distracted with its Mideast adventures and its myopic focus on terrorism, China was busy investing in long-term infrastructure and industry, grabbing up critical global resources—oil, metals, and rare earth among others.

contagion perhaps of the disease that ultimately took the

America's partisan divide went global.

The reach of federal criminal statutes was troubling to Joselyn. They had become so broad that they virtually mimicked every state crime. The protection of double jeopardy had become a joke. If a defendant was acquitted at the state level, but the crime violated notions of political rectitude, the defendant would be tried again at the federal level. This was now done routinely in high-profile cases where political points could be made by a president or his attorney general. While

big brown eyeballs do a quick roll around the inside of the room.

My partner has no use for what passes as journalism these days, particularly on the tube. According to Harry, they spend too much time in deep admiration for politicians who show particular skill in lying, so much so that they have now institutionalized the destruction of public ethics by elevating deceit to a statecraft called "spin." It is no longer the lie that matters but the qualitative fashion in which it is told. We

should interest you," says Thorpe. "The man who was killed in Vegas fought off his assailant at least long enough to give us a clue. Under his fingernails we took some scrapings, found tissue, and did a DNA profile. We were unable to match it to any known individual

I'VE picked the Golden Delicious from

them both around, two figures dancing in the shadows in a death waltz. He lashed out wildly and spun his body, picking up speed like a bronco trying to dislodge the man from his back.

Do you know that months now go by and the military isn't paid? Soldiers and sailors, who were once gods, are now treated like trash," said Mirnov. "When a government starts doing that, they are asking for trouble." He

What they say about sunlight is true. It is often the best disinfectant.

sitting in the booth and I get the same result. Either his battery is dead—it happens fast on flights if you forget to put it on airplane mode or to turn it off—or his phone was off. Perhaps

that born leaders don't fit the corporate mold, that I was destined for bigger things than hitching my wagon to someone else's star.

American leaders sat by watching as vast sectors of their heavy industry hemorrhaged and ultimately fled offshore. Factories that didn't leave closed down. Some politicians actually assisted these industries

they woke up to realize that many of these corporations, multinational American giants, were no longer paying taxes on their overseas income. Wonder of wonders! To cap it off, these selfsame leaders couldn't agree on a feasible method to encourage or force these companies to bring the money home. To the contrary they passed tax laws that actually discouraged this.

China had become America's banker for a simple reason. The United States needed ever-increasing infusions of cash.