Hard drinking is flourishing among astronauts, which describes a cluster of the American elite, leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party, MP Vladimir Zhirinovsky announced yesterday commenting among others a scandal at NASA. "The American National Aeronautics and Space Administration has analyzed activity of its astronauts and other staff and it turned out that many of them overdosed alcoholic drinks. Plainly speaking, hard drinking is flourishing among astronauts. It is a very significant moment - it characterizes a cluster of the American elite," Zhirinovsky said. According to the member of the Russian State Duma, the current situation in the USA shows to the international community all signs of decline of the empire; this is direct evidence of an unhealthy situation in society in general. "We remember numerous cases of massacres of students and pupils at schools and colleges in the United States. We remember outrageous cases of denial of assistance to civilians in disaster areas and looting that followed it. We see man-caused catastrophes and growth of crime rate; the situation with drugs is especially alarming. Today’s condition of the aboriginal population in the USA is not much better, than in the times of the first migration wave, when first emigrants were involved in robbery killing aboriginal citizens. Now they are in a more disfranchised position than ever and this is established legally," Zhirinovsky is quoted as saying by a REGNUM correspondent. According to him, US foreign policy is more and more aimed at destroying other nations - Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Libya. "The USA is a country hated today by most part of the globe. The USA takes top position in the world in number of antagonistic attitudes. All this clearly says that the country has no future and is splitting to the ranks of marginal states. In this case, we are not gloating over the misfortunes of others; this all is very sorrowful. The decline of America is coming. Such country cannot compete for world leadership," Zhirinovsky said.