Bent Corner

Larry Johnson of No Quarter links to an article in the Washington Post that details conditions troops being treated at Walter Reed Army Center as out-patients. It’s pretty disgusting.

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan’s room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

Call me a liberal, but I don’t think our troops injured in Iraq should ever have to live someplace where phrases such as “mouse droppings” or “black mold” are used to describe the living conditions.

At a bare minimum, American service members injured in Iraq receiving out-patient medical treatment should be treated no worse then the Bush twins. If Jenna and Barbara were receiving medical treatment on an out-patient basis. Not that they would ever be caught serving their country. They might be caught using fake ID’s so they can illegally drink, but you won’t ever see these two doing anything even remotely associated with patriotism. Even the fake kind that is popular with so many Republicans.

This is one of the results of waging war on the cheap.

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I hate to do this, but I feel the need to once again weigh in on the whole Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirt controversy. I promised myself I wasn’t going to blog about it any longer. I don’t want to be known as the Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirt guy. It might already be too late for that. Also, there are other bloggers doing a much better job with it then I ever could. Even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. Look to the The Consumerist. It is the number one place on the Internets to find out the latest on the whole Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirt controversy.

This morning I received an email Google Alert telling me that “BentCorner.com” had appeared in a news story. I set up a Google Alert so I would know when my blog appeared in a newspaper article. Most of the time I know ahead of time when my blog or myself is mentioned in a newspaper article. The reporter doing the article usually contacts me to ask questions. I believe it’s something people in the news business refer to as professionalism. Sometimes like in the case with The Miami Herald, the reporter didn’t even try to contact me to get facts. Instead they just made stuff up.

This morning’s Google Alert pointed me to something called the American Thinker. I’ve never heard of it. That seems like a shame too since I am an American and I think about things. It sounds like the American Thinker would be right up my alley.

When I went there, I realized two things. It’s not really a newspaper. It appears to be a blog. A rather nice looking blog, but it’s still a blog. Also, it appears to have a right-wing slant to it. That would account for me not knowing anything about it.

This from the article about the Nazi t-shirt:

Back in November the blog BentCorner.com revealed that Wal-Mart was selling a T-shirt that displayed the Nazi Totenkopf–the “death head” emblem, which was worn by Adolf Hitler’s personal guards. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) sent a letter, signed by a bipartisan group of 21 representatives, to Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee Scott Jr. asking the retail giant to remove the shirts immediately from store shelves.

So far so good. I would have pointed out that Rep. Barny Frank (D, gay) also signed the letter. Nothing gets Right-Wingers more worked up then a good Barny Frank story. It’s right up with a hatchet job on Hillary Clinton or something that attempts to disprove Global Warming by quoting the Bible.

The only issue I had with the piece over at the American Thinker was this:

Even though Wal-Mart did take immediate action, directing all stores to remove the shirts and deleting the item barcode from their computer system, about three dozen of their 3300 stores have not successfully removed all shirts.

This just is not true. Though Wal-Mart said they were taking immediate action, they never did. They allowed these shirts to remain on their sales floor and be sold to anyone with an extra $7.88 in their pocket. People continued to find these shirts at their local Wal-Mart weeks and even months after this story originally broke. The Consumerist did an excellent job chronicling the on going status of these shirts.

Though Wal-Mart did delete the barcode from their computer system, it took them almost a whole month to do so. Even then, people were reporting that they could still buy the shirt. They would simply take another similarly priced shirt to the register and ask the person (Wal-Mart prefers to call them “associates”) to scan the other shirt.

Make no mistake. Wal-Mart continued to sell these shirts. If your local Wal-Mart no longer sells them, it’s because someone bought them all up. It’s not because Wal-Mart actually removed them.

U.S. Rep. John Murtha has come up with a creative way of putting a stop to Bush’s war in Iraq. It involves placing conditions on how Bush can spend the $93.4 billion in new combat funds.

1. The Pentagon would have to certify that troops being sent to Iraq are “fully combat ready” with training and equipment.
2. Troops must have at least one year at home between combat deployments.
3. Combat assignments could not be extended beyond one year.
4. A “stop-loss” program (back door draft) forcing soldiers to extend their enlistment periods would be prohibited.

It’s a good idea. Instead of cutting off the funds, it places common sense conditions on how those funds are to be spent. The conditions are things that really cannot be argued against.

Unless of course Republicans want to argue that troops should be sent to Iraq that are not combat ready. That troops should be sent to Iraq that have not been home for at least one year. That troops should be forced to continue serving in the military even after their enlistments are over. That combat tours should last longer then a year.

How are the chickenhawks going to argue for any of that?

So far, they don’t seem to be arguing against the actual details of the plan. No, they are instead criticizing the end results of such a plan. It will be impossible to continue Bush’s war in Iraq with such conditions placed on the war’s financing. This plan may actually work. It may actually do some good. Where a non-binding resolution does nothing, this can actually bring an end to Bush’s perpetual war in Iraq.

The final non-binding vote was a non-binding 246 to a non-binding 182. Seventeen Republicans actually voted for the non-binding resolution.

What a waste of time. What’s the point? To let Bush know that they don’t approve of his war? Couldn’t they just do what I do and write a blog post? This non-binding resolution doesn’t do anything. A non-binding resolution has as much teeth to it as a blog post.

It seems a shame though that they didn’t allow the non-voting members of the House to vote. Since it was non-binding, what’s the difference? The representatives from Puerto Rico, Washington DC, the Virgin Islands, and Guam are allowed to pretend to be actual congressmen. They are not allowed to actually vote. This non-binding Iraq war resolution sounds like it would have been right up their non-voting alley.

If they were allowed to vote.

Non-Binding Link

Finally XM Radio does something that I can appreciate. Something positive. Something that doesn’t make me wish I bought a Sirius satellite radio instead of an XM radio. They are moving liberal/progressive talker Ed Schultz from a single one hour on tape delay to the whole three hours. His show will also be live. He will fill the time Noon - 3pm time slot that was being filled by The Al Franken Show. Franken is leaving the Air America Network to run for the U.S. Senate.

XM used to air the complete Ed Schultz show on tape delay at 3PM before moving him to a different channel and cutting him to one hour. The move never made sense. In fact, I actually emailed XM and complained. Ed Schultz is one of the few progressive talkers that is actually successful at radio. He has an audience. His show generates revenue. The man has real ability behind the microphone.

In other words, his show is the complete opposite of most of the Air America lineup.

Don’t get me wrong. I listen to most of the shows on Air America. Though the hosts have passion for what they talk about, most lack even basic fundamental skills behind the mic. Most podcasters are more professional and polished behind the microphone then some of the Air American hosts.

It’s not enough to simply be passionate in what you believe. You must also have actual radio skills. Though I don’t agree with most of what Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity have to say, I have to admit that they have superb radio skills. These two guys know what they are doing when it comes to doing radio.

So does Ed Schultz.

Yesterday while listening to the Sam Seder show on Air America, I heard the host talk about Ed Schultz joining the Air America lineup on XM channel 167. Instead of treating the news as something positive, he treated it as something negative. In fact, he advised listeners to call XM and complain.

Huh?

He told listeners to call and ask XM to not add Ed Schultz, but to instead add liberal talker Thom Hartmann. The reasoning being that XM channel 167 is called AIR AMERICA and Ed is not part of the Air America network.

Personally, I don’t really care. I just want to listen to the best liberal or progressive or non-conservative radio that I can. That means Ed Schultz. I’ve never heard of Thom Hartmann. Not to say that he is bad. I’ve just never heard his show. From what I gather, his show is on Air America only on the weekends. His show is sandwiched between repeats of other Air America shows. I would think that if he was better then Ed Schultz, Air America would have moved Thom Hartmann to Jerry Springer’s old time slot.

Yes, Air America put Jerry Springer on the air. The same Jerry Springer that does a TV show that features transvestite prostitutes that marry their brothers.

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a hard time believing that a radio host that isn’t good enough to replace Jerry Springer on Air America is somehow better then Ed Schultz on XM.

From the February 7 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club:

ROBERTSON: You know there’s a lady named Greta Van Susteren, who’s on Fox.

WATTS: Yeah.

ROBERTSON: Got a very popular –

WATTS: Oh, I saw her.

ROBERTSON: She looked gorgeous last night, but she had a really serious facial deal. And it did a wonder –

WATTS: Sister needed help.

ROBERTSON: Sister got the help.

WATTS: Sister — she needed some help, yeah.

ROBERTSON: But she got it. She just looks great, and she’s so popular.

WATTS: But have you ever seen someone who got it too much, and so they come up to you, and they’re like, “Pat, how are you doing? It’s so good to see you.”

ROBERTSON: Yeah, they got the eyes like they’re Oriental, and, you know, it’s all pulled. So, make sure you do it right. But — it’s — that’s one way you can go, but it’ll cost you five or six thousand dollars probably. All right. What else?

This racist crackpot once ran for President. Granted, he ran as a Republican, but he ran for President none the less. I can just imagine a Pat Robinson presidency where he sits around the oval office doing impersonations of various racist ethnic stereotypes.

Link

I don’t care how much money she’s raised or how much money she’s raised for other politicians. I don’t care that her last name has a certain ring to it that hearkens back to a time when someone much more suited for the job of President sat in the Oval Office. More suited then the guy presently sitting there.

I won’t be voting for Hillary Clinton.

The simple reason I wont be voting for Hillary Clinton is because of her vote on Iraq. In October 2002 she voted for the resolution authorizing President Bush to take military action against Iraq. Big mistake. She has stated in the past that she wasn’t sorry for her vote. Now that she is running for President, she says that she wishes she had not voted the way she had, but she blames the Bush administration for false information about Iraq.

Frankly, I’m not impressed.

She and other elected leaders could have and should have used the power of their office to press the Bush administration into proving the case against Iraq. She now blames her vote on Iraq on Bush. She claims that it was Bush “who misled this country and this Congress“.

The problem is that she believed him.

Hillary Clinton asking to be my President is a lot like someone who was ripped off by one of those stupid Nigerian email banking scams asking to be my money manger. For a lie to work, it takes two people. The person telling the lie and the person believing the lie.

The fact is she failed to even consider that Bush was wrong when he claimed Iraq posed a threat. The fact that she wont even admit it was a mistake for voting the way she did is embarrassing. I think it says a lot about her character. She wont admit her mistakes. I’ve had enough of that particular character flaw in my President.

Also, I will never vote for anyone that wears a Yankee hat. Especially if they are not from New York. Hillary Clinton is from Chicago. She used to be a Cubs fan. I guess I could understand someone being a Yankee fan if they were raised that way from a very early age. If they were brainwashed into being a Yankee fan. With Hillary, that isn’t the case. If we were to elect Hilary to be President, who’s to say she wouldn’t wear that retched Yankees hat everywhere she goes?

At least that’s what Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) believes. During a recent hearing on climate change, Rohrabacher questioned part of an IPCC report on climate change that among other things, reported a period of dramatic climate change that occurred 55 million years ago.

We don’t know what those other cycles were caused by in the past. Could be dinosaur flatulence, you know, or who knows?

Link (with video)

I realize it’s not as important as Anna Nicole Smith dying, but a local Marine serving in Iraq has been injured. This from the local newspaper, the Herald-Mail:

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dane Fonte of Smithsburg was injured Wednesday afternoon in Iraq when he was hit by a grenade on a rooftop, Fonte’s parents said Saturday. The 21-year-old Fonte is being treated at Bethesda (Md.) Naval Hospital for bone fractures around his right eye, which also received some retina damage.

That’s one word you don’t ever want associated with your retina. The word “damage”. My hopes and prayers go out to Dane and his family.

I tried looking online for more news about this attack, but I couldn’t find anything. The only results I got were for the before mentioned article in the local newspaper. I then tried to do a less structured search. Instead of searching for Dane Fonte, I searched for MARINE+INJURED+IRAQ+GRENADE. I got lots and lots of results. None of them were about Dane Fonte though. It seems there is no shortage of news articles about Marines being injured in Iraq with grenades. Just none about 21 year old Dane Fonte.

UPDATE - The Herald-Mail updated their report. Here is what was published in today’s eddition (11 February):

SMITHSBURG - U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Dane Fonte was injured Wednesday afternoon in Iraq after a grenade exploded during an engagement in Anbar province, his parents said Saturday.

The incident happened while Fonte was on a rooftop during several hours of off-and-on fighting with insurgents, but he managed to avoid the brunt of the explosion, Jeff and Carlann Christopher said.

Fonte, 21, is being treated at Bethesda (Md.) Naval Hospital for bone fractures around his right eye, which also received some retina damage, according to his parents.

“That’s the major concern,” said Fonte’s mother, who added that wounds to her son’s leg and arm were sutured on Saturday.

Though his eye now is patched, Carlann Christopher said her son could detect some amount of light since he was flown from Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, a suspected staging area for insurgents fighting U.S. troops.

“There’s 10 fingers, there’s 10 toes, his personality is there,” she said in an interview from the hospital.

She said Fonte’s superior officer, Cpl. Joshua Pitcher, was not as fortunate, and now is “fighting for his life” after receiving more severe head trauma from the same device.

Jeff Christopher received a cell phone call about his son being taken to the hospital Thursday afternoon while he was at Lowe’s in Hagerstown.

He wasn’t told the extent of his son’s injuries, but left the store and immediately drove to Twigg Cycles in Hagerstown, where his wife works, and went to the hospital.

“We didn’t talk a whole lot,” Carlann Christopher said.

Her husband, a Marine Corps veteran, has traveled to Bethesda several times in the last few months with other members of the Hagerstown chapter of the U.S. Military Veterans Motorcycle Club. They also have traveled to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., to support other military personnel injured in the line of duty.

While with their son, Carlann Christopher said Fonte’s sergeant, who lost his legs in October, was one of a number of people who have stopped by to visit him.

“He came in to see him walking on prosthetics,” she said.

“This place is a living miracle,” she said. “The outpouring of love … There’s nothing we could ever want for.”

“The nurses and doctors at Bethesda Naval have been the best,” her husband added.

Despite attempts by his father to deter him from joining the Marine Corps, Fonte enlisted immediately after graduating from Smithsburg High School in 2003, his mother said.

He was deployed to Iraq in September, and was scheduled to complete his term of service with the 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment in August.

“He’s just worried about his guys still over there,” Jeff Christopher said. “That’s all he’s concerned about.”

Fonte’s younger sister, Casey, 18, said her brother was “out of it” when she first saw him Thursday.

On Friday, he was laughing and telling jokes, she said Saturday.

“He still has all of his body parts, thank God,” she said while cleaning her brother’s room at their parents’ house off Vodys Court in Smithsburg, where his Marine Corps unit’s colors fluttered in a chilly wind.

A standout football player and wrestler in his years in high school, Fonte’s mother anticipates a hearty welcome home from the community for her son, who she said has an infectious smile and personal drive to be the best.

“I think if Dane ran for mayor of Smithsburg, I’d think he’d win hands down,” she said.