Bent Corner

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Everyone’s favorite son of a millworker John Edwards claimed in his prepared written statement that he had broken it off with his mistress Rielle Hunter in 2006. He wrote:

With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then.

On ABC News Nightline, John Edwards claimed that in 2006 he told his wife Elizabeth about “The Mistake” and asked her forgiveness.

Technology blogger Robert Scoble took this photo of Rielle Hunter on December 30, 2006 in in New Orleans at an Edwards event and was working with the Edwards team.

If he ended his relationship with Rielle Hunter in 2006, why is she there in New Orleans with him?

Why is he insisting that the affair ended in 2006?  I’m guessing because Rielle Hunter’s baby was born on February 27, 2008. It seems Edwards wants to make it look mathematically impossible that he is the baby’s father.

Tags: ABC News Nightline, Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Robert Scoble

Even though Representative Roscoe Bartlett admits that since 2004 he submitted fraudulent incorrect personal financial disclosure forms that he is required to submit because he is a member of Congress, he claims that his taxes filed during that same time period with the Internal Revenue Service are correct.

Why would the two be any different?

When asked by the Frederick News-Post to release copies of his tax returns to the public, Bartlett spokeswoman Lisa Wright said he would not do so because legally he isn’t required to do it.

That doesn’t make any sense. The tax returns should contain the exact same information that is on his personal financial disclosure forms. That information is public record. Granted, that information is fraudulent incorrect, but he claims that he is “planning” on filing an amended personal financial disclosure.

My guess is that his tax returns were just as fraudulent incorrect as his personal financial disclosure. He’s probably just hoping he doesn’t get audited.

Good luck with that Roscoe.

Link

Tags: Congress, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Lisa Wright, Roscoe Bartlett, Taxes

I guess Elizabeth Edwards has issued a statement about her husband’s infidelities and the subsequent lying about it over on Daily Kos.  I don’t know if she actually wrote the words that appear there or if someone from her husband’s staff (if he even still has a staff) wrote the words on her behalf. 

Her concluding statement was interesting. It was:

I ask that the public, who expressed concern about the harm John’s conduct has done to us, think also about the real harm that the present voyeurism does and give me and my family the privacy we need at this time.

Voyeurism? Is that what she thinks is going on here? Webster’s defines voyeurism as “sexual stimulation or satisfaction from looking at naked people, most often without their knowledge.”

I’d argue that there is only one person in this whole mess that was deriving sexual stimulation or satisfaction. His name is John Edwards.

What if John Edwards had won the Democratic Presidential nomination? Imagine what the right-wing would have done with this information in the last week of October. They would have run nonstop commercials showing Edwards with his mistress along with her baby. The same baby that does not have a father listed on the birth certificate. The same baby that we are supposed to take at Edward’s word that is not his.

Knowing what we know now about John Edwards, he never should have pursued the Democratic Presidential nomination for 2008. Anyone that knew John Edwards had been screwing around on his wife in 2006 should for the good of the party and the country have discouraged him from pursuing the nomination. That includes Elizabeth Edwards. If she knew about it.

I’m not convinced that she did.

Tags: Daily Kos, Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, Rielle Hunter, Voyeurism

News broke out this afternoon that former Democratic presidential hopeful and all around fake John Edwards had as the National Enquirer reported earlier, had an extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter. He evidently is still claiming that the woman’s child is not his. Why anyone would trust him at this point is beyond me.

I cannot imagine the pain Elizabeth Edwards is going through right now. Now only is she dying from cancer, she has to deal with this mess. My heart goes out to her.

The timing of this announcement is more then just a coincidence. Not only did he pick a Friday to make this announcement, he chose the first day of the Olympics. People have their attentions elsewhere today.

The mainstream news media really dropped the ball on this. Why was the National Enquirer able to learn about this, but they were not? How pathetic they look. It is no wonder that newspapers are losing more and more readers each and every year. If they actually did their jobs and tried to uncover the truth, maybe people would still be reading them.

Tags: Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards, Rielle Hunter

It seems that Roscoe Bartlett, my elected representative in the U.S. House of Representatives has been less then honest with his finances. The Frederick-News Post uncovered the fact that since 2004, Bartlett underreported or failed to report roughly $1 million in property sales.

As a member of Congress, Bartlett is required by law to disclose details of his finances each year.  He is required to report his earned and unearned income, assets, gifts and travel. By submitting false financial statements, he could be facing up to five years in prison.

Being the man of character that he is, he quickly did what all men of character do - he blamed his wife and son:

“I really was a bit player,” he said. “My son rebuilt the houses; my wife wrote the checks.”

Bartlett also blamed the people that work for him:

Bartlett blamed that error on staff first not reading his handwritten notes correctly, and then his own signing of the finished form without reading it, something he said he shouldn’t have done.

Bartlett also made a series of interest baring loans to various family members.  He failed to declare the money generated from the interest from this loans.  Who even charges their own family interest?

I’m not really sure who he is blaming for that mix up.

Tags: Maryland, Maryland 6th district, Roscoe Bartlett, U.S. House of Representatives

I’ll admit that I thought it was funny that the McCain campaign made a TV commercial that tied Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to Barack Obama.  I thought it was funny to compare the chanting crowds that Barack Obama attracts to the people that flock to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.

Not that I am aware of anyone chanting their names.

You would think that someone from the McCain campaign would first look to see if either Britney Spears or Paris Hilton had any connections to either the McCain campaign or the Republican party. It turns out that Kathy and Rick Hilton, mother and father of Paris Hilton, have donated $4,600 to the McCain campaign.

Oops! One of the first rules in Republican politics is do not piss off the rich white people. John McCain is an idiot.

Kathy Hilton to McCain: This is Where My Money Goes?! [E! Online]

Tags: Barack Obama, Britney Spears, John McCain, Kathy Hilton, Paris Hilton, Rick Hilton

From America’s favorite supermarket tabloid, The Wall Street Journal:

A draft regulation, still being revised and debated, treats most birth-control pills and intrauterine devices as abortion because they can work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus. The regulation considers that destroying “the life of a human being.”

This is unreal. Just when I thought the Bush Administration couldn’t get any worse. What will Bush try to do next, ban the horseless carriage? How about antibiotics? Getting sick is God’s will.

Who are we to interfere with the will of God?

Tags: Abortion, Birth Control, Bush Administration, IUD, The Pill

The National Enquirer is reporting that John Edwards not only has a mistress, 31-year old Rielle Hunter, but also a love child with that mistress.

It would be easy to just dismiss the story as being nothing more then supermarket tabloid who-ha, but the National Enquirer is usually right about this kind of stuff. I can’t imagine the National Enquirer reporting this unless they had proof that it is true.

The linked article is funny in that it documents National Enquirer reporters confronting Edwards at a Los Angeles hotel at 2:40 a.m. Edwards was reportedly leaving Rielle Hunter’s hotel room. The article states that Edwards ducked into a men’s room until hotel security could escort him out and away from the reporters.

Tags: John Edwards, Mistress, National Enquirer, Rielle Hunter

From the AP:

Bowing to President Bush’s demands, the Senate approved and sent the White House a bill Wednesday to overhaul bitterly disputed rules on secret government eavesdropping and shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits complaining they helped the U.S. spy on Americans.

The relatively one-sided vote, 69-28, came only after a lengthy and heated debate that pitted privacy and civil liberties concerns against the desire to prevent terrorist attacks. It ended almost a year of wrangling over surveillance rules and the president’s warrantless wiretapping program that was initiated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House passed the same bill last month, and Bush said he would sign it soon.

Barack Obama was one of the many Democratic Senators to bow to Bush’s demands. Hillary Clinton was not. She voted “Nay“.

Remember Ron Paul? Back when the House voted on the matter, Ron Paul was no where to be found. He didn’t vote.

Tags: Barack Obama, FISA, Fourth Amendment, Hillary Clinton, Ron Paul, Telecommunications, Warrantless Wiretapping

Finally there is justice in the world. Jesse Helms, that racist old coot from North Carolina is finally not breathing the same air as the rest of us.

His hometown newspaper, The News & Observer, published a joke of an obituary that failed to truly capture the level of absolute racism this man practiced. They described him as “cantankerous” and wrote that “Helms could be the picture of the courtly Southern gentleman“. As if there is anything cantankerous or gentlemanly about hating folks because of the color of their skin.

Not that they failed to mention the Helms’ racism. They wrote:

Although Helms denied he was a racist, his work in the Senate often seemed at odds with the interests of blacks.

Well now, isn’t that putting it rather nicely. Helms was one of two senators for the state of North Carolina, Helms represented many black people. So when his work in the Senate was “at odds with the interests of blacks”, it was at odds with a good many of his own electorate. The very people he should have been representing.

That’s not democracy.

Tags: Dead People, Jesse Helms, North Carolina, Racism, Republicans, The News & Observer, U.S. Senate