Bent Corner

From the AP (via Yahoo!)

A college student claimed it was all a joke when he put his vote in this fall’s presidential election up for sale on the Web auction site eBay. But prosecutors didn’t see the humor.

University of Minnesota student Max P. Sanders, 19, was charged with a felony Thursday in Hennepin County District Court after allegedly asking for a minimum of $10 in exchange for voting for the bidder’s preferred candidate.

“Good luck!” Sanders wrote under the eBay handle zepdrummer612. “You’re (sic) country depends on You!”

Sanders was charged with one count of bribery, treating and soliciting under an 1893 state law that makes it a crime to offer to buy or sell a vote.

I’m with the prosecutors on this one. I don’t see the humor either.

It never occurred to Max Sanders that buying and selling votes was maybe prohibited by law? I have about as much patience for this type of tomfoolery as I do with the people that get a credit card for their springer spaniel. The difference being that nobody died for the right to apply for a credit card. People actually suffered and died so that rest of us can have the right to vote.

One doesn’t have to go far in the annals of history to find examples of what I am talking about. Harold Ickes, former deputy White House Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton and campaign strategist for Hillary Clinton, only has one kidney. While working as a volunteer in Louisiana during the civil rights movement, he received such a severe beating from a gang of rednecks that he lost a kidney.

He lost a major organ so people could vote.

It’s bad enough that we rarely — if ever — have anyone on the ballot really worth voting for. People like Max Sanders should treat it with just a skosh bit more respect. They shouldn’t be listing it on eBay like its a potato that kind of looks like Jesus.

Michelle Obama speaking at a rally in Milwaukee said:

“Hope is making a comeback and, let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”

Way to perpetuate the myth that Democrats don’t love their country. This was an incredibly dumb thing to say.

Why do candidates even send their spouses out on the campaign trial? Nothing good can come from it. I can guarantee you that nobody votes for a candidate because of something their spouse said during the campaign. No good can come out of a spouse speaking on the campaign trail. Look at all the grief Bill is causing Hillary. It’s almost as though Bill is trying to tank it for her.

Maybe Michelle Obama doesn’t want to be the First Lady.

Chelsea Clinton was out campaigning for her mother in Wisconsin when she fielded a blunt question from the audience. I thought he answer was not only snarky, it was quite telling. From the New York Times:

“Has your mother shown any remorse for the fact that her vote cost Iraqis a million of their lives?” a student asked Chelsea Clinton on Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ms. Clinton replied: “She cast a vote based on the best available evidence. Perhaps you had clairvoyance then, and that’s extraordinary.”

The fact of the matter is that Hillary constantly harps on the point that she has more experience then her opponent. I guess that would mean something if she had a track record of being right about things.

She has a lot of experience in being wrong.

She was wrong about her husband having a sexual relationship with a 22 year old intern. She blamed a vast right-wing conspiracy, not that her husband had resumed his adulterous ways. He obviously didn’t have a clue that her husband was getting it on with one of his interns. She was not only wrong, she lacked the imagination to even contemplate that something was wrong.  Remember, it wasn’t the first time her husband had strayed.

She was then wrong about Iraq. Not only was she wrong, she refuses to now admit her vote was wrong. The only thing worse then someone who gets something wrong is someone who refuses to admit their mistakes. You can’t learn from your mistakes if you can’t first admit — even to yourself — that you’ve made a mistake.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to grasp that concept.

It seems Chelsea Clinton seems doesn’t realize some of us actually thought it was a mistake to invade Iraq from the very beginning. Twenty-one Democratic senators voted against H.J.Res. 114. None of those senators had magical powers. They were right. Chelsea’s mother was wrong.

We don’t need a president with experience in always being wrong.  I think we’ve had more then enough of that type of president.

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan posted a letter from one of his readers explaining why they are supporting Barack Obama for president. It’s a powerful letter nicely sums up just why I voted for him earlier this week and hopefully will be voting for him again this November:

There’s one salient reason why people of my age are supporting Obama and that’s because we feel that Obama will finally show us what it means to be proud of our president.

I read more than I should about politics and US history and am always confused as to how Americans can love their president so. Intellectually I understand why Americans love(d) Lincoln and the Roosevelts but I never felt why they did.

Andrew, people my age are too young to remember Bill Clinton. All we have is George W. Bush. The office of the President to us is a mockery. We don’t link President Bush to concepts such as leader, we link it to ignorance and idiocy. Most people my age have never felt proud of our President. We grew up on the Daily Show, we only know how to make fun of him and mock him.

I attended an Obama rally a few days ago and was amazed at how filled up with emotion I was. Halfway through his speech, other 21 year olds just like that filled the Hall were screaming their heads off, waving banners, and grinning. Everyone was giddy, hell even I was giddy. I was smiling and chanting along to “Yes We Can.” I didn’t know what that feeling was because I had never felt it. But then I realized it. It was pride. I was proud of Obama.

I know you’ve felt proud of Reagan and others have felt proud of Bill Clinton. I can’t wait to actually know what it feels like to be proud of my President and not embarrassed by him. That’s why at least my generation is turning out in droves to make Obama president. We’ve finally got a taste of what it feels like to be proud of our President and we’re not giving that feeling up.

Director: Patrick Creadon
Writers: Patrick Creadon & Christine O’Malley
Runtime: 94 painfully boring minutes

What’s an 8-letter word for a movie that totally blows? The answer is a movie entitled Wordplay. It’s a documentary on the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people that do it. Not only the über crossword puzzle nerds that actually go to a crossword puzzle convention and competition every year in Stamford, Connecticut, but famous celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton.

I guess the reason they included celebrities in the documentary is to show that not all people that do the New York Times crossword puzzle are major dorks. Some are just regular people that do the crossword puzzle to unwind. I can’t help but remember what else President Clinton likes to do in his spare time to unwind. It involves a female intern and a cigar.

Forgive me if I don’t take anything Bill Clinton does as an example of normalcy.

These über crossword puzzle nerds don’t just do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, they do it while timing themselves. How do you make the New York Times crossword puzzle even more nerdy? By turning it into a speed event. Some of them keep logs documenting how long it takes them to complete the puzzle. The reason they do this is because the competition at the yearly convention at Stamford is timed.

The level of nerdiness displayed by these puzzles doers in comparison makes the Dungeon Master of my old Dungeons & Dragons group look like Fonzi.

Much of the movie takes place at the yearly convention in Stamford. The competition involves seven timed crossword puzzles with the final three people with the best scores moving on to the main event. They then do a puzzle up on stage using a large dry erase type white board while wearing sound-canceling headphones that look to have been invented in 1972.

Towards the end of the competition when the tension was at it’s highest level, I was thinking how funny it would be for someone to pull the fire alarm. If Stamford wasn’t a 7-hour drive, I’d probably seriously consider making the trip just so I could do it.

These people would freak out.

Dear Rachel Maddow -

I am writing you this open letter in regards to your open letter to Senator Hatch. Evidently you watched this past week’s episode of Meet The Press where Republican Senator Orrin Hatch lied about one of the fired US Attorneys, Carol Lam. On the show he said:

“She was a former law professor, no prosecutorial experience, and the former campaign manager in Southern California for Clinton”

Of course none of what Orrin Hatch said on Meet The Press was even remotely true. Carol Lam has never been a law professor. Carol Lam has never served as a campaign manager for Bill Clinton. Carol Lam was in fact a prosecutor before becoming a US Attorney.

You seem to be surprised that Orrin Hatch would go on Meet The Press and either make stuff up our just out right lie.

Have you ever watched Meet The Press before?

Having Republicans or so called conservatives on each week to lie about something is very much a staple of the show. It’s what Meet The Press is all about. After all the very name of the program is a lie. When was the last time an elected official or some other government bureaucrat was on the program and actually met with members of the press? It’s been a very long time. Instead, they meet one-on-one with Tim Russert. He asks them one lame question after another, never bothering to ask a follow up question about the whopper of a lie they just told. It’s kind of what he is famous for. That, and writing retarded books about what a great guy his dad “Big Russ” is. Please.

Having you call a Republican out for lying about something on Meet the Press is a lot like someone watching their very first professional wrestling match and then announcing to the world that wrestling is fake.

We all already know it is.

All best wishes,

Rick Rottman

Blogger, “Bent Corner”

Proving once again that he is the President that brought integrity back to the White House, Bush admitted today that he was lying when he told reporters last week that Donald Rumsfeld was doing a fantastic job and that he fully supported him.

When pressed today about last week’s comment lie, Bush had this to say:

The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you that answer.

Brilliant. It’s a shame Bill Clinton didn’t use this same tactic when subpoenaed by Ken Starr and asked about Monica. Sure, Bush lied to subvert an election by giving voters false information before an election. Bill Clinton lied about extramarital S-E-X.