Bent Corner

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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

Gen. Wesley Clark, working now for the Obama campaign was on CBS’ Face the Nation were he proceeded to demean and disparage Senator John McCain’s military service.  From Politico:

“He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron,” Clark said.

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”

Let’s call it Swift Boating 2.0.  When John Kerry was running for President, the Republicans belittled his service in Vietnam.  I remember even seeing photos of women wearing purple band-aids on their faces at the GOP National Convention.  The message was that Kerry wasn’t a war hero.  He did really deserve any of his military citations including the Silver Star and those Purple Hearts.

It was disgusting then and it disgusting now.  The difference of course is that it’s the Democrats that are now belittling the military service of a Republican. The Swift Boating of 2004 did not actually come from anyone working in the Bush campaign.

Is this what Obama means when he says that he is all about Change™?

Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, Face the Nation, John Kerry, John McCain, Republicans, Silver Star, Swift Boating, Vietnam, Wesley Clark

This is a photo of Michelle Duggar and her family. She’s 41-year old and she is currently pregnant with her 18th child.

That’s right. She has given birth to 17 children and that is not enough. She must have at least one more. I read the whole article over on Yahoo, but I didn’t really need to. As soon as I heard there was a woman pregnant with her 18th child, I already assumed certain facts to be true. These facts include:

• She lives in Arkansas.
• She and her husband have named every child with a name starting with the letter “J”. To be honest, I wasn’t certain what the actual letter was, but I knew the names all started with the same letter.
• All of the children are home schooled.
• They are Republicans.
• They plan on continuing to have children as long as “God wills it”.
• They are supporters of former Republican Presidential nominee Mike Huckabee.

To put this into context, I know people who haven’t even had sex 18 times.

I can’t imagine the pain someone must feel that desperately wants to have a child, but for whatever reason, cannot become pregnant. It must be very similar to what someone who is starving to death feels when they have to watch someone at an all-you-can-eat Chinese food buffet go up and get 18 plates of snow crab legs.

And of course they have a reality TV show. I don’t watch reality TV shows that revolve around a single family unless that family includes midgets.

Little People, Big World rocks!

Tags: Arkansas, Home Schooling, Little People Big World, Michelle Duggar, Mike Huckabee, Reality TV, Republicans, Will of God

With the results of Tuesday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries tallied up, I think we finally have a clear winner for the Democratic nominee for President. It looks like Republican John McCain will be squaring off against Barack Obama.

If you are a Republican, I can’t help but think this is good news to you. It almost certainly assures another Republican President till at least 2012.

I simply don’t think Obama has a chance of beating McCain. I might be wrong. I’ve been wrong before and I most certainly will be wrong again. With that said, I just think comes with a lot of things the Republicans will jump on and capitalize to make him look as though he has no business in the White House.

Most of the time Republicans have to make stuff up about their opponents. They wont have to do that with Obama.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama, Democrats, Indiana Primaries, John McCain, North Carolina primaries, Politics, Republicans

Evidently Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has a hard time telling the difference between AIDS and a highly contagious and scary disease from the middle ages. Back in 1992 when he was trying to become a U.S. senator, he answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. I have to think somebody at the AP kept Huckabee’s answers in a special file. The file was probably entitled, “WHACK JOB”.

Among the things advocated by Huckabee:

• He wrote that, “If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.”
• He suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
• He wrote that, “It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.”

In case you don’t remember, by 1992 we already knew that you couldn’t catch HIV or AIDS from casual contact with those that were infected. As far as infectious diseases go, it’s fairly difficult to contract. You don’t get it from shaking hands with someone or sitting next to them on a bus. Unless you are exchanging bodily fluids with someone who is either HIV positive or has AIDS, you have nothing to worry about.

Even back in 1992, people knew the idea of putting people with AIDS in special camps was a dumb idea. Everyone except Mike Huckabee.

Tags: 2008 Presidential Election, GOP, HIV, Mike Huckabee, Politics, Republicans

After a recent CNBC Republican candidate debate, CNBC threw a poll of on their website asking readers who they thought won the debate. Ron Paul supporters responded by flooding the poll with votes for Ron Paul in an attempt to skew the poll’s results. Ron Paul won by a whopping 75%. CNBC responded by removing the poll from the website. This from the CNBC website:

And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can’t help but admire that.

What’s to admire? I didn’t realize that being “well-organized” and “feeling strongly about something” were necessarily traits to admire. Nazis were well-organized. Nazis felt strongly about something. Should they be admired too? Not that I am comparing Ron Paul fanboys to Nazis. Even though at least some neo-Nazis are Ron Paul supporters and it seems that at least some of the people helping to flood these online polls in Ron Paul’s favor have goose-stepped over from antisemitic white supremest websites.

What about substance? Having fans on the Internet that spam online polls and vote for every Ron Paul story on Digg aren’t things to brag about.

Also from the CNBC website:

But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest “show of hands” — it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn’t our intention and certainly doesn’t serve our readers … at least those who aren’t already in the Ron Paul camp.

I don’t know what Ron Paul’s über fanboys expect when they do stuff like this. Sure, they may get some momentary personal pleasure by throwing the results of an online poll, but all they are really doing is making their candidate look bad. Manipulating Internet polls just makes their candidate look weird. That’s something Ron Paul doesn’t need any help with.

He already has that down pat.

Tags: CNBC, Libertarians, Nazis, Republican Debate, Republicans, Ron Paul

Roscoe Bartlett
2412 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
20515-2006
Dear Roscoe Bartlett –

I’m writing this letter in regards to comments you made shortly after your historic vote last March against the continued funding of our troops in Iraq.

You stated that you were against a time table for withdrawal. Wouldn’t you agree that our military has already accomplished everything they were asked to do? They have:

• Ensured that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.
• Removed Saddam Hussein from power.
• Allowed Iraq to become a democratic and free country.

Our troops have successfully done their job. Now it’s time for you to do yours. You need to work towards bringing them home. Their mission has been accomplished.

You stated back in March that another reason you voted NO was because one-fifth of the spending bill was pork. Expenditures unrelated to our national defense. As though the continued occupation of Iraq has anything to do with the defense of our nation. Now that the Democrats have caved and removed any type of timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, voting YES on the supplemental spending bill should be fairly easy for you to do - unless you really are a fiscal conservative. All that pork is still firmly attached to the bill.

Rick Rottman

Hagerstown, Maryland

Tags: Democrats, Iraq, Republicans, Roscoe Bartlett, Saddam Hussein

Rudy Giuliani should have been spending less time flying around the country giving paid speeches on the 9-11 terror attacks and spent more time actually learning more about them. Including the reasons we were attacked.

This following is a partial transcript from the recent Republican South Carolina Presidential debate.

REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right.

We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?

REP. PAUL: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there because Osama bin Laden has said, “I am glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.” They have already now since that time — (bell rings) — have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don’t think it was necessary.

MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)

And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Congressman?

REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.

They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there. I mean, what would we think if we were — if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

Congressmen Ron Paul is correct. Bin Laden didn’t attack the United States because of our love of apple pie and baseball. He didn’t attack us because we love Jesus.

Rudy Giuliani has made a lot of money off of 9-11. You would think he would try to learn a thing or two about it. Instead he comes off looking like an idiot.

Congressman Ron Paul was right. The so-called “America’s Mayor” was wrong.

Tags: Iraq, Politics, Republicans, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, Terrorism

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

Tags: Pat Robinson, plastic surgery, Republicans

I was driving home from work today and decided to listen to Sean Hannity. I was listening to XM Radio and CNN was on yet another commercial break. I noticed immediately at Hannity was quite upset about something. The tone of his voice was even more shrill then normal. It seems there is a new weekly TV show on Fox News entitled “Hannity’s America”. Alessandra Stanley from the New York Times watched the show and then wrote about it.

Sean Hannity didn’t like the article. Go figure.

When I got home, I read the article. I thought Sean Hannity’s reaction to the article was funny. The actual article was hilarious.

Underneath the flag-waving swagger, Mr. Hannity’s show is riddled with leftist subliminal suggestion and degrading, un-American images of violence and pornography. Last Sunday Mr. Hannity toured the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada and stood over two prostitutes lolling on a bed in skimpy lingerie, their hands placed between their legs, and asked them if they believed in God.

The Bunny Ranch? You have to hand it to him for finding a way of incorporating prostitutes into his show. Who knew that Hannity’s America included prostitutes.

But it’s the sex and violence that suggest that Mr. Hannity harbors a secret plan to undermine American moral fiber. Despite President Bush’s assertion that the execution of Saddam Hussein was botched and disgraceful, Mr. Hannity repeatedly flashes some of the more gruesome video images of the hanging, pictures so ghoulish and unsettling that they could well be the fare for a snuff film.

First Hannity shows prostitutes rolling around a bed, then he shows the Saddam Hussein snuff film. I think to many Republicans, the crappy cell phone video of Saddam getting killed is a form of pornography. That strikes me as being quite off. Most Republicans worship Ronald Reagan and Reagan was really quite fond of old Saddam Hussein. May he not rest in peace.

Sean Hannity is a tool. He wraps himself in the American flag and dishes out disparaging comments about the patriotism of Americans that hold views different then his own. Americans like me. He does this not because it is what he really believes. No, he does it to make a buck.

Hannity’s fake patriotism has made him millions of dollars. He loves to chastise people like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and the Dixie Chicks because of their political views. The thing that separates these people (and others like them) from Sean Hannity is that they have never made a buck off their political views. Like he does. In fact the complete opposite is true. They often lose money because of their political opinions.

Just ask the Dixie Chicks.

Link

Tags: Dixie Chicks, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Sean Hannity, XM Radio