Monday, June 09, 2008

EVERY WELL-INTENTIONED HILLARY VOTER CONSIDERING McCAIN NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT DEBBIE SHANK

DIGGING DEEPER
By Ivan G. Goldman

Debbie Shank is the reason I would have voted for Hillary had she been the Democratic nominee. Yes, I who have railed against this devious royalist for reasons I won’t repeat now, would have pulled the Hillary lever. And Hillary backers should pull that Obama lever for the same reason -- Debbie Shank.

Mrs. Shank was the Wal-Mart employee from Jackson, Mo. who was brain-injured by a truck that collided with her vehicle. She and her husband got $417,000 from a lawsuit against the trucker’s insurance company (all that was left after legal fees, etc. from a $1 million judgment). But then Wal-Mart demanded back the $470,000 its health insurance had paid toward Mrs. Shank’s hospitalization.

Mrs. Shank is permanently brain-injured, and her husband works two jobs. Like most Wal-Mart employees, they’re perilously clinging to their low place on the economic ladder. In fact, they're broke. Oh, and their son was killed in Iraq.

When they protested the Wal-Mart demand they lost in court, and took it all the way to the Supreme Court. But the high court, five of whose members were appointed by the Bush family, refused to even hear the case. The court concluded justice had been done.

That’s what Hillary and Barack supporters have in common. We don’t even want to think about what will happen to the country if John McCain fills the next life-time vacancies. John Paul Stevens, one of the last of the liberal justices, is 88. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has had health problems. McCain has already said he’d nominate the same sort of justices that George Junior did. That would be Roberts and Alito, two justices that never saw a ruling in favor of a global corporation against actual people that they didn’t like.

Next time a friend tells you he/she is too upset over Hillary's loss to pull the Obama lever, tell them about Debbie Shank. Ask them to look her up on the Internet. It’s all there. I wish I’d made her up. But unfortunately, I didn’t.