Beck: Wal-Mart Made A ‘Deal With Terrorists’ In Ending Its Lawsuit Against Brain-Damaged Employee
Beck: Wal-Mart Made A ‘Deal With Terrorists’ In Ending Its Lawsuit Against Brain-Damaged Employee
In 2000, then-Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank was hit by a semi-truck, leaving her seriously brain-damaged and confined to a wheelchair. Wal-Mart covered her medical expenses until she won a settlement from the trucking company that left her $417,000 after legal fees.
Invoking a little-noticed clause in Shank’s contract that kicked in once she won a settlement with the trucking company, Wal-Mart sued the Shank family to recoup the medical expenses it had spent on her care, all $470,000.
In response, MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week began decrying Wal-Mart’s actions nightly, four times labeling $9-billion corporation one of his “Worst Persons in the World.” Last night, however, Olbermann was able to announce the good news — that Wal Mart yesterday wrote to the Shanks to tell them it would drop its suit:
Occasionally others help us step back and look at a situation in a different way. This is one of those times. … Wal-Mart will not seek any reimbursement for the money already spent on Ms. Shank’s care, and we will work with you to ensure the remaining amounts in the trust can be used for her ongoing care.
Unfortunately, CNN’s Glenn Beck could not attain a similarly enlightened perspective. He condemned Wal-Mart on his radio show today, insisting the corporation had made a “deal with terrorists” and had succumbed to “blackmail”:
Well, what are the principles? The principles are right is right, wrong is wrong. No matter how much I need it, no matter how hard it is for me, no matter how much it sucks, it’s not right. My word is my bond. I made an agreement. I didn’t see it in there. … This is blackmail. And yet Wal-Mart folds. You don’t deal with terrorists? Really? You just did. You just dealt with economic blackmailers. … But then — and I don’t even put it on the family as much as I do on the media. The media, they just — MSNBC, man, they can just make hay with this.
Listen to Beck’s rant:
Earlier in his rant, Beck seems to suggest that the Shanks reneged on Debbie’s contract when it asked Wal-Mart to forgive her medical expenses. However, as legal analyst Jeffery Toobin pointed out on Anderson Cooper 360 last night, the corporation was under no obligation whatsoever to sue the Shanks. It was a discretionary choice:
There is no reason why they should have filed this lawsuit. This was an unnecessary pain inflicted.
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An unnecessary pain, indeed…to heap on a woman with no short term memory who must daily be freshly reminded that her son died in Iraq. My god.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pmFeck Buck.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pmIn Beck’s mind boycott = blackmail and shoppers = terrorist. I think he’s overdosing on the koolaid.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pmShayne Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
In Beck’s mind boycott = blackmail and shoppers = terrorist. I think he’s overdosing on the koolaid.
Shoppers are the terrorists? But I thought we were supposed to fight terrorism by going shopping!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:13 pmAlways wrong, 24/7.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:16 pmGlenn Beck is a terrorist.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:16 pmWell, Beck, if you feel that way, you should hop on over to your local Walmart and spend lots of money on goods made in China. I am sure they will be very grateful to you because I read that their sales had fallen significantly due to this story.
Hopefully all the people who stopped shopping at Walmart as a protest will continue to shop elsewhere. Walmart does not deserve your hard earned money and very little of it stays in this country. Walmart makes more money for China than they do for this country.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pmConservatives- Afflicting the afflicted, comforting the comfortable
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pmWow, that means I’ve been a terrorist all my life because I have never and will never step foot in a Walmart store.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:18 pmHow is the family of a brain damaged woman terrorists? One might expect right wingers to want her care paid for by private dollars.
That said, Wal-Mart knows the value of publcity. Dropping the suit is chump change for them. Mr. Beck should understand Wal-Mart’s business decision, as he also worships free markets.
But the decision gave him content for his show. Beck sell away, Beck sell away…
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:20 pmSINCE CNN WAS TRUMPETING LAST NIGHT THAT THEY WERE PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING THIS SITUATION TO CONCLUSION….I GUESS THAT MAKES CNN A TERRORIST SUPPORTER AND GLENN BECK WORKS FOR THAT TERRORIST SUPPORTER.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:22 pmThis guy is pathetic. How bad is it when you have to (poorly) imitate a boob like Limpballs to make a buck.
If I ever spot Beck on the street, I’ll show him a terrorist.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:23 pmBilbo Hussein Baggins Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Walmart does not deserve your hard earned money and very little of it stays in this country. Walmart makes more money for China than they do for this country.
Well, I don’t know about that. Walmart is also pretty well-known for pushing down wage rates of workers in China as far as possible in order to keep their prices low and profit margins high. So maybe a few upper-middle managers in China are doing well thanks to Walmart, but not the average factory worker.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 pmIf I ever spot Beck on the street, I’ll show him a terrorist.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:26 pmHe would curl up in a ball and cry like an infant. Chickenhawks are all the same.
This is what the right wing would have America come to, an act of compassion = an act of terrorism. It is legally within anyones right to withold food from a starving parson who cannot pay for it, but it is morally reprehensible.
Beck and his ilk would equate the guilt one should normally feel at seeing the suffering of a fellow human being with an act of terrorism. How dare they!!!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:33 pmShayne Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:11 pm
In Beck’s mind boycott = blackmail and shoppers = terrorist. I think he’s overdosing on the koolaid.
You nailed it, Shayne. Nothing to add.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pmAnd maybe people should come together and end Beck’s lame career as a Reichwing propaganda tool.
Chickenhawk with no ethics, morals, or soul.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pmYeah, it’s free, but…
Beck is so hard up for notariety that he’s bypassed his idiot muffler so his idiocies can flow more freely, thus earning more Worsers and Worsts from Olbermann.
Free publicity that only an idiot can crave.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:42 pmNice to see Glenn Speck (of shit) just claim the mother of a fallen US soldier is a “terrorist” ; tell us more of your continuing “support” of our troops , Glenn…………….
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:45 pmAnybody else here sick and tired of the overuse of the word
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:49 pmterrorist?
Oh, and Ben Gleck is a skank.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:50 pmThese guys can’t even say the word compassionate, let alone know what it means or how to actually show compassion.
I can only hope, in a perverse sort of way, that at sometime in their pitiful, miserable, lives, they need someone to be compassionate to them, and that someone looks them in the eye and slowly says, “Sorry, you weren’t compassionate to others, so…”
And then, after a very poignant pause, does in fact provide the compassion, love, and care they seek in their hour of need.
But for that moment, let them sweat, and fear, and tremble, and swallow hard on the bitterness and lack of true compassion they so freely spew today.
Beck, you say you are a Christian, but you certainly don’t emulate His care and love for God’s children.
And just like the rest of your tribe, you’ll get what’s coming to you someday. I would not want to be in your skin.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:50 pmTired! That’s right, Ben Gleck is a Moron, er Mormon, or both.
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pmBeck: “Just crush the little guy.”
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 pmNice.
it must just be a reflexive reaction… if the “left” want it, it must be bad…
if olbermann talks about it, it must be rediculed…
i haven’t heard – any other wrong wingers with beck’s opinion?
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:59 pmI do not support WalMart at all on this issue, but, what is lost in the presentation is that attorney’s fees ate up $583,000 of this settlement.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:01 pmprogressisgood Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Throw the law out the window! One call thats all and i can make $283,000. Slimy lawyer’s I hope they all burn!!
Okay
And I’ll make sure you’re in a wheelchair for life , with virtually no memory from day-to-day ; we got a deal , jackass ?
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:05 pmBeck is without doubt one of the most talentless & boorish, bigoted men on the air. He is full of himself & thinks he is so cute. In reality, he is a hateful, stupid man. Obviously he loves attacking the ordinary man/woman. He should be taken from the air by CNN. How they can put up with his hatred is unbelievable.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:07 pmwalt, that was disgussed yesterday…
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pmstart here: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/01/olbermann-against-wal-mart/#comment-4682312
Great. I want them to use the word terrorist every chance they get. Let them wear it out, completely. Let them use the word on every newspaper, news show.. they should have “all terrorism, all the time” stations. My hope is we get so desensitized to the word we can actually have an election where the voter’s are not manipulated by fear, and come to the polls thinking clearly, knowing how they’ve been manipulated all these years. You know, when you use terror to to manipulate or motivate people to act a certain way, you’re a terrorist. The way the neocons have been using the fear of terrorism.. makes them terrorists. A despicable bunch, the whole lot of them.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pmBeck’s noxious statement and viewpoint is a splendid validation that the conservative mantra of “compassionate conservatism” is, unquestionably, the mother of all hypocritical oxymorons. And the Beckster himself — well — he’s just a friggin’ moron.
Just saying . . .
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:12 pmBeck is drinking out of the toilet again, or was it the george bush happy water bowl?
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:12 pmprogressisgood Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
its called a waiver of subrogation! It’s in most all policies! Stupid Pro’s!
It’s called ‘decency , humanity and compassion’ you GOP retard ; look up their definitions , because it’s obvious you possess none of them (along with intelligence) ……….
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 pmCNN has become another Fox News; actual news, reporting fact and fiction as based on irrefutable events, no longer has any value to this organization and never had any value to Fox News. The economics of cable news has become hiring a pundit to spout right-wing jingoism and rhetoric in order to appease a conservative base and also to rile up a liberal base. How would we know anyone is watching unless we piss you off with racist views, bigoted views, entirely uncompassionate views, or with views that entirely favor the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. Americans should just skip any domestic source of news and find international sources that report on the real conditions of America as observed by people with no vested political interests.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 pmprogressisgood Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Throw the law out the window! One call thats all and i can make $283,000. Slimy lawyer’s I hope they all burn!!
Probably more than you’re likely to make in your whole miserable life.
Your jealousy is palpable.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:19 pmprogressisgood Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
its called a waiver of subrogation! It’s in most all policies! Stupid Pro’s!
Well, at least you memorized something from yesterday’s thread. Your phoniness is showing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:22 pmYour phoniness is showing.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:28 pmAnd your wooden train set is waiting…
Glenn Beck’s wikipedia entry doesn’t have any mention of the epic fail of his HLN as compared to Zahn (who was dismissed for “ratings”). Another quota program to placate the right, starring a hypocritical boob.
I don’t know what his ratings are now but this entry sure paints an overly rosy picture of him. It definitely needs editing. But not by DFH terrorists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:35 pmkaty Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:08 pm
walt, that was disgussed yesterday…
start here: http://thinkprogress.org/ 2008/ 04/ 01/ olbermann-against-wal-mart/ #comment-4682312
Sorry, katy, I am on about 25 blogs per day and miss a few posts.
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:55 pmIt is my learned opinion that there are two groups of terrorists in play here and Wal-Mart is not one of them. The two culprits are the medical groups that ran up almost a half-million medical bill because Wal-Mart was paying. The second group of greedy bastards are the trial lawyers that took over half of the woman’s settlement. The blame should be 100% on the trucking company and the settlement should go 100% to the injured party, Wal-Mart should retrieve all their costs. The medical quacks, lawyer crooks, and insurance thieves should be sent to Michael Vick’s place and those that beat the other dogs can draw lots to see how long they stay in prison.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:11 pmBoy,he’s really becked-up. When these ultra-right wingers are backed into a corner, unable to justify a unjust war, an economy in the trash-heap, 50 million without insurance, he lash’s-out at a lady with brain damage. Beck did not mention that the lady’s husband had to divorce her so she could get social security, also her son was killed in Iraq, every day when she asks about him, she learns once again of his death. If there’s a GOD he’ll get BECK.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 pmActually Wal-Mart is a villian in this. They could have chosen to not sue the woman for the small sum she received that is going towards paying for her long term care. For the record I agree the Lawyers were greedy for taking over half of the money. I don’t agree that the medical estableshment is corrupt or somehow at fault for treating this woman.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 pmMemo to K.O.: Please give Blowhard Beck the gold. Beck is a moron. Glad that I don’t watch the asshat.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 pmBeck has to realize that when WalMart acts without compassion, even if they are following the letter of the law, people may view them as heartless. Yes, WalMart had the legal right to sue for reimbursement of medical expenses, even if that meant wiping out the entire trust for taking care of a disabled woman. However, they should know that when they act without compassion and just plain human decency, this is going to p!ss off some potential customers.
And yes, citizens who believe WalMart could afford to act with more compassion than that have the legal right to take their business elsewhere. I don’t see any “terrorism” anywhere in this scenario.
Beck is just using that term for shock value. Sort of like Ann Coulter uses the word “f*ggot”. Of course, the same right we have to not shop at WalMart enables us to not listen to Beck.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:29 pmWent to a Wal-Mart once because it was near where I was camping, and it was the closest thing I could find. All of the merchandise was shoddy, the store was dirty, and clientele was a bit suspect. We went and found a Target. Maybe not much better, but at least clean, and we were able to buy a really nice blanket.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pmF**K YOU, GLENN BECK.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:38 pmSounds like you were camping near my hometown.
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pmralph the wonder llama Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Burlington in WA?
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:57 pmme@glennbeck.com
This is Glenn’s email address. I know I will be writing him a scathing email about the content of his broadcast.
He is a gutless wonder….. probably born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 pmProgressisgood IS the little engine that couldn’t.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 pmFreedom Rebel Says:
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:08 pm
me@glennbeck.com
This is Glenn’s email address. I know I will be writing him a scathing email about the content of his broadcast.
He is a gutless wonder….. probably born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
What he really needs is a boot up his *ss.
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm#55 Woodguy
I agree, I was just being ladylike. You can go first.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:23 pm“Beck: Wal-Mart Made A ‘Deal With Terrorists’ In Ending Its Lawsuit Against Brain-Damaged Employee”
Isn’t forbidden to pundit drunk?
April 3rd, 2008 at 7:36 amI’m sure Jesus would sue all those sick people *he* healed as well.
Thanks, Glen, for showing your true colors.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am>with no short term memory who must daily
>be freshly reminded that her son died in Iraq.
This is incredibly sad, one would hope they are merely mentioning this to make her sound more sympathetic and not still telling her daily he’s dead…white lies are definitely apropriate in this case, since she wont remember anything tommorow, tell her he’s going to call tommorow..she’ll have forgotten she was told that by tommorow..
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 pmif theres any karmic justice in the world, beck will be injured in a carwreck next year and will be traumatized daily by having to be reminded that his precious little chimp isnt president anymore…
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 pmWell, Beck, if you feel that way, you should hop on over to your local Walmart and spend lots of money on goods made in China. I am sure they will be very grateful to you because I read that their sales had fallen significantly due to this story.
Hopefully all the people who stopped shopping at Walmart as a protest will continue to shop elsewhere. Walmart does not deserve your hard earned money toshiba pa2505 battery,toshiba pa2505ur battery and very little of it stays in this country. Walmart makes more money for China than they do for this country.
October 15th, 2008 at 8:38 am