Concerned that the military is selling pornography in exchange stores in spite of a ban, one lawmaker has introduced a bill to clean up the matter.
“Our troops should not see their honor sullied so that the moguls behind magazines like Playboy and Penthouse can profit,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., unveiling his House bill April 16.
His Military Honor and Decency Act would amend a provision of the 1997 Defense Authorization Act that banned sales of “sexually explicit material” on military bases.
The new language would “close existing loopholes” in regulations to bring the military “into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law,” Broun said.
“Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad,” Broun said.
Broun said he wants to bring the Defense Department into compliance with the intent of the 1997 law “so that taxpayers will not be footing the costs of distributing pornography.”
Exchange officials noted that tax dollars are not used to procure magazines in the system’s largely self-funded operations.
But Broun’s spokesman John Kennedy contended that taxpayer dollars are involved — “used to pay military salaries, so taxpayer money is, in effect, being used to buy these materials,” he said.
Um, okay.
If you're not familiar with Broun, he's kind of "interesting".
“All the long-term historical indicators,” says Merle Black, “indicate that Broun should have lost.” Black, an Emory University political scientist with a peerless knowledge of Southern politics, bets that Broun will serve one term and lose the next Republican primary. Box agrees.
It’s easy to see why they’re skeptical. Broun, a self-described “strict constitutionalist,” believes that the income tax should be abolished, that civil liberties degraded since 9/11 should be restored, and that fetuses deserve American citizenship. He has been married four times; opponents grumble that he performs house calls because hospitals won’t hire him. This isn’t the usual background of somebody who gets elected in Georgia.
Sometimes it frightens me how easy it is for some whackjobs to land a seat in the House.
I mean the other kind of whackjobs...
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Col. Kurtz: “We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won’t allow them to write ‘fuck’ on their airplanes because it’s obscene!”
Rep. Broun: “Allowing sale of pornography on military bases has harmed military men and women by escalating the number of violent, sexual crimes, feeding a base addiction, eroding the family as the primary building block of society, and denigrating the moral standing of our troops both here and abroad.”
Uh hunh.
No self-respecting Iraqi wants to be gunned down by an American who jacks off to Playboy…
sweet jeebus on a stick…
this yahoo muthuhfucker’s got the georgia bulldogs and the masters…
god sho ’nuff hates america…
But Broun’s spokesman John Kennedy contended that taxpayer dollars are involved — “used to pay military salaries, so taxpayer money is, in effect, being used to buy these materials,” he said.
So I, a taxpayer, should reasonably expect to be able to decide where a soldier’s wife buys groceries, or how much of her meager income she is allowed to spend on clothing, or what brand of cereal her children eat?
Excellent. Can I get a list of every single purchase made by each member of the military (all branches), every member of the United States and California and Sacramento County government, including the lowest level civil servants? It’s going to take me awhile to catalog all the expenditures, but it will be so worth it to know that no one is spending one penny of my tax dollars for something of which I might not approve.
I suppose I could stand in line at the DMV to inquire of each person behind the counter what recent movies they’ve seen or where they got their earrings, but it would take a long time that way and I’d hoped to get my hair cut this afternoon.
Oh, wait. I’m retired from State government — will the rest of you guys need a receipt from my hairdresser, or can I just fill out a form to report this expenditure to you? I know I didn’t get your approval first about where I’d go for this squandering of my pention funds, but I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again.
And all this time, I’ve been blaming Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Halliburton, KBR, and the rest of the usual suspects. But I should have been blaming Hefner and Guccione. I’m so ashamed.
Someone ought to remind Mr Broun and Mr Kennedy that they are also on the gov’t payroll.
xpurg8ted:
great catch on that part of the quote, and excellent, excellent snarky riff thereon!
FunnyDiva
Ah, a real “family values” kind of a republican… how many of those divorces were after the former missus caught him surfing the “naughty” sites?
Thanks. Except the “pention” instead of “pension” is embarrassing. I really do know how to spell it. Really.
Isn’t Representative Broun’s salary paid by me, the taxpayer? I’d like to see his annual expenditures, in detail, please, so I can tell him what items I don’t approve of.
Because of course he shouldn’t be allowed to spend my money on stuff like that.
Indeed. But as a taxpayer I am of course perfectly content with spending billions every month bringing death and destruction to brown people. It’s manifest destiny, or they had it coming to them, or something. Anyway. Besides, I don’t even think they need porn: whenever our soldiers or contractors need to release those vile urges they appear to have been able to get away with picking up some local girl or a colleague and raping her with complete impunity.
Some would say that the free market surely should determine what sells in the PX, and that a guy who’s spent the whole day harassing Iraqi civilians while being shot at by the soldiers he just recently helped train might be entitled to whatever distraction he wants — but that’d be silly liberal talk…
Oh yeah, this guy is the next Republican caught in a sex scandal. A real freaky one, I expect. Can’t wait.
Because just one wetsuit is never enough.
This man is a hero, literally a savior to billions.
The average man destroys 300-400 million Spermatozoan Americans every time he, well, you know…does the thing with the porno.
Can you imagine the Spermatozolocaust happening in the Green Zone every day? Let alone the FOBs where there ain’t a wimmin within 100 miles?
Doodling the dingle is by far the most important problem in Iraq today.
I applaud the efforts of the distinguished Member from Georgia, and I urge him to use his awesome powers of perception to tackle some of the other pressing issues in our overseas colony.
The shortage of spaghetti sauce on Tuesdays.
The uncomfortable vinyl seats in the Humvees.
The fact that Armed Forces Radio plays something other than country-western.
It’s problems like these that the good people of Georgia elected U.S. House of Representatives Member Paul Broun, R-10th District to handle.
Godspeed, good sir. Godspeed.
Why would offering Playboy and Penthouse for sale be a problem if nobody actually buys them?
Or is this Broun clown impugning the honor of our men and women in uniform by implying that they would actually buy this smut?
Beautiful. Thank you.
“He has been married four times….”
This guy is thinking about sex way too much on my dime!
I, for one, like to sully my honor several times a week. Why should our doughboys be deprived?
Perfect. You know what’s worse? The First Amendment does not allow for the establishment of religion so any money a person paid by the government(such as oh — I don’t know — say, Representative Broun) might spend on religious mumbo jumbo or charities or artifacts is spent in violation of the Constitution. There ought to be a law!! Hey, I know, we can name it the Broun/Stupid Hillbilly Fuckwad Act of 2008 (dating it allows for other versions on future dates).
If Paul Broun did not exist, TBogg would have to invent him.
- Voltaire
It’s easy to see why they’re skeptical. Broun, a self-described “strict constitutionalist,” believes that the income tax should be abolished, that civil liberties degraded since 9/11 should be restored, and that fetuses deserve American citizenship. He has been married four times; opponents grumble that he performs house calls because hospitals won’t hire him. This isn’t the usual background of somebody who gets elected in Georgia.
True, Georgians aren’t big on civil liberties.
Um … Playboy is not “porn.” Anyone who says otherwise has never actually seen any porn.
Playboy is a pictorial magazine with a bunch of really good articles. Seriously … they do some of the best long-form interviews and their fiction is some of the best. And the jokes are stupendous.
This comment really has nothing to do with much … other than to justify my continued subscription to that fine publication.