Day: June 22, 2006

First Commissioned Officer Refuses to Deploy to Iraq

Buck Banks

Hell no, he won’t go: We received a press release today from www.ThankYouLt.org about First Lieutenant Ehren K. Watada, who refused orders today to deploy to Iraq with Stryker Brigade. He reported to duty at 2 a.m. at Ft Lewis, Wash., and refused orders to move to the adjacent McChord Air Force Base to prepare to fly to Iraq. Watada was ordered to remain on site pending further orders from his commanding officer and cannot make or receive phone calls or have any communications with anyone off-base.

The press release says that Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq. He faces possible court-martial for disobeying orders and he intends to defend himself based on the illegality of the Iraq war and occupation. Lt. Watada, age 28, was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii where he enlisted in the Army and was obligated to serve on active duty as an Army officer for a term of three years ending Dec. 3, 2006.

Visit www.ThankYouLt.org to see photos of Watada and his parents and a video message from Watada, and to read messages of support. If you find his story compelling and want to show your support, you can sign a petition here.

Pensito Review to Kentucky – Go Ahead, Block Our Site

Buck Banks

Entering the fray: Apparently, the State of Kentucky’s Commonwealth Office of Technology, which handles the e-mail and Internet access for all state employees, has started blocking access to select Web sites and weblogs. Mainly these have been sites critical of Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

We at Pensito Review are always on the lookout for opportunities to enhance our site’s profile and gain wider recognition and readership. We saw in the COT’s Draconian censorship a chance to “get some press.” Accordingly, I sent the following message via the “contact us” button on the COT’s Web site:

It is our understanding that the Commonwealth Office of Technology of the State of Kentucky has started blocking access to liberal Web sites and weblogs that have been critical of Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

Pensito Review is a liberal politics and culture site that should probably be blocked by the COT. Our content, though not specifically critical of Gov. Fletcher, is certainly subversive enough to make red-blooded red-staters either apoplectic or question their wingnut assumptions.

We would appreciate it if we could be added to the COT’s blocked site list. In a world where it is difficult to stand out from other weblogs, being blocked by the COT along with Wonkette and BluegrassReport.org would do wonders for our marketing efforts.

Although we have not been directly critical of Gov. Fletcher, we’ve consistently been pretty hard on the governors of Florida and California, in case that would qualify us for blocking. If necessary to earn blocking status, we would be glad to start criticizing Gov. Fletcher, who we understand is a rabid Southern Republican with a funny accent who kicks his dog.

Please let me know when we can expect to have www.pensitoreview.com blocked from all Kentucky state employees’ computers so we can issue a press release to the appropriate media.

Thanks,

Buck
Pensito Review

Stay tuned to see if the COT will help make us as famous as Wonkette. Hey, we’re willing to lose a few readers from Kentucky, if that’s what it takes to make Pensito Review a household name.

Poll: Both Parties Agree — Congress Sucks!

Buck Banks

Congress of dullards: A ccording to Congress Daily’s PollTrack, a new Zogby poll finds that the only thing that can bridge the gap between the Republican and Democratic parties is the bipartisan view that Congress is doing a heckuva crappy job.

Just 20 percent of respondents gave Congress’ performance a favorable rating; 57 percent gave the legislative body a big thumbs-down. Two-thirds of Republican respondents said Congress isn’t doing a good job, despite the fact that it is dominated by their party. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats agreed. Come November’s midterm elections, 38 percent of respondents said they would vote for the Democratic congressional candidate, while 29 said they’d vote Republican — the same split as Zogby’s May survey.

Other polls show similar results. Forty-four percent of CNN poll respondents said they planned to vote for the Democrat in their district, and 36 percent said they would vote Republican. And an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released last week showed that 49 percent of respondents want a GOP-controlled Congress, while 38 percent said they want Democrats to control the legislature.

Voters are feeling none too optimistic about the future — 55 percent of Zogby respondents said the U.S. is headed on the wrong track, while only 35 percent expressed confidence in the country’s direction. The negative sentiments are down slightly from early June and May, however, when about six in 10 said the country was on the wrong track.

BBC: ‘Gay’ Means ‘Rubbish’

Buck Banks

And “fags” means “cigarettes”: According to a short in The Hollywood Reporter, the BBC Board of Governors has ruled that the word ” ‘gay’ now means ‘rubbish’ in modern playground-speak and need not be offensive to homosexuals.”

Wonder how all the rubbish people are taking that ….

Apparently this all came about after a listener complained when a morning talk-show host dismissed a cell phone ringtone with the remark, “I don’t want that one, it’s gay.”

The BBC’s program complaints committee noted, “The word ‘gay’ … is often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish.’ This is a widespread current usage of the word amongst young people.”

Who needs “gay” anyway, when we’ve got so many other descriptive adjectives available?

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

No case whatever can be made out for the statement that a nation cannot do without common thieves and homocidal ruffians. But an overwhelming case can be meade out for the statement that no nation can prosper or even continue to exist without heretics and advocates of shockingly immoral doctrines.

— George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish dramatist

Voting Rights Act Under Attack from the Right

Buck Banks

Ballot blather: My fellow editors wonder sometimes how I can tolerate wingnut newsletters in my inbox. Sometimes I wonder myself. Here’s one I received yesterday that beggars understanding:

Offering foreign language ballots while at the same time emphasizing the importance of learning English sends mixed signals to those seeking to assimilate into American society.

ALERT: Our friends at Eagle Forum have notified us that this week, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 9, reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Within this legislation is a provision, originally added in 1975 (ten years after passage of the original VRA in 1965), which mandates the use of foreign language ballots in U.S. elections. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has offered an amendment repealing this dangerous provision, but we have learned that House Republican leadership refuses to allow a vote on his amendment.

Foreign language ballots don’t make civic sense. You can’t vote unless you are a citizen (at least you’re not supposed to). To become a naturalized American citizen, our law requires that you demonstrate “an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write and speak… simple words and phrases… in ordinary usage in the English language.”

Foreign language ballots are costly to both taxpayers and local municipalities. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that Los Angeles County taxpayers spent $1.1 million to provide ballots and election materials in five languages in 1996, escalating to $3.3 million in seven languages in March 2002. In several counties, the cost of foreign-language ballots is more than half the entire election expense!

In light of the Senate recently passing a bill granting AMNESTY to 12 million illegal aliens and importing up to 66 million NEW legal immigrants, America needs linguistic unity more than ever. Offering foreign language ballots while at the same time emphasizing the importance of learning English sends mixed signals to those seeking to assimilate into American society.

Now I won’t get into the lexigraphical meaning of all caps (SHOUTING!!!), but I will argue that translating ballot blather into Spanish and Creole is a good idea, at least in Miami. Here’s why:

The Town Charter currently provides that a general election shall be on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in October of each even-numbered year. It is proposed that the Town Charter be amended to provide that if a County general election is scheduled in the first two weeks of October in an even-numbered year, the Town election shall be held on that County election date.

Shall the above described amendment be adopted?

One might know enough English to fulfill workday duties, manage grocery transactions and generally get along in society, but still not be able to understand the gobbledegook that passes as ballot language. I hardly know what the heck I’m being asked to vote on in the above ballot initiative. Is this “ordinary usage in the English language?”

Like the gay-marriage Constitutional amendment proposal, the proposal to eliminate translation of ballots into languages other than English discriminatory and not in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution. Indeed, it would be the equivalent of reinstituting a poll tax — if you can’t read and fully understand ballotese, you can’t vote. Hmmm, my guess is that might disqualify a lot of the mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers who typically vote Republican ….

Racism Thrives in Today’s Republican Party

Jon Ponder
This is another shining example of the conservatives’ culture of victimhood: “Stop persecuting us because we are racists!”

Jim Crow lives: Yesterday, members of the House, most of whom represent states that belonged to the old Confederacy, stalled the renewal of the Voting Rights Act which imposes federal oversight on states where disenfranchisement of African-American citizens was both overt and pernicious for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War:

“A lot of it looks as if these are some old boys from the South who are trying to do away with it,” said Representative Lynn A. Westmoreland of Georgia, who said it would be unfair to keep Georgia under the confines of the law when his state has cleaned up its voting rights record. “But these old boys are trying to make it Constitutional enough that it will withstand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court.”

I happened to catch Rep. Westmoreland on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal yesterday. Leaving aside his evil leer and Foghorn Leghorn accent, during his entire live interview, he never once referred to the reason the Voting Rights Act was imposed on Georgia and the other Southern states but rather focused on the act’s discriminatory effects on districts such as his own.

This is another shining example of the conservatives’ culture of victimhood: “Stop persecuting us because we are racists!”