File Under: Barack Hussein Obama Finding answers, one file at a time…

Obama inks defense bill with hate crimes provision

By BEN FELLER (AP)

[the whole story]

WASHINGTON — Trumpeting a victory against careless spending, President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a defense bill that kills some costly weapons projects and expands war efforts. In a major civil rights change, the law also makes it a federal hate crime to assault people based on sexual orientation.

Kills costly weapons projects and expands war efforts. Already I'm getting lost because these things sound like a contradiction to me... I can't think of a single recent example of the government expanding any kind of effort on anything while at the same time reducing costs. HOW do "hate crimes" have anything to do with THIS???

The $680 billion bill authorizes spending but doesn't provide any actual dollars. Rather, it sets guidance that is typically followed by congressional committees that decide appropriations. Obama hailed it as a step toward ending needless military spending that he called "an affront to the American people and to our troops."

Sooo, let me get this straight... We're authorizing the spending of $680 million we don't have because it's an affront to the American people and to our troops. If the money is in fact used to better equip our troops, how is ANY military spending an affront to our troops??? On the one hand, I'm all for reducing military spending, mainly because we have a government too weak to bring the full weight of our military to bear on any given conflict. On the other, I'll ask again, HOW do you expand a war effort while reducing military spending?

The measure expands current hate crimes law to include violence based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to the must-pass defense policy bill over the steep objections of many Republicans.

What can I even say to that??? After years of frustration, the Democrats are jamming something down our throats by gluing it to a must-pass defense bill... People, this shit has got to STOP, and I mean TODAY. How much legislation goes through this way, or the way our friend John Murtha handles it in the video from two posts ago? This kind of bullshit is ruining the country...

The White House put most of its focus on what the bill does contain: project after project that Obama billed as unneeded. The bill terminates production of the F-22 fighter jet program, which has its origins in the Cold War era and, its critics maintain, is poorly suited for anti-insurgent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No complaints... Such an aircraft would truly be a prestigious accomplishment, but given the nature of "modern war", probably unnecessary...

"When Secretary Gates and I first proposed going after some of these wasteful projects, there were a lot of people who didn't think it was possible, who were certain we were going to lose, who were certain that we were going to get steamrolled," Obama said. "Today, we have proven them wrong."

Given the passage of the new hate crimes legislation bill, it sounds like Obama and company are the ones doing the steamrolling...

In another of several examples, the legislation terminates the replacement helicopter program for the president's own fleet. That program is six years behind schedule and estimated costs have doubled to more than $13 billion.

Thank you.

He [Obama] spoke more personally about the new civil rights protections. A priority of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., that had been on the congressional agenda for a decade, the measure is named for Matthew Shepard, the gay Wyoming college student murdered 11 years ago.

I don't want to appear callous, but one homosexual gets murdered and we have to pass legislation placing gays in a position of legal, higher intrinsic value than heterosexuals? Once again I will quote Herb Silverman from The Washington Post:

A crime is a crime, regardless of the victim's race, color, religion, national origin or sexual orientation. A murdered white heterosexual male is no less dead than an Hispanic, gay Christian. Suppose three murders occur: one for money, another out of jealousy, and a third because the victim is a black, gay Wiccan. If the first two murderers are sentenced to 20 years in prison and the third is sentenced to 30 years, would the families of the victims in the first two cases feel they had received equal justice under the law?

I wont hold my breath waiting for an answer... Folks, we have to do something to put an end to this wheeling and dealing style of legislating... Hate crimes laws are only another tool of division... Legislated tolerance is in actuality, INTOLERANCE...

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• October 27, 2009 -- Get YOUR Obama phone!!!