Posted on 11/02/2009 1:42:20 AM PST by markomalley
While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major legislation on his agenda, he has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list for years.
Many of the bills had been blocked by Republicans who considered the measures unnecessary expansions of government or too costly. But facing Democratic majorities in Congress, conservatives are picking their battles and in many cases letting the legislation roll through.
Last week, Mr. Obama signed defense-policy legislation that included an unrelated measure widening federal hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation and gender identification -- 12 years after it was first introduced. The same legislation also tightened the rules of admissible evidence for military commissions, an issue that consumed Congress in debate in 2007 but received almost no attention this go-round.
Other new measures signed into law since the administration took office, all of which kicked up controversy in past congresses, make it easier for women to sue for equal pay, set aside land in the West from development, give the government the power to regulate tobacco and raise tobacco taxes to expand health insurance for children. Congress and the White House, in the new defense-policy bill, also killed weapons programs that have survived earlier attempts at termination, among them, the F-22 fighter jet, the VH-71 presidential helicopter and the Army's Future Combat System.
Rob Nabors, the White House's deputy budget director, called the series of new laws "a very, very quiet but important victory."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
We can't relax on any of this or allow their intentional distractions to pass...otherwise they will sneak many more little things in on us.
We have to get rid of them, although I suspect that by 2010, they will have us so boxed in by unjust, ideologically motivated laws that our lives are going to be quite different.
Sickening.
It infuriates me to no end that I pay taxes to families making more than mine, to pay for their healthcare!
Between the corruption of the RNC that went on in NY-23 that would have given them Dede, to healthcare, to cap and trade, and all these other “little things” I just want Washington to STOP.
STOP. STOP. STOP.
I want to go to the floor of the House and Senate and make them STOP. I want to stand at their elitist podium and tell them they are all fired, done, over with. I love my country but hate what my government has become. I don't want to do this on the Mall, or at their offices behind closed doors, or from the gallery, or mail them one more "pink slip". I want them to know my real anger at their disregard for the Constitution, my rights, and my liberties. Their new laws, their new taxes, their taking from the sweat of my brow, my efforts to pursue my happiness is a High Crime against the People.
I want We the People to filibuster Washington.
With the F-35 overweight I guess we are back to the F-15s and F-16s. Whether that affects VDATS or not I don't know. Is the F-18 still around?
The new public-lands law signed this spring was also once hotly debated. Among other things, the new law declares 1.2 million acres of Wyoming range land off-limits to oil and natural-gas development. Some who opposed the measure see an essential problem: The U.S. Geological Survey, they note, has estimated the area holds large natural-gas and oil deposits, which could help the U.S. toward energy independence.
The only possible sense that makes is if the goal is the total isolation and destruction of the USA. If that is the goal it makes perfect sense.
We can't stop any of this through Republicans at the moment. Even if we stop the worst of the bills this year and turn the tables in 2010 we may well have suffered the Death by a Thousand Cuts before then. Hence my gloomy tagline ...
I know that, that is why I want to do it myself! The games being played, the locked doors, changed locks and secret meetings...ALL of it needs to stop.
This is MY country, MY life, and when what they do violates MY rights to my own productivity they have committed High Crimes against the American People.
We need to be doing whatever we have to, to shut them down.
Townhalls didn't do it, 9/12 didn't phase them, and now a call of 11/5 to meet them in their offices? No, we need to shut it all down.
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