Package Deals

There is a common practice in Washington of tagging good bills (is that an oxymoron?) with amendments that are not popular enough to pass on their own. Today the president signed a defense bill into law that had a tail. The tail was hate crime legislation creating a new special class of people in the U.S. This bill will jack up the penalties for "hate crimes" against homosexuals, transsexuals, and just about anyone besides white males. Tying this to the defense bill guaranteed its passage but it wasn't really necessary. Can you imagine any politician in Washington with the stones to vote against hate crime legislation? Nonetheless it is law along with the defense spending bill that "cuts government waste" according to the president.

At the risk of being predictable I have a real problem with hate crime laws. The purpose of these laws is to serve as a deterrent to crimes against protected classes of people. These groups include just about every minority persuasion you can think of; racial, religious, sexual, etc. We found out recently that it doesn't include a white boy that was beat up by 15 black boys in Detroit. Regardless, what the law teaches us that assault and battery on a member of one of these groups deserves a stiffer penalty than on a member of a non-protected group. Assault is assault, no matter who the victim is or why they get beat. Kind of goes against the equal protection clause of the constitution. The truth is that these chuckleheads that perpetrate such crimes are not going to be deterred from their nefarious deeds. Therefore they should be put under the jail for a long, long time, regardless of who they beat up or kill. It was all about appeasing the gay and lesbian lobby. Throwing them a bone, if you will.

Now on to the main focus of the bill, defense spending. He signs a $680 billion bill into law and crows about how he cut waste in government spending. That is like a dieter bragging about cutting bread from his diet while eating thousands of calories of fat a day. He is still going to gain weight, just like we are going to go deeper into debt. The cuts he made are to programs that should have been cut by the previous administration. These are mainly pork barrel projects that should land someone in jail. He made the supreme sacrifice of cutting the helicopter replacement program for his fleet of helicopters used for hauling his sorry butt around. BIG DEAL!!!! How many choppers does it take to ferry him back and forth to the airport and Camp David? A better question is how many limos does it take to get Michelle to the farmer's market to buy kale for the kitchen help to fix for them? Wouldn't it be easier to give one of those guys in the puffy hats a twenty and send his butt down there?

I will agree with him on one thing : there is a lot of waste in the defense department budget. But I wouldn't stop there. There is a lot of waste in every government program run by Washington. The one he has decided to get tough on is the military budget. This first round of cuts was fairly innocuous but I see him making Bill Clinton look like a piker when it comes to gutting our military. He is committed to eliminating our nuclear advantage unilaterally and has caved to the Russians on stationing missiles in Europe. His hesitancy on sending more troops into Afghanistan has demonstrated his lack of commitment to the war effort. He is looking for any excuse to lose that war and now he is trying to pin it on a corrupt election. What a coward!

The president of the United States has a duty to protect this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It is ironic that this primary constitutional duty is the one he is least able to perform. Shake your fist a couple of times, Barack. It will make you feel like a tough guy!