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Obama signs defense authorization bill
"This bill isn't perfect; it's just a first step," Obama said during the signing ceremony. "I have always rejected the notion that you have to waste billions of dollars in taxpayer money to make our country secure."
Obama said the $681 billion bill implements some of the reforms he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought and saves billions of dollars. It includes $130 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and provides $250 million for the alternate engine for the Joint Strike Fighter, something senior Pentagon officials said was unneeded.
"I will always do whatever it takes to keep the American people safe and defend this country," Obama said, noting the bill invests in military capacity to prepare for challenges of the 21st century.
Changing how Washington does things takes "more than a single budget," Gates said.
"This bill is a necessary step for reshaping the priorities of the defense establishment and the way the Pentagon does business," he said.
The bill included the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded the definition of federal hate crimes to include those based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.
"After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we've passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are," Obama said.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International
This news arrived on: 10/28/2009
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Posted Comments:
10-30-2009 21:44
Michelle wrote:
Conflict in the world
The major conflicts in the world have nothing to do with socialism or communism anymore. They are gone. The terrorists in the world are not trying to establish a xocialist world or a communist world. They are trying to take away individual freedom in the name of religious conformity. If you don't to things my way, I will kill you. The terms left and right don't even have any meaning. There is no more Leftist movement, I know I was one of them. They are gone. The right wing is just using fear tactics to get their way, and it doesn't fix anything.
10-30-2009 19:51
Redneck Again! wrote:
Marxism is dead????
Michelle, Wake up! Just because they don't call it socialism or Marxism doesn't mean it isn't!! You must have been educated after the NEA outlawed teaching about other political systems!! They called it "Racism". A catch-all phrase to silence opposition! Hate the right and republicans all you want! You forgot to call us racists or anti-semite or the latest an Islamophobe!! Or just Homophobic (that word can't be real, it's an oxymoron). But we are used to being called things to divert attention from the real problems!
10-30-2009 17:01
Michelle wrote:
Marxism is dead get a life.
Socialism is dead. It died when the Berlin wall fell. Calling Obama's programs Marxist is only trying to attach the right wing hatred to programs these people don't like. Nobody cares about 19th century socialism or Marxism anymore. Move your minds into the twenty-first century and get some new ideas.
10-30-2009 13:57
LeftButRight.com wrote:
If you want to say the election was a fraud and nobody voted for Obama then how do you explain the polls before the election that had Obama ahead.
10-30-2009 10:39
Michelle wrote:
Marxism is dead get a life.
Socialism is dead. It died when the Berlin wall fell. Calling Obama's programs Marxist is only trying to attach the right wing hatred to programs these people don't like. Nobody cares about 19th century socialism or Marxism anymore. Move your minds into the twenty-first century and get some new ideas.
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