[tomder55]

Yesterday Congress passed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009
OpenCongress - U.S. Congress - H.R.146 Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009

They passed it like I expect them to pass the President's budget ;using parlimentary tricks (a rule forbidding a motion to recommit and requiring only a simple majority to pass. )to stifle debate... not just from Republicans ,but also many Democrats who voiced objections . This like the $410 billion Omnibus spending bill is a compilation of left over garbage from the last Congressional Session that they held back because they knew President Bush would never sign such irresponsible legislation.

It has no less than 170 different proposals accumulated in the bill ;including plenty of pork (like $3.5 million for the local 450th anniversary celebration of St. Augustine, Florida.) ;and plenty of undgested mystery meat yet to be revealed since the bill is massive.

But this bill is much more destructive to the economy than the spending bill . As ranking Republican member of the House Natural Resource Committee said :

The price Americans pay to fill up their cars is starting to go up again, yet H.R. 146 prohibits American-made energy production on federal lands – production that would create new jobs in these difficult economic times.
Our nation can’t afford to shut-down the creation of jobs for jobless Americans, and we can’t afford to become even more dependent on foreign sources of energy.This omnibus even locks up federal lands from renewable energy production, including wind and solar.
Committee on Natural Resources, Republican Website | Press ReleasesStatement of Ranking Member Doc Hastings On the Rule for the Omnibus Public Lands Bill

Among the Democrats who opposed this ;was House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.and House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, D-Mich.
Even the ACLU signed a letter protesting the criminal penalties in the bill's provisions regarding "paleontological resources preservation."[protecting fossils on federal lands, makes it a crime to "excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface or attempt to excavate, remove, damage, or otherwise alter or deface any paleontological resources located on Federal land" without special permission from the government. Penalties for violations include up to five years imprisonment, and "paleontological resources" are loosely defined as all "fossilized remains…that are of paleontological interest and that provide information about the history of life on earth." ] You better be careful about what rock you pick up on Federal lands or you could get frog marched out of there ! The letter the ACLU submitted said "We are concerned that the bill creates many new federal crimes using language that is so broad that the provisions could cover innocent human error."

Anyway ;the President did not ,as he promised in the campaign ,post the bill for 5 days for public scrutiny .He signed it yesterday after it was posted over the weekend .

[speechlesstx]

Anyway ;the President did not ,as he promised in the campaign ,post the bill for 5 days for public scrutiny .He signed it yesterday after it was posted over the weekend .

Every Obama promise has a short expiration date. You know there wasn't a word in my paper on this today. You'd think with this big brother-like presence of Obama, all Obama all the time media, word of this might be reported. But the Obama administration is very deft at controlling the news cycle. But what was the story line? GM and Chrysler.

That's one way to govern, create a media diversion while screwing the public and no one will notice until it's a done deal. Watch out, next time Obama appears on TV, radio or the internet you might as well be bent over for what's coming.