Maybe I missed something, but has there been a huge public outcry for these devices at hotel pools? Absolutely not! Outside of pools at facilities that provide physical therapy, where are the stampedes of paraplegics and quadriplegics to hotel pools? I've been to a number of hotels and have yet to see lines of wheelchair bound patrons lined up with protest signs demanding their right to take a dip. Maybe Obama is going to run on "A chicken in every pot, a chair lift in every pool", to lock up the disabled voting bloc.
So why is this being decreed by this administration?
This has several facets to it that this administration thrives on.
One, it is a payback to the Democrat lawyers lobby. The Obama administration says that for those not in compliance, the won't start issuing fines...yet. Because, of course, Obama and Holder are such nice guys. However, lawyers will be allowed to sue, starting immediately! This, despite the fact that there are not even enough of these lifts available to retrofit all of the public access pools in the U.S.
The second facet of this is that it continues this administrations to pit Americans against each other. I mean, who can be against providing access to pools for those who are wheelchair bound? Of course this is the smokescreen. What it really boils down to is the government continuing to keep their foot on the throat of American business, in this case the hotel industry. They break down Americans into scores of different groups. Race, gender, handicaps, etc., and then break them down into even smaller groups. They then create straw man arguments to pit this group against that group, American versus American.
Thursday is 'Pool-mageddon' for trial lawyers
by Conn Carroll Senior Editorial Writer
posted March 13, 2012 at11:33pm
President Obama's Department of Justice -- led by Attorney General Eric Holder -- has found a new way to make the Americans with Disabilities Act pay off for Democratic trial lawyer campaign donors.
Since the ADA first became law in 1990, the DOJ has been issuing "guidelines" that businesses must follow to comply with a multitude of the nation's civil rights laws.
For example, if a restaurant bathroom has a light switch that is 52 inches above the floor, then that business is in compliance. But if the light switch is 53 inches above the floor, than the restaurant owner is a civil rights violator subject to fines from the government and liable for civil damages from any disabled individual who ever used the bathroom.
The DOJ has been issuing a growing wave of such guidelines over the years, reaching an ever larger portion of business activities. In September 2010, the DOJ issued guidelines for "recreational facilities," including a new rule that all public access swimming pools must provide a lift capable of moving disabled patrons from their wheelchairs into the water.
