From The Mouth Of A Rational Republican

I guess at least one Republican in the country is tired of the fearmongering from his party over GITMO.

The prospect of transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a maximum-security prison in Thomson, Illinois, generated an interesting response from a Republican state lawmaker who represents a neighboring area.

Representative Jim Sacia of the state's 89th District accused Republicans in Washington -- including Senate candidate, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill) -- of risking thousands of local jobs in their demagoguery of the detainee issue.

"My thinking on this is extremely positive," Sacia told the Huffington Post. "If we lose this opportunity. All I can think of is we literally are idiots. I mean that sincerely."

"I understand I'm on different pages of music with others in my party. First of all this should not be a partisan issue in anyway. If President Obama brings the detainees on U.S. soil and we sit here with a brand new state-of-the-art, max security prison, sitting vacant for the last eight years, and pass on an opportunity to sell it to the federal government, which we would fill it with 1,500 regular prisoners and 800 detainees, what is the problem? The building was designed to do that.

"The only reason we have rhetoric now is because of the closing of Gitmo," Sacia concluded. "It makes no sense at all. This is a tremendous opportunity and we would be idiots to waste it."

I can't wait to see what kind of backlash Sacia faces from saying just about the most sensible thing I have heard from a Republican all year.

Im sure Boss Limbaugh will have something to say.

One Step Closer To Closing GITMO

The House did their part today to pave the way for the closing of GITMO, and the vote was even bipartisan. Now we just have to hope the Senate follows suit.

Shoot It To Me Straight

Its pretty apparent that White House counsel, Greg Craig has been offered up as sacrificial lamb over President Obama's failure to keep the closure of GITMO on his own self imposed timeline. Now the truth is the real failure came from the White House when Republicans and their wingnut allies in the blogosphere and on talk radio took to the airways to fear monger over bringing GITMO detainees to America in order to make sure they faced justice. Not only did the White House not attempt to counter this ridiculous messaging, they didn't even support the Democrats in Congress who tried to do so on their behalf.

Now I remember one of the members of Congress who was most forceful in pushing back on the right wing bullshit was Congressman Jim Moran. It turns out that he isn't happy about how Craig is being treated and he doesn't mind telling it like it is.

"Those of us on the Hill who wanted to defend the administration's policy because we knew we had the facts on our side got no back up, no support, no information," Moran said, speculating that the Obama team simply didn't want to spend political capital on the issue.

That became clear to Moran and others in Congress in May, when the war funding bill was moving through Congress and Republicans took to the airwaves to decry the plan to shudder the prison. "We were at the Alamo, and the cavalry was galloping in the other direction," said Moran, "I think it was a political decision. I don't know who made it, but I very much doubt it was Greg Craig."

Other key appropriators who were trying to fund the effort, such as defense subcommittee chairman Jack Murtha, D-PA, and Appropriations chairman David Obey, D-WI, couldn't and wouldn't fight the Republican machine without Obama's help.

"They talked to the White House and the White House wasn't willing to stand alongside them," said Moran. The thinking among Democrats was, "If we can't take advantage of Obama's credibility on this issue, we probably are not going win."

Now the administration is trying to press the reset button on Guantánamo, but Moran argued the damage is done and it is now nearly impossible to sell the idea of moving the prisoners to U.S. soil.

"This is their first major fuck up, and it's an enormous fuckup, because now that you've lost ground you're not going to be able to recover it," said Moran.

Moran is harsh here but exactly on point also. To me this situation along with the fight over the stimulus bill showed that the White House was somewhat gun shy on their own legislative agenda. This signaled to he right wingers that as long as they were loud and as long as they were repetitive, they could make President Obama and his White House back away from issues they saw as politically difficult. It will be interesting to see where we go from here because Moran doesn't seem very hopeful about the closing of GITMO anymore. And honestly considering how he himself put his ass on the line only to get sold out by he White House, can you blame him at all?

A GITMO Alternative

The AP is reporting that the Obama administration is looking at creating a military/civilian prison to house all of the GITMO detainees. Such a site would also house a courtroom so that detainees would not have to be shipped all over the country to be put on trial which would potentially give Republicans an opening to fear monger. I won't excerpt any of the article because we all know the AP is tripping right now but Gotta Laff has a pretty good write up on it at her blog, Political Carnival.

More Weaksauce From Senate Democrats On GITMO

Greg Sargent talked to the aides for some Democratic Senators about closing GITMO and here is what they had to say.

The aides provide an interesting perspective on the fluidity of the situation, hinting at the extent of the breach that has opened up between the White House and Congressional Dems on this issue — and the extent of the work that will be required to repair that breach.

“Dems really want to work with him on this, but felt as though their flank was exposed,” is how one senior Democratic leadership aide put it. This aide said that the speech yesterday won’t do much to get Dems on board in the short term, barring “a detailed plan” from the White House on what to do with the detainees that will give cover to members of Congress to reconsider their opposition.

This aide predicts that a Department of Defense authorization bill coming up this summer is the most likely place where the issue will be revisited.

Another Democratic aide said that the burden is on Obama to move public opinion on the issue if he wants members of Congress on board. Members are relieved that the president is finally “out there with his bully pulpit,” this aide says. But she added: “Members will follow public opinion on this.”

First of all what public opinion polls are these idiots looking at? Every single one I have seen has a plurality that wants GITMO closed. But besides that what kind of cowards have we elected that they are going to follow public opinion rather than lead on this issue?! Hell I guess its a good thing Harry Reid and his minions weren't in the Senate back in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was up for a vote. If they were I would probably still be having to eat in the "black" section of restaurants. I don't know who is behind this coward ass bullshit but I do know that Harry Reid is the ring leader and its going to be my mission in life to get that idiot out of the Senate if they don't remove him as Majority Leader. There is no excuse to have the kinds of advantages we have now in Congress and hold the White House and still run around scared of our own shadow on National Security issues. If the Democrats in the Senate are too afraid of Republicans to close GITMO and house some detainees in SuperMax prisons then its high time we got some better damned Democrats elected in their place!

YIMBY

Turns out there ARE some cities in America that not only aren't afraid of housing GITMO detainees in their jail, they are practically BEGGING to do so.

A frequent attack on the closure of Guantanamo is the claim that no one in the U.S. wants detainees housed in their backyard. Last Sunday, Dick Cheney remarked, “I don’t know a single congressional district in this country that is going to say, gee, great, they’re sending us 20 Al Qaida terrorists.” But Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds reports that the town of Hardin, MT requesting that 100 detainees be sent to its empty prison:

Earlier this month, Hardin’s town council voted unanimously to offer the US government a deal: Send Hardin the detainees that most foreign countries and other cities the US are afraid to take.

“Why not us?” [Greg Smith, Hardin's economic development director] asks. “They’ve got to go somewhere.” He dismisses security concerns over housing inmates former Bush administration officials famously described as “the worst of the worst”. “We have some very hardened criminals in our own country that have committed some heinous crimes, and they are in communities all across this country,” Smith argues. [...]

He estimates at least 100 new jobs would come from filling the prison, a real boost to this small, beleaguered community. Smith describes the town’s quest to become a new penal colony as “a piece of the American dream.” “Like anything in America, we’re looking for opportunities,” he says.

Isn't it about time that our Democratic leaders in the Congress stopped hiding behind this bullshit line anyway? Our prisons can hold those assholes and nobody will be put at any more danger than they already are. Its time to close GITMO and its time that our Democratic Congress gets with that program.