Prediction: Right Wing Will Use Gitmo Funding Issue To Play Politics
Expect the right-wing media to blare: SEE? DEMOCRATS DENY OBAMA $80 MILLION TO RELOCATE 240 DETAINEES!. But that, of course, is not the whole story. They will ultimately provide the funds once a plan is in place. Democrats aren’t refusing to fund it; they just want to know how to transfer and resettle the inmates. And the Pentagon says Gitmo will likely still be closed by next January.
And expect Republicans to use this issue to bang the drum about us being less safe under Obama.
Republicans are poised with an amendment by James Inhofe of Oklahoma that would block any of the Guantanamo detainees from coming to U.S. soil to stand trial or serve their sentences. A detainee was released to France last week, leaving 240 at Guantanamo.
“Shuttering this facility now could only serve one end: and that is to make Americans less safe than Guantanamo has,” said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
McConnell should go back in the woods and have another jug of moonshine.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
ALAN, I TOLD YOU THAT DEMOCRATS WOULD DENY FUNDING! THAT PROVES OBAMA IS X-TREMELY LIBRUL AND OUT OF TOUCH! :D
“Once a plan is in place.” Meaning the president will provide direction when…? In this decade? Funny how he promised to close Gitmo INSTANTANEOUSLY after he was inaugurated and this will probably drag on for years.
flap Reply:
May 19th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I’m exaggerating about the instantaneous part, but my point is this will probably drag on for a long time.
I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing…just opposite to what you would expect based on what the Chosen One said.
OldLefty Reply:
May 19th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
We might not be in the mess we are in now if the GOP congress had spoken up at all.
It’s about time that a party does not walk in lock step with the president like they did the last time, ACTUALLY treating him like they though he was a “Chosen One”.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Hey boys and girls! Michael Steele says the era of republicans apologizing is over! Guess he’s got the word “apologizing” confused with sexual self-stimulation!
May 19th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Republicans are poised with an amendment by James Inhofe of Oklahoma that would block any of the Guantanamo detainees from coming to U.S. soil to stand trial or serve their sentences.
Remember, then Senators Clinton and Biden also voted to block the same detainees from entering the same U.S. soil.
OldLefty Reply:
May 19th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
They didn’t have a problem with Ramzi Ahmed Yusef and Omar Abdel-Rahman.
Montana wants some of them.
May 19th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
sexual self-stimulation!
Heel.
May 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
aren’t refusing to fund it; they just want to know how to transfer and resettle the inmates.
Funny funny how each and every passing day, The Blessed Leader is looking more and more like Bush.
OldLefty Reply:
May 19th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Who’s The Blessed Leader?
May 19th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
We should not fund something that needs a plan to execute. We need to develop the plan, then fund it.
May 19th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
more important questions…why would it cost $333,000 to move each prisoner. Can’t they get a discount rate rate from Southwest?
Even throwing in monies for security etc…I can’t see why it would cost a penny more than $5,000 to move a prisoner.
Then of course that wouldn’t leave enough money for the graft and skimming.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:08 am
You don’t have to “play politics” when you put the cart before the horse. Would an executive go before a board of directors demanding 80 million to fund a new project without any plans in place? He’d be a laughing stock.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:07 am
Everyone seem so worried about gitmo closing but I dont think it will happen. What these people dont understand is gitmo is a training facility. The prison may close but the navy still has to do training.
May 20th, 2009 at 10:02 pm