President Obama delivers plan to close Guantanamo Bay. As expected the Republicans freak out.

Courtesy of CNN: 

President Barack Obama on Tuesday called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility after delivering his plan to Congress to achieve a goal that has long eluded his presidency. 

The blueprint comes seven years after Obama made an Oval Office vow to permanently shutter the prison for enemy combatants, but it already faces objections from Republicans and legal obstacles they have placed to transferring Guantanamo detainees to U.S. prisons. 

Obama nonetheless said emptying the prison would move the country past what he described as a troubled era of wartime behavior. 

"The plan we're putting forward today isn't just about closing the facility at Guantanamo. It's not just about dealing with the current group of detainees, which is a complex piece of business because of the manner in which they were originally apprehended and what happened. This is about closing a chapter in our history," he said during short remarks at the White House. 

"Keeping this facility open is contrary to our values," Obama said. "It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law."

Of course this news was not exactly welcomed by the Republicans.

This courtesy of Esquire: 

The president has never wavered in his desire to close down the prison, but it is pure Green Lanternism to imagine that he could have done it alone. The Republicans in Congress, adorning the politics of fear with a glistening coat of chickenshit, passed a law that forbade the use of taxpayer money to fund the transfer of Gitmo detainees to the United States, where they might use their Muslim heat vision to melt the walls of a SuperMax somewhere in the heartland. Right on schedule Tuesday, this line of argument found voice in the Richelieu of Rumford. 

Even before the report was submitted to Congress, lawmakers were lining up to voice their objections. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) accused the Obama administration of not properly describing the risks associated with the remaining detainees at the prison. "The American people have a right to expect that the administration will be transparent and honest with them about the activities and associations of the terrorists who remain at Guantanamo," Ayotte said in a statement Monday. "The administration's refusal to do so only underscores the fact that closing Guantanamo will make Americans less safe."

Yeah, you know what kept us "less safe?" 

Starting two unnecessary wars, bombing the crap out of civilians, and then caging often innocent people like animals for as much ten years without benefit of a trial.

Gitmo is the perfect propaganda tool and keeping in open puts American lives at risk every single day.

Just another reminder as to why it so important that Democrats hold onto the Presidency.

Before leaving office President Obama WILL close Guantanamo Bay.

Courtesy of Daily News Bin:

Obama has faced a number of hurdles when it comes to closing Guantanamo. The republican congress unilaterally banned any prisoners at the facility from being transferred to super-max prisons within the United States out of pure political spite, forcing the Obama administration to find other nations willing to house them instead. That’s resulted in a slow drip of outbound detainees over the years, with a mere hundred prisoners now remaining. More recently, the Pentagon has played the role of obstructionist, sabotaging Obama’s efforts to move the remaining detainees. But now the President is launching a definitive plan to shutter Guantanamo for good. 

President Obama’s chief of staff says that the plan will soon be presented to congress for approval. When the republican-held congress predictably refuses to allow the measure to be voted on for obstructionist reasons, Obama will then move forward with executive action. So while it’ll have taken him nearly eight years it turns out the President will be able to fulfill his original campaign promise.

Like I said before " One thing that can be said about President Obama, when he makes a promise he does everything in his power to keep it."

It is not the supposed ineffectiveness of this President that really upsets the Right Wing, it is his ability to accomplish things despite every obstacle they throw in his path.

Pentagon seems determined to thwart President Obama's ability to keep a very important campaign promise. To close Guantanamo Bay.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

To slow prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs, complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from spending the night at Guantanamo. 

Partly as a result of the Pentagon's maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in the "War on Terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and then keeping them there for years without trial. 

When Obama took office, the prison held 242 detainees, down from a peak of about 680 in 2003. Today, with little more than a year remaining in his presidency, it still holds 107 detainees. 

Pentagon officials denied any intentional effort to slow transfers.

The article goes on to say that this Pentagon obstructionism was part of the reason that the President removed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and that since then he has lit a fire under the defense department to get this process moving at a faster pace.

Even if the Pentagon cooperates however the Republicans are set to block Obama from moving the most dangerous detainees to Federal prisons, though it sounds as if the President is perfectly willing to use executive orders to bypass them if necessary.

It is hard to blame the President for losing his patience with this since he has been working on it virtually his entire time in the White House.

One thing that can be said about President Obama, when he makes a promise he does everything in his power to keep it.

Should President Obama use his executive authority to close Guantanamo Bay?

Courtesy of The Washington Post:  

As Congress awaits the administration’s plans to close Guantanamo Bay, Democrats are suggesting it might not be a bad thing if President Obama shutters the facility unilaterally. 

While Democratic leaders are being careful not to implore Obama directly to cut Congress out of his decision-making process, they are giving the president ample political cover to use executive authority to shutter the controversial detention facility. 

“This president, time and again, has said that he wants to do everything in his power to close Guantanamo before he leaves. The Republicans in congress continue to do everything in their power to stop it,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, on Tuesday. “I think there reaches a point where Congress is just being stubborn. They are just opposing everything he suggests, and he has to make decisions in the best interests of the country, and I think closing Guantanamo is one of them.”

So here let me answer my own question in the headline. Yes!

It is beyond obvious that the Republicans are NEVER going to agree to close Gitmo and give Obama yet another victory, so if he wants to keep one of his biggest campaign promises he has no choice but to go it alone.

Anybody of a differing opinion?

Sometimes the best source for the truth comes from the comic section.

Now THAT is a very powerful, and very accurate, statement.

Next up on President Obama's presidential bucket list, the closure of Guantanamo Bay.

I told you I got this.

Courtesy of the BBC: 

Josh Earnest said the closure of the Cuban detention camp was a national security interest. 

Mr Earnest said the administration was "in the final stages of drafting a plan to safely and responsibly (close) the prison at Guantanamo Bay and to present that to Congress". 

He added: "That has been something that our national security officials have been working on for quite some time, primarily because it is a priority of the president."

So if this is correct it would mean that the promise that Obama made at the very beginning of his presidency, and the one that the Republicans have blocked at ever opportunity, will finally come to fruition.

This will of course be great news going forward as Gitmo is often used by terrorists as proof of America's hypocrisy and confirmation of their evil.

Besides it costs the country 2.7 million dollars per year to house prisoners in Guantanamo, so you would think that so-called fiscal conservative Republicans would be totally behind this closure.

Obama administration ordered to release video of Gitmo prisoner's force feeding.

Courtesy of Reprieve:  

An appeal court has today ordered the Obama Administration to redact 12 hours of secret Guantánamo force-feeding footage in preparation for its public release, rejecting the Administration's argument that not one single frame should be seen by the public. 

The classified videos, which show Guantánamo prisoner Abu Wa-'el Dhiab being forcibly removed from his cell and force-fed by the US military, were ordered to be released to the public by federal Judge Gladys Kessler in October 2014, following a First Amendment intervention from 16 US press organizations in the abuse case Dhiab v Obama. 

The Obama Administration defied Judge Kessler's order to prepare the videos for release, complaining that the process was too much work and insisting that revealing even one frame from the videos posed a national security risk. Leaving the videos unredacted, the Administration took the case straight to D.C.'s federal Court of Appeals in an attempt to get the order overturned. 

In a judgment handed down today, the Court of Appeals ruled that the Administration's refusal to comply with the lower court's order was wrong, and rejected its attempt to use the 'burdensome' task of redacting videos as a reason to circumvent the First Amendment. 

The Obama Administration must now comply with Judge Kessler’s original order to redact the videotapes to address national security concerns, and submit the redacted tapes to her court for reconsideration ahead of their release.

I think the Obama administrations reluctance to release this video is understandable as one lawyer who saw the footage claimed that it was so "grim" that he had trouble sleeping afterward, and of course it will surely be used by ISIS as a recruitment tool. 

However we all have the right to know what was done in our name to these prisoners, many of whom were never charged with a crime and who have been locked away for over ten years.

Yes this might give ISIS a boost with their recruitment efforts, but that cannot be the final consideration at this point.

And besides I would very much like to see some of these Republican presidential candidates forced to watch the footage and then asked for their reaction, and whether they still support the wars of George W. Bush.

By the way Abu Wa-'el Dhiabby, a Syrian national, is now confined to a wheelchair due to the abuses he has suffered since his capture in 2002.

Former Guantanamo Bay guard claims that CIA murdered three detainees and made it look like suicide.

Courtesy of News.com.au:  

A Former Guantanamo Bay guard has spoken for the first time about what he claims was a CIA murder of detainees, covered up as a triple suicide. 

Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman was on guard at the Cuban prison camp on the night they died, and calls the official version of events “impossible”. 

“They would have had to all three tie their hands and feet together, shove rags down their throats, put a mask over their face, made a noose, hung it from the ceiling on the side of the cellblock, jumped into the noose and hung themselves simultaneously,” the ex-Marine told Vice News in an explosive video interview. 

“In a cellblock where guards are ordered to check on detainees every four minutes.” 

There had also been an inspection of the cellblock only a few hours earlier, Hickman said, and guards had found nothing detainees might use to make the nooses and rags. 

Hickman tried for years to put the nightmare of his time at Guantanamo behind him, but eventually he was forced to confront his past. 

He has now written a book, Murder at Camp Delta, which he hopes will be a step towards finding out the truth.

And just when I thought I could not be any more disturbed by what the CIA did with terrorism suspects. 

If this is not disturbing enough for you trust me it gets worse.  

The three men were Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, 37, from Yemen, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, 30, from Saudi Arabia, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, 22, also from Saudi Arabia. 

Al-Zahrani had been imprisoned at Guantanamo since he was captured at 17. None of the men had been charged with a crime.

Now you may be asking yourself WHY the CIA would do such a thing, the answer is both simple and horrifying.

But why would the authorities want to kill these men and make their deaths look like suicide? 

Hickman says it’s because the three were regular hunger strikers, who incited others to do the same. 

“They had a policy that if a detainee is hunger-striking, he cannot be interrogated,” said Hickman. “In 2006, they were doing roughly 200 interrogations a week, so any massive hunger-strike would, what they consider, cripple the intelligence value. 

“I believe the number-one mission in JTF-GTMO (Joint Task Force Guantanamo) at the time was, stop the hunger strikes at all costs. 

“I think you get rid of the people that provoked the hunger strikes and you get rid of the problem. 

“After the deaths there were no hunger strikes for a long period of time.”

You know as much as I don't want to think that our government agencies are capable of this kind of thing, from what we have learned this last decade  they are capable of not only this but much, much more.

President Obama wants to keep yet another campaign promise. Shutting down Gitmo.

Courtesy of Politicususa:  

I am going to be doing everything I can to close it. It is something that inspires jihadists and extremists around the world. It is contrary to our values, and it is wildly expensive. We’re spending millions for each individual there, and we have drawn down the population there significantly. There are a little less than 150 individuals left in this facility. We are continue to place those who have been cleared for release or transfer to host countries who are willing to take them. There’s going to be a certain irreducible number that are going to be really hard cases. We know they’ve done something wrong and they are still dangerous but it’s difficult to mount the evidence in a traditional Article three court so we’re going to have to wrestle with that, but we need to close that facility and I’m going to do everything I can to do that.

Politicususa goes on to affirm that the President is quite correct about the expense, and points out that while it only costs taxpayers about $78,000 a year per inmate in the most expensive supermax prison in the country it costs a whopping 2.8 million per prisoner in Gitmo.

You know if the President is able to find some way to close Guantnamo Bay it will make some of his other accomplishments pale in comparison, and DEFINITELY put a shine on his legacy.

Hmm, I wonder if renewing diplomatic ties with Cuba is part of his plan for putting pressure on the Republicans concerning Gitmo?

Is he really that many moves ahead of the GOP?

Gitmo detainees cite Hobby Lobby case in new request for religious freedom.

Courtesy Mother Jones:

 In a new court filing, attorneys for two Guantanamo Bay detainees have invoked the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which allowed certain corporations to ignore the Obamacare contraception mandate if their owners object to it on religious grounds. The motions, filed with a Washington, DC, district court on behalf of Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan and Emad Hassan of Yemen, ask the court to bar military officials from preventing Gitmo inmates from participating in communal prayer during Ramadan. 

"Hobby Lobby makes clear that all persons—human and corporate, citizen and foreigner, resident and alien—enjoy the special religious free exercise protections of the [Religious Freedom Restoration Act]," the lawyers argue. 

A spokesman for the Department of Defense told Al Jazeera America on Friday that the "Defense Department is aware of the filing," and that the "government will respond through the legal system."

Gee I wonder if the Justices who were supposedly trying to protect the non-existent religious freedom of corporations recognized the can of worms that they were opening?

I also wonder how all of those Right Wing supporters who touted the decision as a victory for religious freedom will feel if it helps these prisoners get more of their own religious freedoms back?

Yeah I somehow doubt that Chad and Christie Christian will be terribly thrilled with their newly protected religious freedom being extended to people who pray to Mecca five times a day and think that Jesus was a great prophet but no son of God. 

Judge Jeannine goes full retard in over the top rant at President Obama.

It just so happened that I caught most of this as I sat down to enjoy the burger I bought for my one day a week fast food splurge.

I was literally only about two bites in when Pirro started screaming at me like an under medicated psychotic, and I stopped with my mouth full of burger and just watched wondering if her head might explode.

Not only was she completely losing her shit, but the folks over at Americans Against the Tea Party also point out that she got just about every fact wrong:  

She accuses the Obama administration of working with the terrorists, citing a WorldNewsDaily piece: 

“There have been reports saying ISIS was trained by US instructors at a secret base in Jordan.” 

What she wants to do is attack the president, and go for the jugular. What she does, however, is prove that she can’t read, and won’t fact check, making this just another day at FOX. 

She goes on to say that the president “didn’t have the balls” to try every prisoner at Gitmo. She lies about the Obama administration releasing Al-Baghdadi, and she suggests that there’s something suspicious about it taking the US two years to capture Khattala while implying that Khattala was lying about the cause for the Benghazi attack, because dreams die hard. 

Her solution to the problem in the Middle East? Bomb them, and bomb them hard. She wants the bombs crashing down, just like FOX’s ratings. She closes by condemning Obama for “cutting deals with Iran,”accusing the president of “danc[ing] around with your political correctness while they sharpen their knives,” and admonishes him for playing a “very dangerous game, for which you are ill-prepared.” 

She says that Americans don’t trust him “for good reason,” because they’re “not even convinced [he] know[s] who the enemy is!”

I have watched a few of Pirro's rants in the past, as they are often good for a laugh.

But it seems to me that her mental health seems to be deteriorating as time goes on.

In fact this one, especially with her talking right at the President as if he had time to listen to the rantings of a lunatic, reminded very much of somebody else we all know and loathe. 

It kind of makes me wonder if pretty soon there will be a new category added to the DSM-5 labeled the Obama Derangement Syndrome?

I have to imagine that if it happened there would be plenty of people at Fox News, and in Congress, who would qualify for some spanking new medications.

Sean Hannity interviews Sarah Palin about the surprising defeat of Eric Cantor, and (The only thing she cares about) the mention of her in Hillary's new book.

Once again Hannity starts off treating Palin as if she has something significant to contribute concerning the victory by Dave Brat over Eric Cantor, she doesn't.

Oh she prattles on for a couple of minutes ("I think people are over thinking this.") but you can tell she really only wants to talk about one thing.

Hannity first mentions Hillary at the 4:26 mark, at which time Palin's face light up like somebody just shoved a meth needle in her ass, but instead of talking about the book he asks her about statements Hillary made about the release of those five Gitmo prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Bergdahl, in which she claimed that the released prisoners were not a threat to the United States.

Clearly irritated that she is not getting the chance to talk about her mention in the book Palin goes off:

"Of course there's a possibility of they being a threat. It's in their genes, it's in their DNA. These radical Muslims. These terrorists. Who would want to destroy America and our allies. They're not going to go back home and start playing Tiddly Winks with, you know, the neighbor terrorist. No they're out to do harm to America."

"Playing Tiddly Winks with the terrorist neighbor?"  Why do people ask this idiot questions?

Finally Hannity gives her the chance to respond to Hillary's mention of her in the book, and frames it that the Obama campaign asked Hillary to "beat up" on Palin. (The expression on her face reminds me of a snake right before it unhinges its jaws and starts to swallow a fat rat.)

Here was her response.

"Well Team Obama has such disrespect for women, it's kind of cool to see proof there that they are the ones who took that first shot in the so-called War on Women. It certainly wasn't the GOP. And then from there of course Obama's administration, the agenda, that is trying to make women fill (sic) less than adequate so that they would be more dependent on big brother government to provide for them. Try to make women fill (sic) like their just not worthy, not capable of taking care of themselves. That's the complete opposite of the planks in the Republican platform that believes in competition regardless of gender, Hard work and reward for your work ethic."

Yes the Obama administration has punished women by passing a bill that changes the statute of limitations for an equal pay discrimination lawsuit, and stops insurance companies from charging women for birth control pills that their male counterparts do not have to worry about.

"Duck ladies! It's the war on women and the Obama administration is firing fair wages and free birth control at you!"

I sometimes wonder how somebody who became Alaska's first female governor can have so little understanding of the sacrifices from all the women who came before her that gave her that opportunity. Or how she does not recognize that the men in power, MANY of them on the GOP side, fought so hard to keep women out of the workplace and under compensated once they arrived.

It is like she has this purposeful cognitive dissonance concerning the reality of our history, and wants to believe that there exists fairness today, and that the fairness has ALWAYS been in place for those who work hard, despite their gender.

Well I will certainly not resort to sexism.

"You lady, are an asshole!"

Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) force fed under standard Guantánamo Bay procedure. Warning VERY difficult to watch!

I have had a great deal of respect for Mos Def or quite a few years now, but that respect has gone up ten fold.

It is way past time that Gitmo was closed down for good and that those prisoners are given their day in court.

Of course though the President has promised repeatedly to do just that, the Republicans have blocked him at every turn.

House votes against closing Gitmo again!

Courtesy of The Daily Banter:  

The House of Representatives has voted to block the administration from transferring detainees by a margin of 236 to 188 by passing an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 (NDAA). You can read the amendment here. 

None of the amounts authorized to be available to the Department of Defense may be used to transfer, release, or assist in the transfer or release, during the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on December 31, 2014, any individual detained at Guantanamo (as such term is defined in section 1033(f)(2)) to the custody or control of the Republic of Yemen or any entity within Yemen. 

As many as 56 detainees have been cleared by the Department of Defense to be released to Yemen, but the House of Representatives simply will not allow it. In total, as many as 86 out of 166 detainees have been cleared for transfer. 

In addition to barring the administration from transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen, the latest version of the NDAA also includes language that was included in previous versions that bar the administration from transferring detainees to American soil.

One of my pet peeves, on a long line of pet peeves, is that Obama did not keep his promise to close Guantanamo Bay. ESPECIALLY when it is brought up by conservatives as an example of how Obama does not do what he says he will do, or that he lacks integrity.

Of course as most of us who have been paying attention realize that he signed an executive order during his first week, but was blocked by the Republicans. (And as Thom Hartmann explains it was by using essentially the same tactics that they are using today.)

No President Obama wants the prison closed, and has wanted it closed his entire presidency. The question we should be asking is why is it so important for the Republicans to keep it open?

Kansas Republican Congressman talking about Gitmo hunger strike "It looked to me like a lot of them had put on weight."

I liked how Craig Melvin immediately asked him how he could possibly know if the detainees had put on weight unless he saw them BEFORE they started their hunger strike. After which the candy ass tries to change the subject in order to save face.

Too late!

"I have no idea what that woman is talking about?" Yeah just like a Republican. When faced with facts just refuse to examine them. POS!
 

Early Sunday morning guest rant.

This morning's rant comes to us from Tally of the Obama Diary:

I am so tired of people supposedly on my side, being as F**KING STUPID as the baggers are. 

FACTS FOR EVERYONE WHO CLAIMS THEY’RE A LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE: 

- ONLY 6 (SIX) DEMOCRATS VOTED TO FUND THE CLOSING OF GITMO. That means that not only did ALL of the REPUBLICANS in Congress vote against it, but MOST of the DEMOCRATS DID TOO. People who blame President Obama for that are F**KING STUPID. 

- THE DEMOCRATS NEVER CONTROLLED CONGRESS. No, not EVER. Stop repeating this lie. You look like an idiot, and you’re not helping. There were NEVER 60 votes – enough for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Not even for a microsecond. People who blame President Obama for something that is OUR FAULT (for not sending him a Progressive Army, then staying home in a whiny snit) are F**KING STUPID. 

- CANDIDATE OBAMA RAN ON CHANGE AND PROMISED TO END PARTISANSHIP. He is still trying. It’s the GOP who refuse. HE has KEPT THAT PROMISE. It’s OUR FAULT there are asshats in Congress who care more about their hatred for one man, and regaining power, than their own COUNTRY, and ALL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Either we elect ALL DEMS, or who aren’t bought and paid for corporate whores (BEN NELSON, I’M TALKING TO YOU), or non-insane Independents, or we’re DONE. There are no sane Republicans left. That is a fact. Anyone who cannot understand this is F**KING STUPID.

There is much more at the link, and I advice everybody to click it and read what Tally wrote. And then after you finish e-mail it to all of your so-called "liberal" friends who claim that this President has not lived up to the hype.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, could have done more for this country against the unprecedented blowback that has been coming his way since day one from the Republicans than Obama has done. Not Hillary, not Bill, not anybody!

From the second that he was elected, the Republicans have done NOTHING except work against every single policy decision that he has tried to implement.  If he were not such a  determined and gifted leader, he would never have managed to be as successful as he has been, despite the roadblocks, disinformation, and outright sabotage he has been forced to deal with during these last three years.

If we really want to see this President "be all that he can be," we need to not ONLY give him four more years, we need to send as many REAL Democrats to Washington as we can possibly dig up.

Some comedy genius from the Daily Show last night.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Scumdog Million-Hairs - Impeachment Trial

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

The fact that Blagojevich compares himself to Mandela, Martin Luther King jr., and Gandhi is so shocking that I cannot decide if he is the most arrogant bastard I have ever seen or the ballsiest guy on the planet!

"You know they crucified Jesus Christ, just like this too." Unbelievable!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Guantanamo Baywatch - The Final Season

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Jon has a point. I mean our insane criminal murderers are just as dangerous as the Gitmo insane criminal murderers. I am pretty confident that the prisoners from Cuba will be able to find a peer group right here in the good old US of A.

"Wait, you hate prison guards? I hate prison guards too! Let's be bunkmates!"

Communist torture techniques used at Gitmo.

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

So the very techniques that our nation has vilified the Chinese for using in the past are now perfectly acceptable to be used by Americans?

This is just another indication of how far the Bush administration has dragged us from our core values.

The idea that this country would employ these terrible techniques against suspects is completely indefensible, and whoever approved this and supervised its use should be punished to the very limits of the law.

According to Bush criticizing Gitmo is "slandering America".

During an interview with President Bush on Britain’s Sky News yesterday, Sky political editor Adam Boulton noted that while Bush talks “a lot about freedom,” there are many who say that some of the Bush administration’s torture and detention policies represent “the complete opposite of freedom.” But Bush quickly snapped back, saying those criticizing his policies are slandering America.

No sir, those who are "slandering America" are those who have led it away from its core values.

Those who have traded away our individual freedoms for government control over its citizens.

Those who have allowed our country to be categorized with China, North Korea, and Iran when it comes to human rights violations.

Those are the people who have "slandered America".

So Mr. Bush, any of those sound familiar to you?

No matter how you stack the deck sometimes justice does prevail.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

The justices handed the Bush administration its third setback at the high court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The vote was 5-4, with the court's liberal justices in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, "The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times."

The court said not only that the detainees have rights under the Constitution, but that the system the administration has put in place to classify them as enemy combatants and review those decisions is inadequate.

The Bush administration has tried to put together a court that will put their ethics on hold and allow them to break the law with impunity, but they are clearly not there yet.

And hopefully once Obama takes office he will make sure that the Supreme Court makes sure to obey the rule of law and not the demands of their ideological masters.