Pompeo And Circumstances

Kansas GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo was easily confirmed on Monday as the Trump regime's new CIA Director, including by more than a dozen Senate Democrats.

The Senate confirmed Mike Pompeo, President Donald Trump's pick for CIA director, on Monday night. 

The vote was 66-32 in favor of confirmation, with Pompeo picking up some Democratic backing. The only Republican in opposition was Sen. Rand Paul. 

The vote was held open longer than normal in an effort to let Senators delayed by the storm in the Northeast reach Washington, but it was gaveled closed before Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal could arrive.

Vice President Mike Pence swore in Pompeo, a Kansas congressman, after the vote at the White House.

"I just want to remind our colleagues that our country continues to face incredible threats, and they are not hitting the pause button," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said in a statement issued before he voted in support of Pompeo. "The President needs his national security Cabinet, and particularly his CIA Director at his side, a Cabinet position integral to keeping our country safe." 

Pompeo's view on electronic surveillance and torture drew the ire of some Democrats.
But Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist from Vermont, cited Pompeo's support for the broad collection of metadata in his vote against the CIA nominee. 

"What we are talking about is the United States government having in many ways more information about us than we may even understand about our own life," Sanders said. "In many ways, it sounds to me like we are moving toward an Orwellian society."

Who voted for Pompeo?  Our old red state Dem friends Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp of course, but also blue state Dems like Chuck Schumer, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar and Brian Schatz.

Who voted against?  Bernie and Rand Paul.  Go figure.  If you were expecting the CIA to start poking around in Trump's Russia connections, well with pro-torture Pompeo now in charge, the agency's rank and file just got bought off by Trump this week.

The Trump administration is preparing a sweeping executive order that would clear the way for the Central Intelligence Agency to reopen overseas “black site” prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Obama shut them down. 

President Trump’s three-page draft order, titled “Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants,” and obtained by The New York Times would also undo many of the other restrictions on handling detainees that Mr. Obama put in place in response to policies of the Bush administration. 

If Mr. Trump signs the draft order, he would also revoke Mr. Obama’s directive to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all wartime detainees in American custody – another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions. 

And while Mr. Obama tried to close the Guantánamo prison and refused to bring new detainees there, the draft order directs the Pentagon to continue using the facility “for the detention and trial of newly captured” detainees – including not just more suspected members of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, like the 41 remaining detainees, but also Islamic State detainees. It does not address legal problems that might raise.

So the Trump regime's back in the torture game, guys.  And Dems did nothing to stop it.  We could have closed Gitmo under Obama years ago, but Dems screwed Obama over on that too.  Now Trump will make sure America tortures suspects for no actual law enforcement, legal, or moral reason.

Oh well.  At least we didn't elect that awful Hillary, right?

New tag: Mike Pompeo.  I figure we're going to need it.

Sunday Long Read: A Tortured Existence

Yet another reason Donald Trump can never be allowed to be in the White House: he would bring back Bush-era "enhanced interrogation techniques" to be used freely on suspects.  You know, legalized torture by the CIA.  Turns out that even years later, the folks the Bushies wrongfully accused and detained are still suffering the effects.

Before the United States permitted a terrifying way of interrogating prisoners, government lawyers and intelligence officials assured themselves of one crucial outcome. They knew that the methods inflicted on terrorism suspects would be painful, shocking and far beyond what the country had ever accepted. But none of it, they concluded, would cause long lasting psychological harm.

Fifteen years later, it is clear they were wrong.

Today in Slovakia, Hussein al-Marfadi describes permanent headaches and disturbed sleep, plagued by memories of dogs inside a blackened jail. In Kazakhstan, Lutfi bin Ali is haunted by nightmares of suffocating at the bottom of a well. In Libya, the radio from a passing car spurs rage in Majid Mokhtar Sasy al-Maghrebi, reminding him of the C.I.A. prison where earsplitting music was just one assault to his senses.

And then there is the despair of men who say they are no longer themselves. “I am living this kind of depression,” said Younous Chekkouri, a Moroccan, who fears going outside because he sees faces in crowds as Guantánamo Bay guards. “I’m not normal anymore.”

After enduring agonizing treatment in secret C.I.A. prisons around the world or coercive practices at the military detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, dozens of detainees developed persistent mental health problems, according to previously undisclosed medical records, government documents and interviews with former prisoners and military and civilian doctors. Some emerged with the same symptoms as American prisoners of war who were brutalized decades earlier by some of the world’s cruelest regimes.

Those subjected to the tactics included victims of mistaken identity or flimsy evidence that the United States later disavowed. Others were foot soldiers for the Taliban or Al Qaeda who were later deemed to pose little threat. Some were hardened terrorists, including those accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks or the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole. In several cases, their mental status has complicated the nation’s long effort to bring them to justice.

Americans have long debated the legacy of post-Sept. 11 interrogation methods, asking whether they amounted to torture or succeeded in extracting intelligence. But even as President Obama continues transferring people from Guantánamo and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, promises to bring back techniques, now banned, such as waterboarding, the human toll has gone largely uncalculated.

At least half of the 39 people who went through the C.I.A.’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which included depriving them of sleep, dousing them with ice water, slamming them into walls and locking them in coffin-like boxes, have since shown psychiatric problems, The New York Times found. Some have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, depression or psychosis.

Hundreds more detainees moved through C.I.A. “black sites” or Guantánamo, where the military inflicted sensory deprivation, isolation, menacing with dogs and other tactics on men who now show serious damage. Nearly all have been released.

It's important to realize two things: one, as I said before that this was done in our name and that Trump as president has vowed to bring these inhuman practices back, and two, President Obama stopped these from happening when he took office.

This is part of what "voting for Clinton to continue Obama's legacy" means.

Trump Cards, Con't

The Rough Orange Beast was in Florida on Thursday, slouching towards Guantanamo Bay, waiting to imprison Americans there for, well, whatever reason he deems fit.

A President Donald Trump might push for Americans accused of terrorism to be tried in military tribunal at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Republican nominee told the Miami Herald on Thursday. 

“I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine,” Trump said in a brief interview ahead of his speech to home builders in Miami Beach. 

Under current federal law, it’s illegal to try U.S. citizens at military commissions. Changing the law would require an act of Congress. 

In the wide-ranging interview focused on key South Florida issues, Trump continued to question climate change caused by humans. He said he plans to soon sit down with Cuban Americans in Miami to hash out a Cuba policy. And for the first time, he said Congress should set aside money to combat the Zika virus. 

Asked about Guantánamo in the past, Trump has said he would like to “load it up with bad dudes.” He wouldn’t specify to the Herald whether as president he would again allow terrorism suspects captured abroad to be transferred to the detention center. 

“I want to make sure that if we have radical Islamic terrorists, we have a very safe place to keep them,” he said. President Barack Obama, he added, is “allowing people to get out that are terrible people.” 

“Would you try to get the military commissions — the trial court there — to try U.S. citizens?” a reporter asked. 

“Well, I know that they want to try them in our regular court systems, and I don’t like that at all. I don’t like that at all,” he said. “I would say they could be tried there, that would be fine.”

Sure.  The gulag era of the America experiment sounds like a great idea, but at least it's on a sunny island like Cuba, right?  Guess what happens when Trump figures out he gets to decide as President who qualifies as a "terrorism suspect" in this scenario?

Gonna be fun times for all the kids on the Gitmo beaches with the Trump junta, baby.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/donald-trump/article95144337.html#storylink=cpy

More Tortured Logic, Con't

The recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels and mass shooting spree in San Bernardino hasn't made Americans any less bloodthirsty when it comes to justification of torture of terror suspects.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe torture can be justified to extract information from suspected terrorists, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, a level of support similar to that seen in countries like Nigeria where militant attacks are common. 

The poll reflects a U.S. public on edge after the massacre of 14 people in San Bernardino in December and large-scale attacks in Europe in recent months, including a bombing claimed by the militant group Islamic State last week that killed at least 32 people in Belgium. 

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, has forcefully injected the issue of whether terrorism suspects should be tortured into the election campaign. 

Trump has said he would seek to roll back President Barack Obama's ban on waterboarding - an interrogation technique that simulates drowning that human rights groups contend is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Trump has also vowed to "bring back a hell of a lot worse" if elected. 

Trump's stance has drawn broad criticism from human rights organizations, world bodies, and political rivals. But the poll findings suggest that many Americans are aligned with Trump on the issue, although the survey did not ask respondents to define what they consider torture. 

"The public right now is coping with a host of negative emotions," said Elizabeth Zechmeister, a Vanderbilt University professor who has studied the link between terrorist threats and public opinion. "Fear, anger, general anxiety: (Trump) gives a certain credibility to these feelings," she said. 

The March 22-28 online poll asked respondents if torture can be justified "against suspected terrorists to obtain information about terrorism." About 25 percent said it is "often" justified while another 38 percent it is "sometimes" justified. Only 15 percent said torture should never be used.

Republicans were more accepting of torture to elicit information than Democrats: 82 percent of Republicans said torture is "often" or "sometimes" justified, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.

About two-thirds of respondents also said they expected a terrorist attack on U.S. soil within the next six months.

So more than half of Dems and more than 80% of Republicans think torture is justified in some way, including a quarter of folks saying it's often justified.  Two-thirds expect some kind of terror attack before the election as well.  Americans are frightened out of their wits, frankly.

The effect this will have on the election?  Politicians have been playing the fear card for a long time, and it works time and time again.

We've learned very little since 9/11, and I don't see any reason why we'd start learning now.

Executive Indecision On Gitmo

In the past, President Obama has proposed closing Gitmo only to run into the long knives of Democrats who refuse to let him actually do the job.  This time, Lame Duck Outta F*cks Obama(tm) is trying to use the executive branch to get the job done, and wouldn't you know it, the Justice Department is now saying "Wait a minute here..."

A renewed push by the White House to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has been bogged down by an internal disagreement over its most controversial provision — where to house detainees who will be brought to the United States for trial or indefinite detention, according to U.S. officials. 

The White House had intended to provide lawmakers with a new road map for shuttering the facility — a top priority for President Obama’s remaining time in office — before lawmakers went on their August recess. 

As part of the plan, the administration had considered sending some of the 116 detainees remaining at the prison to either a top-security prison in Illinois or a naval facility in Charleston, S.C. 

But during a recent video teleconference among top administration officials, Scott Ferber, senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, said the Justice Department could not support the use of the federal prison in Thomson, Ill., according to the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. 

Ferber said the Justice Department had made a public commitment in 2012 when it purchased the facility from the state of Illinois that it would not relocate detainees to Thomson. Then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee: “We will not move people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is my pledge as attorney general.” 

Holder’s commitment, made during sworn testimony, was apparently overlooked by officials when the most recent plan was drawn up. 

Thomson is no longer being considered, and the White House is again looking at other federal facilities, officials said. 

“Funding for Thomson prison was approved based on the understanding that no detainees from Guantanamo would be held there, and therefore, Thomson is not part of those discussions,” a senior administration official said. 

The last-minute dispute is another sign of the many difficulties plaguing the White House’s attempt to make good on Obama’s promise to close the military detention facility before he leaves office in 2017.

So the first and obvious choice for relocation of Gitmo detainees is 100% out of the picture.  That leaves the Naval Brig at Charleston, something that I don't think Gov. Nikki Haley, Charleston area Representative Mark "Appalachian Trail" Sanford, or Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott are going to actually support this in any way.

Gitmo detainees are the ultimate NIMBY problem, and putting them in a red state will probably cause packs of crazed Islamophobes to show up with rocket launchers and storm the place anyway, not to mention the endless screaming about "OBAMA'S TERROR ATTACK ON AMERICA" headlines during the 2016 election.

So unless another blue state steps up and does the job, this still isn't happening, no matter how much Gitmo needs to be closed.

The Black Hole Of Chicago

Spencer Ackerman's series in The Guardian on Chicago's crooked cops continues with this horrifying piece on what can only be described as a "domestic black site" for off-the-record arrests, interrogations, and unconstitutional detainment.

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights. 

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

• Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases. 
• Beating by police, resulting in head wounds.
• Shackling for prolonged periods.
• Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility.
• Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead. 

Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the “Nato Three”, was held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid. Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to be booked and charged. 

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”

And Chicago cops are using this on protesters and minorities, people that nobody will miss.  No attorney, no cameras, no oversight, just treating people the way we treat Gitmo detainees.  In America.  On American soil.  By American cops.

Jesus hell.

The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown. 

Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside. 

“It’s sort of an open secret among attorneys that regularly make police station visits, this place – if you can’t find a client in the system, odds are they’re there,” said Chicago lawyer Julia Bartmes.

And this is an open secret in Chicago among law enforcement and attorneys.  My god.

Get the DoJ in here yesterday.  People have to go to prison for a very long time for this one.

On The Next Epidose Of NCIS

A dead sailor found off the coast of Cuba.  An affair with a base commander. A naval captain in disgrace.  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, folks.

On January 11, the body of Christopher Tur, was found in the waters off of Cuba. A subsequent investigation uncovered an alleged affair between Tur’s wife and Capt John R. Nettleton, the commander of the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.

On January 21, the Navy publicly announced that Nettleton has been relieved of command.

The decision to relieve Nettleton was made by his boss “Commander, Navy Region Southeast, Rear Adm. Mary M. Jackson due to loss of confidence in Nettleton’s ability to command,” according to a statement from Navy Region Southeast Public Affairs.

Following his dismissal from Guantanamo, Nettleton was moved to Florida, where he is assigned to Jackson’s staff.

Sounds like this should be a movie (and probably will be.)

Base spokesperson Kelly Wirfel said that Tur moved to Guantanamo with his family in 2011 and worked at the base commissary. Tur’s obituary lists his job as a loss prevention officer, a title that typically means someone who prevents theft and shoplifting.. Tur’s widow, Lara, who is alleged to have carried on an affair with Capt. Nettleton, works as the director of the base’s Fleet and Family Services. That position would have her overseeing a variety of support programs for military families ranging from counseling services to financial assistance.

Lara reported her husband missing on January 10, a day before the Coast Guard discovered his body.

The adultery alone is enough to seriously ruin Nettleton's career under UCMJ, but with the other man in the picture dead, well...now things get really interesting.  Trust me when I say there are screenplays being written right now about this.

Meawhile at Dick's House

America may love torturing brown people, but there are still some of us who remember that Dick Cheney and his buddies should be in prison on war crimes charges about now.

Two protesters were arrested at the McLean, Virginia, home of former Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday after 20 demonstrators, some in orange prison jumpsuits, walked onto his property to mark the 14th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay prison.

The protesters from the anti-war group Code Pink walked up to the house before police arrived and asked them to leave, said Fairfax County police spokesman Roger Henriquez. Two members who refused to go were arrested on trespassing charges, he said.

Police identified the two as Tighe Barry, 57, and Eve Tetaz, 83, both of Washington DC. The pair face misdemeanor charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct, police said.

Another Code Pink group demonstrated without incident outside the home of CIA Director John Brennan, also in the Washington, D.C. suburb of McLean, as part of its "Guantanamo Anniversary Weekend Torturers Tour."

I don't agree with everything Code Pink does, but harassing the hell out of Cheney?  Go right ahead, ladies.  In a fair and just world he'd be in prison anyhow.

Last Call For Gitmo The Hell Out Again

Hey look, Congress stabbed Obama in the back on closing Gitmo again. Quelle surprise!

President Obama’s 5-year-old campaign to close the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suffered a major setback as lawmakers finalizing the annual defense policy bill rejected steps toward shuttering the facility. 

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Monday that the final bill omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer terror suspects to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison. 

Levin had pushed for the authority and hailed it in May as creating “a path to close Guantanamo.” With lawmakers rushing to complete the defense bill in this month’s lame-duck session, Levin said proponents were unable to prevail. 

“Our language … (on Guantanamo) … will not be in,” Levin said. 

The House and Senate are expected to vote and overwhelmingly approve the sweeping policy bill in the coming days, sending it to Obama.

Here “overwhelmingly” means “more than a two-thirds veto-proof margin”, which of course requires a significant number of congressional Democrats to screw Obama over on closing Gitmo and not just the GOP. So after this becomes law, and it will, even if Gitmo does close, the President can’t do anything with the detainees who are there as far as moving them to the US. They’d have to be housed in another foreign facility.

So no, Gitmo is not going to close, and every time President Obama tries to do something about it, Congress throws a veto-proof bill on his desk saying “The hell you ever will.”

If anybody has a viable plan as to how President Obama can actually close Gitmo in this environment, where Congress keeps moving the goalposts and we keep re-electing 95% of the Congress I’m all ears.

Last Call For No Mo Gitmo

"Well," I imagine President Obama saying.  "They're going to hate me anyway, so I might as well go for it and close Guantanamo."

The White House is drafting options that would allow President Barack Obama to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by overriding a congressional ban on bringing detainees to the U.S., senior administration officials said. 

Such a move would be the latest and potentially most dramatic use of executive power by the president in his second term. It would likely provoke a sharp reaction from lawmakers, who have repeatedly barred the transfer of detainees to the U.S.

Officials, who declined to say where detainees might be housed if taken to the mainland, said the U.S. has ample space in its prisons for several dozen high-security prisoners. The administration has reviewed several facilities that could house the remaining detainees, with the military brig at Charleston, S.C., considered the most likely.

I honestly think Huckleberry Graham will pass out/come close to an aneurysm from this.  I really do. On national TV, no less.  Meet John McCain With Your Host Chuck Todd is really, really going to hate this too.

Of course, if President Obama actually tries this, as Steve M. points out, it'll set up a shutdown fight that President Obama will almost assuredly lose.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Friday vowed to block all legislation in the Senate with a prolonged filibuster if President Obama tries to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.... 

Roberts made a similar threat back in 2009, when Obama originally signaled he wanted to relocate detainees to the United States. At the time, the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth, as well as a maximum-security prison in Obama's home state of Illinois were being considered to house the prisoners.... 

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is traveling through the state this week on Roberts's campaign bus, said he would join the filibuster. Roberts predicted he would have broad support from his colleagues. 

"I will have help on this. I can see John McCain there and I can see Lindsey Graham there and I can see Kelly Ayotte there and I can see a whole bunch of other people there," Roberts said.

And why will Obama lose on this?  Because Democrats in the Senate will line up around the block to stab him in the back over this.

Wonder how soon this is going to start showing in campaign ads for Roberts -- and for Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Scott Brown, etc., etc.

I'm sorry to say that this effort will not succeed. On this, America is provincial and irrational, and not even remotely liberal.

Can you imagine what Senate Democrats will do when this happens?  Let me put it to you this way: the only think preventing impeachment hearings and a Senate trial is the fact that it takes 67 Senators to convict.  If this Gitmo thing goes down, well...

It's a nice thought.  But as Steve M. says, Obama will never be able to close Gitmo.  In the future some President may be able to.  That President will not be Obama.

The Law Of Unitended Consequences

The Hobby Lobby decision and its terrible, silppery slope reasoning will wreck American jurisprudence for years.  It's so broad and so sweeping that you could justify just about anything based on religious beliefs, including, say, the rights of Gitmo detainees.

Lawyers for two Guantanamo Bay detainees have filed motions asking a U.S. court to block officials from preventing the inmates from taking part in communal prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The lawyers argue that – in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision – the detainees’ rights are protected under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

The motions were filed this week with the Washington D.C. district court on behalf of Emad Hassan of Yemen and Ahmed Rabbani of Pakistan. U.K.-based human rights group Reprieve said both men asked for the intervention after military officials at the prison "prevented them from praying communally during Ramadan."

During Ramadan, a month of prayer and reflection that began last weekend, Muslims are required to fast every day from sunrise to sunset. But what is at issue in this case is the ability to perform extra prayers, called tarawih, "in which [Muslims] recite one-thirtieth of the Quran in consecutive segments throughout the month."

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, told Al Jazeera on Friday that the "Defense Department is aware of the filing," and that the "government will respond through the legal system."

The detainees' lawyers said courts have previously concluded that Guantanamo detainees do not have "religious free exercise rights" because they are not “persons within the scope of the RFRA.”

But the detainees’ lawyers say the Hobby Lobby decision changes that.

"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 RFRA," the lawyers argued in court papers.

Which is exactly what justice Alito said in his ruling.  Despite claiming how narrow it is, the ruling itself is a door big enough to drive a truck through.  Meet the new truck, folks.

Last Call For Meanwhile In Benghazi...

The only even remotely legitimate complaint Republicans had about BENGHAZI!!!11!!one! was put to rest today when the White House announced that the suspect behind the embassy attack was captured over the weekend and will face criminal charges in US federal court.

U.S. forces working with the FBI captured a key suspect in the deadly 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. officials said Tuesday. 

Libyan militia leader Ahmed abu Khattalah was captured over the weekend, officials said. It is the first arrest and detention by the United States in connection with the Benghazi attack. 

Abu Khattalah will be brought to the United States to face charges "in the coming days," said Edward Price, a spokesman for the National Security Council. 

Abu Khattalah, who faces three federal criminal charges, will be tried in U.S. courts, said Attorney General Eric Holder.

Imagine that.  We didn't have to invade Libya or effect regime change or bomb the bejeezus out of anyone to get the guy, we nailed him with special forces and the FBI.  Detective work and human intelligence.  You know, actual police work.  Conservatives of course are absolutely horrified.

Speaking on Fox News’ Outnumbered just moments after news broke that the United States had captured Ahmed Abu Khattala, Kennedy mused, “you have a former Secretary of State who is in the middle of a high profile book tour, I think this is convenient for her to shift the talking points to some of the things she has been discussing.”

The sentiment — that Obama timed Khattala’s capture for political benefit — was quickly echoed by other conservatives. Rory Cooper, an aide to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, tweeted, “While it’s great to see they caught the Benghazi suspect, it’s important to remember, he wasn’t really hiding."

How far Kennedy has fallen since her days with Kurt Loder at MTV News, on and Eric, shut it, you got fired.  But seriously, we captured the guy to help Hillary in 2016?  Conducting military operations to help your party's political prospects is something a Republican would do, sure.  Pretty sure President Obama wanted to get the bad guy.  Like he did with Bin Laden.  You know, after Bush failed to do so for seven years.

And speaking of Republicans who have no idea how the universe actually works, Huckleberry Graham walked right into the jet intake again today.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised questions about how the administration plans to deal with Khatallah, arguing he should be held as a prisoner of war in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than brought into the federal criminal justice system. 

“He should be going to Gitmo and be held as an enemy combatant,” Graham said. “And it would be the biggest mistake for the ages to read this guy his Miranda rights.” 

Graham said he’s concerned Khatallah is being held on a ship, but said that “at the end of the day, I’m glad we captured somebody.” 

“I hope that person can provide us good intelligence,” he said. “We should have some quality time with this guy — weeks and months. Don’t torture him, but have some quality time with him.”

Yeah, let's just illegally detain him without due process for the rest of his natural life.  That's a great idea, which is why Barack Obama is president and Lindsey Graham is a meatball with legs.

They're just mad that Obama beat them again, like they've been for the last six years.

Last Call For Tiny, Tiny Violins

GOP Rep. Mike Rogers can't understand why (after six years of Republicans calling President Obama everything from Kenyan Usurper to Antichrist to Nazi Sympathizer to Brutal Dictator and more) President Obama might not want to include Republicans in his decision-making processes.

Rogers argued that the White House had other options besides releasing five Guantanamo Bay detainees in exchange for the American prisoner of war, and that the administration acted without notifying Congress because they knew there would be dissenters.

"There are other options. And this was what so angered for those of us who have followed this for years," he said on ABC's "This Week." "The administration has this theory that you're either with them or you're for thermonuclear war and there's not in between. That's just wrong." 

"And so the reason they avoided Congress, this isn't about we didn't get invited to the party, so we shouldn't have our feelings hurt. It is because we can empower all of the people -- diplomats -- who disagreed with this decision, intelligence folks who disagreed with this decision, military folks," he continued.

Poor, poor baby.  President Obama didn't extend Mike Rogers an engraved invitation to his decision on Bergdahl.  I doubt President Bush did either, all the times he released Gitmo detainees too.  But we only choose to criminalize things Obama does.

Complain About Everything And Anything

So yesterday we found out that President Obama worked to bring home one of our soldiers, captured as a P.O.W. in Afghanistan for five years.  But because Obama did it, he must be attacked by Republicans.

“Trading five senior Taliban leaders from detention in Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl’s release may have consequences for the rest of our forces and all Americans. Our terrorist adversaries now have a strong incentive to capture Americans. That incentive will put our forces in Afghanistan and around the world at even greater risk,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. McKeon (R-Calif.) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, James M. Inhofe (Okla.), said in a joint statement.

Lawmakers were not notified of the Guantanamo detainees’ transfer until after it occurred.

The law requires the defense secretary to notify relevant congressional committees at least 30 days before making any transfers of prisoners, to explain the reason and to provide assurances that those released would not be in a position to reengage in activities that could threaten the United States or its interests.

Before the current law was enacted at the end of last year, the conditions were even more stringent. However, the administration and some Democrats had pressed for them to be loosened, in part to give them more flexibility to negotiate for Bergdahl’s release.

A senior administration official, agreeing to speak on the condition of anonymity to explain the timing of the congressional notification, acknowledged that the law was not followed. When he signed the law last year, Obama issued a signing statement contending that the notification requirement was an unconstitutional infringement on his powers as commander in chief and that he therefore could override it.

That's right, Republicans are now lining up to accuse the President of being weak and encouraging more soldiers to be captured, and I guess they're now willing to start treating this as a Constitutional crisis or impeachment proceeding or something.

To recap Republicans care about our troops or something, but EVERYTHING IS ABOUT OBAMA.

But you know what?  The reason President Obama didn't inform Congress is that they would have blocked the deal and prevented Bergdahl's release, like they did in 2012, as Steve M. explains:

In July 2012, Rolling Stone published a story about Bergdahl by Michael Hastings. Hastings noted that negotiations for a prisoner exchange were taking place, but were meeting resistance, particularly from Republicans, who planned to demagogue the issue if the released happened before the November election: 

According to White House sources, Marc Grossman, who replaced Richard Holbrooke as special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, was given a direct warning by the president's opponents in Congress about trading Bowe for five Taliban prisoners during an election year. "They keep telling me it's going to be Obama's Willie Horton moment," Grossman warned the White House. The threat was as ugly as it was clear: The president's political enemies were prepared to use the release of violent prisoners to paint Obama as a Dukakis-­like appeaser, just as Republicans did to the former Massachusetts governor during the 1988 campaign....

The tensions came to a boil in January, when administration officials went to Capitol Hill to brief a handful of senators on the possibility of a prisoner exchange....

So yeah.   Republicans are going to spend all summer attacking President Obama for this.

Please proceed, gentlemen.

Imprisoned By Fear

Texas Republican Michael McCaul is chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, and wants everyone to know that American super-max prisons are the only solution to hold the world's most dangerous criminals.

The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security is encouraging Mexico's authorities to extradite drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (wah-KEEN' el chah-poh gooz-MAHN') to the United States to ensure he remains behind bars.

Guzman was arrested Saturday morning in the resort city of Mazatlan, Mexico.

Republican Michael McCaul calls Guzman the world's most notorious drug lord and says on ABC's "This Week" that his arrest is a significant victory for Mexico and the United States.

Guzman faces at least seven federal indictments.

McCaul said it's Mexico's call on where Guzman faces prosecution, but he noted that Guzman escaped from prison in 2001 and corruption continues to plague Mexico.

McCaul says Guzman would end up "in a super-max prison" in the U.S. from which he could not escape.

So Guzman, the Mexican drug kingpin, the "world's most notorious drug lord", well we would have to extradite him to the US in order to face our justice system so he can spend the rest of his life in a super-max cell.  Got it.  What about, you know, other criminals?

McCaul said efforts to close Gitmo were impractical and questioned where detainees suspected of terrorism could be housed.

“The president's position was let's just close it down and find a solution to this,” he said. “I think the reverse should be true and that is we ought to be trying to find how to deal with them before we close this facility down.

“Name me one American city that would like to host these guys -- these terrorists in their country?,” asked McCaul.

Oh, so absolutely we must put the world's most notorious drug lord in a US super-max, a man so dangerous he had his own personal army that viciously fought military troops and killed civilians (completely unlike a terrorist), a criminal so ruthless and rich he regularly made Forbes's list of World Billionaires and Most Powerful People, but we can never, ever put some angry former goat herder from Yemen in a US super-max because unlike El Chapo, there's too much of a risk of reprisal to the surrounding community.

Right.

Drones, Gitmo, And Goalposts

President Obama's speech on Guantanamo and the use of drones on Thursday was folded into a larger and much more vital larger picture:  the end of Warren Terrah.  Greg Sargent:

In the national security speech Obama delivered this afternoon, the President himself defined the challenge we face as this: How do we balance the need to do all we can to protect our citizens with the need to adhere to our values and ideals as a free society? The speech was the most ambitious and detailed effort to answer this question that he has yet attempted.

His answer to the question was that, at a time when the nature of the terror threat is changing — over a decade after the 9/11 attacks led to a massive buildup of our national security apparatus that strayed into massive overreach – we must acknowledge the cost of all of that excess, and give more priority to American values and the rule of law than we have been giving. However, in policy terms, he offered mainly incremental, though welcome, moves in that direction.

Indeed, the upshot of the speech is that Obama defined his own role — that of commander in chief — as one that requires him to ultimately compromise core values and principles if he deems it necessary to maintain security. While the speech did offer some steps that civil libertarians will welcome, it also fell short of the wholesale commitment to rule of law they had hoped for — indeed, forthrightly so.

And that bolded point is the most important.  There are times where national security issues arise, where the loud purity pundits are not going to have all the information.  President Obama admits that this will always be true.

“The president is clearly aware that his current policies are falling short of the mark constitutionally,” Anthony Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, told me. “While these are important and welcome steps, they are incremental changes that pale in the face of the constitutional questions confronting the administration.”

Obama might agree to some degree with that assessment, with a qualifier. Indeed, the speech seemed quite forthright in defining the role of commander in chief as one that requires him to ultimately prioritize security over strict rule of law where he deems it necessary — even as he implicitly asked us to trust that he’s doing his best to get the balance as close to right as he can.

So now, we've moved the goalposts again, from "You need to explain yourself" to "This is unconstitutional!"  That's a pretty nice excuse, because now we've moved responsibility from the legislative and executive to the judicial.  There's literally nothing POTUS can do to satisfy the purity patrol because what's constitutional or not cannot be determined by the executive, only the judicial.

Conveniently, this goalpost shuffling extends the argument against Obama infinitely, so the cottage industry of fundraising while attacking Obama from the left can keep going in perpetuity.  How convenient...

Bulgaria Bombing's Gitmo Connections

The Times of Israel is reporting that the suicide bomber that attacked and killed five Israelis on a bus in Bulgaria was a former Gitmo detainee.  If this is true, the odds of Congress ever closing Gitmo went from "small" to "none ever."

Bulgarian media on Thursday named the suicide bomber who blew up a bus full of Israeli tourists, killing five Israelis and a local bus driver, in the Black Sea resort of Burgas on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali.

There was no independent confirmation of the veracity of the information. The reports surfaced soon after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had publicly accused Hezbollah, directed by Iran, of responsibility for the bombing. The Prime Minister’s Office made no comment on the reports.

The Bulgarian reports, rapidly picked up by Hebrew media, posited various versions of how the bomber had detonated the bomb, including the suggestion that the bomber had not intended to die in the blast, but may have wanted to place the bomb on the bus and flee.

Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He was released to Swedish custody in 2004, and the Swedish government did not press charges. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.

OK.  I trust the Israeli media about as far as I can throw the Wailing Wall, but it's pretty easy to check if this is the guy.  If it's true, there is now zero chance Gitmo will ever close in our lifetimes.  Period.  Members of Congress will immediately be accused of Israel-hating anti-Semitism for even suggesting Gitmo should be closed, and all debate in the US will end on this for good.  Even discussing this will be a grave insult to the memory of the victims of the blast.

We'll see where this goes, but my guess is we'll have another situation where Obama will be blamed by all sides for something that happened in Bush's first term.

Where's The Hypocrisy Again?

Jo Becker and Scott Shane at the New York Times gave us this article on "Obama's terrorist kill list" on Tuesday and it characterized President Obama signing off on which terrorists to try to eliminate thusly:

In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda. 

They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.” 

Questions about the President green-lighting assassinations aside (which is another gigantic discussion in and of itself I'll tackle later) my problem is with the notion that the President "shunned the legislative deal-making" to close Gitmo.  That's an absolute falsehood if you remember anything from 2009.

President Barack Obama’s allies in the Senate will not provide funds to close the Guantanamo Bay prison next January, a top Democratic official said Tuesday. 

With debate looming on Obama’s spending request to cover military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the official says Democrats will deny the Pentagon and Justice Department $80 million to relocate Guantanamo’s 241 detainees.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposed changes to the bill were to be unveiled later. 

There was no deal-making process.  Republicans were universally opposed to closing Gitmo and Democrats in Congress completely folded on the issue, to the point that they actively blocked any deal to close Gitmo by revoking all funding to do so.  It was never going to happen and Congress, not the President, assured Gitmo would never close.

We can (and should) have a serious discussion on the President's powers to call the ball on who and when gets a face full of drone missiles, but that discussion should at least start with the truth of the why Gitmo is still open and why it will stay open for the foreseeable future.

Last Call

Somebody explain to me again which side is trying to start a "race war" again, because these folks don't look like the New Black Panther Party or La Raza or a Islamist jihadi group to me.

Members of a white supremacist skinhead group called American Front trained with AK-47s, shotguns and explosives at a fortified compound in central Florida to prepare for what its reputed leader believed to be an “inevitable race war,” prosecutors said Tuesday.

According to court documents, members of American Front discussed acts of violence that included causing “a disturbance” at City Hall in Orlando, shooting at a house and attacking an anti-racist skinhead group.

At least 10 members of the group, which authorities described as a militia-styled, anti-Semitic domestic terrorist organization, have been arrested in Florida since the weekend, including at least three people on Tuesday.

The felony arrest charges include paramilitary training, attempting to shoot into an occupied dwelling, and evidence of prejudices while committing an offense. The last charge falls under Florida's hate-crimes law.

“This investigation is a result of our ongoing partnership with local law enforcement and federal agencies in a concentrated effort to stamp out hate crime in our community,” Ninth Circuit State Attorney Lawson Lamar said in a statement Tuesday.

So can we admit that we have a domestic terror problem in the United States, and that law enforcement should profile, I dunno, rural white people? Pull them over at traffic stops randomly? Harass groups of them because a group may pose a danger to the community? Put them on no fly lists?   We have to throw these guys in Gitmo because we can't possibly give them a trial here on US soil, right?  I mean, when does this administration do what conservatives say we have to do in a situation like this?

Oh that's right, never.  This administration doesn't operate like that.

Thank god.

Ten Years Of Gitmo

Guantanamo Bay has been used to house terrorists for ten years now, and the White House still insists President Obama wants to close the facility.  The problem is of course that there's barely a member of Congress alive that agrees with that, much less one will stand for putting a prison full of terrorists in their district and state.

“The commitment that the president has to closing Guantanamo Bay is as firm today as it was during the (2008) campaign,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

“We are all are aware of the obstacles to getting that done as quickly as the president wanted to get it done … but the president’s commitment hasn’t changed at all.”

Carney said that Obama, top national security officials and senior members of the military still believed that closing Guantanamo was in US interests.

“We will continue to abide by that commitment and work towards its fulfillment,” he said.

Given staunch opposition to closing the camp at the US base in southeastern Cuba, and pressures of election year politics, there does not appear to be a viable route to closing Guantanamo in the near future.

That's putting it mildly.  And yet there are people who will stay home and not vote for President Obama because he can't make Congress do his bidding on closing Gitmo.  Kinda funny that way.  They're the same folks who complain that President Obama is an imperial leader with too much power in the executive branch, and then scream he won't do an end run around Congress.

Hey folks, if Romney's elected, do you think he'll close Gitmo?