Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Going NIMBY on the POTUS
The AP headline is almost startling: Senate rebukes Obama, blocks Guantanamo shutdown.
"In a rare, bipartisan defeat for President Barack Obama, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay open for the foreseeable future and forbid the transfer of any detainees to facilities in the United States.Thus demonstrating once again how governing is actually quite different from campaigning. Who knew that Democratic Senators would go all NIMBY on the POTUS?
"Democrats lined up with Republicans in the 90-6 vote that came on the heels of a similar move a week ago in the House, underscoring widespread apprehension among Obama's congressional allies over voters' strong feelings about bringing detainees to the U.S. from the prison in Cuba."
President Obama and his allies in the House and Senate have 247 days to figure out what they want to do with the detainees at Gitmo, after which they will be in violation of the Executive Order signed on January 22, 2009.
I think the Marshall Islands are located around 09° 00 N, 168º 00 E.
3 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Wed May 20, 08:32:00 PM:
From Elisabeth Bumiller at the New York Times today:
"An unreleased Pentagon report provides new details concluding that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has returned to terrorism or militant activity, according to administration officials."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21gitmo.html
By 
roberto, at
Wed May 20, 10:51:00 PM:
Of the six votes to oppose the measure, two of the votes were from Rhode Islands senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse. Sounds to me like Cranston or Providence or maybe even Block Island might be a good place to put the terrorists.
By Georg Felis, at
Thu May 21, 09:59:00 AM:
Sounds like Plum Island will become available, as the National Bio and Agro-Defense facilities are being moved into my back yard.
