not a peace president, not a rule of law president

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Tried an exploratory field trip to groupthink this morning, and only got this far before the urge to barf became too intense:

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday.

"We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen. She wouldn't say who is issuing the threats, and the White House didn't immediately return a call. Woolsey said she herself had not been pressured because the White House and leadership know she's a firm no vote. But she had heard from other members about the White House pressure.

"Nancy's working with it. It's going to be a very close vote," Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Penn.), a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Friday. "We don't have any Republican leeway, so far we have no Republican going to vote for it."

"We'll pass it, but it'll be a close vote. Every vote will count," Murtha said.

Then turned to the newswires and found this bit below that, weirdly, encourages me a jot, because I feel we owe every man at Gitmo reparations and every effort to make the rest of their lives as good as we can make them. But also outrages me because he can make a big political diversion out of it, and he IS, along with the posturing pants-wetters in congress, while leaving the brutality and unconstitutionality at Bagram, and any other "detention centers" we control in the Middle East, perfectly intact. So, basically, I'm just here at my desk with the taste of bile in my throat and sulfuric fumes wafting off me.

Obama won't rule out releasing detainees in US
1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A White House spokesman says the Obama administration hasn't decided whether or not to release Guantanamo Bay detainees in the United States.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama has made clear "we're not going to make any decision about transfer or release that threatens the security of this country."

Asked if that meant he was ruling out releasing any detainees in the United States, Gibbs said: "I'm not ruling it in or ruling it out."

A tentative plan to release some Guantanamo detainees in the United States drew fierce opposition from Republicans and many Democrats in Congress, forcing the Obama administration to shelve the plan to bring some Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs to Virginia. The Uighur detainees at Guantanamo were found not to be enemy combatants by the Pentagon, but few nations have been willing to accept them, out of fear of angering China.

This past week, four of the 17 Uighurs being held at Guantanamo were sent to Bermuda, and the Pacific islands nation of Palau said it would accept others.

Gibbs told reporters progress has been made this week in the administration's goal of closing the detention center in Cuba by early next year.

Seven detainees have been shipped out of Guantanamo so far this week.

US moving to appeal Bagram detention ruling
1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is moving to appeal a ruling that some detainees at a military air base in Afghanistan can use U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention.

The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court here Friday to hear its appeal on an expedited basis. The move was expected. U.S. District Judge John Bates, who made the original ruling April 2, suspended action in the case to give the government time to seek higher court review of his action.

The Justice Department told the appeals court that Bates' ruling was an unprecedented order that extended constitutional rights to citizens of Yemen and Tunisia held by U.S. armed forces at Bagram Air Field, in an active combat zone in Afghanistan. Bates had extended them rights previously given to terrorism detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.