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Obama Budget Seeks $100 Million To Close Guantanamo Detention Facility WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- U.S. President Barack Obama's budget requests $100 million to help close the Guantanamo military detention facility, after House Democrats stripped out a similar request from a bill to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through the rest of fiscal 2009. The president had included a request of $80 million to pay for the closing the prison in an $83.4 billion war funding bill submitted to Congress last month. The revised $100 million request was included in Obama's $3.6 trillion budget for fiscal 2010, details of...

Culpeper’s Congressman Eric Cantor, Chief Minority Whip in the U.S. House, will join other Republicans today in D.C. in decrying the potential for relocating Guantanamo Bay detainees to prisons in the United States. President Barack Obama, on his second day in office, signed an executive order ordering the terrorist detention center in Cuba closed within a year. The White House has not announced where the 250 prisoners will be transferred. But a couple weeks after Obama made the decision to close Guantanamo, Cantor issued a statement objecting to possible “ramifications” of the announcement. “Do Not Move Known Terrorists to Virginia,”...

(snip) SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Well, first of all, Neil, they should not be eligible for any benefits. That would be crazy. But the major point here is that President Obama, with great fanfare, announced the closure of Guantanamo Bay, the prison at Gitmo, as we know it, and then, nothing. In other words, they did what, you know, that everybody would like to see done at least around the world, et cetera, but then no addressing of the fundamental issues associated with it. What do you do with the detainees? What sort of system of trials do you...

WATCHING MSNBC IS TORTUREMay 6, 2009 The media wail about "torture," but are noticeably short on facts. Liberals try to disguise the utter wussification of our interrogation techniques by constantly prattling on about "the banality of evil." Um, no. In this case, it's actually the banality of the banal. Start with the fact that the average Gitmo detainee has gained 20 pounds in captivity. There's even a medical term for it now: "the Gitmo gut." Some prisoners have been heard whispering, "If you think Allah is great, you should try these dinner rolls." In terms of "torture," there was "the...

In January, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)called Gitmo a "well run jail". He advocates for trying detainees in military courts, not civilian courts, but he agrees with Obama's "need to start over." Like Obama, Graham says "we don't know" where to put the detainees when convicted.

France said on Wednesday it would take in an Algerian detainee from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, honouring a pledge made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama.

A US Senator said Tuesday he would soon introduce legislation aimed at blocking the release on US soil of any detainees currently held at the Guantanamo Bay facility for suspected terrorists. "I intend to introduce legislation in the next few days to make sure that we establish a policy that will provide for no funding for the release of any of these individuals on US soil," said Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss. The Georgia lawmaker said his bill aimed to reassure the US public that Guantanamo detainees are "not going to be re-released into their neighborhoods where they're going to immediately...

Preventive detention will continue to have a place in the war on terror. BY LINDSEY GRAHAM and JOHN MCCAIN When President Barack Obama declassified and released legal memoranda from the Department of Justice, he opened the door to a drawn-out battle over the Bush administration's use of coercive interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists. We believe that any subsequent attempts to subject those who provided such legal advice to prosecutions are a mistake. They will have a chilling effect on the candor with which future government officials provide their best counsel. The country must move on from debates about the past,...

The Obama administration has a plan to close the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a plan for what to do with the terrorists -- which means terrorists may soon be taking up residence in a neighborhood near you. The Senate Republican Conference produced this video.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday reiterated the desire of Senate Democrats to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, dismissing any funding conflict with the House. Reid (D-Nev.) downplayed the significance of Monday’s decision by House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) against including $80 million in a $94 billion supplemental spending bill to close the prison in Cuba. . . . . . But Reid distinguished the funding conflict from any disagreement over whether to close the prison, reminding reporters that 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain (R-Ariz.) has also expressed a desire to close the facility....

  Congressman Frank Wolf (R., Va.) is a stalwart on national security. As reports swirl that the Obama administration is about to release the Uighur detainees (and perhaps others) into the United States, Representative Wolf took to the House floor at the end of last week, called for an urgently needed inquiry before any trained terrorists are released, and related that Attorney General Eric Holder is stonewalling him — as the administration plays fast and loose with the declassification of information. Here's some of what Wolf said: Madam Speaker, it is my understanding that President Obama’s decision regarding the release into...

House Democrats told the president Monday he won't be getting money to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until he has a "concrete program" for shutting it down and moving its prisoners. The $80 million will be dropped from President Obama's supplemental request for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. David Obey told reporters. "So far as we can tell, there is yet no concrete program for that," said Obey, D-Wisconsin. "And while I don't mind defending a concrete program, I'm not much interested in wasting my energy defending a theoretical program. So...

Captured enemy combatants presented a problem for the United States from the very beginning of the war. Since the world had not in previous wars dealt with enemies such as these, legal ground had not been firmly established. To his credit President Bush did everything he could to determine the appropriate legal methods and practices that his administration could use. Guantanamo was chosen specifically as a result of seeking an appropriate solution to the problem of housing captured enemy. When those methods were later questioned President Bush cooperated with Congress and the courts to address legal points and get them...

There is one segment of the economy that the Obama administration has caused to boom, firearms and ammunition. Gun sales are up 50% since the election and popular calibers of ammunition are either extraordinarily expensive or impossible to find as gun owners clear store shelves of anything that will go bang. Manufacturers are running at capacity, expanding production and hiring as quickly as possible. President Obama's latest strategy to send sales through the roof, in the forms of both repeat business to existing owners as they "stock up", and to first-time purchasers, is the planned release of dozens of hardened...

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democrats are refusing to pay for President Barack Obama's plan to relocate prisoners from the Guantanamo detention facility where enemy combatants are being held. Obama has signed an executive order to close the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by early next year. But the Pentagon has yet to come up with a plan on where to put the 240 or so prisoners. Between 50-100 are likely to be sent to the United States. No lawmaker wants the accused terrorists in their backyard. House Democrats unveiled a $94.4 billion war funding bill Monday and it had no...

Congressman Tom Rooney, R-Tequesta, agrees with President Barack Obama — It’s time to determine the fate of those being held, some as long as seven years, at Guantanamo Bay. But after a fact-finding mission to the detention facility at the eastern tip of Cuba on Friday, Rooney said that rather than relocating any of the suspected terrorists to American prisons if they are found guilty, maybe the facility could be used as a prison. “The one thing, as we discussed down there and merits further discussion, is that right now it’s a detention facility. There are 248-plus people and only...

Washington D.C. May 4th 2009 - Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA took to the House floor this afternoon and blasted the Obama Administration and the plan to release the first wave of GITMO terrorists onto American city streets....at taxpayer expense. The Uyghurs, pronounced Wheegerz, are the Muslim group of terrorists the Chinese were so concerned over during the recent Olympics. They were picked up on the battlefield in 2001 and have been active jihad warriors even prior to 2001. There are almost two dozen of the Uyghurs, members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement and have all received Taliban and a-Queda...

At a time when the US Administration refuses to refer to the international War on Terror as a “war on terror,” is busy releasing known Islamic Terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and is using millions in taxpayer revenue to fund terror organizations such as Hamas in the Palestinian territory, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been busy redefining “terrorist” and setting it’s counter-terrorism sights upon a new set of targets.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge has ordered a Yemeni man released from Guantanamo Bay. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler says the United States should take all necessary diplomatic steps to release Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed. Ahmed was picked up by Pakistani forces in a prayer house seven years ago.

House Democratic leaders Monday dropped President Obama's request for $81 million to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, bowing to strong Republican criticism that the administration lacks a plan to relocate terror suspects detained there. Mr. Obama requested the money as part a spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Democratic appropriators left it out of the bill circulated Monday among House Appropriations Committee staffers. Republicans have been criticizing Mr. Obama for rushing to keep his campaign promise to close the prison camp at the U.S. Navy base on Cuba without a plan for what to do...