Friday, January 13, 2012

The trouble with closing GITMO is closing GITMO!

We celebrated this week the 10th anniversary of the  GITMO detention center.  

It is also an opportunity to recall one of the dumbest campaign promises in recent memory:

"While he remains committed to closing Guantánamo, the president has been hampered from making progress due to opposition from both parties, and he signed a law last month that placed heavy restrictions on transferring any detainees out of the facility." (The Hill)

It turned out that closing GITMO was easy for candidate BO but impossible for Pres BO.

First, where are you going to put these people?  Nobody wants them.  Their home countries won't take them.  The congressmen don't want these people in their district jails.  

Again, nobody wants them!

Second, the new right-center European leaders are different than the left-center leaders that Pres Bush had to deal with in his first term.  In other words, no one is complaining about GITMO in Europe anymore.

Third, the Dem party is now in charge.  They are now responsible for the nation's security.  They don't want to be blamed for releasing terrorists


P.S. Check out our GITMO commentary:


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Another word about the jobs report & US economy


As we mentioned last Friday, put us down as "realists" concerning last month's jobs report.    In other words, we are realistic not pessimistic.

Yes, we like the job creation or the new 212,000 private-sector jobs.  However, we have a lot of work ahead of us before we start calling this any kind of a recovery.

First, the 8.5% unemployment rate last month most likely reflects the fact that more and more Americans have given up looking for a job.  Did you hear about the participation rate?

More important, we are not creating enough jobs.  We need to create over 300,000 jobs monthly just to keep up a recovery.   

The Dallas Morning News explained it yesterday: 

"At that rate, the economy would pick up about 4 million jobs annually; 8 million jobs were lost during the recession."

Moreover, the U.S. economy isn’t immune to a relapse. Europe’s debt crisis remains a ticking time bomb, along with the prospect of higher energy prices if U.S.-Iran tensions accelerate. 

Employment hits also will result from the Pentagon’s plans to reduce the size of the military and as troops return from Iraq and Afghanistan

Four years into the worst housing slump in decades, this remains a drag on the U.S. economy."

Beyond that, there is the political reality that the federal government is broken.  We do not have presidential leadership.  No one is in charge, in other words.

Pres BO has never put any serious plans on the table, whether it's entitlement reform or deficit control or even telling the Senate Democrats to pass a budget.  (The Senate Dems have not passed a budget in 3 years) 

We desperately need leadership and "we ain't got any"!

Check out our conversation with Mario Yngerto:


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