Friday, May 22, 2009

Okay, WTF, Senate?

Dude, Obama often disappoints me, too, including right now, but considering this (please fuck off yesterday, Reid) is what he has to work with...

90-6 voted -against- closing Guantanamo. You know, the radical Democrat Socialist-led leftie Senate, blahblah.

That is, they denied the funds for closing the joint down and moving the prisoners to maximum security U.S. prisons.

But, we always have enough for more war, natch. Keep us safe, like.

Fuck this, seriously.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

I watched Jon Stewart's take on this, and he was fucking brilliant.

"Gitmo looks like they built it out of whatever shit they found on the beach. These are the MAXIMUM SECURITY prisons!" Then he highlighted some of the really really scary people who can currently be found residing in those maximum security prisons and asked if those are really less scary than a bunch of failed (obviously, since they got caught!) terrorists.

Unknown said...

SE? a hell of a lot of people held in gitmo - prolly most of them - are innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

THEY'VE NOT HAD TRIALS. they've not had charges brought against them. how can you assume that they are terrorists, failed or not?

Kristen said...

ARGGGHHH...these people have SWORN to uphold the constitution. I wish I could toss the lot of them out on their ears. I feel like starting a mailer campaign where I send every person in Congress...okay every person in the US...a copy of the 5th Amendment.

"No person [Ed. Note...not just no citizen, not just no person held on US soil...just NO PERSON] shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

Either we are people of principle or we are tyrants ruled by fear.

Cereus Sphinx said...

Ugh.
There's a thing called the constitution. *Seconds Kristen*

And besides that, there's the human rights issues.

And also - Obama's getting in on it X(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbslm1h8xjI

Anonymous said...

It's been so much of more of the same from the current administration.

And Obama, as a former professor of constitutional law has to know that his proposal (discussed in the youtube link from Cereus Sphinx) violates the constitution and basic human rights.

And the democratic party was in lockstep with the Bush administration on these issues, so it's no surprise they're continuing the same policies in Congress.

belledame222 said...

yeah, not exactly bowled over with surprise by any of it, nor on the spinelessness wrt queer issues ("the fierce urgency of whenever"), but it doesn't make it any less *ugh.*

welcome AF and CS, p.s.

belledame222 said...

well, no: actually i -am- suprised that the numbers were that stark in Congress. maybe I shouldn't have been, but I was. bleah.

Nick Manley said...

In a related issue: what's up with this preventive detention lingo.

Watching Obama's speech about the rule of law with the proposal included made me think of Orwell spinning in his grave. Obama seems to sometimes say things I pretty much agree with 100 percent and then do the opposite...

Anonymous said...

GG: I believe Jon Stewart was commenting only on the reasons given by the senators for opposing the move, and it was in that context that I made my remark. I agree that in fact, since "innocent until proven guilty" and "not had trials yet", they are in fact only suspected terrorists; but the senators' comments didn't make that distinction.

stevethehydra said...

I actually think the probable best thing to do with the Guantanamo detainees right now is just turn them loose, pack up and leave, and let Cuba decide what to do with them (hopefully, accept them as citizens, and give them a better life than they'd almost certainly have in either the US or their countries of origin).

Guantanamo is part of Cuba. The US has no right to even *be* there whatsoever.

Alon Levy said...

Cuba granted the base to the US.

Jenny said...

Arrgh. I know what you mean. I've been disappointed in Obama for a while now. Really disappointed.

belledame222 said...

It's like, I expected the disappointments, fully and completely, and still think there absolutely wasn't any question that I vote for him; and yet, it doesn't make it less disappointing.

and, at the same time, as noted in the O.P.: he doesn't get off the hook for being a politician, but at the same time it's painfully obvious that there's virtually -no one- in the three branches right now who'd be much or any better. It's been either this or much, much worse. I hope that shifts, I really do. I mean, the Republicans committing auto-cannibalism has been lovely schadenfreude, but it isn't enough, clearly.

Nick Manley said...

I've lost track of all the dizzying statements and actions made since Obama took office. The government addresses so many things at this point. It's hard to keep up with what there is and isn't to be disappointed about. I guess I might be less friendly to Obama on average ~ being less of a governmentalist than your average Progressive minded voter in America. Nonetheless, I even tried to vote for him, so that says something ~ lost my absentee MO ballot lol. It was the first year I didn't space out and forget to vote in time too..or tried to!

Nick Manley said...

Here's where I'd like to see Obama act next: immigration. They passed something in MO about making English the only language spoken at public meetings ~ minutemen ideology strikes.

He seems to be taking a rhetorical middle of the road approach. I don't think he said he'd expel all currently illicit migrants, but he has spoken of beefing up the border too.

belledame222 said...

yeah, that might actually be one where he ends up disappointing the right, seeing as how "beefing up" costs money and even Bush failed them in that regard.

Alex Greg said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Mandos said...

OK, I think this thread has gone on enough to leave you a dead mouse link.

http://thelongestwar.wordpress.com/2009/05/24/sheila-jeffreys-is-my-hero/

This, by the way, is some kind of male Mary Sunshine wannabe. He proposes complete voluntary celibacy for all non-gay men.

belledame222 said...

god, another one? wonder if he's one of the other ones under a new name. I guess we'll all have to muddy along without his essence somehow. thank god we have his bloviations to make up for it.

belledame222 said...

lulz, so glad he "soothes his conscience" about being a Patriarchal Oppressor who was brought to term, with the blogging, there. wonder if uses his left hand or his right.

belledame222 said...

goddamit. between the infanticide as lesser of all evils and now with this one bleating about how he's willing to admit he was born a male fetus and clearly this was the start of Where It All Went Horribly Wrong, all I can think is

You should have ended up in the dustbin, the incinerator was too good for you!...ABORT!! ABORT, ABORT, ABORT, I said! Chuck it down the pan! Bring me...A KNITTING NEEDLE!!Poor woojums.

Mandos said...

That YouTube is awesome. I have to mentally file that one. I have no doubt it will prove useful.

Yeah, so, my lulz-o-meter went off the scale when I found that one leaving a Sheila-Jeffreys-is-my-homegirl comment at allecto's. "Hate me! Hate MEEEEE! PLEASE!!! (And love me for wanting you to hate me.)"

Mandos said...

By the way, I'm gearing up for another food bar showdown. I just ate half a Clif "Builder's" homoerotic imagery protein bar. It was actually quite tasty and did make me feel more manly. Best bar so far. I can't call it a hippy bar because of the giant wrench on the wrapper.

Mandos said...

I almost think it's Swiftian. Because completely forgotten in the male sex penance he proposes is the fact that it's also a reverse Lysistrata imposing celibacy on all straight women. But since they think *all* women are *really* lesbians oppressed by the jabby parts, I guess it doesn't matter.

belledame222 said...

o right, a giant wrench. well. and yet, you -tear off- the wrapper...

Mandos said...

http://www.clifbar.com/uploads/product/builders.cookiesncream.png

That's the bar I ate. Manly man in tank top is yanking a giant wrench (pointing upwards, natch) attached to a huge metal wheely thing.

To be fair, one of the five flavours has an image of a woman putting up solar panels. The rest are all manly men with large and often phallic machines.

belledame222 said...

i hate to speculate what the solar panels might symbolize...