Mr. President, Close. Down. That. Prison...

The Government Accountability Office ("GAO") found that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba can be safely closed and the remaining prisoners transferred to prisons on US soil with no ill effects. This should be done immediately. First off, this was a promise made by President Obama before his FIRST term in office, yet we are still discussing it (barely) four years later. One of the prime reasons for using Guantanamo was for security reasons and as a means to keep these enemy combatants from having the right to habeas corpus. With the GAO largely dismissing the security concerns and those combatants left are mostly being held without charges, why is it still open?

With everyone currently raving about Lincoln, rightfully so having seen it myself, there is an applicable part of the movie where President Lincoln is discussing with his cabinet the various things he has done because he felt them necessary and right despite the possibility of the actions being unconstitutional. He was mainly referring to the Emancipation Proclamation but of equal import was his suspension of habeas corpus using his powers as a war time President. These powers were again evoked, with a nod towards President Lincoln and the exigencies required by war, after the attacks of September 11th. The difference between the two, however, is that unlike the Civil War, the Authorization for Use of Military Force that followed the 9/11 attacks and preceded the official War on Terror is very open ended. Thus, the suspension of habeas corpus for those at Guantanamo Bay, and many previously at Guantanamo have been found to have done nothing related to terrorist activity but were simply picked up during the fog of war, remains open ended.

The point of that previous paragraph's aside being, President Obama did not open Guantanamo for that use and has no skin in the game. His promise to close the prison is now almost half a decade old and the GAO has stated that it is more than plausible to safely close it and transfer the prisoners to the continental U.S. So, does President Obama recognize the moral hazards of making decisions that may exist in the gray area where the President's war powers and the unconstitutionality meet like President Lincoln did? And, if so, why is the prison still open at the same time the President is winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Basically, Mr. President, please do as you promised and close down that prison.


IMAGE: Wikipedia.com

The Day the NY Jets Crashed

The day they got clowned by Harry Reid. Here we have just another one of many examples (See Fireman Ed's retirement due to harassment by fellow Jet "fans," anything related to Tebow or manufactured QB controversy, etc.) that has Jets fans hoping for a Mayan Apocalypse before the year is out. Now Harry Reid used to box so I am going to go ahead and assume that he's not a "let us got to the match of football" type Mormon like Mitt Romney, but he still kind of looks like an aged Harry Potter pwning the entire Jets fan base. It is truly embarrassing. The most astonishing part of this Jets season, however, is that they are actually in contention for a Wild Card spot and, due to their cream puff of a remaining schedule, they could win out and crash land (PUNS!) into the playoffs. Considering that the Jets played almost the entire year without their best offensive and defensive players, that would be an accomplishment and very quiet, almost whispered, testimonial to Rex Ryan's abilities as coach, despite all the distractions, and hopefully keeps him at the helm.

Not that anyone should be holding out hope for miracles in the future. The Jets, thanks to the incompetent mismanagement by Tannenbaum and Johnson (I don't care what he says, Woody was definitely instrumental in pushing the Tebow trade), have a hole-y (PUNS!) mess of a roster. Although the offensive line is generally good, there are almost no weapons on offense outside of Holmes. Keller has fallen off despite showing promise last year, a #2 receiver hasn't revealed himself yet, and Shonn Greene has proven himself to be a bust. Bilal Powell has shown some ability this year but he is a small upgrade, if anything, over Greene. Concrete Hands McKnight has yet to shown anything to open up hope that he could be an effective back and, Sparano be damned, the Jets still have not figured out how to use Tebow in the Wildcat. The defensive side, though still looking good this year, is old and much of the Jets' scheme revolves around a healthy Revis. To be fair, Cromartie did a good job in his absence and Sexy Rexy and his lieutenants did a good job of adjusting the defensive scheme so that the D was still effective.

Unless some changes are made, and I do not even know if the front office is competent to make them, the Jets may squeak into the playoffs this year but will most likely remain grounded next. Here's to hoping, I am wrong.


IMAGE: amazon.com

Is Hot Bag of Air That Is Grover Norquist Finally Floating Away?

According to a lot of press lately, which was even accompanied by some minor scolding from his own party, it seems as if Grover Norquist might be losing his kung-fu grip on the balls of the republican party when it comes to anything and everything involving his favorite four letter word... tax. But in the harsh light in the post-election morning, GOP politicians are beginning to realize that the napoleonic GOP tax emperor has no clothes. Or more realistically considering the climate and how the Republicans are polling against the President on the so-called fiscal cliff, they realize that threat of Mr. Norquist holding (most of) their previous anti-tax pledges against them in a future primary battle is rather hollow in the face of refusing to let the Bush tax cuts expire against the highest two tax brackets (I am not even going to get hysterically started on how the Bush tax cuts were ALWAYS supposed to sunset after 10 years). The majority of people support the raising of the wealthiest and most will also blame the GOP if a deal gets done. The bet being made many is that it is a lot more dangerous to the electoral prospects of those involved to obey Grover rather than to ignore him.

The party has not put Grover in the corner yet, however. He is now trying to use the debt ceiling to get what he, and many far-right conservatives in the House as well (to be fair), wants on the fiscal cliff. Boehner has now even stated that "everything has a price" as an barely implicit threat to use the debt ceiling despite the fact that it threatens the full faith and credit of the US, led to a downgrade of the US' credit rating last year and 60% of Americans support raising taxes on the top 2% of Americans (oh, and that little 332 and 51% election win by POTUS).

Due to that last bit, and because the majority of Americans will blame the Republican Party for a failure to avert the fiscal cliff, the President is refusing to back down from either his promise to raise taxes on the top 2% OR his conviction to take the debt ceiling off the table for the future so it can no longer be used as a threat nuclear option bargaining chip by the GOP. As President Obama still appears to have a massive chip stack in front of him, it strikes me as the right play. Not only is the raising of taxes on the wealthiest something he ran hard on and won on this fall, but the debt ceiling argument last year cast a black cloud over the United States last year. The President did not get overly blamed on that, but it still caused many to doubt the sanity of the political process. These negotiations during this lame duck session may be an important step to illustrate that this past election was the first sign that sanity is starting to creep back into our Congressional halls.

Here's to hoping, because the world is still watching. Maybe only with one eye because they have their own shit going on over in the EU and China, but watching nonetheless.

IMAGE: Mediaite via Google Images

THE RETURN

                                                       


No, not of blog posts here. No one gives a damn about that. This is about the GLORIOUS return of the flat top haircut. More specifically, on the basketball courts of this nation.See Exhibits A, Iman Shumpert on the left, and B, Nerlens Noel on the right, and just really soak it in. The world hasn't seen a resurgence of the hair tower of power since the golden years of Patrick Ewing and Kendall Gill (although Shump is looking more like he rolled out of Kid N Play).

I, for one, could not be more excited. I can only intuit that this means a banner year for the NBA, and a NY Knickerbocker's championship banner (he said with the slightest, and saddest, but of hope in his voice). Cheers to you Flat Top. And welcome back.