Obama Presses Radical Agenda & Biden's SCOTUS Rules

Image: AP/UPI: Obama to Congress:
Close Guantanamo, move terrorists to US

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Obama Presses Radical Agenda - Oh, if only we had a president who cared as much about veterans as he does about the comfort of enemy combatants. Speaking at a White House press conference this morning, President Obama announced that the Pentagon was submitting a formal plan to Congress to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"I am absolutely committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo," Obama declared. And he vowed to "make the case for doing so as long as I hold this office."

So what does the president propose we do with the terrorists currently held there? He wants to release some to other countries, even though, if history is any guide, many of them will return to the battlefield to wage jihad against us.

The rest he intends to bring to the United States. According to one report, the Pentagon has looked at more than a dozen possible sites to host these hardened terrorists, including "the naval brig in Charleston, South Carolina, a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a federal prison in Canon City, Colorado."

The president acknowledged that closing Gitmo is a going to be a tough sell. A poll last summer found that only 27% of Americans supported closing the terrorist detention facility.

The president's plan immediately ran into a buzz saw of bi-partisan opposition on Capitol Hill. Congress has already enacted significant restrictions against any Obama plans to close Gitmo.

Speaker Paul Ryan said, "His proposal fails to provide taxpayers with critical details required by law, including the exact cost and location of an alternate detention facility." Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) put it bluntly, saying, "Simply put: this plan is dead on arrival in the Senate."

Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), who is up for reelection this year, quickly blasted the president's plan. "I've repeatedly said I do not support the transfer of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay military facility to Colorado. . . This plan has done nothing to change my mind. These detainees should not be transferred to Colorado."

Of course, there are rumors that Obama will issue an executive order closing the facility.

Biden's Rules - As we have previously noted, the judicial confirmation process went nuclear in 1987 when Senate Democrats destroyed the nomination of Judge Robert Bork. The character assassination of Judge Bork was so bad, the hearings added a new a term to our political lexicon -- "to Bork someone," meaning to destroy them by innuendo and outright lies.

Who was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1987? Then-Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) wielded the gavel.

In 1992, Chairman Biden took to the Senate floor to express his views on the possibility of a Supreme Court nomination that year by then-President George H.W. Bush. Here's what Biden said:". . .it is my view that if a Supreme Court justice resigns tomorrow or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not -- and not -- name a nominee until after the November election is completed."Did you notice the emphasis there on not naming a nominee? Biden wasn't stuttering. Watch it here. He continued:"The Senate, too . . . must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. It is my view that if [President Bush] goes the way of Presidents [Millard] Fillmore and [Andrew] Johnson, and presses an election year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over."One liberal commentator at MSNBC called the Biden video "a pretty devastating soundbite" that erodes the "moral high ground" Democrats are attempting to claim in the current showdown over the vacancy created by Justice Scalia's death.

On the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Charles Grassley, the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, held his ground and vowed to follow "the Biden Rules."
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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