On Monday, Politico reported that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was in negotiations with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on a plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and transfer the terrorist detainees to a prison in Thomson, Illinois. With all due respect to the Senator, there are some particular details about Illinois facility he should know.

On January 6, 2010, three prisoners escaped from the Tri-County Detention Center in Ullin, IL. Local schools were immediately closed and communities were put on alert, as the federal prisoners were considered “armed and dangerous.” It seems these three prisoners are still free and on the run.

Yet, just two months prior, Illinois liberals in Congress were pushing to move Guantanamo Bay detainees to a prison in Thomson, Illinois. With three inmates escaping from a federal prison in the same state, one would think that it would make the Thomson prison deal radioactive.

If this issue isn’t radioactive now, it should be.

Press reports about the Thomson facility note repeatedly that it is in “rural” Illinois. What they don’t mention is the Thomson prison is just 25 miles away from a nuclear power plant. Worse, the prison is only 50 miles away from one of the largest military arsenals in the United States.

I could think of a few better places to put Al-Qaeda terrorists.

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Everyone has their favorite lawyer joke.  Most end up rather poorly for the lawyers.

I understand the public outcry against lawyers, recently stoked by the situation at the Department of Justice (DOJ).  For those not familiar with this news, Attorney General (AG) Eric Holder is in a pitched battle with members of the Senate over the backgrounds of nine attorneys working at DOJ.  Apparently, each of those attorneys have either represented or advocated for terrorist detainees.  Two have been identified: Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal was lead counsel for Guantanamo detainees in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld; Jennifer Daskal advocated for Guantanamo detainees with Human Rights Watch (HRW).

A little background on their background:

Hamdan focused on the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) established under Executive Order by former President George W. Bush in 2001.  CSRT determination was crucial to understanding detainee rights under the Geneva Conventions (adopted by the US), which grant specific rights to lawful enemy combatants (see Article 4) and are silent in regards to unlawful enemy combatants (see Article 5).  CSRTs were a form of military commission.  The main problem the Supreme Court had with CSRTs is that they were not “regularly constituted courts” under the Geneva Convention because our Constitution grants Congress the power of establishing courts.  So Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, which was partially struck down by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush (but that is a story for another day).

HRW is “dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world.”  It sounds nice, but the group admits to “targeted advocacy.”  Started in 1978, HRW focused on the atrocities committed by the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union. When the Evil Empire collapsed in 1991, HRW decided to shift its main attention to the “Evil Republic” of the US.  I suppose HRW decided it could not fire the vast amount of people needed to identify atrocities committed by the Evil Empire, and there was only one major power left.  I also gather that it is a little easier to address “atrocities” committed by the US, as opposed to atrocities committed by China or Russia.

AG Holder refuses to identify the remaining seven lawyers, and in fact, there may be more lawyers with similar backgrounds.

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From Washington Examiner’s Byron York:

Attorney General Eric Holder says nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department. But he does not reveal any names beyond the two officials whose work has already been publicly reported. And all the lawyers, according to Holder, are eligible to work on general detainee matters, even if there are specific parts of some cases they cannot be involved in.

Holder’s admission comes in the form of an answer to a question posed last November by Republican Sen. Charles Grassley. Noting that one Obama appointee, Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, formerly represented Osama bin Laden’s driver, and another appointee, Jennifer Daskal, previously advocated for detainees at Human Rights Watch, Grassley asked Holder to give the Senate Judiciary Committee “the names of political appointees in your department who represent detainees or who work for organizations advocating on their behalf…the cases or projects that these appointees work with respect to detainee prior to joining the Justice Department…and the cases or projects relating to detainees that have worked on since joining the Justice Department.”

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By Barack Obama

It certainly was a holiday to remember.  Since I’m President of the United States, I was able to choose anywhere in the world to spend a long, lazy couple of weeks.  So, we got the 747 gassed up to head to Hawaii for the Holidays.  When I learned Health Care Reform might be held up in the Senate on Christmas Eve, many felt nervous that the holiday kickoff would hit a snafu.  Sure, it’s one of the most complicated and controversial bills in American history, but we had turkeys to baste and chestnuts to roast.

Great news, we cooked up a plan to slap a 10 percent tax on people who go to tanning beds — that ought to fix paying for all this!   Plus, Senator Harry Reid ensured the democrats who were going to bail on the bill were handsomely paid off, so we quickly squeaked out a win on that sucker before anyone had a chance to read it!  The partisan divide may now be bigger than ever, but I made it out of D.C. on time to head for some quality climate change —  to the land where palm trees sway for some holiday island fun — Mele Kalikimaka!

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Today the Obama Administration is announcing it plans to import the terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay prison – some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world – to the Thomson Correctional Center located outside Chicago, Illinois.  This decision puts the interests of liberal special interest groups before the safety and security of the American people.  Here’s how I addressed this issue at a press conference on Capitol Hill this morning:

The American people don’t want dangerous terrorists imported on to U.S. soil, and time after time the House and Senate have reaffirmed this position with bipartisan votes rejecting the Administration’s plan. Yet this Administration is defying the will of the American people and importing them anyway. What’s worse, this decision is completely unnecessary considering that these terrorists were already being tried by military commissions, which were specifically designed under the law to prosecute such heinous acts.

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While countries around the world, in virtual lockstep, refuse to accept the relocation of their own citizens– suspected terrorists–from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,  a House-Senate panel of the Illinois legislature will consider Governor Quinn’s (and the Obama Administration’s) plan to sell the Thomson Correctional Center,to the federal government to house the Gitmo detainees. The panel will meet in northwest Illinois, where the correctional center is located.

But not so fast. There are residents in Illinois who are outraged by the Obama Administration’s plans for their backyard and they are holding a rally to tell lawmakers “Not here.”

“This is America and our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people, and we the people were not even consulted about this decision to bring suspected terrorists to Illinois.” Beverly Perlson, founder of the Band of Mothers, and one of the rally organizers, said during a phone interview.

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