GITMO North Is the Worst Option on the Table

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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Tags: don manzullo, federal prisons, GITMO north, Guantanamo Bay, Guantanamo Bay detainees
Posted Mar 3rd 2010 at 9:07 am in Congress, Defense, News, Politics | 8372692 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bschilling/2010/03/03/gitmo-north-is-the-worst-option-on-the-table/GITMO+North+Is+the+Worst+Option+on+the+Table2010-03-03+17%3A07%3A46Bobby++Schilling

Obama’s Big Plans for Justice Department Nominee Johnsen

The Senate is about to act on the nomination of militant leftist Dawn Johnsen to be the chief of the U.S. government’s elite legal team. But that post is a stepping-stone for top judicial offices, including the Supreme Court itself. That’s likely Barack Obama’s plans for Johnsen, and it’s why she must be stopped now.

Ultra-liberal activist Dawn Johnsen, currently a professor at Indiana University School of Law, is President Obama’s nominee to be assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). As the OLC chief, Johnsen would shape the legal positions of the Obama administration on every issue. OLC is the elite legal team for the federal government, giving legal advice on every important issue to the attorney general, other department heads in the government, and to the president himself. That’s why the head of OLC is called “the attorney general’s lawyer.”

The problem is that Johnsen is a radical. As the former legal director for the extremist abortion-rights group NARAL, Johnsen argued in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that denying a pregnant woman the right to demand unrestricted abortion is to subject her to slavery, which was outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment after the Civil War.

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Tags: antonin scalia, appointments clause, dawn johnson, economic justice, Federalist Society
Posted Feb 10th 2010 at 10:11 am in Uncategorized | 73194119 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/kenandken/2010/02/10/obamas-big-plans-for-justice-department-nominee-johnsen/Obama%27s+Big+Plans+for+Justice+Department+Nominee+Johnsen2010-02-10+18%3A11%3A10Ken+Blackwell+and++Ken+Klukowski

**Exclusive** Leaked Justice Department Memo: Terrorists To Be Moved to Camp Gitmo Illinois

The Land of Lincoln may still be licking its wounds–and certain real estate transactions–over Chicago’s losing the Olympics to Rio, but the Obama Administration has delivered up a small consolation prize: the state’s very own federal prison for terrorists. Big Government has received  what is claimed to be a leaked DOJ memo that was allegedly sent yesterday from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Memo below:

Thompson memo –

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Tags: Camp Gitmo, Chicago, corleone family, federal contracts, federal prison
Posted Dec 11th 2009 at 12:25 pm in Defense, Featured Story | 44906473 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2009/12/11/exclusive-leaked-justice-department-memo-terrorists-to-be-moved-to-camp-gitmo-illinois/%3Cspan+style%3D%22color%3Ared%22%3E%2A%2AExclusive%2A%2A+Leaked+Justice+Department+Memo%3A+Terrorists+To+Be+Moved+to+Camp+Gitmo+Illinois%3C%2Fspan%3E2009-12-11+20%3A25%3A09Publius

Detainees to Illinois: Can Obama’s Home State Sink Even Lower?

Illinois can be extra proud of its Democratic elected officials these days as they have joined to create a perfect storm of stupidity resulting in the possibility that terrorist detainees may be transferred to an unopened new prison in the rural northwestern corner of the Prairie State.

Favorite son Barack Obama has so muddled his administration policy on terror detainees that we are left with an approach that nearly everyone eight years ago agreed was to be avoided.  That is, incarcerating terrorists on American soil.

An issue like this is always bound to elicit histrionics from both sides of the partisan divide—and no one has disappointed.  This new policy won’t lead to mass escapes of terrorists who will roam the heartland bombing at will.  Jihadist camps won’t spring up along the Mississippi River and Al Qaida is not likely to launch an assault on a rural Illinois prison.  But neither is this a simple economic development project that will create jobs and boom times for rural Illinois.  It is not an inconsequential relocation away from the politically charged Gitmo to a morally superior prison that  will win favorable international opinion.

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Tags: ACLU, al qaida, defense department prison, democrat machine, Dick Durbin
Posted Nov 20th 2009 at 10:57 am in Defense, Justice/Legal, Obama, Politics | 3401032 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dobrien/2009/11/20/detainees-to-illinois-can-obamas-home-state-sink-even-lower/Detainees+to+Illinois%3A+Can+Obama%27s+Home+State+Sink+Even+Lower%3F2009-11-20+17%3A57%3A39Doug+O%26%2339%3BBrien