Couric, Gibson falsely claim "no member" of
Congress offered to take Guantánamo detainees

post from Media Matters for America - Latest Items on 21 May 2009 07:44:34 AM. © Media Matters for America - Latest Items

During the May 20 broadcasts of the CBS Evening News and ABC's World News, anchors Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, respectively, falsely claimed that "no member" of Congress wanted detainees being held at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, transferred to prisons in their districts. In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, at least two congressional representatives have offered to hold detainees from Guantánamo Bay at prisons in their districts.

During the broadcast of the CBS Evening News, Couric stated, "The Senate today followed the House in blocking the president from closing the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay because no member wants any of the detainees there sent to his or her home state or district." Similarly, on World News, Gibson said of the detainees: "No member of Congress wants these guys transferred to prisons in their districts." Chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos responded, "That's right."

In a May 9 op-ed in The Washington Post, Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) offered use of the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse and Detention Center in Alexandria, Virginia. In the op-ed, Moran noted that "the '20th hijacker,' Zacarias Moussaoui, who participated in planning the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon, was held and prosecuted in the Alexandria courthouse" and stated that "should President Obama determine that Alexandria needs to play a reasonably limited role in a nationwide effort to bring justice to the Guantanamo detainees and close this unfortunate chapter of American history, I am confident that Alexandrians will stand strong as they always have."

Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) has also said that he is willing to house detainees from Guantánamo Bay at a prison in his district if a maximum security prison were built, according to a January 21 FoxNews.com report:

Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., says he'd be willing to house prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in his congressional district if President Obama makes good on a plan to close the U.S. prison there.
[...]
Murtha only has a minimum security prison in his district. But he says he'd have no reservations about holding detainees there in a maximum security prison.
"Sure, I'd take 'em," said Murtha, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war. "They're no more dangerous in my district than in Guantanamo."
Murtha added that there was "no reason not to put 'em in prisons in the United States and handle them the way they would handle any other prisoners."

Additionally, as the blog Think Progress noted, during a May 20 speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said:

And, yes, we have maximum security prisons in California eminently capable of holding these people as well, and from which people -- trust me -- do not escape. So, I believe that this has really been an exercise in fear-baiting. I hope it's not going to be successful.

On the CBS Evening News, chief White House correspondent Chip Reid aired a portion of Feinstein's floor speech in which she said that the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado -- the so-called "supermax" prison -- "has 490 beds. They are reserved for the worst of the worst." But Reid did not air her assertion that "maximum security prisons in California" are "eminently capable of holding these people as well."

From the May 20 broadcast of ABC's World News with Charles Gibson:

GIBSON: But, George, what's the problem here? We have, as Jake [Tapper, senior White House correspondent] mentioned and Senator Feinstein said on the Senate floor, we have terrorists in U.S. prisons, so why not the guys from Guantánamo?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Charlie, I think this is one of the ultimate NIMBY issues. You're right on that point. On the other hand, the senators have not yet seen a plan. And you've got the FBI director out there saying he's not sure it's going to be safe, either. Senate sources I've talked to today and the administration believe there is a chance they're going to be able to get the Senate to agree to having some detainees come into prisons later this year, once the plan by the president is released. But there is no way they're going to approve release of any prisoners in the United States.
GIBSON: And when you say it's a NIMBY problem, you mean --
STEPHANOPOULOS and GIBSON [in unison]: Not in my back yard.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Absolutely right, Charlie.
GIBSON: No member of Congress wants these guys transferred to prisons in their districts.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's right.

From the May 20 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:

COURIC: Well, if you're still counting, it happened on Day 121 of the Obama administration, right behind me at the Capitol: the new president's first major legislative defeat. The Senate today followed the House in blocking the president from closing the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay because no member wants any of the detainees there sent to his or her home state or district. The vote in the Senate wasn't even close, 90 to 6.
Chip Reid is at the White House, and Chip, all but six Democrats abandoned the president on this one.
REID: Well, that's right, Katie. Democrats weighed appeals from the president on the one hand against anger from their constituents on the other, and the president lost in a big way.
[...]
REID: The prison houses 240 suspected terrorists. If it's closed, many could be transferred to the U.S., including about 20 high-ranking members of Al Qaeda. But the president's supporters say critics are fearmongering.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): The reality is, we are holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons.
REID: Like the Supermax Prison in Colorado, which holds, among others, shoe bomber Richard Reid and Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui.
FEINSTEIN: It has 490 beds. They are reserved for the worst of the worst.

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Don't Forget the Mockery

post from Talking Points Memo on 21 May 2009 07:44:00 AM. © Talking Points Memo

Vice President Cheney's crew is putting out advances this morning on today's speech at AEI, offering 'praise' for Obama when he deserves an answer when he leads the country in the wrong direction. Clearly there's going to be a lot of mano a mano[...]

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_mockery.php

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Early Morning Swim: Special Glenn Beck is a Lying
Sack of Dog Mess Edition

post from Firedoglake on 21 May 2009 07:43:56 AM. © Firedoglake

POTUS speech on Gitmo today. 37%? Sounds high. This is why we need universal coverage.The GOP: making the tough decisions.Sign of the times. Obama's Catholic problem, cont'd.Eeeeek!The Democrats are going to steal your guns!Stay classy, Mike.[...]

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g-sack-of-dog-mess-edition/

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Docudharma Times Thursday May 21

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 21 May 2009 07:30:00 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

U.S. Senate ShowsIt Has A SpineA Straw Man Spine Thursday's Headlines: California, a Broke State, Reels as Voters Rebuff Leaders Young, gifted and red: the Communist party's quiet revolution Paramilitaries 'abducting Tamil children from Sri[...]

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y-may-21

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Mockery is all Dick Cheney deserves

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 21 May 2009 07:21:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

As the cable news talking heads foam at the mouth over Dick Cheney's speech this morning, being billed as a response to Obama, Josh Marshall reminds us who Dick Cheney is:

This is someone who not only organized and seemingly directed a policy of state-sponsored torture. He did it in large part to get people to admit to crankish conspiracy theories he got taken in by by a crew of think-tank jockeys in DC whose theories most even half way sensible people treated as punch lines of jokes. So it's Torquemada or 1984 but only after getting rescripted by Mel Brooks.

This is an extremely gullible man who has just come off being the driving ideological force in an administration that most people can already see produced more fiascos and titanic, self-inflicted goofs than possibly any in our entire history. By any standard the guy is a monumental failure -- and not one whose mistakes stem in some Lyndon Johnson fashion from tragic overreach, but just a fool who damaged his country through his own gullibility, paranoia and bad judgment. Whatever else you can say about the Cheney story it ain't Shakespearean.

So as we see the big reporters trying to put him on some sort of equal footing with President Obama today, let's remember that the great majority of Americans see Dick Cheney, accurately, as a clown. And mockery isn't just the most effective but also the most morally apt response to the man.

Very well said.

One problem is that many of the "big reporters" who will breathlessly report on Cheney today also merrily and dutifully abetted Cheney and Bush as they wreaked havoc on our country, our constitution and our world. Those media types warrant mockery as well.

UPDATE: This guy really is the voice of the GOP. If they want this image front and center, so be it:

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ney-deserves.html

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Maybe journalism isnt dead

post from Where's the Outrage? on 21 May 2009 07:13:51 AM. © Where's the Outrage?

Diane Sawyer has done her homework. Instead, of simply accepting the garbage that Newt Gingrich[...]

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Maybe Journalism Isnt Dead

post from Where's the Outrage? on 21 May 2009 07:13:51 AM. © Where's the Outrage?

Diane Sawyer has done her homework. Instead of simply accepting the garbage that Newt Gingrich was[...]

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http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/2009/05/21/maybe-journalism-isnt-dead/

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Uncle Teddy is in Remission (Updated)

Senator Ted Kennedy will be returning to the work after the Memorial Day recess. His glioma is in remission, and reports indicate that his first order of business will be the Health Care legislation mark-up.

Remember that this is NOT the Baucus-Grassley Finance Committee ~~fiasco~~ legislation, rather the HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) initiative. This is Universal Health Care, with a heartfelt committment from Uncle Teddy that we all deserve the level of optimal care that he was accorded in his treatment.

Welcome back, Senator. We need you and wish you the longest remission possible.

UPDATE: CBS News is reporting that the Senator is not in remission. He is still expected back next month to work on health care legislation.

I regret the error, and am fully cognizant that the outcome for gliomas is incredibly bleak. Still, hope springs eternal...

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http://www.Demconwatchblog.com/diary/1570/uncle-teddy-is-in-remission

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The face of torture

Torture has been very difficult for me to get my arms around. In spite of the relatively clear[...]

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The Face of Torture

Torture has been very difficult for me to get my arms around. In spite of the relatively clear[...]

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http://www.whereistheoutrage.net/wordpress/2009/05/21/the-face-of-torture/

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