from the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7903005.stm 

Here's some snippets:

Detainees being held at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot use US courts to challenge their detention, the US says.

The justice department ruled that some 600 so-called enemy combatants at Bagram have no constitutional rights.

...

It is certainly evidence that having set the tone for his administration by announcing plans to close Guantanamo Bay, Mr Obama intends to adopt a much more cautious approach to the problem of detainees held elsewhere by the US military, our correspondent says. 

...

The US justice department argues that Bagram differs from Guantanamo Bay because it is in an overseas war zone and prisoners there are being held as part of ongoing military action. (Jordan's Note - and the guys at Gitmo were just pulled off Main Street in NYC?)

Prof Olshansky said the conditions at the Bagram facility, which is near the Afghan capital, Kabul, were worse than those at Guantanamo Bay, adding that there was a lack of due process available to detainees.

"It's quite a severe situation, and yet the US is planning a $60m new prison to hold 1,100 more people there."(Jordan's Note - AH HA - i think I know where our guests at Gitmo are going to be transported to!)

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Not that i have any problem with this....but others might - like Obama's supporters? Guess the only "change" was closing Gitmo -- only to ship them off to another US prison in a foreign land, perhaps? It's going to be the only place the govt will be able to send them if states do indeed pass state laws prohibiting terrorists to be moved to their states. I know KS and Colorado are seriously discussing this due to both having federal prisons.

Jordan .

Thanks Jordan, that's pretty interesting- I'll have to read it when I get a chance.  I think the biggest difference between Bush and Obama in this is that Obama seems to be willing to do what's necessary while at the same time being cognizant of world opinion.  Bush seemed to either not recognize the problem (Abu Ghraib) or just say "F.U. world, we're fighting terrists" (Gitmo).  Obama sees a lot of people foreign and domestic don't like Gitmo, and realizes that he can have his cake and eat it too by closing Gitmo but still having other detention centers for possibly dangerous people.  Obama is no softie, and groups like MoveOn are pretty critical of some of his policies. 

it may be splitting hairs, but I actually do see some difference between a POW camp in an active war zone and moving people all around the world to some isolated camp.  I'd want to know more about things like Red Cross access,  how they are determining the status of the prisoners, and to what extent the Afghani gov't is involved.  Of course, if the prison is used for people from other countries then it is pretty much exactly like Gitmo...

"I think the biggest difference between Bush and Obama in this is that Obama seems to be willing to do what's necessary while at the same time being cognizant of world opinion.  Bush seemed to either not recognize the problem (Abu Ghraib) or just say "F.U. world, we're fighting terrists" (Gitmo).  Obama sees a lot of people foreign and domestic don't like Gitmo, and realizes that he can have his cake and eat it too by closing Gitmo but still having other detention centers for possibly dangerous people."

Time will tell. If Obama sends the guys at Gitmo to a detention center in foreign land, then he's just being disengenious, IMO, and should be called on it. All he's doing is replacing one Gitmo for another.

I don't see much of a difference. These guys are being held on US forces one way or the other. Whether Afghanistan gives the US permission, or we do it on our own soil, or we get permission from a former Russian country in some secret detention center, it's all teh same, IMO. Removing these guys from a prison in a warzone though, IMO, is better than keeping them there. While there in the warzone, there's a possibility of escape back into the country and you got an even bigger target on the detention center as a result (which is one reason why many states don't want the Gitmo guys moved to their states).

Again, I say all this believing that Obama is doing the right thing. :-) I'm glad in fact. I do think it's a mistake closing Gitmo, but if he ends up just moving them to another version of Gitmo elsewhere, it doesn't bother me at all.

Jordan .

i wonder what the response would've been like if he instead said "i'm fixing gitmo"

Jordan .

This bit by Bill Hicks came up on my iTunes shuffle last night:

I have this feeling that whoever becomes elected president, no matter what your promises are, blah blah blah, you go into this smoky room with the twelve, industrial capitalist scumfucks who go you in there, and you're in this smoky room and a big screen comes down, a big guy with a cigar says "Roll the film" And it's a shot of the Kennedy assasination from an angle you've never seen before. That looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. And then the screen comes up and the lights come on an d they say to the new president...

"Any questions?"

"Ah just what my agenda is?"

"First we bomb Bagdhad."

"You got it

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

 *you want to invade iraq based on shaky-at-best reasoning

 **an amount (to date) equal to four times the cost of the stimulus

I thought of you when I was watching Bill O'Reilly last night, 'Fud.  He referred to Sean Penn as "that clown".

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

Totally owned.

 that might be the most syrupy movie i've ever seen

made me yearn for the hard gritty reality of forrest gump

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper

"President Obama’s media cheerleaders are hailing how loved he is. But at the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises."

"Evan Coyne Maloney wrote:It reminds me of a point I made in The Clinton Legacy: during the Clinton presidency, a 5.6% unemployment rate was a sign that the economy was doing well, while under Bush, the exact same unemployment rate was portrayed negatively.

The question is, how many people fall for it? Do we believe Obama is popular just because the media keeps insisting that he is?"

Relative to everyone else in Washington, he's still pretty popular, especially for a half-breed muslin kenyan communist.  In fact, of all the half-breed foreign-born muslins, he's pretty close to the top in popularity. 

Traditionally democrats have been the 'big tent' party, and I'll admit that a fault of the dems is to try to make everyone happy.  This is easier to do in good times than in a huge crisis. No matter what goes down in the first 100 or next 100 days, not everyone is going to be happy with the outcome, so a small dip in popularity doesn't bother me.

 Is the (non talk-radio/Rupert Murdoch) media propping Obama up?  I don't tend to think so, but I'm hesitant to believe my own (or anyone elses) opinions on media bias.  He's certainly made himself very available to the media.  I'm certainly not shocked that an opinion page from the washington times isn't very positive on the prez.

Read Dick Morris' article.

Jordan .

No doubt-I don't think anyone thinks Obama is perfect, nor that his policies are perfect.  But they seem to be trusting him to lead us through this and do what is necessary.

[edit- to clarify, there is much more that I like than I don't like.  So I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt on things like how these bailouts are going down (some of them seem overmanaged).]

Jordan .

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/79295.html

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

Kelly

How Do You Live Your Dash?

Check out the Kids' blogs:
The CaleBlog and the Zoe Blog

"Harry, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it, don't wait for it, just let it happen. Could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot, black coffee. Like this."  -Dale Cooper