Feinstein supports sending Gitmo detainees to California
By David Sunday Sep 27, 2009 6:00pm
Sen. Diane Feinstein told Fox News' Chris Wallace that she supports sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to California maximum security prisons. "In a maximum security prison, I don't worry about it, provided the prison is set up to accommodate it, and I believe we have facilities that are," said Feinstein.
John Amato:
DiFi knows all about prisons since California has such an incredible prison population that is regulated by asinine rules. Also several idiotic ballot initiatives have made it harder to lower the prison population by easing sentences on drug abusers instead of drug dealers. That being said, Diane at least takes the step of not being a bed-wetter when it comes to taking Gitmo prisoners. We as a country certainly know how to incarcerate people.
Bond acts like a frightened little child when talking about Gitmo prisoners and spreads the falsehood that Gitmo prisoners will suddenly be hanging out with the general population of a prison so they can grow al-Qaeda cells behind prison walls and encourage those nasty criminals into criminal behavior. It's absurd and another lunatic right wing talking point. He knows what Maximum security means and if we built new prisons to hold detainees then it would create jobs for the state of California or any state willing to take them. It would also close the disgusting Gitmo hell hole chapter from the Bush era and end it as a recruiting tool for terrorists, a win-win situation all around.
Transcript via CQ Politics:
FEINSTEIN: Well, as you know, I’m one that believes very strongly Guantanamo should be closed, and I believe it can be done.
I’m also one that’s somewhat familiar with the prison structure in the United States. And I know that there are maximum security prisons from which no one escapes in the United States, which are isolated from neighborhoods.
And no one is going to put these people in anyone’s neighborhood, as some have tried to say.
WALLACE: So you’ll be OK with having some of these detainees in California?
FEINSTEIN: Yes. In a maximum security prison, I don’t worry about it, provided the prison is set up to accommodate it, and I believe we have facilities that are.
WALLACE: Senator Bond, you get the last word.
BOND: I -- this is one of the areas on which Senator Feinstein and I disagree. I think Guantanamo is the best place to hold these hardened criminals. We don’t want to put them in our general prison population where they have and will radicalize other prisoners.
They will draw their friends in Al Qaida to come into the area from the outside. I wouldn’t mind seeing them at Alcatraz, but my California friends have minimum amount of high enthusiasm for that.
But if they’re sick, they’re transferred to the federal Springfield, Missouri medical facility in my state, and my constituents and I think that would be a very bad idea.
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Trying to improve the genetic pool of the population, is she?
Hardened criminals??? THESE PEOPLE HAVE NEVER EVEN BEEN CONVICTED OF A CRIME!!! How can they be "hardened criminals"??? HELLO! The Constitution is calling, it's saying we have INNOCENCE UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY in this country. I don't know what country that freako Bond is from, but in the good ole USA you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law! And don't try to use that stupid stupid bush error excuse that they are not in the USA, because THEY ARE SUBJECT TO USA LAW SO THEY ARE ENTITLED TO THE SAME RIGHTS AS ANYONE ELSE IN THE USA!!! The Supreme Court already ruled that way for all you cro-mags that have no clue.
As a california resident, yeah, we should be showing these red state pussies how we aren't quivering with fear just because some insane religious nuts wind up in our maximum security prisons.
I mean jesus christ, we've got manson and god knows how many other nutcases. What's a few more?
Alll these supposedly hard-ass gun-totin' tough conservatives are just so scccaaaaared...
Pathetic.
They've opened up Susan Atkins spot at least.
Give ole Chuck Manson some new neighbors, and if the whiny conservatard cowards start crying, just slap them and tell them us Californians will deal with the detainees, they can continue to hide out in the woods.
I support sending all those that support torture to gitmo!
bush/chenny yoo, I don't know if we have enough room. But that is ok there is a lot of ocean between here and there, we could lose a few and who would miss them?
republicanism is a mental illness! Commit one if you can!
Charge them, try them. Then settle the lawsuits.
Bond, you are one first-class numbnut bed-wetting panty-waist cowardly sniveling little asswipe.
I tried to be nice.
This is great news. I hope it happens. Then all of us can go and start to really do major civil actions against not only Guantanomo but also the the whole SHU/Pelican Bay torture center. Alcatraz is an historical tourist destination that generates needed income for our corporate traumatized social infrastructre.
Shut down Guantanomo AND Pelican Bay
with Cheney's corporatist Wall Street traitors, thieves and liars.
Photo essay on Pelican Bay, up above Eureka
http://www.sfbappa.org/Awards/picturestory/pi...
That's just North of me! Welcome to the North Coast Al Queda!
That would rather cave to the political expediency of fearmongering than stand up to do what is right. That we are a party to the Geneva Convention must be so inconvenient for her.
She actually wants to take prisoners into their underfunded and massively overcrowded prison system? Say what? Why doesn't she advocate fixing up the crappy mess they have today rather than make this bullshit statement about Gitmo which is an obvious political stunt? And spare me this booga booga stuff about Gitmo prisoners being so dangerous. Who does she think the current inmates in her state are, choir boys?
Time for her kind to get out of public service to make way for someone who actually has integrity.
Charlie Manson?
Or Charles Eng?
Frankly, I think it'd be the other way around.
a) We have people in our own country who've killed more Americans than any of these "terrorists."
b) We have people OUTSIDE of prison who are walking around as we speak, who pose more of a threat to Americans.
c) We have people ON TELEVISION EVERY NIGHT who are more radical, incendiary and influential than any of these guys. I'd argue Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly have actually incited Americans to kill other Americans and BEEN SUCCESSFUL at it.
d) Anybody they put them in prison with will be in there for life anyway.
What a total dumbfuck.
Bond should be aware that Alcatraz is a tourist attraction, having ended its existence as a federal penitentiary in 1963. The government would have to pour mllions into bringing the structure back into service, updating the security on the island and implementing additional measures in the San Francisco Bay (wouldn't want terrorists zipping about in Zodiacs, y'know).
THAT's why his 'California friends' have 'little enthusiasm' for the idea.
If you want to secure dangerous criminals, you don't start with a facility that's horribly obsolete and - in this day and age - does not enjoy the 'isolation' that it once did.
Alcatraz was primarily closed because of rising costs and deteriorating facilities. Operationally, Alcatraz was the most expensive prison of any state or federal institution. It was determined that other institutions could serve the same purpose for less cost.
Just shows how ignorant Bond really is.
to all those so-called Super-Max prisons that were built to house all of America's most "super-villians" as it were? Did they all just disappear? Did they all go the way of Arkham Asylum, releasing the horrors of the Joker, Riddler, Mr. Freeze etc to wage crime across America?
still there. The Uni-bomber enjoys 3 meals a day, unlike most of his victims.
these particular prisons were built to house these supposed "incredibly dangerous" individuals in particular. Did they run out of room?
Why is it these guys are so piss-pants scared of having these people in the U.S., yet think nothing of having people like McVeigh or Manson behind bars? It's not like they haven't caused mayhem and catastrophe. McVeigh still has friends running around, for gods' sakes. So...what? It's okay to have mass murderers in prison here, so long as they aren't Muslims? What kind of horseshit is that?
What is it with Republicans that makes them all so damned ignorant? Is it because most of them are from backward hick states rooted in Christian superstition?
owns the company.
California has had Charlie Manson for 40 years and he has never escaped. All around the country, these cowardly states have had totally weird prisoners (Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind) and never made a peep.
Oh, but Muslim prisoners? We will hide under our beds.
I don't necessarily blame the Bonds for this -- their are speaking to their constituents. Those are the bed-wetters.
GROW UP, AMERICA!
WHERE THE PRESIDENT IS SPEAKING...
We have armed White Supremists, armed militia, crazy people so heavily armed they can take out 30-some people in one go, yet they're concerned about putting unarmed prisoners of war behind the walls a maximum security prison?
Even if they escaped, they wouldn't be more dangerous than half the teabaggers out there.
>"We have people walking around with automatic weapons"
We have people walking around with SEMI-automatic weapons
There, fixed it. It's a quibble, but an important one.
Bet a dollar Senator Blum (or her husband) finds a way to make a few bucks on this deal...
Of course, that sounds CYNICAL, doesn't it?
They made pretty good money on the war in Iraq...so why not make a few bucks here at home????
At least someone is still trying to help on fixing Bush's mess.
So Feinstein isn't afraid of holding some scary people in a prison in her state. Good for her, she has more go-nads than every one else so far.
holding w's hand either.
She's tryin' to gitmo satisfaction.
In prison on our soil. If they really need to be there.
They are no worse then some of the criminals we already have in this country. Just look in the senate and congress if you want to see some ruthless killers! Criminals of all types lerk in the halls of our government. We have terrorists scattered all thru congress and the senate. people that don't mind if we kill millions with bombs. Of coarse they won't do it themselves. They are to cowardly for that! But they will order your sons and daughters to do it.
They will hire companies like blackwater, kbr,to do the dirty work.
I would be willing to bet that fienstein has big money invested in the prison system just like all republicans in government. I know she has a D after her name but that doesn't mean anything. Actions speak louder then words. Her actions come with an R behind them.
It means reprehensible!
republicanism is a mental illness!
They haven't been convicted of anything, dufus.
trials!
I'd rather stay in Guantanamo than move to California personally.
I guess DiFi doesn't stay on top of the news regarding the severe overcrowding of Cali's prisons:
Federal judges tentatively ruled Monday that packed facilities were the chief impediment to adequate health care in prisons — a system so flawed it was tantamount to a violation of the Eighth Amendment.
This was back in Feb for christs sake. SCOTUS recently refused to stay the order as requested by the idiots that run my state.
Let the non-violent drug users out.
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