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These tough guys sure do have a lot of fear about trusting the United States court system, don't they? During an interview with Andrea Mitchell today Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond joined the long list of Republicans carping about the Obama administration moving the trial of 9/11 suspects to New York.

Bond: Well I think it’s an insult to the memory of those who were brutally murdered on Sept. 11th to have the leaders behind these cowardly acts of terrorism sit in a courtroom blocks away from ground zero and reap the full benefits and protections of the U.S. Constitution.

I'd love to know how giving these men a fair trial so that the victims of 9/11 can finally have their day in court is insulting them. I would think the opposite is true and that they would be happy to finally have some closure to the whole ordeal. Bond throws this stink bomb out there a bit later in the interview.

Bond: And there is no reason whatsoever to try this person in an open courtroom in the United States with all of the powers that defendants, that American defendants have to get information and expose all of the things that they want to talk about and try to recruit more people like Maj. Hasan who just shown us that Americans can be propagandized and turned into deadly terrorists if they get the word from the leaders who wish to bring death and terror to the United States. I think it’s a disaster.

Yeah, let's wrap this into the tragic shooting at Fort Hood and pretend the two issues have anything to do with each other. Maj. Hasan didn't go on a shooting rampage because he saw terrorist suspects going to trial in the United States. Maybe if we quit dropping bombs on poor people's heads that are not a threat to our country the terrorists out there would have a few less recruiting tools at their disposal.

Bond's real problem with these trials is that they will expose what's been done in our name with this ridiculous "war on terror" that is nothing more than excuse to feed the military industrial complex that Bond and his ilk love so much, and that Dwight Eisenhower so rightfully warned us about.

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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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Carl Levin shoots down Kit Bond over the Republicans Johnny-come-lately dissent to the Senate Armed Services Committee report and the release of more pictures of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bond: First Carl I would say that there's a very strong dissent from five members of your committee who said that your report was fallacious, it's counter productive and your report itself was the one that offers the greatest opportunity for negative publicity and the high level abusive techniques that you talk about.

[.....]

Levin: I've got to answer that one thing because I'm chairman of the committee. There was no objection to this report. Seven Republicans were there when we voted on it. Not one dissented. We had months and months of opportunity for any dissenting views. That's the report. It's a unanimous report of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham and other Republicans specifically were there when this approved. Had every opportunity to file a dissent. Did not do that and it seems to me that it is clearly the action of a bi-partisan Senate Armed Services Committee.

So they now a few Republicans to say they disagree. They've got a right to do so but they had an opportunity which they didn't use.

John Amato:

Carl Levin draws the torture line from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib and blames Bush administration officials including Donald Rumsfeld, who authorized torture and passed it around.

Levin: and so the threat to our troops came when these techniques, these abuse and coercive techniques were authorized by top level administration officials, Rumsfeld specifically authorized these kinds of techniques; nudity, use of dog handlers. In Guantanamo, they went directly to Abu Ghraib. Our bi-partisan report, 200 page report directly connects the authorization for the use of these techniques in Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib. That is what endangers our troops.

And a typical practice by Bush apologists to to attack the messenger which is Carl Levin and the SASC report. It passed in committee without any dissents with all Republicans signing off on it, but now we have the disgraceful Kit Bonds of the right lying about the report openly. And when Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others embraced torture---they brought all this negative publicity on themselves and shame to our country.

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Kit Bond making one of the most convoluted arguments I've ever heard about why Gitmo should stay open and what defines torture. He resorts to the latest GOP talking point that if we allow the prisoners at Gitmo to be brought to US prisons we should all be very afraid that they're going to escape and kill us all. Way to keep that fear mongering up Sen. Bond. He also claims that anyone wanting to prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes is suffering from the "ultimate in Bush derangement syndrome".

This man makes me really, really ashamed to have to have him representing my state and really, really grateful he's not running for reelection.