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It's hard to know if a statement like that is serious or satirical, especially considering the many broken promises and human rights violations Obama is responsible for.

For example, didn't Obama promise to close Guantanamo Prison? http://www.npr.org/2013/01/23/169922171/obamas-promise-to-cl...

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To be fair, the GOP blocked closing down Gitmo like they've done pretty much everything else the past 8 years. Not that I don't think President Obama needs to head back to a remedial course on the Constitution...

It's pretty hard for the opposition to block anything when your party has 60 seats in the Senate and a big majority in the House, as President Obama's party did for almost half a year (and it's pretty easy to get what you want with a "mere" 59 seats, too!)

Also, he's the President. The prison at Guantanamo was established by President Bush without an act of Congress, and it could be removed by President Obama in exactly the same way.

Presidents have wide discretion in military matters where Congress has not legislated to the contrary. In this case, Congress has now legislated to the contrary. That leaves the President without discretion, no matter what authority the facility was originally opened under.

Are you thinking of something other than the Defense Authorization Act of 2011? Which:

a) The President signed, rather than vetoed, as was his option.

b) Went into effect three years after he took office.

It would have been politically damaging for President Obama to close Camp X-Ray during his first few years in office. It would not have been impossible.

> a) The President signed, rather than vetoed, as was his option.

Presidents have signed many laws they disagreed with. Vetos are not particularly common, especially on critical appropriations bills.

> b) Went into effect three years after he took office.

I don't know where you pulled three years from. Obama took office January of 2009. The 2011 NDAA was passed January of 2011 for the fiscal year that began October 2010.

I also don't know what you think you're arguing with me about. Even if I entirely agreed with everything you just said, my comment would have said exactly the same thing. There is no contradiction.

I shouldn't try to do math before my first cup of coffee. Yes, you're right: Two years.

The original comment I replied to said the GOP had "blocked" Obama's attempts to close the camp. Surely the GOP is largely against it, but they had little ability to block its closure if President Obama had been willing to pay the political price. I'm not sure if you disagree with that assessment or not, since you haven't specified which law President Obama would have had to get through Congress in 2009 or 2010 to have the power to close the camp. The need for a law is the only way to justify the notion of a GOP "block", and even there it's a bit of a silly claim, since of course the GOP tried as hard as they could to block the stimulus and ACA; both of those passed.

I think there was (and is) a lot of clusterfuck to deal with in this country, including unwinding two wars, and everyone expecting their particular pet issues to be fixed on whatever timetable they personally think (though I've seen no evidence such people bother to give any actual thought to the effort and complexity required to fix their pet issues) best is a symptom of exactly the narrow-minded, self-absorbed attitude that has completely fucked this country.

All that may be true, but it's still inaccurate to claim the GOP blocked President Obama from closing Guantanamo in his first year as promised. Republicans didn't like the idea, but if the President and his party had wanted it as badly as they wanted ACA, they could have had it.

You're either moving goalposts or arguing against a strawman. Nobody said "blocked [...] in his first year".

President Obama signed an order in his first month in office to close the facility within a year. How did the GOP block that order from being carried out? Was there a filibuster I missed?

Nobody said they did. You are the first person in this thread to bring up "within a year", and you did so quite late, your initial comment was categorical and did not address timetables at all. Everyone else understands shit happens, life is complicated, and things sometimes take longer than we want them to.

OK, so when did the GOP "block" Obama from closing the camp? No time restriction, though of course the easiest time to close the camp would have been when he had large majorities in both Houses of Congress, don't you think?

The 2011 NDAA passed by a vote in the House of 341-48 and 93-7 in the Senate. It was then signed by the President. That doesn't look like the GOP blocking anything to me.

Dunno, don't care. You're so all over the place that you've long ago exhausted my interest. But you might notice I never really made any statement about the GOP at all. You may also recall that your comment which I originally replied to didn't mention parties at all, just Congress and the President.

I'm done here, but in the future, it'd be really nice if you'd decide what you're arguing about before you start.

I know you've actually read this thread (we're the only ones at this point!) so you know my original comment was in reply to wavefunction, who claimed the "GOP blocked closing down Gitmo". So your comment about Presidential power being bound by legislation was apropos of nothing?

Naive question from a UKian.

As the CinC, couldn't Mr Obama order the USAF to send a C-5 to Guantanamo and collect all the detainees, subsequently flying them back to Pakistan and Afghanistan?

Wouldn't that be a military operation without Congressional veto?

The President doesn't get to expend funds contrary to law. What you are proposing is exactly what is barred by statute.

> he would receive protection under due process laws

Reminds me when DOJ sent an entirely redacted document in response to a FOIA request.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/justice-departm...

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