Kansas senator puts hold on Obama nominee over Guantanamo

Barack Obama is on a collision course with Congress due the House passing a new defense budget that prevents Guantanamo detainees from being transferred to the u.s. mainland or other countries for another year.

“The president isn’t playing politics with this”, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday. “I certainly wouldn’t take off the table the ability of the president to use whatever authority is available to him to try to move closer to accomplishing this goal”.

Whether Guantanamo’s closure, a campaign promise of Obama’s, would meet a similar fate remains to be seen. A total of 655 have been released or transferred to custody of other nations.

Of the 112 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, nearly half have been approved for repatriation or transfer overseas.

Monaco became Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism chief in 2013, experiencing what Ruemmler called a “trial by fire” with the Boston Marathon bombing shortly after her arrival in the job. An administration official said it contains no “silver bullet” and does not endorse a specific USA facility for receiving 50 or so prisoners determined to be part of an “irreducible minimum” that can not be let go.

The administration is preparing a revamped plan on closing the Gitmo prison, and have not ruled out the prospect of executive action. “And I will place holds on any nominee necessary to prevent this unilateral action”, said Roberts. That’s why we have a commander-in-chief; that’s why we have presidents.

“Our [mainland] prisons house hundreds of convicted terrorists”.

“Guantanamo is one of the premiere mechanisms for jihadists to recruit”, Obama said as he wielded the veto pen.

The bill also includes $5 billion in spending cuts that were not contained in the previous version.

The president has taken issue with restrictions on Guantanamo in each of the preceding defense bills under his administration, but has still signed them. “This plan has been in the works for months now”.

“To consider a domestic location is, in my opinion, the worst decision for America’s national security”, said Scott, whose state is home to the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, another prospective site for detainees.

How far does the US have to go to give locked-up terror suspects religious accommodations?