Gibbs: It's Up to GOP to Help Us Close Club Gitmo or Something

Apparently one the of the major promises made by Barack Obama is being held up by those old meanie Republicans.

These people really have no shame.

Closing the Guantanamo Bay prison was one of then-Sen. Obama's major campaign promises during the 2008 presidential race and it has been a key issue for members of his liberal base, which has at times been put off by the White House's plans of action on their priorities.

The Obama administration had spent much of 2009 attempting to find a way to close the military prison that houses 174 detainees, but were unable to find enough support in Congress to open a prison on the U.S. mainland or settle on a location to hold civilian trials for some prisoners.

Gibbs said that President Obama is looking for Republican cooperation to close the prison.

"I think part of this depends on the Republicans' willingness to work with the administration on this," he said.

Obama could issue an order to close up shop tomorrow yet he doesn't have the guts to do it. That's self-evident after two years of vacillation and dithering.

In Your Face POTUS Now Longs for Privacy

You've got to chuckle. The most over-exposed politician in our nation's history, a man who runs around appearing on everything from ESPN to pre-school specials, is (ahem!) asking for privacy and he traipses around Martha's Vineyard.

President Barack Obama and his family began a weeklong vacation on this Massachusetts island with a message to the reporters who have crowded the New England villages: Chill out and don’t expect much.

Pleading for privacy, the White House said Obama would have no public events while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard with his family and close friends.

Aides also asked that the journalists also not take pictures of the Obamas’ two young daughters, age 8 and 11, when they aren’t with the president.

The story, of course, is accompanied by a photo of him and his kids.

“He wants you to relax and have a good time. Take some walks on the beaches. Nobody’s looking to make any news,” spokesman Bill Burton told reporters flying with the Obamas from Washington to
Massachusetts.

Good luck with that.

My heart goes out to the poor Obamamedia, who all went out and bought new kneepads for the trip to Martha's Vineyard and now they can't mingle with their hero.

Thou Shalt Not Put Country Before Party

ČSSD to enforce party loyalty
The senior opposition Social Democrats (ČSSD) have launched fight against the practice of defection among parties' members, ČSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek and ČSSD deputies' group head Michal Hasek said at a press conference Tuesday.

The ČSSD, which has recently lost three deputies, pledged in a document called For a New Style in Politics not to accept defectors from other political parties.

The ČSSD also called on other parties in parliament to make a similar public commitment, thus contributing to the cultivation of the Czech political scene.

In other words, they fear and loathe competition. How incredibly . . . socialist. Or, neo-coM.

"We call on the [senior ruling Civic Democrats] ODS to leave this style of politics, which is much close to an organised crime environment than to democratic political competition," the ČSSD's document writes.

Cry me a freakin' river; then call in some backup to clean up the damn mess.

The ČSSD is also going to draft a bill to regulate lobbying, Paroubek and Hasek said.

Three former ČSSD deputies have left the party recently, supporting its rival, the ODS.

First, MPs Milos Melcak and Michal Pohanka left the ČSSD after they enabled the establishment of the ODS-led government in early 2007.

They also voted for the re-election of Vaclav Klaus, nominated by the ODS, as president in the election last Friday.

Another ČSSD MP, Evzen Snitily, was expelled from the party deputies' group last Friday after he disclosed shortly before the election that he would voted for Klaus.

The ČSSD, along with the junior ruling Greens and other individual MPs, promoted Klaus's rival, liberal economist Jan Svejnar.

Many say Klaus, who was elected by votes of a narrow majority of 141 of 279 lawmakers present, owes his success to Snitily's unexpected change of mind and to the absence of Greens deputy Olga Zubova on health grounds.

Paroubek has asked Snitily to give up his mandate of a deputy, which Snitily refused to do.

Snitily's local ČSSD branch in East Bohemia is yet to vote on his expulsion from the party.

Via The Prague Monitor

Neither Hillary nor Billary was availble for comment.


*** The witch hunt is on. Snitily's alleged to be a StB collaborator

Muslims Seethe Over German Television Show

One day it's teddy bears, the next day it's cartoons.

Today it's a television show.

Is there anything these whining babies won't seethe over?

Muslim Minority Marches Against German Crime Show

The popular German TV series "Tatort" has provoked an uproar within a segment of its Turkish community. Alevi Muslims, who practice a tolerant offshoot of Shiism, say the show has revived a centuries-old incest libel and may inflame immigrant tensions in Germany.

Up to 20,000 Alevi Muslims in Germany gathered in front of the Cologne cathedral on Sunday to protest a broadcast of a popular TV series called "Tatort" (Crime Scene). Alevi leaders said the show played on a centuries-old prejudice against Alevis by showing a character involved in incest.

The protest "was absolutely peaceful," said a police spokesman according to Agence France-Presse. An Alevi leader in Germany, Mehmet Ali Toprak, told the Tageszeitung newspaper: "The Alevis respect freedom of press and freedom of opinion and are opposed to any ban on cultural expression. But these values must not be used to harm the dignity of a minority."

There's always a BUT.

Maybe the show should focus more on recent incidents in the lives of Muslims, such as honor killings.

Or is that also off-limits to the delicate sensibilities of the tolerant Muslims?

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the episode shouldn't be "an excuse for a cultural war," and that the story dealt with individuals rather than Alevis in general. But he added that scriptwriters had a responsibility to show "respect, discretion, and caution for the religious feelings of all people, regardless of which faith they follow."