Holder: GITMO On Track To Close, Detainees Could Transfer To Illinois

By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that a new facility must be opened in order to hold detainees currently occupying the Guantánamo Bay detention facility before the Obama administration can shut it down.

“It is still the intention of this administration to close the facility at Guantánamo,” Holder said. “It serves as a recruiting tool for those who have sworn to harm this nation [and] we will close GITMO as quickly as we can, as soon as we can.”

Holder said that the Department of Justice is continuing to eye a $145 million maximum security prison that remains unopened in Thomson, Illinois as a possible replacement. The prospective site currently belongs to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

The Illinois maximum security facility will hold the 240 detainees currently held in Cuba, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants in the 9/11 terror trial if found guilty.

Holder touched upon Mohammed's trial, which was initially proposed to be held in a New York civilian court but is now under consideration again after New York officials raised questions concerning security issues.

“The administration is in the process of reviewing the decision as to where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants should actually be tried,” Holder said. “New York is not off the table, though we have to take into consideration the concerns that have been raised by officials and the community.”

Holder told the committee that he expects a decision regarding the trial to be made in the coming weeks.

“As I’ve said from the outset, this is a close call. It should be clear to everyone by now that there are many legal, national security and practical factors to be considered here. As a consequence, there are many perspectives on what the most appropriate and effective forum is.”

Political 'Monopoly' Breaking Government, Says Former Congressman

By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr blasted the inefficiency of the “monopolistic” political system that surrounds Washington during a forum Tuesday.

Barr said that the legislative branch of the U.S. government is broken due in part to a political “monopoly,” meaning that our country is currently under the leadership of a Democratic president and that Democrats hold the majority in Congress. In addition, Barr said that the same would be true if the GOP held power over both branches.

“[When] you have one party of the two monopoly parties that decides what the agenda is entirely and under what circumstances, then there is very little room, if any, for independent thought in that process,” Barr said.

According to Barr, members of the political elite have shied away from being bipartisan and have manipulated the system that they created in order to move their political and personal agenda forward.

Barr, a Republican who eventually ran for president under the Libertarian Party, said the U.S. should learn from example and consider past presidents, such as former President Bill Clinton. Barr credited Clinton for being a Democratic president working with a Republican Congress that resulted in the first balanced budget in decades.

“He understood the political process and understood that rigid adherence to the party or to a particular ideology was not a way to get things done in Washington,” Barr said. “He was a master for standing up for his party and his ideology up to a point.”

Nuclear Summit Will Not Influence Iran, North Korea, Says Expert

By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

The Nuclear Security Summit will do little to accelerate a campaign goal laid out by then-candidate Barack Obama to secure all nuclear material internationally by the end of his first term, Ted Bromund, a Senior Research Fellow with a focus on American Leadership and Terrorism at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told Talk Radio News Monday.

"These are excellent aims for the President to pursue," Bromund said. "But he's going about them in ways that will achieve absolutely nothing."

Bromund said the summit will fail to be effective since it will not deter countries like Iran and North Korea from pursuing and maintaining nuclear capabilities.

"There's no reason why a summit meeting, even with the 46 nations attending, is going to convince Iran to stop doing something that it's done enthusiastically for more than a decade," Bromund said.

Creating Jobs Key To Preserving Homeownership, Say Experts

By Benny Martinez
University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) is not gaining as much traction as expected, said a panel of experts during a hearing on Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The HAMP program, authorized by the Department of Treasury in 2009, is a loan modification program designed to reduce at-risk borrowers' monthly mortgage payments.

According to National Community Reinvestment Coalition CEO John Taylor, HAMP is “simply failing to make a difference” in the lives of American homeowners.

Taylor said that HAMP and its complementary program, the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), were initiated to assist roughly five million permanent loans. Currently, Taylor said that only about 300,000 have been modified or refinanced, thus illustrating how HAMP and HARP have so far failed.

Taylor said he believes another reason behind HAMP’s stalled progress is that the Treasury Department has only used $22 billion of a near $75 billion program budget.

“Why they’re sitting on these funds is beyond belief,” he said.

Cato Institute (Washington, D.C.) Director of Financial Regulation Studies Mark Calabria said that the failure of these programs coupled with adverse income shocks are the underlying reason for the lack of improvement in the housing sector.

“About 50 percent of foreclosures today are driven by job loss [and] there is absolutely no way we can address the foreclosure situation without addressing the job situation,” Calabria said.

“Foster an environment that is conducive to private sector job creation, and the foreclosure problem will follow that,” assured Calabria.

New Legislation Could Change U.S.-Vietnamese Relations

By Benny Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Rep. Ahn “Joseph” Cao (R-La) announced today at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that he will introduce legislation that would reinstate Vietnam into the Countries of Particular Concern list.

A Country of Particular Concern is a designation from the State Department indicating that a nation is guilty of particularly severe violations of religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom Act.

The roots for the new legislation stem from religious freedom violations by the Vietnamese government. According to a statement released by the commission, Vietnam continues to backslide on human rights by discriminating against certain religious practices in the country, detaining some and forcing others to renounce their respective faiths.

Cao said that Vietnam is seeking to create a stronger relationship with the United States. Despite provisions in the Vietnamese Constitution that protect human rights, Cao said that discriminatory actions imposed against certain religions makes creating this relationship a futile effort.

“We have very real concerns about backsliding on issues of human rights and religious freedom issues,” Cao said. “It’s going to be very hard to have that kind of relationship, [and] it cannot happen without the improvements of human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam.”

Cao believes that designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern would shed light on the situation and help convince the Vietnamese government to sway from discriminating its own people.