THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

But the Republicans have sworn since his first day in office to keep that shit stain on our country's honor open and running for no good reason except it obstructs what that black president wants.

President Obama urged lawmakers on Tuesday to help him close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as he made the case for a White House road map for shuttering a detention facility he said symbolized the excesses that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“This is about closing a chapter in our history ,” said Obama, flanked by Vice President Biden and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, in remarks at the White House. “It reflects the lessons that we’ve learned since 9/11, lessons that need to guide our nation going forward.”

Obama’s blueprint, which provided some detail to earlier White House plans to move up to 60 prisoners to the United States for trial or continued detention, was met with immediate condemnation from Capitol Hill.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the few senior Republicans who has expressed openness to closing the detention center, said the nine-page plan failed to address basic questions. He said Obama had “missed a major chance” to build support for closing the prison before he steps down in January.

“What we received today is a vague menu of options, not a credible plan for closing Guantanamo, let alone a coherent policy to deal with future terrorist detainees,” McCain said in statement.

At the heart of the debate is whether the U.S. government can securely house or try on American soil some of the 91 prisoners remaining at the prison.

Whether Obama can make good on his long-standing promise to close Guantanamo will also shape his national security legacy and provide an important measure of how far he was able to go in distinguishing his presidency from that of George W. Bush, who opened the prison in 2002 and filled it with nearly 800 suspected militants.

Obama argued Tuesday that the facility remained a rallying call for terrorists.

“I don’t want to pass this problem on to the next president, whoever it is,” Obama said. “If, as a nation, we don’t deal with this now, when will we deal with it?”

There has never been any question of whether the prisoners in Cuba could ever be safely held and tried in the US. We are the best incarcerating country in the world, there is no one we can't hold. The Republican Congress simply was not ever going to give that nigger a win if they could help it.