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Gitmo Showdown: White House drafting final plans to close Guantanamo
Lisa Boothe: I don't think it should at all. Shame on the Obama administration, shame on President Obama, because this isn't about the finances, this isn't about money. This is about fulfilling a campaign promise and prioritizing that over the safety of the American people. We have to keep Guantanamo Bay open because not only is it in our nation's best security interest, but our troops shouldn't have to face the same enemy twice. That's what's been happening. According to the U.S. Intelligence director, 30 percent of the Gitmo terrorists that have been released have reengaged in terrorism.
Jonas Max Ferris: I've criticized the cost a lot: $2.8 million per person by some estimates. There's nothing that makes sense in the department. Is that person worth killing for a million dollars? Probably not. How about the submarines which we'll talk about later? But anybody worth putting in prison at that cost is worth killing. If it's that big a threat you have to keep them in prison at over a million dollars a person, that person is a big enough threat to kill. Too much of a cost. Release them, put them in cheaper prisons or kill them. They shouldn't be going there in the first place.
John Layfield: We're talking about cost here. And, look, we have an example of this. The prison in southern Iraq, when it was closed in 2011, that is what formed the leadership of ISIS. And, yes, what does that cost? $2.74 Billion so far is our fight against ISIS. $9.1 million is what we spend per day. I think there are cheaper ways to do Gitmo. I'm not for it being in Cuba, but there is no other plan. What's going to happen if you captured more on the battlefield of ISIS? Where in the world do you put them? I agree with Lisa. This is a legacy issue, not a cost issue. I'm for shutting it down for cost, but you have to have a backup plan where to house these people.
Sascha Burns: Well, there are several reasons to close it. But for one thing, it was only supposed to be temporary. It was never supposed to be open for a decade. Evener George w. Bush said he wished he closed it. Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, hardly liberal pie in the sky types. But the economics are a major factor. You can put them in a security max prison in the U.S. It would cost $70,000 a year instead of this $2.5 million that we're doing. If we capture these people on the battlefield in terms of ISIS, we're hardly going to ship them all home. It's not going to happen. We'll find a place for them somewhere else.
Gary B. Smith: Brenda, I think you have two issues. I think you have one, you know, as john so eloquently put, you have the effectiveness of Gitmo. I don't think anyone's arguing that. We need a Gitmo. Let's put it like that. Then you have the cost and we've also talked about it costs about $100 million a year. I say open it to the free market. There's concerns, well, no one would want it in my backyard. I'm willing to bet in a Flint Michigan, or a Detroit or some area like that that's depressed in the rust belt, they would be raising their hands to get this business. My God, you talk about a job generator, that's the one area where we should just pick up Gitmo and move it to one of those areas. We still need a Gitmo. If we don't have an alternative here in the continental United States, then my gosh, we need to keep it down there in Cuba. But barring that, let's move it, let's reduce the cost, let the free market in this case work to solve all the problems.
Trump's new border battle
John Layfield: Yes, but people get hung up on the wall. We're not going to build a wall thousands of miles. The Chinese tried that. That doesn't work. We're talking about a combination of things. Ronald Reagan all the way to President Obama have all said the same thing, that they were going to secure the border and all have not been successful at securing the border. We're not talking about -- Mexico was our friend. Illegals that come here, this is not the problem we're talking about that they're simply looking for work. We're talking about the tens of thousands of murders and the crime and the gangs that are trying to infiltrate, go under, over the boarder to get into America and the problem, the potential of ISIS coming into that southern border. We need to do that for our own safety, the citizens on border, for Mexico as well and secure that border for the first time would be safer for our country and would save us money due to the lack of crime.
Sascha Burns: Well, between George W. Bush and President Obama, the amount of illegals who are actually making it through has plummeted dramatically. And a lot of that has to do with the wall that already has been built. But it's put in the places where the Border Patrol and DHS says that it's effective, where there's the most traffic in urban areas. So you’re doing to that, that part has been effective, the rest is not going to be done because it doesn't make sense.
Lisa Booth: Well, look, I don't think these comments – I agree with those comments, actually. I don't think there's anything wrong with building a fence. And, look, I think ultimately the costs of illegal immigrants coming to this country is going to trump the cost of a fence. We've seen the fence -- look at San Diego, for instance. The federal government built a fence around the border of San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, and it's cut down illegal immigration by 90 percent there. So we know it works. It's meant to serve as a deterrent and to deter illegal immigration.
Jonas Max Ferris : Donald Trump, it's going to be huge, have brass and smoke glass. It will not be cost effective because it will cost more billions than we already spent on the pieces we put together. You can go on the internet and see people driving trucks over it. It doesn't keep people out. But it has psychological benefits. People like to know it's there. If you took one of the $52 billion nuclear submarines we're making right now for the eventual torpedo war with the soviets and put that into the wall, it won't be less of a use of money than that. Both are to make us feel safe. That's all they do at the end of the day. In that case, sure, build a wall, but I would make it more high tech, not an old-fashioned Chinese wall. It should be, you know -- they tried a few years ago and failed but we can get better technology, tracking people, vision, et cetera, then you don't need to confiscate the land from all the people and all the other costs that drive it up.
Gary B. Smith: I think it's dumb. I agree with Jonas' premise it would make people feel good but it's a $49 billion feel- good, the price basically to build it and maintain it. We have better uses for the money. And, look, in fact, I would argue for the wall and the $49 billion if it proved to be effective. I disagree with Lisa’s numbers. When they built the wall in San Diego, the number of people they had apprehended was the same as before and after the wall. What was happening in San Diego, people were going around the wall, going to Arizona to get in. This doesn't even account for the 12,000 miles that we have of boarder in the north, the 4,000 miles that we have along the coastline. Building a wall is a feel-good thing. Jonas got that right. But it's a stupid thing because it doesn't work and in the end 9 97 percent of the illegal immigrants that try to get through, they get through. So why build a wall in the first place?
Lawmaker suggests those leftovers in your fridge are fueling climate change
Gary B. Smith: You know, Brenda, I was going to try to be sarcastic, I was going to try to be funny, but, you know, the whole thing is just so laughable. By the way, where should the leftovers go in the refrigerator? They're in the back. Should they be in the front of the refrigerator or the side door? That's where we keep our leftovers, never to be seen again, by the way. But this is obviously a person that has too much time on their hands. This is why people hate politicians.
Jonas Max Ferris: What I learned from this knowledge passed on is the problem is when you throw out the food because we don't eat it, it produces methane gas, which is bad for the environment. This week we got a report from famed scientist James Hanson if you own Florida real estate, within your lifetime it's under water. That is kind of scary to me. I think it is good if we can see politicians teaching us something and not always blaming -- would you rather tax the leftovers?
John Layfield: I need a politician to teach me something like I need a hole in my wallet. You've got to be kidding me. This is why people dislike politicians. She also put an earmark in to dredge a harbor so larger yachts can get in. She's not environmentally friendly. She should be working on the budget. Any wonder why we are so much in the red in the federal government? This is horrible. Get rid of all these bums.
Sascha Burns: John, that doesn't sound like a Democrat. I'm shocked by that. This is silly. But to me Twitter is silly except for everything you guys say; about 99 percent of Twitter is ridiculous. There is an issue behind this, which is Nita Lowey has been pushing for years to try and get expiration dates more consistent because the reality is we throw away 40 percent of our food in this country. And so the background to it -- beside this stupid tweet -- is that all of this food waste does, it fills landfills, that sort of thing, bad for the environment, bad for your wallet.
Lisa Booth: Stay away from my leftovers. I mean, my god, liberals are going after everything. Look, these comments are asinine, but so are President Obama's comments that climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism. But the reason why they're asinine because they're rooted in left-wing fanaticism as opposed to being rooted in reality.
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Gary B. Smith: "Bid on a winner" (EBAY) wins a 40 percent gain in 1 year
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Jonas Max Ferris: Adding "added sugars" to food labels gives (KO) a sweet 15 percent profit in 1 year
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