ThinkFast: May 21, 2009

The Obama administration has decided to put a “high value” Guantanamo Bay detainee on trial in New York City. Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Ahmed Ghailani will be sent there for trial, “which would make him the first Guantanamo detainee brought to the U.S. and the first to face trial in a civilian criminal court.”

Though a Pentagon report that said 74 released Guantanamo detainees returned to terrorism quickly made headlines, the “Pentagon has provided no way of authenticating” the 45 recidivists it leaves unnamed, while “only a few of the 29 people identified by name can be independently verified as having engaged in terrorism since their release. Many of the 29 are simply described as associating with terrorists or training with terrorists.”

Obama “has interviewed Judge Diane P. Wood of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago” as a possible nominee to the Supreme Court. Wood was in town for a legal conference earlier this week but also met with Obama. The two first met when they taught at the University of Chicago Law School.

The Senate confirmed David Hayes as Deputy Interior Secretary last night. Initially, Sens. Robert Bennett (R-UT) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) had blocked Hayes’s nomination because Secretary Ken Salazar “had canceled oil and gas leases.”

Congress sent a credit card reform bill to President Obama’s desk yesterday, “completing a trio of consumer-related measures that Democrats had raced to get signed into law by Memorial Day.” However, the bill also includes a provision allowing national parks visitors to carry loaded and concealed firearms. Obama is expected to sign the measure.

Army vice chief of staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli has warned that “Army commanders are failing to punish or seek treatment for a growing number of soldiers who test positive for substance abuse, possibly because they don’t want to lose any more combat troops.” Chiarelli said hundreds of soldiers who tested positive for drug use were not processed for possible discharge or referred to the Army’s substance abuse program.

In Baghdad yesterday, “[t]hree American soldiers were killed and nine others wounded” after a bomb exploded as the soldiers “patrolled near a popular outdoor market.”

In a 186-188 vote yesterday, the New Hampshire state House rejected the changes Gov. John Lynch (D) proposed to a marriage equality bill. However, the chamber then voted to “ask the Senate to work out their differences in a committee of conference and vote again later this session.” Lynch had insisted on including “protections for religious institutions” that oppose same-sex marriage.

“President Barack Obama is likely to get a sweeping bipartisan endorsement when the Senate votes on his request for continuing military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,” although the $80 million he was seeking to close Guantanamo was dropped Wednesday. The measure “would boost total approved spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars above $900 billion.”

And finally: House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans opposed to the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation have threatened to “force the reading of the entire 946-page bill” in order to hold up the process. However, Democrats on the committee “have taken a novel step to head off Republican effort”: Hire a speed reader. “Judging by the size of the amendments, I can read a page about every 34 seconds,” said the newly hired “staff assistant.” The Wall Street Journal estimates that at this pace, it would take about nine hours to read the entire bill.

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