Vox Sentences: Obama has 18 months to close Guantanamo. Can he do it?

"As President, I will close Guantanamo"

Camp X-Ray, the first detention facility to hold "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, on October 3, 2007. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• The White House announced that it is finalizing a plan to close the military prison on Guantanamo Bay.

  [Reuters / Julia Edwards and Idrees Ali]

• President Obama repeatedly promised to close Guantanamo during his first presidential campaign, but failed to do so after Congress banned transfers to US prisons and restricted transfers to foreign countries.

  [NYT / Charlie Savage]

• But the administration has been slowly reducing the prison's population by transferring inmates abroad.

  [Washington Post / Missy Ryan and Adam Goldman]

• The goal is to "deplete the Guantanamo prison to the point where it houses 60 to 80 people and keeping it open no longer makes economic sense."

  [NYT / Helene Cooper]

• Obama has faced resistance from Defense Secretary Ash Carter, whoreceived a memo from the National Security Council saying he had 30 days to make decisions on new plans to transfer detainees abroad, but hasn't committed to meeting that deadline.

  [NYT / Charlie Savage]

• Guantanamo now has 116 detainees, 10 of whom have been charged or convicted in a military tribunal, 54 of whom haven't been convicted but are considered too dangerous to release, and 52 of whom are cleared for transfer.

• White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama will veto any measures from Congress making it harder to close the prison. But he has broken similar pledges before.

  [AP]

• John McCain has proposed a deal in which the White House would be able to submit a plan to shutter Guantanamo to Congress; human rights advocates say there's no way Congress would approve any viable plan.

  [Politico / Austin Wright and Jeremy Herb]

The death of Sandra Bland

Facebook photo of Bland

• Police have finally released a dash cam video of the June 10th arrest of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old black woman who died in jail three days later in Waller County, Texas.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Police allege that Bland committed suicide, but her friends and family dispute that, noting that she was excited about her new job as a student ambassador to the alumni association at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university from which she graduated in 2009.

  [Vox / Jenée Desmond-Harris]

• Shortly after her death, ABC 7 in Chicago released video footage from a bystander of her arrest, which "shows police on top of Bland, who is on the ground with several officers restraining her as she questions why they are being so rough."

  [ABC 7 / Chuck Goudie, Christine Tressel, Ross Weidner, Barb Markoff and Ann Pistone]

• While the police claimed that Bland assaulted a police officer after being pulled over for not signaling when changing lanes, neither the bystander video or the new dash cam footage show her assaulting anyone.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• But the original dash cam video released by police has several continuity problems and anomalies, prompting many to wonder if it had been edited. A fixed version was uploaded but the glitches sewed doubt all the same.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• The video suggests that Bland was arrested because Texas trooper Brian Encinia asked her to put out her cigarette, and Bland declined to do so. From there the situation escalated until the arrest was made.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• While the medical examiner ruled Bland's death a suicide, Waller County District Attorney Elton Mathis is still investigating, saying it's "much too early to make any kind of determination that this was a suicide or a murder because the investigations are not complete."

  [AP / Michael Graczyk]

Perry vs. Trump

Trump has also mocked Perry's glasses, because this is a very mature dispute between mature adults. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

• So Rick Perry and Donald Trump are fighting.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Perry delivered what can only be described as a Margaret Chase Smith-esque speech condemning the "cancer of Trumpism."

  [Rick Perry]

• Perry compared Trump to the virulently anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, as well as to Joseph McCarthy, called him a "barking carnival act" that will "lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued," and warned conservatives to "beware of false prophets."

  [Vox / Tez Clark]

• It was all weirdly biblical; at another point he declared, "Conservatism can lead us out of the Valley of Economic Ruin."

• The speech is likely in part a response to Trump's repeated criticisms of Perry's immigration record, including this tweet from July 16: ".@GovernorPerry failed on the border. He should be forced to take an IQ test before being allowed to enter the GOP debate."

  [Donald J. Trump]

• This loathing of Perry is a new development. Here's Trump in 2012: "Texas is lucky to have him--- @GovernorPerry is a great guy!"

  [Donald J. Trump]

• On July 3 of this year, Trump issued what could be called a transitional tweet that bridged the gap between eras of Trump much as Beethoven bridged the gap between classical and Romantic music: "As Governor of Texas, Rick Perry could have done far more to secure the border - but that's O.K., I like him anyway!"

  [Donald J. Trump]

• In an interview with Anderson Cooper, Trump pledged to change his tone if elected president.

  [CNN / MJ Lee]

• Just to be absolutely clear: neither Trump nor Perry is ever going to be president. Trump will fade, and Perry is polling low enough that he very well may not be in televised debates.

  [NYT / Kevin Quealy and Amanda Cox]

Misc.

• GMOs aren't dangerous. However, the anti-GMO movement is.

  [Slate / William Saletan]

• This study suggesting that kids who were cool in middle school grow up to have "difficulties with intimate relationships, alcohol and marijuana, and even criminal activity" is intriguing, but given that it was written by nerds who went to psychology grad school I'm concerned about bias.

  [NYT / Jan Hoffman]

• I'm a big fan of Slate writer Justin Peters, but this post is just madness. Using a flip phone and Winamp in 2015 is a recipe for sadness and despair.

  [Slate / Justin Peters]

• This Wired feature on CRISPR, the gene-editing technology, is a bit too effusive, but the basic point is right: once you can modify people's and viruses' and bacteria's genes easily, the possibilities are astounding.

  [Wired / Amy Maxmen]

• Why do TV writers always describe shows as "sneakily feminist?" Why not just "feminist?"

  [Slate / Katy Waldman]

Verbatim

• "Dogs and cats have been living among us for over a thousand years, and the mayor must represent not just the human residents but must also be here for the others."

  [Pedro J Pérez Espinosa via The Local / Fiona Govan]

• "Hsieh … relocated to the trailer park from his 'sprawling condominium on the 23rd floor of a luxury apartment building' and brought his pet alpaca along with him."

  [Washington Post / Peter Holley]

• "Are people really willing to marry for the rest of their lives when those lives may be hundreds or even thousands of years long?"

  [Vice / Zoltan Istvan]

• "Are effective altruists, or effective altruism, in favour of pursuing systemic change? Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, yes!"

  [80,000 Hours / Robert Wiblin]

• "A fifty-something guy from southern California really wanted to tell me about the fact that he narrowly missed killing someone with his car that day, or maybe even dying himself. He said he was telling everyone he knew. And I wondered how many people he had to tell besides this cheerful 25-year-old bottle service waitress from Vegas that he’d created."

  [Fusion / Kashmir Hill]

Video of the day

• World record holder Collin Burns explains to Vox how he can solve a Rubik's Cube in 5.25 seconds.

  [Vox / Joss Fong]

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