It's how Bush legalized torture and how you legalized droning.

He is Commander in Chief and Chief Executive. Besides, he has unlimited pardon power. Surely he can do something far less than a pardon, namely release prisoners that were cleared years ago, meaning they should never have been arrested in the first place.

He also has Constitutional power over foreign relations. Congress has power over commerce with foreign nations, but I don't think releasing a prisoner that we arrested wrongfully to a foreign nation amounts to commerce with a foreign nation.

and money is what is required to do any mass prisoner or personnel transfers or base decommissions and closures (the scope of which currently far exceeds the funding provided for existing authorized functions). The Executive branch has no authority to spend for activities not specifically authorized by Congress in appropriations legislation. Doing such would result in a violation of the Antideficiency Act. But you knew that, right? Unless you believe that jet or ship fuel is free and personnel will volunteer to do the transport without pay and the Antideficiency Act is just a goddam piece of paper?

I have more than a feeling there is enough money in the budget of the Executive Branch, including the military budget, for a few flights and also enough leeway in the line items in the budget. Jet fuel, give me a break.

It's about how the money is designated to be used. This the same principle behind Congress "defunding" the Vietnam War by not authorizing spending for various operations. When they write these appropriations bills, they will also often explicitly indicate what the funding cannot be used for and sadly with this Guantanamo Bay issue, this is what has happened in the past. For example, see this - http://thehill.com/homenews/house/61549-congress-uses-spending-bills-to-halt-gitmo-closing

It's sad how much DU is completely ill-informed about how the budget and appropriations process works.

The bit about leeway in the line items referred to authorization. The budget is not a specific as you say.

and yes most of the appropriations bills have portions that are very specific as to what the funding should and should not be used for... particularly for hot-button issues such as this.

For example - CR for FY12

If they have been tortured, then anything they say subsequently cannot be admissible. See Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936)

If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had not been repeatedly waterboarded, he probably could have been tried for involvement in 9/11. But since he was tortured, again and again, he probably cannot.