Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard think they have all the answers for Standish, Michigan, a city with a maximum security correctional facility slated to close by the state, which the Department of Defense has eyed for a possible replacement for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
However, their answers don't amount to much more than GOP talking points - fear, privatization and an alternate reality.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard think they have all the answers for Standish, Michigan, a city with a maximum security correctional facility slated to close by the state, which the Department of Defense has eyed for a possible replacement for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
However, their answers don't amount to much more than GOP talking points - fear, privatization and an alternate reality.
“These are people that are committed to destroying our way of life. ... I’m not about extending these liberties to them."
Pete Hoekstra, U.S. Congressman and Michigan Governor candidate at a rally protesting moving Gitmo detainees to Standish on Aug. 20
That was dug up from an article in the Arenac County Independent, the newspaper serving Standish, Michigan. The same article continues:
Hoekstra was asked later if a federal detention center in Florence, Colo., which also houses terrorists, was ever the site of an attempted jailbreak by terrorists’ allies.
Hoekstra said that the Colorado facility, which he said only detains terrorists captured on American soil, not in foreign countries during wartime, had never had an incident like that.
The Florence, Colo. facility is currently holding Zacarias Moussaoui, who was a co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Moussaoui, a French citizen, moved to the U.S. prior to 2001. He was sentenced to a life sentence by the United States District Court for the Eastern Division of Virginia (http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/moussaouiindictment.htm). Hoekstra says terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing are also held there.
Hoekstra was the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until 2006.
And for shits and giggles, the article also has Hoekstra's comments on a few other matters of intel:
Hoekstra was also asked about intelligence regarding Sept. 11 and the War in Iraq, since the intelligence regarding both has been criticized over the years.
"Saddam Hussein did everything he could to convince us that he had them (weapons of mass destruction)," Hoekstra said. "I'm not going to stand up here and say that we ever have perfect intelligence. ... We don't have perfect intelligence."
He added that 9/11 was not the result of faulty intelligence or a mistake in that area.
However, Hoekstra wasn't the only GOP candidate who turned up at regarding the prison, the county's biggest employer, long after it was announced for closure on June 5. Mike Bouchard, sheriff of Oakland County, a county where two schools that refused to play Obama's speech to students are located, also popped up in August. This is from the same newspaper, the Arenac County Independent, and was reported on August 19 (keep in mind at this time, the prison would be shuttered on October 1:
“I don’ think we should be having that debate in the first place,” he said. “I’m proposing we don’t push all these prisoners out.
“Why are we emptying it (SMF) in the first place?” Bouchard added, saying that releasing inmates into the public in the midst of a recession doesn’t give them a chance to assimilate. “These folks will commit more crimes.”
According to Bouchard, the state of Michigan could’ve avoided the prison cuts by privatizing inmate meals and considering that when prisoners are paroled, but commit another crime, it actually ends up costing the state more for investigations and court proceedings. He also said across the board cuts like the ones laid out by Governor Granholm is bad business.
Bouchard says he doesn’t think it’s too late, with the prison slated to close Oct. 1, for the state government to change its mind.
“The people who make the laws can change them,” Bouchard said. “There’s always enough time. They (lawmakers) have the ability to turn the steering wheel. … They’re driving.”
Bouchard also mentioned in the article the most infamous Michigan GOP line - we need to make this area more attractive to businesses. But of course, no way of actually doing that was described.
Since the announcement that this prison would close, the city has already been shaken. The city of Standish receives 45% of its annual water and sewer revenue from the prison. The city administration has already said about Gitmo detainees, that something is better than nothing. However, some people are scared and these candidates, who didn't have shit to say before late August, all of a sudden care. Political games are lame, and these guys are too.
Pete JOKEstra and Mike DOUCHEard - two guys who don't deserve the title of Governor.