Guantánamo Detainees: Kansas Scared, Michigan Says Bring ‘em On
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Standish Maximum Correctional Facility
One state’s nightmare might be another’s opportunity when it comes to figuring out what to do with the detainees at Guantánamo Bay detention facility, which President Barack Obama wants to shut down. Republican opposition out of Kansas is so fierce to the idea of transferring suspected terrorists to Fort Leavenworth prison that they’re even willing to derail the nomination of one of their own to the Obama administration. Both of the state’s U.S. senators, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, are blocking 10 of President Obama’s nominees for senior positions in the Department of Defense and Department of Justice, including GOP Congressman John McHugh of New York as Secretary of the Army.
Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), who’s running for governor of Michigan next year, equally dislikes the idea of sending any or all of the 229 detainees to a maximum security prison in the northeast part of his state. But Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) and some residents of the town of Standish are open to the idea of using the federal correctional facility—which is slated to close this fall—to house detainees. With unemployment running 17% in the area, the use of Standish’s prison sounds appealing to keep an already depressed local economy from sinking further.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Sens. Block McHugh Vote Over Gitmo Plan (by Lolitaa C. Baldor, Associated Press)
Michigan May Get Guantanamo Inmates (by David Shepardson and Mark Hicks, Detroit News)
Jobs Trump Fears of Terrorists in Michigan Town (by John Flesher, Associated Press)
- Top Stories
- Unusual News
- Where is the Money Going?
- Controversies
- U.S. and the World
- Appointments and Resignations
- Latest News
- Bashar al-Assad—The Fall of a Rabid AntiSemite
- Trump Announces He Will Switch Support from Russia to Ukraine
- Americans are Unhappy with the Direction of the Country…What’s New?
- Can Biden Murder Trump and Get Away With it?
- Electoral Advice for the Democratic and Republican Parties
Comments