Here it is, in a nutshell:
News that the federal government seems interested in transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the Thomson Correctional Center was greeted warmly in this small, rural farm town along the Iowa border.
After holding out hope that the sprawling $145 million prison might improve the economic conditions in this remote area of the state, residents say any prisoners would be a welcomed sight.
“It would help the businesses here, and God knows we could use that,” said Kay Lawton, 59, a Thomson resident. “It doesn’t matter to me who they bring here.”
They trashed the economy so bad they can’t even fearmonger successfully in some places.
General Winfield Stuck
LOL. brilliant sir. and true to boot.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Of course the people north of me think this is a good thing.
This is how state legislatures (and rurl Congresscritters) buy constituents: they create gubmint jobs outta nothing.
Here in Misery, the state motto is “Build Prisons, Not Schools”. Lotsa people who barely made it out of high school and can’t/won’t leave East Ankelscratch love dem prison jobs. Can’t be no teechr since that requires going to some college. And believe me, my rurl, batshit insane, wingnut neighbors think college as nothing more than an extended version of a trade school and not to be trusted…unless it’s their dawters who go to lurn how to be a nurse. Srzly, they view prisons as a better economic multiplier, assuming they even get to that point in their thinking.
Yes, my transplanted, latte-drinkin’, Northeastern librul bias is in full force on this one.
That and the fact I live in the midst of exactly this f and see it every fucking day of my life.
General Winfield Stuck
I’m wondering what gives with all these new and empty prisons around the country. This one, and the one in Hardin, Montana.
I still think wingnuts are afraid to bring them here and try them as criminals for fear they would get convicted and executed or jailed that would cause the country to believe dems were right all along, and for gawds sake, even tough on terrorism. Can’t have that when it’s the only wingnut card left in the deck.
And if we can’t fill these empty jails with AQ, then bring on the Bushy trials.
Violet
It’s nice to see that Thomson, IL is still the Home of the Brave. As opposed to Wingnutlandia where they cower in fear at the thought of being near accused terrorists who are kept in a maximum security prison.
Yutsano
There was a huge prison built in a small town in Montana that never opened. When Obama first took office, they jockeyed for position to be the ones to host both the Guantanamo Bay prisoners and the military commissions there. But both their Senators wet their pants and put the kibosh on it. I predict Grassley needing a new diaper after this spreads around.
Comrade Jake
Won’t stop them from trying though:
It’s almost like these people take pride in being ignorant.
Just Some Fuckhead
Terrorism is really good for the economy.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
They do. I live in the midst of them. It’s impossible to carry on a logical conversation about damn near anything.
For example, my neighbors like to
topbutcher their trees. I once told them that every arborist in the country considers that bad for their trees. Their response? You can’t always trust those university people.And that’s just scratching the surface. It’s why negotiating with these assholes is impossible.
demkat620
@General Winfield Stuck: Exactly. The last thing they want is headlines blaring this summer that KSM has been convicted by those crazy terror lovin’ liebruls from New York.
After all, what do those fuckers know about terrorism?
Brick Oven Bill
Plato teaches us:
And may there not be supposed to be an imitative art of reasoning? Is it not possible to enchant the hearts of young men by words poured through their ears, when they are still at a distance from the truth of facts, by exhibiting to them fictitious arguments, and making them think that they are true, and that the speaker is the wisest of men in all things?
Yes; why should there not be another such art?
But as time goes on, and their hearers advance in years, and come into closer contact with realities, and have learnt by sad experience to see and feel the truth of things, are not the greater part of them compelled to change many opinions which they formerly entertained, so that the great appears small to them, and the easy difficult, and all their dreamy speculations are overturned by the facts of life?
Dude, Obama told us that if we gave him a trillion dollar slush fund, unemployment would have peaked last summer at around 8% falling to 7.7% at this date. And if we didn’t, unemployment would rise to 9% early next year and then fall. But unemployment is, like, 10.2% and spiking. Here is Obama’s Chart versus the data.
Why is Glenn Beck the only guy reporting this?
Yutsano
@Brick Oven Bill: ¿que?
General Winfield Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
And Confucius say, shut the fuck up BoBalooo.
Mnemosyne
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
Dude, with the current shortage, nurses are pulling down at least $50K a year, if not more. If they’re sending their daughters off to be nurses, they ain’t dumb, believe me.
bayville
It doesn’t look like the citizens of this depressed village of less than 600 people are quiverin’ at the thought of chained, jailed terrorists coming to town.
Evidently they don’t read NRO or have access to Townhall.com.
Brick Oven Bill
Pythagoras is telling you to take a tangent on a certain part of my anatomy General Winfield Stuck.
+0.5
Yutsano
Give some credit to the daughters as well. They’re more than capable of looking around and seeing the loser gene pool, putting two and two together, and running off to Mizzou to get a nursing degree. Of course the fact that their minds and genetic possibilities get expanded as well don’t hurt none.
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
BoB loves pie.
gyma
@General Winfield Stuck:
Colorado has one of those new, empty prisons, too. Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, started the process and then left town.
Governor Ritter, a Democrat, is now dealing with the worst economy in recent history and has himself a nice shiny prison but no funding to staff it.
I’m sure the same is happening throughout the country.
But bottom line is that we already imprison way too many people.
General Winfield Stuck
@Brick Oven Bill:
You suckin’ on the Nyquil again, BoB. You know what that does to you.
Yutsano
@General Winfield Stuck: I bow to thee sir. You got under the troll’s skin. Your mastery is simply astounding. I am blinded by your brilliance.
General Winfield Stuck
@gyma:
Well, then. I recommend we legalize prostitution and convert all them empty prisons into houses of ill repute,. Think of all the extra handcuffs put to good use. Could build a new school on every block with enough left over to buy Bloody Bill Kristol a new soul.
Max
Yeah, but Obama would never put one of those in his home state, it’s the Chicago Way, Southside Chicago Style, NIMBY Chicago Thugs like him and Rahmbo…
What’s that? Thomson is in Illinois, well, that shows that Obama is just funneling money to his friends, its the Chicago Way, Southside Chicago Thugs….
Neutron Flux
@Yutsano: Hey!!! No more of that bowing shit today.
Don’t you know how bad that is and WHAT IT WILL LEAD TOO?
Mark S.
Um, I’ll admit I’m not very knowledgeable about the ways of the prison industrial complex, but do these towns just build prisons and then hope the state starts sending them prisoners? Wouldn’t it be smarter to get an agreement with the government before you build the prison?
Maybe that monorail guy was onto something.
gyma
@General Winfield Stuck:
Let’s hope there’s enough left to buy BBK a new brain, too. He who thinks we should just skip any trial for Maj. Hasan and just execute him, toute de suite.
Keith G
Just wait for the seven bus loads of teabaggers to show up in Thomson Illinois. They could scare even the Baby Jesus.
Brick Oven Bill
As a consequence of the Obama Stimulus plan, I no longer buy mid-range bottles of wine. Instead, I have in front of me, a bottle of Wal Mart Merlot that has been previously consumed by some guys at a ranch. They refilled it with some liquid and put a piece of masking tape on the front with the word ‘apple’ scrawled in blue marker.
They gave it to a fellow Teabagger-trucker that works at the ranch, whose girlfriend threatened to withhold services unless he stopped drinking.
So now this bottle is mine.
Yutsano
@Brick Oven Bill: This explains much.
Brick Oven Bill
I’m still working up the courage to drink it Yutsano. Thus, this explains nothing yet. Using my sense of smell, it seems OK. Using my sense of sight, it appears cloudy, which is reasonable as these guys would not have filters.
Mark S.
Oh, I think you should drink it, BoB. It couldn’t possibly be urine.
Get some Wal-Mart cheese to go with it.
Yutsano
@Brick Oven Bill: Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.
/Obi-wan moment (yes I know he was a serial liar and an overall fucktwit, it’s still a good line)
Brick Oven Bill
Using my sense of taste, this is not very tasty.
But it is most definitely strong. As the alcohol levels in this bottle would kill most any organism, this will be consumed. If you don’t hear from me again, have a nice life and read the Federalist Papers.
+1.5
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Fix’t.
SSDD.
Fix’t.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Brick Oven Bill: That sounds way too expensive for Wal-Mart. Think of all the markups that occurred passing hands like that. Wal-Mart would never sell something that expensive.
Yutsano
@Brick Oven Bill: Stop teasing us.
Mark S.
You mean to tell me BoB sometimes comments sober?
dfd
If given the choice, I’d go with sobriety rather than some backwoods pruno. But then I’m not BOB.
kay
It’s going to take years. It won’t be this summer, or next summer. The military tribunals were a disaster:
“When the case was removed from the military system Friday, a military judge was still considering whether two of the defendants, Ramzi Binalshibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, were mentally competent to represent themselves, despite the objections of their military counsel.”
They have to start from scratch.
The more I look at this, the more I think Republicans didn’t want them tried because they simply could not manage to accomplish it.
They may have opted for indefinite detention simply because they had no earthly idea what to do with these people, and acting in a way that would garner press in the US would be politically risky.
It’s going to be really, really difficult.
It’s not going to be a political “winner” in my view. I think it simply had to be accomplished, eventually, so the Obama Admn. moved on it, and federal courts have the advantage over the Cuba tribunals because they function.
They really couldn’t sit in Cuba forever.
phoebes-in-santa fe
Why have Americans become so fearful of everything? It’s downright embarrassing to see the Republicans lead our nation down the path of apathy and fear.
When are the REAL Americans – no, not Sarah Palin’s “Real Americans” – going to rise up and demand that our idiot politicians face problems head on – health care, fading infrastructure, etc – and stop fearmongering.
Kevin Phillips Bong
I do not understand why the counterattack to this wingnut idiocy is not “Why do the conservatives have so little trust in America’s great legal system, or the ability of our free market prisons to keep these people in custody?”
It’s not like these individuals are even that dangerous, removed from their support network and access to explosives they’re just your average dude from the Mideast. I’m much more frightened of some hardcore Mara Salvatrucha type escaping prison than KSM.
General Winfield Stuck
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
Prolly think George Bush is still presnit.
Roger Moore
@Kevin Phillips Bong:
Because it’s true. The conservatives really don’t have much faith in our justice system, which is why they’re always working against the rights of the accused. They seem to think that the system should be guilty until proven innocent, and there should be only very limited ways of proving one’s innocence. Most of all, I think they’re afraid of being challenged on their fear, so they’re going to lash out at anyone who points out what a bunch of cowards they are.
Ailuridae
@Brick Oven Bill:
You do understand that the graph in question:
1. Doesn’t show what you think it shows
2. Is totally irrelevant to whether ARRA is dampening the effects of the depression.
You know that, right? And you’re just shamelessly pretending it shows something it doesn’t right?
Quackosaur
Apparently we’re not supposed to ship the scary people to Thomson, IL because it would make Chicago (or “scenic” Rockford!) a terror target…
…never mind that Thomson is 150 miles from Chicago.
…never mind that Chicago is already a terror target with Obama’s house, the Sears Tower (yes, I know it’s name was changed), and so on.
I’ll never understand why the crazies think we can’t keep terrorists in jail. Do they think some giant army of super-secret sleeper-cell agents of doom will clandestinely attack the prison and slip undetected into the wide open spaces of the Illinois prairie?
Linkmeister
One of the dumber arguments I’ve heard about trying them in NYC was “it puts a giant bulls-eye on the city.”
Er, as though NYC didn’t already have one? Which city has already been hit twice by Al-Qaeda, once in ’93 and once in ’01?
The person who said that was some kind of security consultant to CBS News, presumably educated and somewhat familiar with the tactics of terrorism. Logic doesn’t work with these people, I guess.
Little Dreamer
@Comrade Jake:
Almost?
ruemara
I was hoping this little town would get the prisoners. I loved their plucky mayor, selling his town as the place that needed the jobs where ever he could.
Anne Laurie
All during the Cheney Regency’s security-state tenure, for-profit prisons were touted as a(nother) “can’t lose” moneymaker to every small town and rural district hollowed out by Walmart and globalization. Carping DFHs said that would only work in a country where half of us were being paid to keep the other half locked up, but too many mayors thought they didn’t have the luxury of looking past the end of the next fiscal quarter.
Martin
@Linkmeister:
As a former resident of NYC, let me speak on behalf of the residents there:
NYC will take whatever shit al Qaeda wants to throw at it. NYC has been through worse. It’s one of the great cities on earth not because of what the Governor of NY has done or anyone in DC, but because the city and its residents have defined their own path for 400 years and they really don’t give a shit if nobody follows along – good or bad.
After 9/11 most of the NYC residents and former residents I talked to wanted the WTC to be rebuilt precisely as it was before – including my relatives who were first responders (lots of fire and police in my Irish clan). Fuck al Qaeda – they don’t get to set the rules there – and let’s see them come back and try and knock them down again. Lock Khalid Sheikh Mohammed up on the observation deck so people can go and spit on him.
Fuck the concern trolls. NYC houses the UN, Wall Street and there’s half a million bars of gold sitting downtown. Almost every major news operation is headed out of NY. It’s always been and always going to be a huge target. NYers like the attention. Bring it.
Mark S.
@Anne Laurie:
I realize this probably means I am a communist, but private prisons should be outlawed. So should private polices forces, fire departments, and whatever else the Fonzi of Freedom is thinking of right now.
Yutsano
@Mark S.: Private prisons are money pits. Not one has ever realized the so-called cost savings the free market is supposed to deliver. Plus I don’t think incarceration, like health care, should be a service that should be run for profit. In fact that very concept flies in the face of the state being the main actor in a criminal prosecution.
Mark S.
@Yutsano:
Exactly, and you don’t have to be Paul Krugman to see that the incentives are to create more crimes and make the punishments more draconian, i.e. drug laws and three strikes.