Crazy Pete Hoekstra Called On His Efforts to Profit Off of Terrorism

I was in my holiday lull last week when the man who wants to be my Governor, Crazy Pete Hoekstra, callously tried to fundraise off of an attempted attack on a flight bound for Michigan.

My promise to you, as your governor, my first duty and most solemn responsibility is to keep Michigan safe!

For almost a decade I have been a leader on National Security and at the forefront of the war on terror. I understand the real and continuing threat radical jihadists pose to our great state of Michigan and our great Nation.

I have pledged that I will do “everything possible” to prevent these terrorists from coming to Michigan.

But I need your help.

If you agree that we need a Governor who will stand up the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250 to my campaign.

Thankfully, for a change, the TradMed was not lulled by Crazy Pete’s fear-mongering. Here’s Terry Moran asking Crazy Pete why he tried to profit off of an attempted terrorist attack aimed at Michigan.

Someone should have told Crazy Pete that filibustering as shamelessly as he did here is a skill best used in the Senate, not in the Governor’s mansion.

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  1. PJEvans says:

    Not only best used in the senate, but not at all useful as governor, where his military might is limited to whatever Guard units are left in MI these days. (I doubt that his neighbors would appreciate a governor trying to throw military might around, either.)

    • emptywheel says:

      Yeah, here’s djtyg (who is himself am Iraq War vet) calling Crazy Pete on just that.

      It’s Christmas Day. You’re the Governor of Michigan. Somehow you receive word that an airplane on its way to Detroit Metro Airport has been targeted by a suicide bomber (for some reason the CIA felt like notifying you and not the President). What do you do?

      Call up the state’s Air National Guard? Getting ANG pilots mobilized in 20 minutes would be impossible any day of the year. Doing it on Christmas Day? Don’t even try. Unless Selfridge has a constant air patrol ready to rock at a moment’s notice (and iirc they stopped doing that after the Cold War), good luck calling up pilots at their home on Christmas Day. Assuming they haven’t had too much Christmas cheer, just getting them in uniform and driving down the ice-filled Michigan roads to the base, and THEN getting the jets ready to roll will take at least a few hours. On 9/11 the only reason they deployed pilots from Selfridge is because they already had pilots conducting a training exercise.

      Then assuming you get the jets up in the air, then what? Do you shoot the plane down? Yeah, shoot a plane full of civilians down over Southeast Michigan (remember that the National Guard can’t leave the state without the President’s permission-the ANG pilots are stuck patrolling Michigan airspace). I’m sure that won’t cause any problems AT ALL.

      Click through to read the rest.

  2. qweryous says:

    Hoekstra says in this clip “I’ve been leading on national security for the last 9 years that I’ve been on the Intelligence Committee”.

    Since that has been turning out so well, I’d like to take this opportunity to say ‘Brownie you’re doin a heck of a job’.

  3. rosalind says:

    ot: she drove us nuts at times, but sad news still.

    Former WAPO Ombudsman Deb Howell killed in accident in New Zealand. AP article up at Huffpo, WAPO article is behind registration wall.

    • Kitt says:

      That is sad. Deborah Howell was 68 years old. Google news has relatively complete news about the accident, if WAPO is ‘behind the wall’.

  4. ManwithaParachute says:

    Hoekstra is a complete mental breakdown in waiting.

    His solution to jobs in Michigan is outsourcing. His rationale may be that with out hope and the elimination of unemployment and welfare, the alternately hued will have to emigrate to neighboring states. Thereby making Michigan a preferred destination for the cool white people who take flight from those states. There was a press conference in Grand Rapids where a member of the press ended up exhaling into a paper bag until she felt better (Why do people do that?) and when finished clapped the bag hard to pop it. The Congresscritter hit the floor like he thought Al Qaeda was targeting his press conference.

    Pete Hoekstra
    Fear of your own shadow makes you a leader of the future.

  5. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    Nice to see the TradMed can recognize a ghoul when they see one.
    At least, this time…

  6. Teddy Partridge says:

    This man should be shunned. The idea of having him as an authority on any kind of intelligence or terror is absurd. Isn’t he the one who tweeted his CODEL location, or was that the Other Idiot Pete, King of New York? I know Rachel Maddow mentioned Hoekstra released some intel; oh, right, about the Ft Hood shooter’s correspondence with the imam in Yemen, which was classified and thus presumably unknown to the imam.

    If McCain and others have complaints about the Administration’s communications with Capitol Hill, leading The Three Amigos to issue letters asking that previously released Yemeni “terrorists” not be released (and looking s.t.u.p.i.d.) they have only Hoekstra to thank.

  7. SanderO says:

    The dopes fall for this false flag nonsense. What stupid jerks. But they are getting rich and powerful off it too.

    • Teddy Partridge says:

      You know, that was exactly my reaction when I saw the YouTube! I wonder if he was in an NBC studio, and that is one of their fake library-ish backgrounds (in which case it’s a horribly inept error by the station) or if that is his own library (in which case it’s quite lowbrow). I mean, why would you mix lawbooks and Readers Digest Condensed Books like that?

  8. Loo Hoo. says:

    Glenn:

    Brooks documents how “childish, contemptuous and hysterical” the national reaction has been to this latest terrorist episode, egged on — as usual — by the always-hysterical American media. The citizenry has been trained to expect that our Powerful Daddies and Mommies in government will — in that most cringe-inducing, child-like formulation — Keep Us Safe. Whenever the Government fails to do so, the reaction — just as we saw this week — is an ugly combination of petulant, adolescent rage and increasingly unhinged cries that More Be Done to ensure that nothing bad in the world ever happens.

  9. SouthernDragon says:

    He doesn’t even need the money. Between his corporate donors, the right wing PACs, and the $1000 a plate fundraisers he’ll have more than enough money to run his campaign. This way he scares the common folk into giving him money while he list builds. The corporations will have bought him, again, and the scared low-info folk will vote for him. Sweet.

  10. fatster says:

    This is staggering. About six million Americans on food stamps have no other source of income. “The
    numbers have nearly tripled in Nevada over the past two years, doubled in Florida and New York, and grown nearly 90 percent in Minnesota and Utah. In Wayne County, Mich., which includes Detroit, one of every 25 residents reports an income of only food stamps. In Yakima County, Wash., the figure is about one of every 17.”

    More.

  11. Bluetoe2 says:

    Moran let him off easy. Anyone on this blog knows Hoekstra is crazy but then the electorate in west and rural Michigan is full of crazies that would love nothing more than to see a mad man in Lansing to finish the destruction of the state that the former Republican governor, John Engler, began.

  12. cregan says:

    Pete might be crazy, but there is something more basic.

    At the beginning part of this year, I mentioned on the Wheel that we were now engaged in a great experiment to see if the college professor view of foreign affairs was as workable as they have been saying for many, many years.

    For at least the last 30 to 40 years (if not 70), a sizable number of college professors have been telling us that we have been doing it all wrong and that they had a better idea and that those opposed to their ideas were dumb, stupid, not intelligent, etc.

    In a nutshell, that idea was that we were not being nice enough to other cultures and countries and that if we could only try more peaceful methods, all would be much better. That is a bit of an exaggeration and a simple version of their view (as the full rundown would be quite long), but I think you know the view I mean.

    “If they would just get smart and do it this way….”

    Obama followed the general jist of that viewpoint.

    It appears that even he is disabused of it now. I know a lot of people have piled on about how all the out reach did not result in any lowering of the desire of Al Queda to bring us down. I don’t want to do that because the subject is a bit serious to try to take political advantage.

    That’s why I disagree with Pete’s approach. He didn’t really need to say anything; people get it already.

    I hear the saw often of how “The Terrorists win” if some tightening of security or intelligence gathering curbs some freedoms.

    This totally misunderstands what the terrorists are about. They could care less if we go down with all freedoms in tact or with only a few–as long as we go down by whatever means.

    That is all they care about. That is the only “win” in which they are interested.

    • qweryous says:

      So suppose the opponent goads the target into the expenditure of vast sums of scarce governmental resources (which prevents useful application of these resources)intending that as a goal?

      Suppose the inefficency costs make us less economically competitive as a direct result of the misdirected resources? Would the opponent consider that?

      Is it possible that the opponent would consider the partial constipation of our entire air transport system to be a goal?

      We as a nation have the opportunity to do….

      • bobschacht says:

        So suppose the opponent goads the target into the expenditure of vast sums of scarce governmental resources (which prevents useful application of these resources)intending that as a goal?

        Suppose the inefficency costs make us less economically competitive as a direct result of the misdirected resources? Would the opponent consider that?

        This is exactly on point. The war hawks seldom bother to count the cost. Remember, the Bush administration forbade anyone to count the cost of the war, and when an underling provided an estimate anyway, he was fired. At least Obama is making the cost of war part of the budget, not snuck in as “supplementals” year after year.

        There is more than one way to lose a war. One is on the battlefield. Another is by going bankrupt in the process. That is essentially how the Soviet Union lost the “Cold War.”

        Bob in AZ

        • qweryous says:

          The other part about what it costs to do something has to do with the certainty of success.

          Requiring all airline passengers to be scrutinized by various scanning and body cavity search methods, combined with the complete prohibition of all checked and carry on luggage;in addition to boarding in airline provided ‘clean’ jumpsuits and then being locked into one’s seat might prevent onboard airline ‘incidents’.

          Costs would be high in terms of both privacy and actual funds required.
          Costs would include any casualties from passengers unable to evacuate in an emergency due to being locked into their seats.

          Strategically this would be a success only if the opponent did not find an alternate target.

          The likelihood of success in preventing the onboard incident would be fairly high.

          The likelihood of this expenditure of effort and funds preventing an attack at an alternate target is very low.

          This is an example of an idea that might well tactically ‘succeed’ yet be a strategic FAIL.

          With respect to current and future foreign ventures you said:

          “There is more than one way to lose a war. One is on the battlefield. Another is by going bankrupt in the process. ”

          The two are not mutually exclusive, it is possible to do both. I hope that neither occurs.

        • freepatriot says:

          you GO Bob

          cept I gotta disagree, it’s all the same way …

          There is more than one way to lose a war. One is on the battlefield. Another is by going bankrupt in the process. That is essentially how the Soviet Union lost the “Cold War.”

          Germany had England on the ropes until the US chose sides in 1917. After that, England wasn’t broke any more

          in the end, it’s all about money

    • qweryous says:

      An example of the ‘outreach’ project might be justice for the victims of Nisour Square and their families.

      Recent reports indicate that the ‘outreach’ effort here may not have the results we might desire.

      Other examples of ‘outreach’ might be found that are similarly wanting for positive effect.

      You say:
      “In a nutshell, that idea was that we were not being nice enough to other cultures and countries and that if we could only try more peaceful methods, all would be much better. That is a bit of an exaggeration and a simple version of their view (as the full rundown would be quite long), but I think you know the view I mean.”

      That statement speaks for itself.

    • PJEvans says:

      I suspect that living in an occupied area might make anyone less friendly toward the occupiers, especially when way too many of them are also trying to force their religious and political views upon the occupants, and are clueless about local language and culture.

    • bobschacht says:

      In a nutshell, that idea was that we were not being nice enough to other cultures and countries and that if we could only try more peaceful methods, all would be much better. That is a bit of an exaggeration and a simple version of their view (as the full rundown would be quite long), but I think you know the view I mean.

      Do you always get your talking points from Fox News and Rush Limbaugh?

      This mischaracterization and caricature of “the college professor view of foreign affairs” is more than “a bit of exaggeration;” it is vicious slander. It is a gross over-generalization, at a minimum.

      Cite your sources, and provide your evidence, or STFU.

      Bob in AZ

      • cregan says:

        Bob, let’s simply call it the view Obama espoused during his campaign. As you know, a book could be written on what this view EXACTLY is, but there isn’t space. With a few exceptions like you, most people understand very well the general thrust of the view–whether they agree with it or not.

        If Rush Limbaugh said the sun rises in the East, I suppose you would automatically reject it without applying any thinking for yourself.

        I am not saying this view didn’t deserve a shot–at least try it. To his great credit, Obama now realizes the view wasn’t workable in reality and has changed his thinking. Maybe you could consider a similar action–look at facts and events and then decide if your view needs to be altered.

    • JohnJ says:

      Wow, just try something in international diplomacy for 3 months….THAT will undo decades of abuse.

      IF those “college professors” are so clueless, what does that say about that degree mommy and daddy bought you?

      • cregan says:

        As you grow older, you realize the professors, who you once thought were mountains of knowledge and knew it all, do know it all. But, like everyone else, they also have brains which are subject to the same influences as everyone else; bias, slanted views and insanity. So, the knowledge and facts they possess are there, but can be shaped and formed in ways that are not in conformance with reality.

        The view has had a year to be tried, not three months. So far, there is no real evidence it has succeeded. As noted elsewhere, even Obama recognizes it didn’t work and has changed course; much to his credit.

  13. qweryous says:

    bmaz guest appearing at DailyKos again.
    See “End-of-session-executive-calendar-maneuvering” discussion of the nominees approved,held over and returned to the president.

    Link:
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/1/3/821300/-End-of-session-executive-calendar-maneuvering

    “What are the actual names behind “Exec Cal items” #264, #280, etc.? Well, bmaz — writing in Emptywheel’s slot — lists them for you.'”

    The author provides a link to
    “34 Obama Nominees Not Named Dawn Johnsen Confirmed”

    and further in is found “Dawn Johnsen’s nomination has been a flash point for a long time (and see bmaz for more on that). ”

    The author provides a link to “Why Did Obama Kill The Dawn Johnson Nomination?”

    If one has time to burn: in the comments is a discussion of kossians who will not go to a FDL link, alternate sourcing the info bmaz provided to satisfy those, criticism of the poster doing so and etc.

    • bmaz says:

      Heh heh, well that “poster” is KagroX, who I was discussing my Dawn Johnsen thoughts with before I ever put my second Johnsen post up; so he didn’t rip me off, it was I that was probing him for thoughts originally. Kagro’s real name is David Waldman and he has a fantastic blog focusing on Congress by the name of Congress Matters. It is a VERY good resource.

  14. alinaustex says:

    What about increasing the number of bomb sniffing dogs at our airports ?It is true that one well trained canine is just as good at detecting contraband as any high tech costly gadget. And it could be possible to model this ‘airport security ‘ dog training program after other successful programs -most recently there have been dogs trained by inmates to be the eyes and ears of disabled returning veterans. I bet for the cost of one full body xray scanner you could have several dog teams in every major airport.

    ( Our home is ‘dog centric’ -we have three rescue dogs -and each one of them can sniff out a treat at ‘forty paces’ with alacarity, and aplomb …)

  15. chickenbonebill says:

    Hookey “talks the talk,” but with no military service he’s never “walked the walk!”

    Just exactly how has “HE” kept America safe! Maybe if there is a troll lurking here this morning, they can answer my question!

  16. analyticalliberal says:

    I, too, am a life-long Michigander (NOT a Michiganian), and this idiot scares the hell out of me as too many in this great state have been bamboozled by the know nothing theocrats that make up the Michigan GOP.

    Can we now refer to this clown as Pete Hoax-tra? Remember the 2006 press conference with Rick “Man-on-Dog” Santorum, where they announced to the world that “we found the WMD in Iraq”? Check it out at http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/21/santorum-wmd/

    Remember: the Rethugs do not do policy, just politics and fear. His name is Hoax-tra Hoax-tra Hoax-tra Hoax-tra Hoax-tra.

  17. maryo2 says:

    cregan,

    Again, cite your sources, and provide your evidence, or STFU.

    My evidence that you are wrong –

    1. the underwear bomber got his jihadist ideas before 2005. This was before President Obama was nominated but well after President Bush’s foreign policy was established.

    2. Afghanistan is a clusterfuck not of President Obama’s making.

    “As noted elsewhere” up your dank ass.

  18. qweryous says:

    This belongs here:

    PeteHoekstra.com – Your source of information about…the shortcomings of Pete Hoekstra!

    Just saw this at HuffPo, As Sam Stein says there :
    “Someone other than Congressman and gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra appears to have purchased the URL petehoekstra.com and the results aren’t exactly promising for the Michigan Republican.”

    Complete story at :
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/04/peter-hoekstra-fails-to-r_n_410699.html

    Visit the site to see why Pete might be unhappy when he visits.
    http://www.petehoekstra.com/

    Posts there like:

    “When the mainstream media calls you out, you’re either doing something really right or really wrong.

    Time.com blogger, Darrell Dawsey, writes: “WTF? … why is a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee flapping his gums about dots and what not before he’s even been briefed? …”….

    Getcher domain name before it’s too late…

    Oops.