If Orange Man Bad gets his way, America’s most hardened criminals will do their time on The Rock.
That’s right. On Truth Social on Sunday, POTUS 47 suggested reopening the federal prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. It’s now a tourist attraction, but once was home to the nation’s most notorious convicts.
Federal prison officials are on board with rebuilding a penitentiary there, the far-left Mainstream Media reported. Although, as is customary, the worthies of the Fourth Estate quickly ridiculed the idea because they know more about penology than Trump, or even Jeremy Bentham.
The Post
The mass media’s latest feeding frenzy began when Trump did what he usually does to troll them.
“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering,” Trump began:
When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. No longer will we tolerate these Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets. That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders. We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Two minutes later, Trump trolled again, this time with an old photo of the place.
Of course, Trump wasn’t just trolling. He is, apparently, serious. Speaking to Fox talker Laura Ingraham, no-nonsense White House aide Stephen Miller explained why Alcatraz must be reopened. It symbolizes that, once again, Americans take rape, murder, and other crimes seriously.
“Alcatraz was built at a time when this country was strong and it knew how to take care of villains and monsters,” Miller said:
There are people in this country, as President Trump has said, who will do nothing with their lives but rape, maim, and murder. They cannot be rehabilitated. They cannot be saved. They cannot be coached in some better way of living. They are always going to hurt. They are always going to steal. They are always going to attack. And we need a place in this country where we can send people to visually demonstrate their total separation from society, the fact that they are not going to live among us and will never live among us.
Yesterday, CNN reported, federal Bureau of Prisons chief William K. Marshall III said the bureau will “pursue all avenues” to fulfill Trump’s order.
“I have ordered an immediate assessment to determine our needs and the next steps. [United States Penitentiary] Alcatraz has a rich history. We look forward to restoring this powerful symbol of law, order, and justice. We will be actively working with our law enforcement and other federal partners to reinstate this very important mission,” Marshall said.
Media Response
The usual suspects immediately chimed in with opinions.
An opinion writer for MSNBC — propaganda arm of the Democratic Party — claimed that rebuilding a prison on the island is too expensive. In any event, said MSNBC, Trump’s point is merely creating “a spectacle of degradation.”
“Given the costs of renovating and operating the place, reopening Alcatraz would also fly in the face of Trump’s purported “efficiency” agenda. Alcatraz was shut down as a prison precisely because it cost too much to maintain — the facilities cost triple the money of other federal prisons, and estimated restoration fees were prohibitively expensive back when it was running,” wrote Zeeshan Aleem, whose byline doesn’t reveal any experience in prison management.
But what really miffed the far-left scrivener was the humiliation prisoners would suffer:
The impracticality of Alcatraz is beside the point for our reality television star president. Like sending undocumented migrants to a vicious mega-prison in El Salvador, the point is the optics of dominating people deemed to be deviants. Mass incarceration and dangerously powerful police forces aren’t sufficient for Trump. He wants to do something spectacular and dramatic to induce an atmosphere of even more fear and cruelty.
A New York Times reporter relied on the expertise of tourists to ridicule the idea. “I thought it was a joke,” German tourist Philipp Neumann told the Times. “ “It’s a ruin, isn’t it, more or less?”
Well, yes, which is why it would be rebuilt. But, in any event, the Times reporter then turned to two tourists in England:
Tony and Deb Vickery, visiting from England, disembarked a cruise ship to spend the day on Alcatraz. They said they had felt that their journey was hitting all of the Trump hot spots.
They had just sailed through the Panama Canal, which Mr. Trump wants the U.S. to control, and are headed for Canada, which he has suggested the U.S. should seize as the 51st state.
“We think he’s mad,” Ms. Vickery said. “He’s lost his marbles.”
As have the British officials who have permitted Muslims to take over England’s capital, London, and many other cities, and covered up the Muslim grooming-gang rapes of 250,000 British girls.
Alcatraz History
Among the dangerous criminals once imprisoned at Alcatraz are the following:
- Al Capone, leader of the Chicago Outfit and architect of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, who died, ultimately, from syphilitic paresis;
- Alvin Karpis, kidnapper, cop killer, and “brains” of the the Ma Barker gang;
- George “Machine Gun” Kelly, a bank robber who, like Capone and Karpis, became Public Enemy No. 1;
- James “Whitey” Bulger, the Boston Irish mob boss who murdered 11 people, but blamed his violent streak on dosing with LSD as part of the CIA’s illegal MKUltra mind-control program; and,
- Robert Stroud, the so-called “Birdman of Alcatraz,” who worked with canaries at Leavenworth Prison, but was not the avuncular, put-upon victim Burt Lancaster represented him to be in the movie.
