Month: June 2014

New Normal: get used to it

by digby

Ponder the moral and social bankruptcy of this situation for a moment:

Recent surveys suggest more and more long-time unemployed workers are abandoning the search for another job and leaving the nation’s workforce.

“And they are disproportionately older workers,” Van Horn said. “We have a large number of older (unemployed) workers who are not old enough to retire, yet they are facing discrimination in the workplace and have found it nearly impossible to get another job.”
[…]
And while economists note high levels of unemployment among older working-age people, joblessness is disproportionately high among younger workers as well.

Generation Opportunity, a U.S. nonpartisan youth advocacy organization which keeps close track of job levels for younger adults, reported even higher effective unemployment rates for those under 30.

“School is out for summer, and more than four out of five recent grads don’t have jobs. My generation deserves better than an economy in which a 15.4 percent effective unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is considered a good month,” said Patrice Lee, director of outreach for the organization.

Even though the overall unemployment rate has been essentially flat since last October and is holding at high levels with 3.4 million Americans counted among the ranks of long-term unemployed, it’s been five months since federal emergency unemployment benefits expired, leaving the burden up to the individual states.

The unemployment rate is now back to where it was before the Great Recession. It was 6.3 percent in May, same as the month before.

Still, the share of Americans who are employed is stalled below 59 percent, well below the 63.3 percent peak in March 2007 and 64.7 percent of April 2000, said William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “That difference represents the multi-million job gap needed,” Spriggs said.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what the plan is, try this out:

It may be quite a while before the jobless rate falls back to 5 percent and below, long the informal standard pegged by economists as a typical employment level for non-recession times.

But 5 percent may no longer be the norm.

In February 2011, economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank suggested that around 6 percent might be a more appropriate unemployment rate as the “new normal.” But some analysts suggested even that target may be unrealistically low.

Basically they’re telling a whole lot of people at the beginning and the end of their working lives to get used to being poor. And everyone else should be aware that their hold on any job is precarious and they need to do whatever the boss man tells them — there are millions of others out there willing to work for less. The new normal.

.

McJob Nation

by David Atkins

In case anyone has forgotten, the economy is still broken:

The US is slowly becoming a McJob nation. While the press jumps up and down that the US is now finally at a breakeven point from the jobs lost since the recession started in 2007, they fail to mention that those not in the labor force is up by nearly 13 million. Even looking into the recent employment report, we continue to find a heavy trend of hiring in low wage employment sectors. For example, 32,000 jobs were added in “leisure and hospitality” bringing the annual total of jobs added to 311,000. Another 21,000 jobs were added in social assistance which pay very little but will grow as demand for health support grows by an aging population. The system at least in the eyes of Wall Street and the government is working perfectly fine. We have a plentiful supply of low wage labor while laws and bailout mechanisms are in place for the financially and politically connected. The middle class continues to fall off the bandwagon one by one and enters a labor force of permanent low wage labor with very little prospect of a decent retirement. In fact, most will be working until all the wheels come flying off. We also find that 1 out of 4 Americans are working in jobs that pay $10 or less per hour. How about trying to earn the Americans Dream on that McJob salary?

It has taken us 7 slow and painful years simply to recover the jobs we had back in 2007. With the latest jobs number, we finally are back to where we were in 2007. Of course, the population has increased and many of these new jobs come with horrible benefits, lower wages, and very little security. Is it any wonder why home buying in the country continues to be so anemic?

Low wages are also creating an entire nation that is unprepared for retirement. For example, 1 out of 3 Americans has zero dollars in their savings account. Half the country is one paycheck away from a financial avalanche. During the last 7 years, we have added close to 13 million Americans to the “not in the labor force” category.

…

A part of this growth is an older population but a large part of it isn’t. We have many digging into college degrees with massive debt to avoid the current economic situation. Others have simply given up looking for work. The low wage recovery has been extremely painful for many Americans and wealth growth has not occurred for 90 percent of the country. These are simply the facts. This is what we find in every piece of data we look at.

Economist Tim Taylor presented a chart highlighting that the US has a very high portion of its population working in low wage jobs. This is contrary to the image that the US is a land with middle class jobs for many:

Big social shocks are coming, and the country is either going to make a turn for the hard right or the hard left. The center will not hold.

.

Exceptional tweet ‘o the day

by digby

Number one once again — by a mile! Arright!

People in jail per 100k people
US 710
Chile 266
Mexico 210
Turkey 179
UK 147
Canada 118
Sweden 67
Japan 51
Iceland 47 pic.twitter.com/HTUpP1GHzA
— Conrad Hackett (@conradhackett) June 7, 2014

That Clinton-Obama “marriage of convenience” was blessed by pretty much everyone

by digby

Noam Scheiber makes a good point in this piece discussing the odd nature of the nascent Clinton campaign and its relationship to the Obama administration:

As for the president, as annoying as it must be to have the most popular Democrat in the country distance herself from his foreign-policy B-sides, the broader arrangement still beats any plausible alternative. Consider: If not for the way Hillary’s proto-campaign has frozen the Democratic presidential field, there would already be half-a-dozen Democratic governors and senators trooping through Iowa, complaining to anyone who will listen that Obama still hasn’t closed Guantanamo, arrested any Wall Street bankers, or brought the NSA to heel. “Put aside that she may or may not share all his positions,” says the Obama campaign adviser. “The fact that no one is doing that is a great thing for him.”

As long as Hillary’s 2016 plans continue to bring such benefits, the White House will happily ignore a book that would have the whiff of betrayal under any other circumstances. Like all great marriages of convenience, this one is built to withstand a little emotional distress.

His point is that the administration benefits from a Clinton presidency to protect a legacy it will, to all intents and purposes, share. So it’s not too exercised by the small degree of distance she is putting between herself and the administration in order to create her own rationale for running. As long as she’s freezing out criticism from the left — which she is — his legacy is in no danger from this campaign.

I’ve come to think of this in a slightly different way. I think this was decided back in Denver in 2008. The primary campaign was a near tie with Clinton continuing to win races all the way up to the end. (In any previous presidential campaign there would have definitely been a convention challenge to such a tight outcome.) It featured two important “firsts” with an African American and a woman competing for the same prize. It was very emotional. The political arguments among the two camps were fierce but they were both coming from the same center-left policywing of the party, which means there was an agreement, somewhat by default, that this agenda was the preferred agenda of the voters. Both sides fought tooth and nail for the same policies.

In essence, the result of that 2008 near tie vote was that Obama got to go first with the understanding that Clinton would automatically get the nomination 8 years later. What this means is that (barring unforeseen circumstances)there will have been no left wing challenge in presidential races for 16 years and I think that suits the Party and its rich donors just fine. They hate primaries. And since they will have had 16 uninterrupted years of preferred policy, even as the voters get to feel the inspiration of the two historic firsts, why would anyone rock the boat?

Progressives might have been able to leverage that fierce competition in 2008 but they got caught up in the emotion just like everyone else so there wasn’t any real ideological challenge. Unfortunately, it probably ended up being the last primary in which they could have had a voice for a very long time. Too bad.

.

Just a coupla patriots sittin’ around shootin’

by digby

So that Nevada couple who shot the police, a random bystander and then themselves declaring that “the revolution” had begun had been at the Bundy Ranch? What a surprise. It turns out they were right wing radicals. (In fairness, it appears they were too looney even for the Bundy crazies. According to their video trail they were kicked off the ranch by the militia.)

This reminds me of a piece by Dave Neiwert at the SPLC which I had meant to post a while back, just to document the happenings out there. It’s not specifically relevant to these people as far as I know, but it illuminates the toxic stew of violence out of which people like this crawl:

The right-wing media tried to sell Americans on the idea that the antigovernment “Patriots” and militiamen who gathered to block the roundup of Cliven Bundy’s illegally grazing cattle in Nevada were well-meaning lovers of liberty. However, Bundy’s most ardent defenders have revealed themselves to be a volatile collection of hotheaded, paranoid men (and a few women) with big egos and even bigger guns.

The situation at the ranch, where armed militiamen and “Patriots” are camped out, has deteriorated so badly that competing factions apparently drew weapons on one another during heated arguments.

We wrote on Wednesday about how tensions flared when a paranoid rumor of an imminent drone strike on the encampment began circulating. The team that primarily circulated the drone-strike rumor – Stewart Rhodes’ Oath Keepers – also began advising people to pull out, which sparked the wrath of militiamen.

Those militiamen voted to oust the Oath Keepers, and a couple even spoke of shooting Rhodes and his men in the back, which they deemed the proper battlefield treatment of “deserters”.

Now Rhodes has replied to their accusations in a video in which he teamed up with fellow Oath Keepers Steve Homan, Robert Casillas and Brandon Ropolla (the latter of whom are also affiliated with Mike Vanderboegh’s so-called “III Percent” movement) to attack the “nutcases” that Rhodes said have assumed control of the militia camp at the Bundy Ranch.

Rhodes painted an unflattering portrait of volatile “crazies” at the camp. Most strikingly, Rhodes described some of the threats of violence that have bubbled up to the surface at the camp:

RHODES: Now, when [John] Bidler was dropped on his butt– John Bidler– another guy — some Mountain Man militia guy, put his hand on his gun and said, “I dare ya to draw — draw motherfucker, I’m gonna kill ya.” I’m sorry to cuss but that’s what he said. So they were being threatened. Guys with hands on their guns threatening them. That’s why we told them to get out of there. We knew the situation was this close from being a gunfight, right there inside the camp.

Rhodes later described another close call when guns were drawn and people very nearly shot:

RHODES: And this is the tip of the iceberg of the cluster out there. One of our guys from Montana, Rick Delap, who was there from the beginning — he’s been out there for two weeks in the dirt – the day of this confrontation, I come to find out he had to draw on somebody. Two of the Mountain Men guys came up to him — were aggressing on him. Then one of them ran back to his vehicle and grabbed an AR and came back with an AR in his hand and Rick had to draw on him. And those two ran off. That was this close from Rick having to shoot that ding-a-ling. If that guy had raised his barrel, Rick would have had no choice but to shoot him.

Paul Waldman has a nice piece about this “phenomenon” and how it always rises up when the Democratic Party holds the White House. He calls out the GOP for their rhetoric, showing that when you mainstream the armed “revolutionary” rhetoric that originates within a movement that fetishizes guns and violence, bad things can happen. (And yes, please do bring up the events of more than 40 years ago when some left wingers were guilty of violent rhetoric because it will only offer up the chance to make the point that there were far more right wingers spouting violent rhetoric — and following through — even then …)

This piece by Rick Perlstein back in 2009 spells the little “problem” the Republicans have created with their mindless cultivation of this radical faction:

Another thing that makes some elite conservatives nervous in this recession is the sheer level of unhinged, even violent irrationality at the grassroots. In postwar America, a panicky, violence-prone underbrush has always been revealed in moments of liberal ascendency. In the Kennedy years, the right-wing militia known as the Minutemen armed for what they believed would be an imminent Russian takeover. In the Carter years it was the Posse Comitatus; Bill Clinton’s rise saw six anti-abortion murders and the Oklahoma City bombings. Each time, the conservative mainstream was able to adroitly hive off the embarrassing fringe while laying claim to some of the grassroots anger that inspired it. Now the violence is back. But this time, the line between the violent fringe and the on-air harvesters of righteous rage has been harder to find. This spring the alleged white-supremacist cop killer in Pittsburgh, Richard Poplawski, professed allegiance to conspiracist Alex Jones, whose theories Fox TV host Glenn Beck had recently been promoting. And when Kansas doctor George Tiller was murdered in church, Fox star Bill O’Reilly was forced to devote airtime to defending himself against a charge many observers found self-evident: that O’Reilly’s claim that “Tiller the baby killer” was getting away with “Nazi stuff” helped contribute to an atmosphere in which Tiller’s alleged assassin believed he was doing something heroic.

At least in the past, those who wished to represent their movement as cosmopolitan and urbane could simply point to William F. Buckley as the right’s most prominent spokesman. Now Buckley is gone, and the most prominent spokesmen—the Limbaughs and O’Reillys and Becks—can be heard mouthing attitudes once confined to the violent fringe. For the second time in three months, Fox heavily promoted anti-administration “tea party” events this past Fourth of July—rallies in praise of secession and the Articles of Confederation, at which speakers “joked” about a coup against the communist Muslim Barack Obama like the one against Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. “What’s going on at Fox News?” Frum recently asked, excoriating Beck for passing out to followers books by the nutty far-right conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen. If you were an elite conservative, you might be embarrassed too.

The conservative intellectuals once were able to work together more effectively with the conservative unwashed. Now, more and more, their recent irritation renders them akin to the Stalinist commissars mocked by poet Bertolt -Brecht, who asked if they might “dissolve the people/And elect another.” The bargain the right has offered the downwardly mobile, culturally insecure traditionalist—give us your votes, and we will give you existential certitudes in a world that seems somehow to have gone crazy—is looking less like good politics all the time.

That was 2009. It was just the beginning of the Obama administration. It didn’t get any better. Their monster has slipped its leash.

Update: The right wing blogs are calling the two Las Vegas shooters “leftists.” Sure they were:

A man who gunned down two police officers and a woman Sunday in Las Vegas left behind social media postings that show his concerns over Benghazi, chemtrails, gun control laws, and the government’s treatment of rancher Cliven Bundy…

Jerad Miller sketched out his interests with the groups and individuals he “liked” on Facebook, including Operation American Spring, Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Rand Paul 2016, Three Percenter Nation, and Ron Paul.

Amanda Miller also “liked” Ron Paul, Freedom Works, and Three Percenter Nation, in addition to various paranormal groups, Stop Amnesty, and Drudge Report.

Jerad Miller posted a photo of himself Feb. 8 standing alongside former Sheriff Richard Mack, who promotes the posse comitatus idea that county sheriffs represent the supreme law of the land, during a libertarian sheriff’s debate.

Yeah, that sounds like a typical lefty “false flag” operation so never mind.

Update II: More left wing socialism:

The shooters have been identified as Jerad and Amanda Miller. A NBC affiliate has this video of Jared Miller speaking to reporters at the Bundy ranch in April: “I feel sorry for any federal agents that want to come in here and try to push us around or something like that. I really don’t want violence toward them, but if they’re going to come bring violence to us, well if that’s the language they want to speak, we’ll learn it,” he says. Watch 45 seconds in:

You sir, are no Ronald Reagan

by digby

In Salon today I wrote a little Ted Cruz making his pitch as the next Ronald Reagan. It’s not quite a dumb as it sounds.  Except for one thing:

First he laid out his agenda, which is actually quite clever:

… from repealing “every blessed word” of Obamacare and the Common Core educational standards, to auditing the Federal Reserve and standing with Israel and dissidents around the world. He even struck a populist note, saying, “the rich keep getting richer and richer, and everyone else gets left behind,” while those in the “corrupt, bipartisan cabal in Washington” succeed.

Mix together a dash of Rand Paul, a soupçon of Tea Party, a smidgen of standard Washington loathing and even a tiny skosh of Occupy Wall Street and you’ve got the basis for an unusual GOP amuse bouche. Ladle on some Ronald Reagan secret sauce and you’ve got a Republican recipe that actually sounds like it might work

Well it could. Theoretically. But this is Ted Cruz we’re talking about. Read on …

.

How badly do you have to want to stop people from getting health insurance?

by David Atkins

This is the sort of story that makes me depressed for the entire human race. Or at least the race of Republican-Americans:

Republicans appear to have outmaneuvered Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a state budget standoff by persuading a Democratic senator to resign his seat, at least temporarily giving the GOP control of the chamber and possibly dooming the governor’s push to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Sen. Phillip P. Puckett (D-Russell) will announce his resignation Monday, effective immediately, paving the way to appoint his daughter to a judgeship and Puckett to the job of deputy director of the state tobacco commission, three people familiar with the plan said Sunday. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

The news prompted outrage among Democrats — and accusations that Republicans were trying to buy the Senate with job offers in order to thwart McAuliffe’s proposal to expand health coverage to 400,000 low-income Virginians.

Del. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said Republicans were unable to win the policy argument about Medicaid expansion, so they have resorted to other means.

“It’s astounding to me. The House Republican caucus will do anything and everything to prevent low-income Virginians from getting health care. . . . They figure the only way they could win was to give a job to a state senator,” Surovell said. “At least they can’t offer Terry McAuliffe a job. I hope Terry continues to stand up to these bullies.”

…

Puckett’s exit does not immediately sink McAuliffe’s chances in the Senate because three moderate Republicans in that chamber support expansion. But some of McAuliffe’s Senate allies have recently signaled their discomfort with the idea of letting the Medicaid push trigger a government shutdown.

And the resignation will come as two prominent Democrats are out of Virginia. Saslaw is in California visiting his newborn grandchild. Sen. Janet D. Howell (D-Fairfax) is leaving on Thursday on a trip to South Africa that is expected to last through June 24. But she said she will return earlier if she is needed.

Once Puckett resigns, Senate Republicans are expected to take advantage of their newfound majority by calling members back to Richmond — something that nine members of the Senate can make happen. The legislature has been in a special session for months but has not been meeting regularly. With the Senate back in Richmond, the chamber’s new Republican majority could pass a budget without Medicaid expansion.

I can’t even imagine having the moral bankruptcy required to spend this much time and effort machinating to prevent poor people from getting health insurance. The people of Virginia are literally spending millions of dollars paying supposed public servants to spend their every waking hour trying to figure out how to bribe, cheat and scheme their way into stopping people from getting federally subsidized health insurance. It’s plain moral evil on a massive scale.

Let this also be a reminder that there really, really, really is a big difference between the two parties. Even when it comes to an underwhelming Dem like McAuliffe. Yes, it’s important to try to get better Democrats than McAuliffe, hopefully through the primary process.

But make no mistake. Terry McAuliffe and most of the Democrats in Virginia are trying to secure Medicaid benefits for hundreds of thousands of Virginians. And the Republican Party is pulling out every single trick in the arsenal to stop it.

At this point I frankly don’t care how underwhelming the Democrat in question is. The Republican Party is so totally devoid of basic human decency that there is no excuse whatsoever to do everything we legally can just to prevent their standard-bearers from holding office.

QOTD: Paul Gigot

by digby

Via C&L

Look, I worked for the minimum wage. Two bucks an hour back in the 1970s. I had jobs that — what did I learn? I learned to show up on time, I learned certain skills, and I learned I didn’t want to make the rest of my life so I better get an education.

And then he went to Dartmouth. Which I’m sure is the trajectory of the 9 out of 10 minimum wage workers who are adults will also have. Once they learn what work is. It might take a while. Like a lifetime.

Meanwhile, all those kids who will go to that school of hard knocks and come out the other side as good workers? Guess what?

Today’s young people, ages 18 to 24, should have been the lucky ones. They were preteens or teenagers when the recession hit in late 2007, with high school and college still ahead. Unlike those who had to enter the work force in the depths of the downturn, they had time, or so it seemed, to wait out the weak economy.

But that’s not how things have worked out. While the worst is over, economic conditions are still subpar, damaging the immediate job prospects and long-term living standards of young adults starting out now.

In recent years, the economy has grown annually at 2 percent or so. That’s too slow to make up the current shortfall of nearly seven million jobs, let alone to absorb new graduates or push up wages in jobs that do exist.

To make matters worse, the economy contracted at an annual rate of 1 percent in the first quarter of 2014. A rebound is expected, but there is little in the economic data or current policy to suggest that an upsurge will be sustained; over all, economic growth is likely to settle at 2 percent to 2.5 percent.

For young people, these conditions will only deepen a long trend of increasing economic hardship. Census data that compares today’s 18-to-24-year-olds with the same age group in 1970 and in 1990 show more poverty among young adults over time, as well as lower income and less independence. But young people today are appreciably worse off than those in previous generations.

In 1970, for example, 13.9 percent of people ages 18 to 24 were in poverty. In 1990, 15.9 percent were poor; in 2012, the last year of available data, 20.4 percent were poor, or 6.1 million people. That data excludes students living in dorms, as well as most students who live with their parents or receive cash support from them. For young people who are on their own, either living alone or with housemates or spouses, median household income, recently $30,604, is nearly $4,600 less than in 1970 and virtually unchanged since 1990, adjusted for inflation.

Lack of opportunity and lack of resources mean a smaller share of young high school and college graduates are relocating, traditionally a way up a career ladder. In 1970, nearly 40 percent of young people had moved in the prior year; in 1990, it was nearly 32 percent; in 2013, it was only 21.6 percent. Not surprisingly, the share of young adults living with their parents is 55.3 percent, compared with 47.3 percent in 1970 and 52.8 percent in 1990.

Young people are clearly banking on a college education to improve their prospects — 41 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds were recently enrolled in college, a higher share than in previous generations. But the unemployment rate of college graduates ages 21 to 24 remains high at an average of 8.5 percent over the past year. Underemployment — which includes those who are officially unemployed, those who want to work but haven’t looked recently for a job and those stuck in part-time jobs — is 16.8 percent.

But gosh darn it, they’ll really know how to get to work on time.

.

And the deficit is just like a death camp …

by digby
If you thought that History Channel WWII documentary a couple of weeks ago was a teensy bit slanted toward the right, what with all the right wing commenters and all, get a load of this:

“The people of Germany in a free election selected the Nazi party because they made great promises that appealed to them because they were desperate and destitute. And why is that? Because Germany was bankrupt…The truth is, 70 years later, we are drifting on the tides toward another beachhead and it is the bankruptcy of the United States of America.

Over the next several years, every time a program began to fall apart, Mr. Hitler’s party was very, very good at dividing Germany by pointing to this group or that group. First they went after their political opponents. Then they went after the aristocrats. Then they went after the trade unionists. And ultimately of course they went after the Jews. They deprived them of their property, their rights, their citizenship, and for millions their humanity. Because they were bankrupt!”

Needless to say, it’s all the tax and spend liberals’ fault because they’re so divisive. Just like Hitler.

By the way, that was Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s finest Tea Party candidate in 2012, at the state Republican convention.

.

Rand Paul: libertarian hawk


by digby

Oh heck:

After a nearly 13 hour-long filibuster a year ago where he demanded the government reform of the drone program abroad and domestically, Senator Rand Paul has warned the five freed Taliban members of possible strikes against them.

While talking with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto on “Your World with Neil Cavuto” following the prisoner trade of five Guantanamo Bay detainees for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Senator Paul said, “there would be a drone with their name on it.”

Senator Paul continued by saying “if people plot to attack our country, they will be dealt with, and they will be dealt harshly.”
[…]
Senator Paul also took time to criticize President Obama’s decision surrounding the prisoner exchange. The senator, who is aspiring for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said he could never imagine a circumstance in which he would engage in open trade with enemy forces.

So really, his only “libertarian” principles are getting rid of taxes and regulations for rich people and businesses. The political establishment must be so pleased.

FYI, Mr Google tells me that drones and missiles are quite expensive:

A Reaper drone costs $28 million; one Hellfire missile (Lockheed Martin/Raytheon) costs about $70,000; one Paveway bomb (Lockheed Martin/Raytheon) about $20,000. The total cost of one weapons load for a Reaper – four Hellfire/ two Paveway – is at least $320,000, a third of a million dollars.

I don’t know how much it cost to keep those 5 Taliban but I’m going to guess it was in the millions. Considering that all five were captured while trying to make a deal in the early days of the Afghan war, I’m going to guess that if Rand wants his tax cuts for the job creators, the lowly working stiffs are going to have to pony up some more money to keep this whole operation going. Somebody’s got to pay the freight.

By the way, do yourself a favor and read the story of how the five Taliban “worst of the worst” were captured. I think we have graduated fully from tragedy to farce at this point.

Update: Did I say farce? Oy

“First of all, I wouldn’t release these men,” McCain told CNN host Candy Crowley.

“Ever?” Crowley wondered.

“Not these men,” McCain insisted. “They were judged time after time during their confinement in Guantanamo, they were evaluated and judged as too great a risk to release. That was the judgement made.”

The Arizona Republican argued that Bergdahl knew when he joined the military that he was taking “certain risks, and among those risks are wounding, death, imprisonment. That’s why we cherish and love all of those men and women who serve so much.”

Crowley pointed out McCain had supported a prisoner exchange with the Taliban to save Bergdahl earlier this year.

McCain, however, insisted that the president had chosen the wrong prisoners, but refused to say exactly which detainees he would have selected.

“First of all, we’re not sending everybody home,” he chuckled. “We are going to send them — even if we close Guantanamo — we are going to send them to facilities inside the United States of America, that’s been the plan all along.”

“Second of all, I believe we should keep these people because they are hardcore jihadists who are responsible for 9/11,” McCain continued. “Of course, nobody wants to release people who are responsible for 9/11, and these people that are released that were Taliban governing worked hand-in-glove with al Qaeda.”

Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was the former top prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, told MSNBC on Saturday that the prisoners released in exchanged for Bergdahl were so inconsequential that he did not even know who they were.

“My role as chief prosecutor was to review the information we had on the detainees to determine which ones we could potentially bring war crimes charges against,” Davis recalled. “When I saw the names of the five individuals, when they were reported last weekend, my first reaction was, ‘Who are they?’”

“I never saw the names before, which means there was not enough information to even make it on our list of potential prosecution,” he explained. “To trade five of them for a U.S. service member, in my estimation, and I’m often critical of President [Barack] Obama, I think they struck a pretty good deal.”

Honestly, it’s just hopeless.

.