Amidst their ongoing coverage Wednesday night of the terror attacks in Paris, the major broadcast networks failed to report on news that five Syrians had been arrested in the Central American country of Honduras with stolen Greek passports and intended to travel to the U.S.
Foreign Policy
By Ken Shepherd | November 18, 2015 | 5:54 PM EST
Pulling an Officer Barbrady, the Reuters news wire this afternoon essentially told us all to "move along, people" as regards news of five Syrians caught in Honduras bound for the U.S. with fake Greek passports.
By Matthew Balan | November 18, 2015 | 3:12 PM EST
On Wednesday's New Day, CNN kept up their skepticism of the Obama administration's talking points on ISIS. Chris Cuomo noted that "the word from the White House is...that we are having success....How does that make sense, given...we just saw what happened in Paris?" Christiane Amanpour threw cold water on John Earnest's claim that there wasn't a military solution for the terrorist group: "You have to eradicate ISIS, and that's not going to happen with some nice de-radicalization programs."
By Michael McKinney | November 18, 2015 | 11:27 AM EST
Morning Joe on Wednesday discussed the recent remarks by President Obama on Republicans who are “afraid of orphans and widows.” When the discussion turned to David Ignatius for commentary, he gave a defense of Obama. Scarborough would press Ignatius with on using "the widows and orphans" to antagonize Republican governors. While Ignatius conceded there is always room to correct the words used, he thought the President was on point.
By Kyle Drennen | November 18, 2015 | 10:32 AM EST
Appearing on Wednesday’s NBC Today, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge repeatedly ripped President Obama’s failing foreign policy against ISIS as co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer sat back without comment.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 18, 2015 | 9:29 AM EST
There's been a lot of arrant nonsense spoken since the Paris attacks, but Margaret Carlson's might just take the cake . . .
On today's Morning Joe, Bloomberg columnist Carlson suggested that because the US is better than Europe at assimilation, potential terrorists sneaking into our country might not carry out their plots. Said Carlson: "maybe they become Americanized, maybe the anger goes away. Maybe what they snuck in to do they're not going to do because we do have an acceptance of these people." Great point, Margaret. If only we'd had a little longer to hug it out with the 9/11 terrorists.
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 18, 2015 | 8:55 AM EST
On Wednesday’s Fox & Friends, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck pressed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest over language used by Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama following last week’s ISIS terrorist attack in Paris.
By Curtis Houck | November 18, 2015 | 7:35 AM EST
As the police shootout and standoff early Wednesday morning in the Paris suburb of Saint Denis, France was in its contentious moments, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and guest Julien Theron couldn’t help but fret about how the standoff was helping to “literally stok[e] the fires of the far right, anti-immigrant, anti-immigration, xenophobic parties” in Europe.
By Curtis Houck | November 18, 2015 | 7:17 AM EST
In a welcome change of pace for MSNBC programming on Tuesday night, liberal primetime host Rachel Maddow was given the night off in favor of NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who anchored the network’s 9:00 p.m. Eastern coverage of the Paris Islamic terror attacks and closed with a brief but astute commentary on how it’s doubtful that Paris will change the global ISIS strategy.
By Mark Finkelstein | November 18, 2015 | 7:09 AM EST
Suggestion for John Kerry: if traveling makes you so tired that you say things undermining the war against radical Islamic terrorism, do us all a favor—stay home on Nantucket and conduct your diplomacy by Skype . . .
On today's Morning Joe, here's how Mark Halperin explained Kerry's despicable statement about the "legitimacy" and "rationale" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks: "Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely." Was Kerry speaking "imprecisely"—or did he let the truth slip of precisely how he and President Obama really feel?
By Tom Blumer | November 18, 2015 | 1:29 AM EST
Michael Weiss and Justin Miller at the Daily Beast are apparently really proud of themselves. They're claiming that because a passport found on one of the terrorists involved in last Friday's terrorist murder spree was a fake, it "means the (U.S.) governors’ freakout over refugees was based, at least in part, on a lie." Based on their headline ("GOP Guvs Rely on ISIS Lies to Reject Syrian Refugees"), their attack was only directed at Republican governors.
There are at least four problems with their assertion. The funniest one is that these two apparently have no business ever being trusted around a calclulator or a spreadsheet. It's either that, or Weiss and Miller really believe that 475 million Syrian refugess are spreading themselves throughout Europe and much of the rest of the world.
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 10:18 PM EST
In a combative exchange that aired on the Tuesday edition of ABC’s World News Tonight, chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl hinted to Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) that he was “un-American” for suggesting that only Syrian refugees who are Christian should be admitted the United States while a moratorium would be placed on those that are Muslim.