On Monday's CNN Tonight, during a discussion of Islamophobia with liberal CNN commentator Charles Blow and right-leaning CNN commentator Buck Sexton, host Don Lemon played a clip of a Saturday Night Live parody exaggerating the views of right-leaning Americans toward Syrian refugees, and then asserted that "it's not far from what some of the candidates are saying."
Immigration
By Brad Wilmouth | November 24, 2015 | 1:47 PM EST
On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, as co-host Chris Cuomo debated Republican Rep. Steve King on whether Syrian refugees should be allowed into the U.S., the CNN host absurdly suggested that barring refugees might "help ISIS" because it would be "playing into ISIS's hands" by "showing that you are against these people who are desperate."
As he closed the interview for breaking news, he also got in a last-minute dig as he suggested that opponents of bringing refugees to America were "blaming the victims."
By Brad Wilmouth | November 24, 2015 | 1:34 AM EST
On Monday's The Situation Room on CNN, host Wolf Blitzer described Republican presidential candidates as putting out a "steady drumbeat" of "harsh anti-Muslim sentiments" because of their expressed concerns about ISIS terrorists exploiting America's refugee program to enter the country, even though the candidates who want to restrict immigration of Syrian refugees still support helping establish refugee camps near Syria, and mostly support increasing military efforts to combat the terrorists who persecute them.
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 5:51 PM EST
On Monday's New Day, CNN's Chris Cuomo attacked both Donald Trump and the majority of the American public for their stance against allowing 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country. Cuomo asserted that Trump was "playing into an us versus them mentality," and spotlighted the latest Bloomberg poll result on the issue: "Look at the numbers on the Syrian situation. Look at what the American people say...We haven't seen numbers like this in America since 1938, when people were obviously desperate; obviously, running for their lives."
By Matthew Balan | November 23, 2015 | 1:03 PM EST
Manuel Bojorquez zeroed in on the plight of a Syrian refugee family in Texas on Monday's CBS This Morning, and played up how they "feel misjudged after the Paris attacks, and after Texas recently ordered volunteer organizations that help resettle refuges from Syria to discontinue those plans immediately." Bojorquez later spotlighted how "about dozen people — some armed with long guns — protested in front of a mosque outside Dallas" against the Obama administration's plan to bring 10,000 refugees from Syria.
By Brad Wilmouth | November 23, 2015 | 12:36 AM EST
Appearing as a panel member on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus had sudden respect for former President George W. Bush as she declared that she was "nostalgic for the good old days" when President Bush had "soothing, calming responsible words about Muslims" in contrast with the "very ugly week for Republicans" since the Paris attacks.
Washington Monthly Blogger: Our Political Discussion Is Driven By ‘Non-Problems That the Republicans Have Dreamed Up’
By Tom Johnson | November 22, 2015 | 1:28 PM EST The left tends to believe that Republicans, for whatever reason, are a lot better than Democrats at messaging and salesmanship. In that vein, Martin Longman argues that GOPers have a flair for fabricating issues -- “non-problems,” Longman calls them -- which distract the public from real problems.
“There was the non-problem with Fast & Furious,” wrote Longman in a Friday post. “There was the non-problem of professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Shirley Sherrod and Solyndra and ACORN and in-person voter fraud and the IRS and the so-called Benghazi cover-up and the Ebola panic and now Syrian refugees…We seem to be living in a political world that is driven less by problems than non-problems that the Republicans have dreamed up or trumped up.”
By Matthew Balan | November 20, 2015 | 1:01 PM EST
Friday's CBS This Morning hyped that "thousands on the government's terrorist watch list...bought firearms in the last decade...and all of the sales were legal." Nancy Cordes played up that a bill to "close that loophole" that has been introduced for eight straight years has "gone nowhere" due to opposition from the NRA and congressional Republicans. Cordes later hinted that House Speaker Paul Ryan and his GOP caucus had a double standard on national security, for opposing closing the "loophole," but supporting a bill to "beef up screening of Syrian refugees."
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2015 | 9:13 PM EST
NBC Nightly News lashed out at conservatives and Republicans on Thursday for creating an “ugly” and “angry debate” with President Obama over whether to accept Syrian refugees while gushing how Hillary Clinton was “[g]oing against the tide” of a bipartisan majority of voters and members of the House in backing the President.
By Curtis Houck | November 19, 2015 | 4:40 PM EST
According to Politico, NBC News President Deborah Turness had another public relations snafu fall into her lap this week, but this one was self-inflicted as she told a group of Hispanic lawmakers (i.e. Democrats) that illegal immigrants were “illegals” and later flopped in trying to speak in Spanish to show them that she’s committed to diversity at NBC.
By Matthew Balan | November 19, 2015 | 3:56 PM EST
CNN correspondent Elise Labott bemoaned that the House of Representatives voted to "to intensify security screenings of Syrian refugees and suspend Obama's program to admit 10,000 of them in the next year," as Reuters reported on Thursday. In a Thursday post on Twitter, Labott linked to her network's reporting on the 289 to 137 vote, and added her own over-the-top commentary: "House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees. Statue of Liberty bows head in anguish".
By Michael McKinney | November 19, 2015 | 3:41 PM EST
On Tuesday, The Atlantic featured an article that lamented decades of Republican race-baiting in presidential campaigns. The piece by [authors] allow that race-baiting “does not mean that those who employ them are racists,” but it does “show a willingness to exploit societal ills for political gain.” The authors don’t think Republicans are racists, just that Republicans have a tendency to exploit racist attitudes across America.