On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and liberal analyst Rula Jebreal bewailed the latest poll that found that 53 percent are opposed to letting in 10,000 Syrian refugees. Kristof hyped that "this almost exactly matches up a poll in January 1939 of whether or not to admit 10,000 mostly Jewish children into the U.S.....in retrospect, we clearly acknowledge that was a shameful period in American history." Jebreal slammed this majority as "racist," and cried, "They're weaponizing fear! That poll reflects fear."
Islam
By Clay Waters | November 19, 2015 | 10:05 AM EST
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, economist turned Democratic hack, displayed his usual lack of class in the face of human tragedy in a series of nytimes.com blog posts, turning the Paris massacres by radical Islamists into personal attacks on Republicans ("It took no time at all for the right-wing response to the Paris attacks to turn into a vile caricature that has me feeling nostalgic for the restraint and statesmanship of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney"), while also suggesting that in the grand scheme of things they weren't that big a deal after all, except perhaps as a small economic boost.
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 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 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 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.
Vox Writer: When GOP Candidates Talk About ISIS, They Sound Like ‘Status-Obsessed, Chest-Beating Adolescents’
By Tom Johnson | November 17, 2015 | 9:27 PM EST Last week, ex-Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala snarked on CNN that during the most recent Republican presidential debate, the candidates mentioned Hillary Clinton so often that they came off as “creepy…in a stalker sort of way…Maybe it's affectionate…Maybe they’re like junior high schoolboys.”
Vox's David Roberts has joined Begala in likening the GOP contenders to middle- or high-schoolers, but his concern is aggression, not affection. In a Monday series of sixteen tweets later collated and posted on the magazine’s site, Roberts argued that when the candidates talk about how they’d deal with ISIS, they sound like “insecure, hormone-ridden teenage boy[s]” and “status-obsessed, chest-beating adolescents.”
By Curtis Houck | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same city on Friday.
By Dylan Gwinn | November 17, 2015 | 8:52 PM EST
So, this happened. During an international soccer match between Turkey and Greece (I won’t use the term friendly, for reasons you’re about to see and hear. In addition to the fact that Turkey and Greece hate each other) a moment of silence was called for, to remember the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris.Only one problem. There was very, very little silence as Turkish fans started booing.
By Michael McKinney | November 17, 2015 | 1:56 PM EST
Morning Joe featured on Tuesday, an interview with Congressman Peter King. Early into the segment, Mika Brzezinski began a war of words with Congressman King. After Brzezinski introduced the topic, King stated, “I'm extremely concerned because what the President is telling us is not true.” Brzezinski interrupted the Congressman, saying that “there is vetting,” and arguing that he was wrong. What followed was a tense segment where the Morning Joe crew questioned King on his statements and his argument’s credibility.
By Tom Blumer | November 17, 2015 | 11:10 AM EST
The Washington Post's Erik Wemple and certain "I walked through Bedford Stuy alone" reporters are contending that, in Wemple's words, "the term 'no-go zone' is best left in retirement." No sir, it needs to be defined appropriately, then used when appropriate.
Avoiding use of the term enables a dangerous detachment from reality. There is already quite a surplus of that. Patrick J. McDonnell at the Los Angeles Times, who seems to believe that he proved something by visiting the jihadi-infested neighborhood of Molenbeek and getting out alive, demonstrated how out of touch he is by referring on Monday — three days after the Paris terror attacks and at least two days after the parties involved and their backgrounds were firmly established — to "the so-called Belgian connection in the Paris attacks." Holy moly, Patrick. What about Molenbeek being "home to two" of the Paris attack terrorists who died during their attacks and to the plots' mastermind, Salah Abdeslam, do you not comprehend?