Last night’s winter finale of the new ABC drama Quantico and was chockfull of unrealistic politics – and unintentional comedy! The present day storyline of the episode “Inside” had the Democratic National Convention starting in New York City the day after Grand Central Station was bombed and over 100 people were killed. Right, the DNC would TOTALLY take place as scheduled the day after a terrorist bombing in the same city!
Surveillance

On Monday on Twitter, National Review writer Charles C. W. Cooke called out the hypocrisy of the New York Times, as he posted a contrast, a Times flip-flop: a 2014 Editorial Board write-up on how the “Terror Watch Lists Run Amok” and a 2015 Editorial Board write-up on why Republicans are showing “Tough Talk and a Cowardly Vote on Terrorism” by refusing to let the terror watch lists run amok.
On Monday's Morning Joe, the crew discussed New York Police Commissioner William Bratton's appearance on Sunday's Meet the Press. Joe Scarborough played a clip of Bratton begging Congress to pass a law preventing people on the government's terrorism watch list from buying guns. Scarborough echoed the plea as well.
A special Saturday edition of Fox News Channel’s Special Report aired due to the terror attacks 24 hours earlier in Paris with a panel of The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes, U.S. News & World Report’s David Catanese, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer. Collectively, the panel had a variety of takes, ranging from slamming the Democratic presidential candidates for seeming “very small” after the attacks to observing that the U.S. has not “done whatever it takes” to stop ISIS.

Blindspot’s most recent episode, “Persecute Envoys,” spent most of its airtime stoking anti-police sentiment and blaming the deaths of several New York police officers on their own captain. But the show’s writers weren’t willing to settle for pushing just one liberal narrative. Instead, we get another twofer - defending Planned Parenthood AND hitting a, presumably conservative, congressman for hypocrisy on abortion.

Appearing as a guest on Monday's The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, during a discussion of recent mass shootings, CNN host Ashleigh Banfield declared that it is "amazing" that, although "those who support gun ownership and gun rights" treat the Second Amendment as "unassailable," they wish to "tear apart the Fourth Amendment" to fight terrorism.
Near the end of the show, after The Nightly Show contributor Andy Yard cracked that he was surprised that no gun laws were passed after the Sandy Hook attack because "little white kids got shot," since "anytime something happens to little white kids, 'Oh, [bleep].'" Banfield moments later took aim at those who oppose more gun laws:

Two U.S. Senators -- one Republican, the other a socialist who votes with the Democrats -- are outside candidates for president. Both were profiled in Monday's New York Times, but with quite different results. While Rand Paul's anti-surveillance crusade was caricatured as cynical "sloganeering," socialist Bernie Sanders' modest Iowa crowds (100 people instead of 50?) were hailed as a liberal insurrection.

Not the endorsement someone heading into the Republican primaries would normally want, but it's the one Rand Paul got. On today's This Week [hosted by Jonathan Karl in the absence of Stephanopoulos], far-left Rep. Keith Ellison declared that on a variety of issues he is "proud to stand" with Rand Paul.
Roll the video and watch Bill Kristol look on beningly as Ellison praises Paul. Let's read Bill's mind: every Ellison accolade was another chunk of GOP primary voters lost for Kristol's least-favorite Republican candidate. In the unkindest cut, Kristol claimed that it was Paul standing with Ellison, not the other way around,since Ellison and his fellow lefties were first to stake out those positions and Paul has now decided to become a "liberal Democrat" on them. Ouch!
The Wednesday editions of ABC’s World News Tonight and CBS Evening News ignored the news that Republican Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Rand Paul (Ky.) launched a new marathon speech on the Senator floor hours earlier in protest of the federal government’s collection of phone records. While ABC and CBS failed to cover this story, NBC Nightly News offered a 26-second news brief on the issue.

Plenty of opinion to go around on whether ex-intelligence contractor Edward Snowden is a traitor or candidate for canonization.
But a liberal radio host who clearly opts for the latter is unwilling to concede that it wasn't just Americans who learned previously classified information about government surveillance and data mining from Snowden's leaks to the media in 2013.

New York Times campaign reporter Jeremy Peters on Tuesday lent libertarian-Republican Sen. Rand Paul some slight, cynical support toward his attempt to repeal the Patriot Act, yet maintained his personal hostility toward both the GOP, which "demands fealty to hawkish dogma on national security and defense," and the candidate himself, who "can't stop swearing" and whose "mouth gets him in trouble."

On Sunday night, HBO’s John Oliver aired his exclusive interview with Edward Snowden and repeatedly mocked the intelligence of the American public. During the interview, Oliver claimed that when it comes to foreign surveillance, Americans “don’t give any remote sh** about [it].”
