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.

Carol Costello was true to her liberal form on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom during a segment with Rick Tyler, Senator Ted Cruz's campaign spokesman. Costello asserted that "Ben Carson didn't exactly give riveting answers" during the latest GOP presidential debate, and asked, "Why did no one challenge him on that?" She also wondered, "Is it too politically dangerous to attack Ben Carson, or to even challenge him on things that he says that don't make sense?"

After pressing Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan on the issue of whether the federal government should require employers to provide paid family leave in a pre-recorded interview aired on Sunday's State of the Union, CNN correspondent Dana Bash made two appearances on Monday in which she used this portion of the interview to again bring up the issue.

Appearing on both CNN New Day and again on CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, Bash described the U.S. as "way far behind" other countries. She also recounted that "most civilized nations" mandate such a guarantee to their workers.

On Monday's CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin rebuked a guest who bluntly labeled Michael Brown a "thug." Former DEA agent David Katz underlined that Darren Wilson was "by all accounts, a good police officer — did exactly what an officer is supposed to do. He was set upon by a thug named Michael Brown, who just moments before, strong-armed an Indian-American half his size." Baldwin interjected, "Come on, though. We don't need to call — let's not — 'thug'?" Katz retorted, "What epithet would you charge?" The anchor replied, "Let's just say 'Michael Brown.'"

On Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN's Drew Griffin hounded David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress over his insertion of outside footage into his undercover videos that targeted Planned Parenthood's sale of aborted babies' organs and tissue. Griffin underlined to Daleiden that "the problem people are having is, that this is not an aborted child...that does seem very deceptive to me." He also played up that "the confusion of David Daleiden's sloppy edits has made its way into the Republican presidential race."