ISIS

Daily Kos Writer: Republican Response to Paris Attacks ‘More Tragic’ Than Attacks Themselves
By Tom Johnson | November 24, 2015 | 11:25 AM EST

Liberals sometimes say that law enforcement’s approach to the Mafia offers a model for how to deal with jihadists, even though the latter tend not to limit their demands to protection money. This past Sunday, Egberto Willies claimed that if terrorist attacks were “treated as they should be, like organized crime, it would neuter ISIS. After all…the group is no more powerful than a large band of thugs with weapons.”

But crimefighting methods weren’t the main concern of Willies’s piece. Rather, it was his belief that “neocons” wish to exploit fear of terrorism in order to start a war which would “transfer wealth from the masses to the few owners of the defense industrial complex.” Willies also ranted that conservatives don’t take a back seat to Islamist fanatics when it comes to lethality: “America's right-wing mass killers and gang bangers have killed more people in the West than ISIS has.”

After Paris, CNN’s Stelter Dismisses American Fear of Terrorism
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 23, 2015 | 3:48 PM EST

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, CNN’s Brian Stelter did his best to play up how after the Paris terrorist attack many Americans have had a “fearful, sometimes even xenophobic” reaction. At the same time, the CNN host dismissed fears of a future terrorist attack us unwarranted and irrational. He touted the standard liberal line that much of America’s reaction has been “xenophobic” based in “fear which is a “crippling poison.”

NBC’s Guthrie Fails to Ask John Kerry About His Charlie Hebdo Comments
By Jeffrey Meyer | November 23, 2015 | 10:34 AM EST

On Monday’s Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie grilled Secretary of State John Kerry on the United States’ strategy to defeat ISIS yet the NBC host failed to question Kerry on his recent inflammatory comments in which he suggested a rationale existed for the terrorists that attacked Charlie Hebdo's headquarters in January. 

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.”

Mother Jones Blogger: Obama’s Response to ISIS Hardly His ‘Finest Hour,’ But GOP ‘Much Worse’
By Tom Johnson | November 21, 2015 | 11:56 AM EST

President Obama deserves high marks for his ISIS policy only if you’re grading on a curve and the other students are Republicans who “can't be bothered to take any of this seriously,” suggested Kevin Drum in a Thursday post.

Drum charged that GOPers “blather about Obama being weak, but when you ask them for their plans you just get nonsense…Obama's ISIS strategy has [not] been golden. But Republicans make him look like Alexander the Great. They treat the whole subject like a plaything, a useful cudgel during a presidential campaign. Refugees! Kurds! Radical Islam! We need to be tougher!...That isn't leadership. It barely even counts as coherent thought. It's just playground jeering.”

NYT's Krugman: Bullying, Cowardly Right Wing Is All About Panic Over Paris Terrorism
By Clay Waters | November 20, 2015 | 9:40 PM EST

Why do right-wingers "panic "over the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Ebola epidemic, and Obama-care? Because they're bullies and cowards, Paul Krugman explained in his Friday column, "The Farce Awakens." While the news pages of the New York Times have been relatively sober in the aftermath of the attacks by radical Islamists in Paris, Krugman has been his same old nastily sarcastic self, to the sole benefit of his equally smug leftist devotees.

CNN's Costello Hounds Democratic Rep. Over Syrian Refugee Vote
By Matthew Balan | November 20, 2015 | 5:30 PM EST

On Friday's CNN Newsroom, Carol Costello badgered Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader over his vote in favor of additional scrutiny for Syrian refugees applying to enter the U.S. Costello spotlighted how "some on Twitter have not been kind — calling you a traitor to Oregon and...xenophobic," and how "some say the intent of this bill is to really create so many checks that it will be impossible for any Syrian refugee to come into this country any time soon." She later touted how "some say that's just one part of what some call what's becoming a disturbing climate in America."

Sally Kohn: Christian Fundamentalists, Similar to ISIS, Perpetually Hostile
By Michael McKinney | November 20, 2015 | 3:07 PM EST

On Friday, Sally Kohn took to The Daily Beast to argue that we should all be heartened by the fact that  “The Religious Fundamentalists Are Losing.” In making her case, Kohn compared Christian ‘hardliners’ – you social conservative ones who are pro-life and pro-traditional marriage – with DAESH, or ISIS as many in the West know it.

NYT's Kristof Delivers Smug, Historically Foolish Lecture on Admitting Syrian Refugees; Lead Editorial Cries 'Xenophobia'
By Clay Waters | November 20, 2015 | 1:03 PM EST

Nicholas Kristof's column for Thursday's New York Times was full of sanctimony and misinformation on the issue of the United States accepting Syrian refugees, in the wake of the atrocities committed by radical Islamists in Paris. Meanwhile the lead editorial accused the GOP of fostering "xenophobia" by calling for a pause in allowing refugees from Syria into the country. But a normally liberal columnist attacked Obama's flatness in the face of Paris and lamented the loss of American spine in the war on terror.

Mohyeldin: 'Important to Emphasize We Don't Know Identity' of Mali Gunmen
By Mark Finkelstein | November 20, 2015 | 7:22 AM EST

Joe Scarborough opened today's Morning Joe with coverage of the unfolding terror attack in Mali, and promptly turned to Ayman Mohyeldin for a report.

The very first words out of Mohyeldin's mouth were "it's important to emphasize we still don't know the identity of these gunmen who have taken the hotel hostage." Great point, Ayman. I mean, sure, they were yelling Allah Akhbar, and released hostages who could recite passages from the Koran. But can anyone prove they're not a bunch of Yale frat boys on early Spring Break wearing hideously inappropriate Halloween costumes? Or perhaps some insufficiently sensitive Mizzou administrators invading the safe space of the hotel guests? 

NYT's Classless Krugman on Paris: 'Nothing... Suggests' We Should 'Change How We See the World'
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.

Networks Fail to Cover Arrest of Five U.S.-Bound Syrians in Honduras with Stolen Passports
By Curtis Houck | November 18, 2015 | 8:54 PM EST

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.