Europe
In what has to be seen as a bit of a welcome change from the norm, Friday morning coverage at the Associated Press of the Thursday terror attacks in Spain which, as of the time this post was written, had killed a total 14 and injured 125, many seriously, hasn't gone wobbly or weaselly. That said, there's one connection the AP and others in the press haven't made. Someone needs to.
There was sad news out of Barcelona, Spain on Thursday as an apparent ISIS terrorist attack gripped the historic city. As of the writing of this piece, it had been reported that the vehicle attack had claimed the lives of 13 people and left over 100 injured. But despite the attack, and with suspects still at large, NBC Nightly News couldn’t find it in them to shake their Trump fixation. They actually gave Trump-related stories roughly 60 percent more coverage.
Echoing a similar prior sentiment from CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, during MSNBC’s 1 p.m. ET hour on Thursday, NBC News Terrorism Analyst Malcolm Nance argued that violence in Charlottesville, Virginia may have inspired the unfolding vehicle terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was anchoring the network’s breaking news coverage Thursday afternoon on the possible radical Islamic terror attack in Barcelona, Spain when he made the inartful and arguably pathetic assertion that the truck attack could be “a copycat” of the neo-Nazi car attack on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.
I spent much of my Friday binge-watching Comrade Detective, a show that resists genre, but is perfect in its oddity. Released on August 3, Amazon bills the show as a Romanian detective show from the 1980s that was actually thinly disguised anti-capitalist propaganda. They then brought in such talent as Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to dub over the original Romanian dialogue. In reality, this is a new show created to make fun of these old propaganda pieces, and mocks their love of communism and fear of the capitalist west. Yes, it was filmed in Romania with Romanian actors, but specifically for this concept. It's weird, and it completely works.
New York Times’ journalist Adam Nossiter let some righteous pro-refugee anger seep into his Wednesday report from Paris, “France Ordered to Provide Bare Essentials for Migrants -- Policies Assailed As ‘Degrading.’” Nossiter certainly sounded more like an advocate than reporter in his lead: "After banking on neglect, hostility and mistreatment to discourage a steady trickle of migrants, the new French government was ordered by France’s highest administrative body to do better this week and at least provide water and toilets to the people."
Media columnist Jim Rutenberg’s latest New York Times column provided the odd image of a reporter regretting that his colleagues actually covered news, under the neutral headline “Germans Covering Election Await a Trove of Stolen Files.” The Times in 2006 proudly used leaks to cripple anti-terrorist programs put in place by Republican presidents, as well as secret diplomatic cables via the stolen Wikileaks trove. A December 2010 article treated the anti-American oddball Julian Assange and his Wikileaks as a Christmas gift, under the galling title “The Gift of Information.” But publication of the hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee may have hurt Hillary Clinton, so it’s suddenly time to break out the sackcloth and ashes and apologize for actually covering the news.
Here's part of President Donald Trump's speech in Poland: "The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?"
President Donald Trump was compared to another murderous world dictator on Thursday night as MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews suggested Trump is just like former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un since Trump and Kim “love the parades” where they can serve as the star alongside military demonstrations.
On Thursday's The Situation Room on CNN, during a discussion of President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Accord, CNN's Jim Acosta and Jeffrey Toobin both pushed the notion that the liberal view of global theory is "settled science." Toobin: "Do we always talk about climate in terms of the politics of it? The climate is actually a science issue. And the science -- the climate is going to continue warming regardless of what his base wants or, you know, it's actually science and not politics." Acosta: "It's settled science."
Anyone looking for another reason not to leave life-and-death issues to the state need look no further than the conflict between the British government and the parents of 11-month-old Charlie Gard. Governments, including the British courts and the European court of human rights have refused to allow Charlie's parents to take him to the U.S. for what they believe is life-saving treatment.
During a Bastille Day press conference on Thursday with President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, a male French reporter from BFM-TV tried to bait Macron into attacking Trump over his immigration policies and knock Trump down for previous statements about French terror attacks.