Foreign Policy
LIBERIA, Costa Rica — In the ongoing U.S. debate about immigration, the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are mainly in the news because many of those crossing our border from Mexico are from these nations. Why isn't Costa Rica experiencing a similar mass exodus? I put the question to President Carlos Alvarado Quesada. In an email response he writes in part, “8 percent of our GDP is dedicated to education and our main resource is the human talent and well-being of the people who live in our country. Next Monday, for example, we will celebrate 150 years of primary education for free for all kids in the country.”
The U.S. government and the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei have been locked in battle for the future of wireless technology with U.S. Officials concerned that the company will give Beijing a backdoor for intelligence gathering.
On Sunday's AM Joy on MSNBC, during a discussion of conservative reaction to Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar dismissively referring to the 9/11 attacks as "some people did something," Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin slammed Fox News as an entity that is "endangering people of color" and "destroying political thought."
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested, and the front page of Friday’s New York Times featured Scott Shane and Steven Erlanger’s recap of Assange and the effect of his leaking of classified national security information (and Democratic Party secrets) in “A Divisive Prophet of the Public’s Right to Know.” The paper noticed that the tide of sophisticated opinion, once favorable to the Assange, turned in 2016, when Assange’s actions started hurting Democrats and helping the hated Donald Trump. But Shane and Erlanger didn’t make an issue of the glaring political hypocrisy on display or mention the strange new disgust toward Assange coming from the Democratic left.
One more indictment that came as a result of the Trump-Russia probe came tumbling down the pike on Thursday, when a former White House counsel for President Obama was charged with lying to investigators about his foreign lobbying work for Ukraine. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s similar to what former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort was convicted of. But despite the similarities, the airtime dedicated to the indictment by the broadcast networks was grossly lopsided.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested after being kicked out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London...finally. For media who have spent the fast few years focused on the narrative, Assange was seen as the face that symbolized the threat posed to the United States by Russia, second only to Vladimir Putin. However, it wasn't always that way.
Reacting to Rep. Ilhan Omar's description of 9/11 as "some people did some things," Joe Scarborough, on Morning Joe, says, that it's "so important for her to succeed." He and Mika Brzezinski express the wish that instead of tweeting criticism of her statement, Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw had spoken with Omar personally.
On Tuesday afternoon, the flailing, moribund Newsweek released a 4,600-word-plus cover story for its latest issue celebrating the anti-Semitism of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) with the title “How Ilhan Omar Is Changing the Conversation About Israel—and Upending the 2020 Campaign.” And based on the reaction on Twitter (highlighted by our friends at the Daily Caller, Daily Wire, and FoxNews.com), the syrupy Omar profile was ratio’d into oblivion.
On Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski gives a sour, downbeat report on the results of yesterday's elections in Israel, which virtually guarantee that Bibi Netanyahu and his Likud party will be able to form a majority coalition and that he will serve as Prime Minister for a record fifth term.
On Sunday's Up with David Gura on MSNBC, during a panel discussion of President Donald Trump criticizing U.S. immigration policy during a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, host Gura invited Lynn Sweet -- Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Sun-Times -- to complain about Jews who have responded favorably to Trump's rhetoric that was earlier in the segment likened to Nazi Germany.
It was the height of Russia’s meddling the 2016 election when news broke that President Barack Obama spent taxpayer money, to the tune of $350,000, on an Israeli organization that was mobilizing against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during the 2015 election. The news was largely ignored by the liberal media and was omitted by the broadcast networks. Fast-forward to 2019, and CBS Evening News was bemoaning how Netanyahu was inserting President Trump into the current election.
CNN legal analyst says that "for the rest of her life," Kirstjen Nielsen, who is resigning as Homeland Security Secretary, will "get what she deserves" for having implemented family-separation policies and for having "put children in cages."