Conservatives & Republicans

Roughly 30 minutes after (perhaps appropriately) ripping into the media for their labeling of ISIS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud the “mastermind” of Friday’s Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, MSNBC’s Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell struck out against Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) for engaging in “predictable, childish bluster” by responding to President Obama’s denouncement of his stance…

Following the Wednesday morning newscasts in which ABC, CBS, and NBC praised the “outraged” President Obama for “slamming” Republican wanting to restrict Syrian refugees, the “big three” were back on the case Wednesday night in spinning for the President. However, CBS and NBC did make time to include how polls now show a majority of Americans want to put a moratorium on refugees for the time…

Appearing on Wednesday’s NBC Today, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge repeatedly ripped President Obama’s failing foreign policy against ISIS as co-hosts Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer sat back without comment.

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.

In a combative exchange that aired on the Tuesday edition of ABC’s World News Tonight, chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl hinted to Republican Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) that he was “un-American” for suggesting that only Syrian refugees who are Christian should be admitted the United States while a moratorium would be placed on those that are Muslim.

Last week, ex-Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala snarked on CNN that during the most recent Republican presidential debate, the candidates mentioned Hillary Clinton so often that they came off as “creepy…in a stalker sort of way…Maybe it's affectionate…Maybe they’re like junior high schoolboys.” Vox's David Roberts has joined Begala in likening the GOP contenders to middle- or high-schoolers, but…

CNN's Dana Bash hounded Senator Ted Cruz on Tuesday's New Day over President Obama slamming the Republican presidential candidate at a press conference earlier in the day. Bash touted how "President Obama called you out...and he said it was shameful for saying that there should be, effectively, a religious test for refugees — especially since...your family benefitted from the policies of America…

Appearing as a guest on Monday's CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem used tortured liberal logic to argue that, if the U.S. bars immigrants from Muslim countries, that it would actually make America less safe, not only because it "helps" the "right wing" in Europe, but also because it "gives a sentiment or a statement to ISIS that we are what they think we…

Daily Beast Foreign Editor Christopher Dickey made another MSNBC appearance on Monday afternoon, this time on MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts, where he again went after the "right wing" over negative reaction to taking in Muslim refugees in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks. He also declared that it was "shameful" that some U.S. politicians are pressuring against Syrian refugees being…

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz pushed back against a "ridiculous" Politifact post which labeled his true claim that the Democratic Party is shrinking as "mostly false." Politifact's Emma Hinchliffe had to go back 11 years to a now-irrelevant time period to unsuccessfully attempt to refute Cruz's inconvenient truth, citing Gallup poll figures from 2004.…

Many on the left have accused conservatives of exploiting the Paris terrorist attacks for political gain. On Monday, Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas jumped on the pile, alleging that the right’s main reaction to the attacks was not sadness or outrage, but “excitement” over the prospect of stirring up Islamophobia -- perhaps to the point of getting the Middle East war that they…

In an interview with former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie was incredulous of his criticism of President Obama’s strategy against ISIS: “You wrote in The Washington Post that the President should wage war to defeat ISIS, quote, ‘not merely to harass it.’ That is pretty tough language. Let me be direct with you, are you saying the…

Appearing as a guest during Sunday's live CNN coverage of the Paris terrorist attacks, CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem worried that, if the United States refuses to allow Syrian refugees into the country, that it would bolster "very right-wing elements" in Europe, leading the Europeans to "close their borders" to more refugees. At about 6:48 p.m., after arguing that it would be…

Over the past several years, many former or reformist conservatives have wondered how the Republican party might be reclaimed from its volcanically angry, Fox-News-and-talk-radio-driven base. One ex-conservative, The Week columnist Linker, suggests that righty intellectuals ought to catalyze the process. In a Friday column, Linker wrote that he couldn’t understand “how an intelligent, well-read…