Foreign Policy

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…

NBC Nightly News lashed out at conservatives and Republicans on Thursday for creating an “ugly” and “angry debate” with President Obama over whether to accept Syrian refugees while gushing how Hillary Clinton was “[g]oing against the tide” of a bipartisan majority of voters and members of the House in backing the President.

Politico's Hadas Gold revealed on Thursday that CNN suspended correspondent Elise Labott for two weeks, after she decried the 289 to 137 vote on Syrian refugees by the House of Representatives: "House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees. Statue of Liberty bows head in anguish".

Add what follows to the long list of items we should be reading about in wire service reports but instead must find in the editorial sections of the nation's two leading business newspapers. An Islamist organization tied to the Muslim Brotherhood is involved in the screening potential Syrian refugees allegedly receive before being allowed to come to the United States. Investor's Business Daily…

CNN correspondent Elise Labott bemoaned that the House of Representatives voted to "to intensify security screenings of Syrian refugees and suspend Obama's program to admit 10,000 of them in the next year," as Reuters reported on Thursday. In a Thursday post on Twitter, Labott linked to her network's reporting on the 289 to 137 vote, and added her own over-the-top commentary: "House passes bill…

On Tuesday, The Atlantic featured an article that lamented decades of Republican race-baiting in presidential campaigns. The piece by [authors] allow that race-baiting “does not mean that those who employ them are racists,” but it does “show a willingness to exploit societal ills for political gain.” The authors don’t think Republicans are racists, just that Republicans have a tendency to exploit…

On Wednesday's CNN Tonight, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and liberal analyst Rula Jebreal bewailed the latest poll that found that 53 percent are opposed to letting in 10,000 Syrian refugees. Kristof hyped that "this almost exactly matches up a poll in January 1939 of whether or not to admit 10,000 mostly Jewish children into the U.S.....in retrospect, we clearly acknowledge that was a…

Several times in the past, we've heard President Barack Obama, and occasionally his press secretary, tell America that the nation's commander-in-chief learned about certain events the same way many of the rest of us did: by seeing them on TV or reading newspaper accounts. A Republican or conservative president hauling out this excuse even once would face endless outrage and ridicule, respectively…

On Thursday, nearly 48 hours after Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that there was a “legitimacy” or a “rationale” behind the January terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, NBC’s Today finally noticed the highly controversial remarks. ABC and CBS continued to ignore Kerry’s offensive comments.

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…

I took some flak awhile back for saying that--his liberalism notwithstanding--Chris Matthews had a patriotic streak. More evidence for that notion on this evening's Hardball, as Matthews twice derided President Obama's response to ISIS as "dainty," and kvetched that "I don't see us doing anything."  

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.

Pulling an Officer Barbrady, the Reuters news wire this afternoon essentially told us all to "move along, people" as regards news of five Syrians caught in Honduras bound for the U.S. with fake Greek passports.