Military

CNN’s Brooke Baldwin suggested during the Tuesday afternoon edition of CNN Newsroom that U.S. military veterans who become police officers were to blame for the recent string of violence involving police officers in that they return home “from war” and are “ready to do battle.” Baldwin recalled a conversation with a Baltimore City councilman about police officers not living “in the communities”…

Let's begin by answering Andrea Mitchell's question. "How would it have appeared" if Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake had called the Maryland governor to request National Guard troops just afer Freddie Gray's funeral? It would have appeared that she was doing her job, protecting people and property, rather than being overly concerned with photo-op politics. On her MSNBC show today,…

A decade ago, a Gold Star Mom who had lost her son in Iraq gained national attention when she staged a protest against the Iraq War near George W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Leftist PR flaks took control of Cindy Sheehan's every move, keeping her in the headlines for months on end as a symbol of supposedly strong opposition to the war which toppled Saddam Hussein. In August 2005, New York…

Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Jackie Crosby's writeup on how "Minnesota has been losing residents to other states" since 2002, and that it's especially troubling because "young adults are leaving in the greatest numbers," contained an enormous blind spot. The Gopher State, aka the Land of 10,000 Lakes, is also sardonically known as the Land of 10,000 Taxes by many residents, and with good…

Mary Anne Weaver appeared on today's Morning Joe to discuss her New York Times Magazine cover article "Her Majesty's Jihadists." On the one hand, Weaver paints a striking portrait of the radicalization of young Muslims in the UK, reporting for example that there are more British jihadists than there are Muslims serving in the British military. But when asked what could be done about the problem,…

Ronald Reagan: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: we win and they lose." Thomas Friedman on Barack Obama: "He actually knows what America looks like from the outside in. And he can actually see America even to some point from the Iranian perspective." So whom will history record as being more effective in countering America's…

For Iran, Mike?  On today's Morning Joe, reliable Obama fan Mike Barnicle managed to keep a straight face while lauding the Iran deal as an "extraordinary feat." He did so despite poll numbers displayed showing that a huge majority of Americans don't think the ayatollahs will keep their promises. Let's see: sanctions lifted while centrifuges keep spinning and nuclear scientists beaver away in…

On Thursday night, the top English and Spanish broadcast networks made no mention of the latest surrounding the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal as an Associated Press (AP) investigation found that the number of delays for veterans seeking care has not improved as the scandal approaches its first anniversary.

Much of today's Morning Joe was devoted to a discussion of Rolling Stone's failed journalism on the UVa story. Maybe Mika Brzezinski should look in the mirror: she began her interview of Wendy Sherman, the chief US negotiator on the Iran deal, by offering her "congratulations."  Even Sherman herself had the sense to suggest that congratulations were not yet in order. In contrast, Joe Scarborough…

On Sunday night, HBO’s John Oliver aired his exclusive interview with Edward Snowden and repeatedly mocked the intelligence of the American public. During the interview, Oliver claimed that when it comes to foreign surveillance, Americans “don’t give any remote sh** about [it].” 

In an exclusive interview with new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie grilled the Pentagon chief on the Bowe Bergdahl exchange: "Do you think that the White House made a mistake in wrapping its arms around Bowe Bergdahl and saying, for example, that he served with honor and distinction, when the administration knew there were at least questions about…

Bush Derangement Syndrome is alive, well, and living in the head of Nancy A. Youssef at the Daily Beast. In a March 26 item tagged "Fallen Hero" (?!) about the Army charging Bowe Bergdahl with "desertion and misbehaving before the enemy," the web site's Senior National Security Correspondent wrote that "the administration celebrated negotiating his release after years of failed bids by both the…

Many people fantasize about what they’d try to accomplish if they were president of the United States. Some even write it down, and a few publish their thoughts, as Moore did earlier this week in the 150th-anniversary issue of The Nation. A few of the ítems on Moore’s list of twenty seem to be meant humorously (e.g., “free HBO for everyone”) but he’s serious about the clear majority of them,…

While on Thursday’s edition of The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich expressed concern that the media has been covering the terrorist group ISIS too heavily and in turn has been causing the group’s ranks to swell. After being asked by host Larry Wilmore to explain why “all these westerners [are] joining ISIS,” Reich dismissed that premise by declaring that “there…