Religion

There's been a lot of arrant nonsense spoken since the Paris attacks, but Margaret Carlson's might just take the cake . . .  On today's Morning Joe, Bloomberg columnist Carlson suggested that because the US is better than Europe at assimilation, potential terrorists sneaking into our country might not carry out their plots. Said Carlson: "maybe they become Americanized, maybe the anger goes away…

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 welcome change of pace for MSNBC programming on Tuesday night, liberal primetime host Rachel Maddow was given the night off in favor of NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who anchored the network’s 9:00 p.m. Eastern coverage of the Paris Islamic terror attacks and closed with a brief but astute commentary on how it’s doubtful that Paris will change the global ISIS strategy.

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…

On Tuesday night, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC saw no reason to inform their viewers of Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that he could recognize there having been a “rationale” and “particularized focus” for Islamic terrorists to carry out the January attacks in Paris on the offices of Charlie Hebdo but not for the “indiscriminate” attacks that occurred in the very same…

Morning Joe featured on Tuesday, an interview with Congressman Peter King. Early into the segment, Mika Brzezinski began a war of words with Congressman King. After Brzezinski introduced the topic, King stated, “I'm extremely concerned because what the President is telling us is not true.” Brzezinski interrupted the Congressman, saying that “there is vetting,” and arguing that he was wrong. What…

The Washington Post's Erik Wemple and certain "I walked through Bedford Stuy alone" reporters are contending that, in Wemple's words, "the term 'no-go zone' is best left in retirement." No sir, it needs to be defined appropriately, then used when appropriate. Avoiding use of the term enables a dangerous detachment from reality. There is already quite a surplus of that. Patrick J. McDonnell at…

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…

Monday’s Morning Joe began with an evaluation of the actions of the White House prior to and after the attack on Paris Friday night. Joe Scarborough began by demanding to know if the roundtable thought the President actually looked involved and engaged in understanding “the level of threat.” When Mike Barnicle tried to claim the President “looks fully engaged,” Scarborough felt it necessary to…

Shortly after the Charlie Hebdo Islamic terrorist murders in Paris in January, the establishment press attacked those who dared to state something quite obvious about "no-go zones" in parts of Europe, i.e., that they exist. The media summarily and unilaterally declared that "no-go zones" were a myth propagated by the likes of Fox News, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, longtime terror expert…

As of early this morning, Matt Drudge was carrying a link to a story headlining how President Obama is "under fire for saying ISIS 'contained' just hours before Paris attack." Well, Obama is under some fire, but Drudge's link is to coverage at the UK Daily Mail. That's unfortunately unsurprising, because there is little to no mention of Obama's naive, foolish and callous statement in the U.S.…

We'll have to live without Chad Henderson's tweets for the time being. Once again, Henderson, as he did in 2013, has taken his Twitter account private, limiting it to "confirmed followers." This time he likely did so in reaction to a NewsBusters post earlier this afternoon by P.J. Gladnick. Henderson first gained notoriety during the initial Obamacare sign-up process in late 2013 when he claimed…

Nearly a half-hour into Saturday’s Democratic presidential debate on CBS, Salon writer Joan Walsh and former Democratic Vermont Governor Howard Dean took to Twitter to blast moderator John Dickerson for merely asking legitimate questions of the candidates on foreign policy and whether or not the United States (and by extension, the West) is at war with “radical Islam.”