Thursday, November 26, 2015

Most Ridiculous Moment - November 22, 2015

"Shootout"

It was a very exciting day on the Sunday talk shows. With terror attacks in Paris and Mali, 
a lockdown in Brussels, and a leading Presidential candidate talking about making all American Muslims register for a database.

ABC's This Week in Fear and Panic sent Martha Raddatz to Brussels, where the 
whole city is on lockdown due to 
an “imminent threat.”

On CBS' Face the Nation, Senator Diane Feinstein called for more force against 
ISIS, and both she and Representative 
McCaul warned against the dangers of encryption, with Feinstein cautioning “terrorists could use PlayStation to be 
able to communicate, and there's nothing that 
can be done about it.”

McCaul is worried about refugees, saying 
“I take ISIS at its word when it says we want 
to exploit the refugee programs to 
infiltrate the West.”

On that same show, Ruth Marcus said “this week I've been nostalgic for the good old days of George W. Bush and his soothing, calming responsible words about Muslims after the 9/11 attacks,” and contrasted that with the “failure of President Obama to explain to people that they weren't crazy to be nervous, but to understand their nervousness and to explain it away.” Host Jon Dickerson followed up by saying “Karl Rove has to respond” to that high praise of his President.

Back on Meet The Press, Leon Panetta argued the U.S. is going to have re-invade Iraq and take territory away from ISIS.

Jon Kasich appeared on that show to argue 
“I think it's the Western ethic, Western civilization that is under attack. They don't want to negotiate. This is almost a metaphysical battle where they are saying they want to destroy our very way of life.”

Metaphysical it may be, but not enough to stop people on the terror watch list from buying guns or explosives, with Kasich saying, “Americans want to defend themselves. And that what we really need to focus on on firearms right now is making sure that states use their databases to upload the people who have mental illnesses.”

Another candidate, Ben Carson, was on 
ABC, where he said we said of ISIS 
“We need to take the land back. You know, the land is just sitting there.” On his lack of experience he said “I hope everybody is on a learning curve,” and “I don't know that it necessarily comes down to politics, it comes down to practical experience solving difficult problems doing things quickly and efficiently.”

Carson called for more monitoring of mosques, but also said we should 
“monitor anything – mosques, church, school, you know, shopping centers where there is a lot of radicalization going on.”

Ben Carson supports torture because it's not politically correct, and is willing to do anything to protect America, saying “We need to get very serious about our intelligence” and “We have to really improve that very significantly. We're talking about the safety of the American people.”

Carson is willing to do anything, except 
limit the sale of guns to terrorists.

On that, he said “You know, I am a big supporter of the Second Amendment, and I don't want to deprive people unnecessarily of that. There needs to be better due process.”

He said “there are a lot of people on that watchlist and they have no idea why they're on that list and they've been trying to get their names off of it and no one will give them information,” and “It's really unfair that people can't get a real hearing. And they get put on a list and nobody can tell them why they're there, and they go through for years and years and they have to be tormented. 
It just doesn't make any sense.”

But the most absurd moments came with George Stephanopoulos' interview with GOP front-runner Donald Trump. George asked him “Are you unequivocally now ruling out a database on all Muslims?” Trump responded, “No, not at all.”

He also supports torture, saying “we have to be strong. You know, they don’t use waterboarding over there – they use chopping off people’s heads. They use drowning people.”

He said “We have to surveil the mosques,” and claimed he's “heard” that the President wants to bring in 250,000 Syrian refugees.

Although the host pointed out it never happened, Trump insisted that on 9/11 “I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down. Thousands of people were cheering.” and “where you have large Arab populations.”

Stephanopoulos asked him several times if individuals on the terror watchlist and the no-fly list should be allowed to buy guns and explosives. Trump at first said if we have an enemy of state, I don't want to give him anything. I want to have him in jail,” but also said “if we know it's an enemy of state, I would keep them away, absolutely.”

He also volunteered, “If in Paris some of those people, if you had some of those people had guns, you wouldn't have had the horror show that you had,” and “if those people in Paris had guns in that room, it would have been a shootout and very few people would have been hurt by comparison to the number that were hurt.”

So, we have to reject women and children fleeing ISIS because we must take ISIS at their word; we should re-invade Iraq because the land is just sitting there; more torture will prevent French and Belgian youths from being radicalized; because we're in a war for Western civilization, we must surveil mosques, we have to monitor people everywhere, and create a database of Muslims; but gun background checks are a torment, and in any case, if there were more guns in Paris it would cause a shootout and few people would have been hurt.


And that's the most ridiculous thing that happened this Sunday.

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