Politico:
Christian groups break with GOP over Syrian refugees
Evangelical Christians, as well as Christians more broadly, are a core group in the Republican electoral base and are among the most passionate advocates for aiding refugees.
George Takei. Sulu. Author of Allegiance. One who knows.
Igor Bobic:
Ron Klain, the Obama administration's former point person on Ebola, on Tuesday weighed in on the growing debate in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks of what to do with refugees fleeing Syria's bloody civil war.
It is worth repeating Klain is the former Ebola czar because fears over the deadly virus turned out to be unwarranted. Politicians and the media who fear-mongered over the virus quickly dropped the matter once the hysteria -- and the election -- ended. It wasn't so long ago -- back in October 2014 -- that the nation seemed to lose its collective mind over the deadly virus, calling for travel bans on people from West Africa, the center of the outbreak. A similar pattern can be observed today, with many of the nation's governors coming out against the resettlement of refugees.
Klain argues, as others have, that the U.S. also puts its national security at risk by not allowing refugees into its borders.
Peter Suderman:
Donald Trump, still the co-frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, has doubled down his initial suggestion that, in the wake of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, we must “strongly consider” shutting down some mosques.
Last night, Trump followed up on his initial statement by declaring that mosque closing was not just a possibility but an imperative.
"Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice," he said on Fox News (via Politico).
As is so often the case when it comes to Trump’s ideas about governance, it’s not exactly clear whether he is merely ignorant of the law or actively choosing to disregard it. Either seems like a possibility in this case.
David Leopold:
One story is more terrifying than the next. The Syrian refugees include doctors targeted by the regime and rebel groups alike who aim to ‘neutralize’ their medical skills to keep them from treating a potential political or religious rival; LGBT Syrians targeted for their sexual orientation and political beliefs; and women fleeing violence to protect their children and themselves.
The Syrian clients I have been so privileged to represent have come to America, like generations of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers before them, in search of a safe haven, freedom, and a better life for their children. Now is not the time to follow the lead of cynical politicians who seek to exploit the horrific tragedies in Paris, Beirut and Sinai for political purposes. Now is not the time to recoil in fear and xenophobia. Now is the time to stand tall as Americans and protect our nation’s great legacy as a beacon of hope, safety and freedom for all refugees who grace our shores.
David A. Hopkins:
Why Ted Cruz Wants to Fight Barack Obama
While overseas at an international summit, Barack Obama made some dismissive remarks yesterday about Republican presidential candidates' positions on the admittance of Syrian refugees to the United States in response to the Paris terrorist attacks. "Apparently they're scared of widows and orphans coming into the United States of America as part of our tradition of compassion," Obama said. "At first they were worried about the press being too tough on them in during debates. Now they're worried about three-year-old orphans. That doesn't sound very tough to me."
Obama was clearly referring to multiple Republicans; if his remarks responded to any particular candidate, it was Chris Christie, who had earlier explicitly ruled out accepting "orphans under the age of five" for resettlement in America. Today, however, it was Ted Cruz who acted as if Obama had attacked him personally. "Mr. President, if you want to insult me, you can do it overseas, you can do it in Turkey, you can do it in foreign countries," Cruz said. "But I would encourage you, Mr. President, [to] come back and insult me to my face."
It seems clear from his statement that Cruz was ready to jump on any opportunity to start a fight with Obama, even if Obama had failed to do him the favor of mentioning him specifically. I have
previously suggested that the popularity of Donald Trump and Ben Carson in the current Republican nomination race is a reflection of the formidable power of anti-Obamaism in the contemporary GOP. Cruz's potential path to the nomination almost certainly requires attracting a significant fraction of the Republican vote that is currently parked behind Trump and Carson, so it is in his particular interest to distinguish himself as an Obama antagonist in order to appeal to those voters if and when the Trump and Carson candidacies fade.
Roger Simon:
More than half our country wants to ban Syrian refugees, though some states are willing to take Christian ones.
Why? Because Christians are more like us than Muslims, even though we are supposed to be a nation where all religions are treated equally.
(Muslim terrorists do kill Westerners. But we are supposed to be better than the terrorists. That’s how people are supposed to be able to tell us apart.)
Marco Rubio, who brags in every speech about how his father fled Cuba, once was considered a champion of immigrants. But not any more.
“You can have a thousand people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence,” Rubio said, “but one of them is an ISIS fighter. If that’s the case, you have a problem.”
“There’s no way to vet that out,” he continued. “There’s no background check system in the world that allows us to find that out because who do you call in Syria to background check them?”
Ted Cruz was born in Canada of a Cuban father and — luckily for Cruz’s presidential hopes — a mother from Delaware. Cruz, too, gets all choked up when he talks about his father fleeing Fidel Castro’s tyranny.
But what about those fleeing tyranny today? Well, according to Cruz, it depends on their religion. No Muslim refugees should be allowed in America today, only Christian ones. Because, says Cruz, “there is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror.”
Jonathan Bernstein:
Marco Rubio, and Harry Enten speculates that the demise of Jindal, Walker and Perry might be bad news for the Florida senator. I think this is probably wrong. The more likely explanation is that Rubio has defeated the others. Or they just turned out to be weak candidates; coalition-building takes skills they may not have had.
This doesn’t mean Rubio has anything locked up, even if the process ultimately favors coalition-style candidates. True, it's unlikely that mobilization based on pure factionalism can work, and even more unlikely that a candidate can go around the Republican party entirely. But it's possible that one of Rubio's rivals will start with a smaller faction, then expand to win the support of others within the party.
We’re down from more than 20 Republicans doing the kinds of things presidential candidates do to only 11 or 12 major candidates. And we're within 11 weeks of the Iowa caucuses. We aren't far from having a Republican nominee now. Goodbye, Bobby Jindal.
Chicago Tribune:
Two Syrian refugee families who had been approved to be moved to the United States and were scheduled to arrive in Indianapolis on Thursday have been officially told they are not welcome in the Hoosier State.
A day after Gov. Mike Pence told all state agencies to suspend the resettlement of additional Syrian refugees in Indiana after the deadly attacks in Paris, an Indiana Family & Social Services official sent letters Tuesday to two organizations that help settle refugees saying the placement of the two Syrian families had been suspended.
The letters also told Exodus Refugee Immigration Inc. and Catholic Charities Indianapolis to notify its national resettlement agencies that all subsequent arrivals be suspended or redirected to other states.