Philip Bump covers a new idea from John Kasich:
What jumps out is Kasich's description of this new government effort: A propaganda organization with a "mandate" to promote "Judeo-Christian" values.
Curious about the constitutionality of such a thing, we called New York University civil liberties professor Burt Neuborne, former legal director of the ACLU and founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice.
"The 'Judeo-Christian' phrase, my sense is, is an unfortunate phrase by the governor," Neuborne said. "What he really means is historically the values associated with Western culture. That's just politician-talk when he calls it 'Judeo-Christian.'" That idea is validated by Kasich's description of what those values are. Democracy and free speech, of course, are not fundamentally 'Judeo-Christian' ideas.
WaPo:
President Obama on Wednesday angrily accused Republicans of feeding into the Islamic State's strategy of casting the United States as waging war on Muslims, saying the GOP's rhetoric has become the most "potent recruitment tool" for the militant group.
Obama was responding to recent calls from Republicans, including presidential candidates Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), to block Syrian refugees' entrance into the United States. Bush and Cruz have suggested welcoming Christian refugees, but not those who are Muslims.
"I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate," Obama said during a news conference at a leadership summit here, using an acronym for the Islamic State.
Ishaan Tharoor:
IDENTIFIED ASSAILANTS ARE E.U. NATIONALS: Although the Paris terror attacks appear to have been partially planned or coordinated by Islamic State operatives in the Middle East, all the identified assailants are so farcitizens of European Union countries. This suggests that their radicalization was likely homegrown on the continent, and not imported via an exodus of beleaguered Syrian refugees.
According to the Post's own graphic tracking the case, three out of the eight known assailants remain unidentified. Only one man is known to be alive. French officials confirmed on Tuesday that they were looking for a ninth suspect connected to the attacks.
Dana Milbank:
Congressional Republicans unveiled a new strategy Tuesday morning to defeat the Islamic State: We will kill it with clichés.
House GOP leaders huddled with their caucus in the Capitol basement for an hour before emerging to hit the enemy with an unrelenting barrage of hackneyed phrases.
The above is, of course, the incomparable Ben Carson, struggling on foreign policy.
Politico:
Donald Trump and Ben Carson have demonstrated more staying power than anyone predicted. But now, after the terrorist attacks on an American ally, Republican elders think their party’s flirtation with inexperience is nearing its end.
The reemergence of foreign policy atop the Republican agenda will force voters to reevaluate the outsider candidates, particularly as both Trump and Carson display a lack of knowledge about national security and the terrorist threat, party stalwarts said.
Carson, maybe. But Trump will still attract the xenophobes who want a ‘strong’ leader, whatever that means. Deal with it, GOP. No one cares what John McCain says.
Chris Mooney:
Statoil, the major Norwegian oil company, announced Tuesday that just like Royal Dutch Shell, it too is abandoning plans of drilling in the Alaskan Arctic.
The company said it is exiting 16 leases under its own operation and also shutting down its Anchorage, Alaska office. It is also exiting its stake in 50 leases that, it said, are under the operation of Conoco Phillips. The company cited “recent exploration results in neighbouring leases,” and added that “leases in the Chukchi Sea are no longer considered competitive within Statoil’s global portfolio.”
One major factor that has dampened prospects for Arctic drilling is low oil prices. Earlier this year, Statoil also signaled that it would not explore in the Barents Sea this year.
Sandhya Somashekhar:
The Black Lives Matter movement was born in the working class streets of Ferguson, Mo., but its strongest foothold may now be in a far more elite environment: the American university.
College campuses have become fertile ground for the movement, a provocative network of activists who are clamoring for an overhaul of the nation’s criminal justice system and other social changes aimed at bettering the lives of African Americans.
In the movement’s most visible victory on campus, a group called Concerned Student 1950 at the University of Missouri launched a chain of protests that culminated last week in the resignation of the president of the university system. But other groups with similar priorities are agitating at campuses from North Carolina to Oregon — and forcing significant changes.
At Columbia University in New York, a Black Lives Matter-aligned group called Students Against Mass Incarceration led the university this summer to drop its investments in private prisons.
At Kalamazoo College in Michigan, demonstrations this spring led officials to agree to open an Intercultural Center where minority students can find support.
S.E. Cupp:
As David Bier, Director of Immigration Policy at the Niskanen Center, points out, a sponsor-based-program initiated by President Reagan saw the successful settlement of at least 16,000 refugees in the US between 1987 and 1993, mainly Cubans and Soviet Jews and Pentecostal Christians.
But some in the U.S. have suggested absurd solutions like penning Syrian refugees into camps, or only accepting those who can somehow prove they are Christian, as NewsCorp’s Rupert Murdoch wants to do.
Is this really our answer? To show these refugees what freedom and democracy have to offer by imprisoning them and giving them religious tests?
This is not who we are. It’s been deeply disappointing to see many of my Republican friends turn on our American values and cow to the baser politics of fear, rather than make the case for humanity and leadership on the world stage.
This isn’t just about feel-good back-patting so we can say we did the right thing. There’s real purpose in taking in Syrian refugees, if we can summon the will and the courage, and remember what it means to be American.
This morning’s breaking news from WaPo:
2 terror suspects dead after French police raid north of Paris