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November 17, 2015
Top Stories
Will Speaker Ryan’s First Big Test Be A Shutdown Fight Over Syrian Refugees?
The Gist: The newly elected House Speaker is under intensifying pressure to halt President Obama’s plan to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year.
27 GOP Governors: No More Syrian Refugees After Paris Attacks!
The Gist: Following the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, at least 27 governors have said that they no longer want Syrian refugees to be able to settle in their states.
CNN Host Insists French Muslim Accept ‘Responsibility’ For Paris Attacks
The Gist: Two CNN hosts lectured a spokesman for an anti-Islamophobia organization about the Muslim community’s need to accept “responsibility” for the deadly attacks.
From The Reporter’s Notebook
Georgetown University renamed a building on campus named for a former university president who sold Jesuit-owned slaves to a Louisiana plantation to pay of campus debt. According to TPM’s Caitlin MacNeal, Jesuits in Maryland owned slaves in the 17th and 18th centuries in an attempt to assert their rights as landowners in a Protestant-dominated region.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall says it is “folly” to keep engaging in both sides of Syria’s Civil War. The U.S. must instead turn its attention away from Bashar al Assad and towards dismantling ISIS’ territory and leadership.
Say What?!
“I guess the question is – if you’ll forgive the language – why can’t we take out these bastards?”
– A CNN reporter asked Obama a rather direct question about ISIS.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: “Prior to 9/11 we could have spent a lot less money — vastly less — to create an initiative to improve the lives of people in the Middle East, to provide gentle but firm pressure upon nations receiving U.S. aid or arms to engage in political reforms, to improve education, trade and commerce. It’s much more complicated now, but we still could engage in a modern Marshall Plan in some nations the Middle East, and perhaps Europe would help support the plan. But there’s little political interest (on either side) in the sort of efforts and reforms that could drain the proverbial swamp.”
Related: Jeb Bush called the Paris attacks the war of our time.
Have something to add? Become a Prime member and join the discussion here.
What We’re Reading
How a prized daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church came to question its beliefs. ( The New Yorker)
The real debate: two very different world views on terrorism. (NPR)
Ben Carson separated twins, but didn’t always save them. (The Boston Globe)
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