Media Bias
There is a reason Fox News has been so successful. After decades of domination by left-wing networks, Fox burst onto the scene offering viewers something very different -- fair and balanced coverage of the news and current events.
Yet I must confess that, in spite of everything Fox News has done for the conservative movement, I was deeply disappointed by some of last night's questioning. For example, let's examine the way the moderators approached two of the most important issues in this campaign: Terrorism and immigration.
These issues top the list of voter concerns and intersected in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks. After the attacks, the candidates reacted in varying ways -- from bans on all Muslim immigration to restrictions on immigration from countries where there is significant support for militant Islam. Other candidates aggressively objected to such proposals.
You know my view -- terrorism aside, anti-Semitism is rampant in the Muslim world. That is reason enough for not bringing in 250,000 Muslims a year, especially when no effort is made to ascertain what they believe.
What Fox News did last night with the question from Nabela Noor was to pick the "Muslim success story" -- the child of an immigrant family, living the American Dream as an up and coming entrepreneur -- to shame the candidates who favor limiting Muslim immigration.
It would make just as much sense, if not more, to have someone ask this question:
"I lost my son, not in Afghanistan, but at Fort Hood, Texas. He was killed by a Muslim doctor serving in our military. There were warning signs, but we did nothing because of political correctness. What would you do to prevent Islamists from acting on their radicalism? Why should I vote for a candidate who wants to bring more Muslims into the country, especially when the FBI Director admits they cannot be fully vetted?"
Or they could have had a rabbi ask, "German Chancellor Angela Merkel is warning about a surge in anti-Semitism driven by the massive influx of Muslim immigration. Would you support efforts to prevent importing more hate against Christians and Jews?"
Why didn't Fox News ask those questions? Perhaps Fox has its own agenda.
Americans Demand Action
While we're on the subject of immigration, the government admitted last week that more than half a million foreigners overstayed their visas in 2015.
Who are these people? Where are they now? What are they doing here? These are serious questions that deserve serious attention. Thankfully, some members of Congress are demanding answers.
And while the Obama Administration and its open borders allies might not be interested in enforcing our immigration laws, the American people are demanding action.
A new Rasmussen poll finds that only 15% of Americans approve of current visa enforcement efforts. But 68% of Americans view visa overstays as a "serious national security risk" and 72% of Americans want those who overstay their visas found and deported.
Is Something's Happening?
The investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information may be heating up. Consider this exchange that took place this morning between MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and Bloomberg's Mark Halperin:
SCARBOROUGH: To Mark . . . a network executive high up in another network that we all know asked when we were going to start talking about what most of us around this table are hearing from multiple sources and I'm sure you are, too: that the investigation by the FBI [of the former secretary of state] is far more progressed. . .
Mika and I have been hearing it, from the top officials in the Obama Administration for actually several months now and we can't go to a meeting in Washington where we don't hear that. . . All of our sources high up are telling us . . . that this investigation's far more advanced than we the public know. What are you hearing?
HALPERIN: Well, there are three things people are keying off of, Joe. First of all, there's a lot of chatter amongst FBI agents. . . a lot of FBI agents seem to be saying something is happening here. Second is, from a legal point of view, you look at some of the recent developments we've talked about here on the program, it's hard to see now how the Justice Department, the FBI, doesn't want to interview [the former secretary of state]. . .
And the last thing is there are some people in the White House who are starting to talk about this. It's not clear to me whether they know what's happening . . . but the body language among some Obama administration officials is: this is more serious and something's going to happen.
We may be getting some clues as to what Scarborough and Halperin are referring to. The State Department, under court order, is supposed to be making the former secretary's emails publicly available. It has asked for a delay and may well miss the final deadline. But the State Department may not be the agency responsible for the hold up.
According to a new report, the intelligence community is objecting to the release of some documents because they are so sensitive, it would be "too damaging to national security" to release them under any circumstances.