Today's Must Read

Been out of commission this week from some weird bug, then had no Internet for a day and a half.

And reading the news and commentary in the wake of the Paris attacks from the Republican "front runners" and the "liberal" media, I'm ashamed to admit I'm an American.

Consequently, I'm bringing you two posts from Digby: the first addresses the response of "journalists" (as they are known these days) to the attacks, channeling Glenn Greenwald:

Greenwald on the CNN debacle:

Labott’s crime wasn’t that she expressed an opinion. It’s that she expressed the wrong opinion: after Paris, defending Muslims, even refugees, is strictly forbidden. I’ve spoken with friends who work at every cable network and they say the post-Paris climate is indescribably repressive in terms of what they can say and who they can put on air. When it comes to the Paris attacks, CNN has basically become state TV (to see just how subservient CNN is about everything relating to terrorism, watch this unbelievable “interview” of ex-CIA chief Jim Woolsey by CNN’s Brooke Baldwin; or consider that neither CNN nor MSNBC has put a single person on air to dispute the CIA’s blatant falsehoods about Paris despite how many journalists have documented those falsehoods).

The second focuses on the march to fascism on the right (OK, Digby doesn't actually say that, but does she have to?):

So, you now, this is where we are now. We've got the media suspending reporters for tweeting "lady liberty bowed her head" after the House voted yesterday to stop Syrian refugees frm coming into the country, even as many of their biggest stars have been behaving like a bunch of hysterical schoolgirls 24/7 ever since Paris. We have the front-runner of the Republican party talking about he necessity to "do things that were unthinkable even a year ago" and "bombing the shit out of them." He also said we would have to have Muslims register with the government to be tracked by a database.(No word on whether it will be necessary to sew some kind of symbol on their clothing...)

Now we have the leading establishment candidate saying we have to "shut down" not just mosques but websites, cafes, diners --- anyplace where radicals are being inspired. He left out libraries and book stores but surely that was an oversight.

I think what's most worrisome about this is not the "conservative" response -- it's more or less what you'd expect, given what conservatism has become in the last generation or two -- but the complicity of the media. Actually, it's more than complicity -- the media has become a prime mover in this.