November 19 - The House Votes to Shut Out Syrian Refugees; Hysterical Overreaction to an IS (Daesh) Video; Has Daesh Helped Unify the Anti-IS Coalition?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the 289 to 137 vote in the House today on a GOP bill the American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act or SAFE act of 2015 aimed at pausing the admission of refugees from Syria which passed with the help of 47 Democrats joining the Republicans with enough votes to override a promised veto from the White House. Elise Foley, the Immigration and Politics Reporter with the Huffington Post who covered the vote today, joins us to assess the fate of the bill in the Senate and explain why so many Democrats ignored Obama’s admonition against victimizing the victims of ISIS, the Syrian refugees he described as “the most vulnerable people in the world”.

Part 2

Then we speak with John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University and the Cato Institute, about his new book “Chasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism” and the reflexive tendency of America’s politicians and the press to overreact to provocations from terrorist groups like the Islamic State which just released a cheesy video threatening to blow up Times Square. We discuss how the free publicity given to this ludicrously amateurish bombast from ISIS trivializes real threats and undermines national security as recurring hysteria prompts the authorities to cry wolf too often.

Part 3

Then finally, we examine whether the attacks in Paris that were designed by the Islamic State to show it had the power to influence if not dominate the G-20 summit in Turkey, may end up forcing a consensus amongst the powers involved to solidify an anti-IS coalition. Henri Barkey, the Director of the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars joins us to discuss his latest article at The American Interest “From Sinjar to Paris and Back”, and whether recent events have put the U.S. in a stronger position to get cooperation from recalcitrant allies.