Talk Media News
 

Victoria Jones created and edits Quick Morning News. She is chief White House correspondent with Washington DC-based Talk Media News, where her insight and analysis are made available to over 400 news talk radio stations around the country and internationally.
 

Don’t forget – NORAD’s tracking Santa today! Quick Morning News will be off until Monday 4 January 2016. Have a peaceful holiday, everyone 🎅🎄

 

Quick News

  • US plans raids: Deport families who crossed border
  • Minneapolis protesters disrupt airport, mall
  • WaPo pulls Cruz cartoon: Cruz fundraises
  • British Muslims being banned from US?
  • Trump warns Clinton: “BE CAREFUL!”
 
US Plans Raids: Deport Families Who Crossed Border (WaPo, Reuters, me)
• The Dept of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of nationwide raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as soon as January that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the U.S. since the start of last year, WaPo reports (ho ho bloody ho)
 
• The op would target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge. It would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America. More than 100,000 families have made the journey across the southwest border since last year
 
• The op hasn’t been given final approval by DHS. Experts say that the violence that was a key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged again. The pressure for deportations has mounted because of a recent court decision that ordered DHS to begin releasing families housed in detention centers
 
• “It would be an outrage if the admin subjected Central American families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,” Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Assn, said. Legal experts say the families and minors were in many cases not granted adequate representation and were confused by the asylum procedures in court

 

• President Obama on Wednesday issued a statement on persecuted Christians at Christmas. “In some areas of the Middle East where church bells have rung for centuries on Christmas Day, this year they will be silent; this silence bears tragic witness to the brutal atrocities committed against these communities by ISIL.”
 
Minneapolis Protesters Disrupt Airport, Mall (AP, Reuters, me)
• More than 100 protesters blocked access to a terminal and caused significant holiday traffic delays at Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport on Wednesday during a Black Lives Matter protest that also briefly shut down part of the nation’s largest mall. The group dubbed the day “Black Xmas” to protest the killings of unarmed black men by police
 
• “The mall was a decoy,” said Black Lives Matter organizer Miski Noor. Protesters took a light-rail train to the airport from the Mall of America. Police said a total of 15 protesters were arrested at both sites. Gov Mark Dayton (D) said the moving protest created a “very, very dangerous situation.”
 
• Dayton questioned the need for a demonstration, noting that investigations were ongoing into the death of unarmed Jamar Clark, who was fatally shot by Minneapolis police responding to an assault complaint. Dayton said releasing video of officers’ altercation with Clark, as demanded, could jeopardize the investigations (they always say that – and in never seems to)
 
• The mall had sought a court order blocking the planned protest. Kandace Montgomery, one of three protesters barred by a judge’s order, said, “When you disrupt their flow of capital … they actually start paying attention. That’s the only way that they’ll hear us.”
 
• Robert Dear, the man accused of killing three people during a shooting spree at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs has been ordered to undergo a competency exam after trying to fire his lawyers, claiming he’s being poisoned by jailers, and at one point in court Wed, mimicking being a zombie – as he said he would be if he was medicated (USA Today)
 
WaPo Pulls Cruz Cartoon: Cruz Fundraises (NYT, Reuters, LAT, me)
• WaPo pulled a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes from its site on Tuesday that depicted 2016er Sen Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) two young daughters as monkeys. Cruz angrily denounced the cartoon in a (hasty) fundraising email that sought to bring in $1 million. The cartoon was replaced by a note from Fred Hiatt, the Post’s editorial page editor
 
• “It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published,” Hiatt wrote. “I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.”
 
• Telnaes posted with the cartoon: “When a politician uses his children as political props, as Ted Cruz recently did in his Christmas parody video in which his eldest daughter read (with her father’s dramatic flourish) a passage of an edited Christmas classic, then I figure they are fair game.” (he started it – he carts them around – they’re too young – they are off limits – to him, too)
 
• The ad was released last week and shows Cruz reading his daughters politically themed Christmas stories, like “How Obamacare Stole Christmas” and “Rudolph the Underemployed Reindeer.” Catherine and 5, Caroline is 7. “My daughters are NOT FAIR GAME” Cruz wrote in the fundraising email (don’t use them as puppets to market your unappetizing self, then)
 
British Muslims Being Banned From US? (Guardian, WaPo, BBC, Buzzfeed, me)
• Ajmal Masroor, a British imam whose business visa was revoked without explanation as he tried to board a fight from Heathrow to New York last week, accuses the State Dept of enacting the policies of Donald Trump “before he has received a single vote.” Masroor has traveled to the U.S. multiple times this year (something funny going on here)
 
• Masroor has previously received death threats for speaking out publicly against extremism, most notably after the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London, which he said all Muslims condemned as “inhumane and unacceptable.” The U.S. embassy in London said, “We are in contact with the individual and therefore have no further public comment at this time.”
 
• In the past week it’s also emerged that a British Muslim family heading for Disneyland with small children was barred from boarding a flight to LA by U.S. authorities at Gatwick airport, prompting complaints from their MP, Stella Creasy. U.S. officials on Wednesday strongly denied that the family of Mohammed Mahmood was targeted based on their religion (uh huh)

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• A spox for PM David Cameron said he will “look into” into the matter and that the PM “will respond in due course.” Creasy said that others have since come forward with similar stories of having been blocked from boarding U.S.-bound flights – including, she said, a British civil servant – concern “that it is the religion of these people that is the issue”
 
• Under U.S. immigration law, a traveler cannot be denied admission into the country due to “religion, faith or spiritual beliefs,” according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection statement. The agency said the law lists more than 60 reasons for inadmissibility (including “miscellaneous.” (soooo anything) State and the WH wouldn’t comment on the British family’s case (i’ll bet)
 
• The Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group, on Wednesday called on the Dept of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to open an investigation to see if Trump’s controversial immigration proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. was being “implemented informally” on British Muslims
 
• “America is the country of the free and the brave, that’s what we’ve been told,” Masroor told the BBC, “but it looks like it’s stooped down to paranoia and narrow-mindedness. That’s unfortunate. It looks like Donald Trump and his followers – the maniacs, I call them – are winning the day.”

• Happy Crimble! As of 12.01 am today, the BEATLES’ music – 13 original albums and four compilations – is finally available on nine subscription streaming music services, including Spotify. Here’s the lads’ very short video music announcement (NYT, me)

 

Trump Warns Clinton: BE CAREFUL! (Hill, Politico, Politico, NYT, HuffPo, Des Moines Register, Hill, me)

• Donald Trump warned Wednesday in a tweet: “Hillary, when you complain about a ‘penchant for sexism,’ who are you referring to, I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!” That was his second bullying warning to “be careful” on Wednesday (shaking in fright now)
 

• Earlier Wednesday, Clinton had said in an interview with the Des Moines Register, “I think he has to answer for what he says, and I assume that others will make the larger point about his language. It’s not the first time he’s demonstrated a penchant for sexism. Again, I’m not sure anybody’s surprised that he keeps pushing the envelope.” (as do you, as do you)
 

• “I won’t participate in any kind of second-tier debate,” 2016er Sen Rand Paul (R-Ky) said Wednesday in a radio interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade. “I’m not gonna let any network or anybody tell me we’re not a first-tier campaign.” “This isn’t the job of the media to pick who wins.” (could be buh bye then…)
 
• “Everything. Everything is on the table,” Ben Carson told AP in an interview Wednesday after hinting that “personnel changes” could come. “Every single thing is on the table. I’m looking carefully.” A statement later on Wednesday from Carson said: “My senior team remains in place with my full confidence.” (no organizational problems in that campaign, then ha ha)

 

• Happy Happy Christmas! Watch: A New York City traffic cop stops rush hour traffic on the busy Grand Central Parkway in Queens to rescue an orange tabby cat stranded with fear under a silver SUV. He gently picks up the cat, which clings to him as he walks off the highway. “Cat and cop are now new friends and doing well,” the NYPD’s Facebook page reads

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Victoria Jones – Editor

Talk Media News provides breaking news coverage of domestic and world news to more than 400 radio stations across the United States.