TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 2025
...about what the president said: There's no people-watching like that provided by the Fox News Channel.
Warning! This people-watching is highly instructive, but it isn't amusing. It's recommended that you engage in this hobby only in fairly small doses.
That said, there's no people-watching to match that which was provided, right through last November, by the Fox & Friends Weekend program. Believe it or not, the lineup went like this:
Fox & Friends Weekend co-hosts, 2024
Will Cain
Rachel Campos-Duffy
Pete Hegseth
Only Campos-Duffy remains. Hegseth has moved on to his current post, which is widely discussed.
Will Cain has also moved on. He's now host of the 4 p.m. weekday program, The Will Cain Show. It replaced the long running, somewhat moderate Your World with Neil Cavuto program, thereby making the Fox News Channel a bit more ideologically reliable.
(We don't mean that as a knock on Cain. It strikes us as a marker of management's current outlook. So too with the recent expansion of one of the dumbest of all "cable news" programs, The Big Weekend Show, which now airs for a full two hours each weekend night.)
Back in the Fox & Friends Weekend days, Campos-Duffy and Hegseth seemed to be "religionists." To our eye and ear, it seemed that Cain was not.
(For the record, there's no reason why a person shouldn't be deeply invested in his or her religious beliefs. Such investment can create a slightly complex mix with the expectations which may surround present-day "news" delivery.)
At any rate, whatever! Cavuto is OUT and Cain is IN on weekday afternoons. Yesterday, we learned that Cain, who's perfectly bright, doesn't just work for the Fox News Channel:
He also watches its programs!
How do we know that he watches the channel? Over at Mediaite, Michael Luciano delivers the mail, with videotape included:
Democrat Catches Fox’s Will Cain Unaware That Trump Wants To Deport U.S. Citizens
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) caught Will Cain off guard on Monday by explaining that President Donald Trump had expressed a desire to deport U.S. citizens.
[...]
Frost joined Monday’s edition of The Will Cain Show on Fox News from El Salvador, where the lawmaker and three other members of Congress traveled to bring attention to the issue. The congressman noted that Abrego Garcia had been deported and imprisoned without due process.
“We wannna make sure we draw the line here at Kilmar Garcia because it’s not just about him,” Frost said. “It’s about the fact that in the Oval Office, Donald Trump brought up that he wants to do the same thing to quote, unquote, ‘homegrowns.’ Homegrowns being U.S. citizens, a complete violation of our Constitution. I don’t wanna wait until it gets to that point.”
He added that he hears from constituents who say, “It’s him today and it can be one of us tomorrow.”
“Before we move forward, I have to stop there with what you said,” Cain replied. “Donald Trump’s made a statement about wanting to deport American citizens? Do you have that in front of you? I’ve not seen that statement. Can you please quote where that comes from—that he would like to deport American citizens?”
As we've noted, Cain is perfectly bright. That said, he told Rep. Frost, as part of their first exchange, that he'd never heard of President Trump's comments about wanting to ship American citizens off to that foreign "jail."
If you watch the videotape, you'll see that Luciano's account of that exchange is perfectly fair. It seems quite clear that Cain really was unfamiliar with those widely discussed comments by President Trump.
We'd like to think well of Brother Cain. On Fox & Friends Weekend, he was often heroic in the ways he avoided agreeing with his more ardent friends. Sometimes, he'd slip in factual corrections without quite seeming to do so.
That said, we sometimes get the impression that he occasionally "goes along to get along" in order to build his Fox News career. We can now feel certain of at least one thing:
He watches nothing but Fox News Channel programs!
On Fox, they don't report or discuss weird things like the president's stated desire to ship "homegrowns" away to that jail. Instead, they change the subject and start trashing Joe Biden. Through this relentless practice, viewers' minds remain spotless.
Rather plainly, Will Cain, who is perfectly bright, had never heard about the various statements the president made on this topic! That tells us where he gets (and fails to get) his news, including the many parts of the news he isn't allowed to hear.
Full and total and complete disclosure:
As we hope to discuss next week, the same phenomenon is known to exist in Blue America—over here!
ReplyDeleteWhat's so special about wanting, occasionally, to deport certain American citizens, and why is everyone supposed to be aware of every sentence uttered by Donald Trump?
Don't be an idiot, Bob.
I've been ignoring Trump since the early 80s.
DeleteAgreed Mao.
DeleteWhat next? Lazy, shiftless, white people droning on about illegal immigrants taking their jobs?.
Anonymouse 4:12pm, nah, that’s just you.
DeleteWe don't talk about the white working class, because that's identity politics.
DeleteAnonymouse 6:22pm, and the working class is diverse.
DeleteWas diverse.
DeleteAnd equitable. And inclusive.
R.I.P.
Murdered by fascists.
Anonymouse 8:22pm, it’s been diverse for decades now. Long before your attempts at polarization.
DeleteAnd it's pissed off Republicans, like it was the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
DeleteAnonymouse 8:09am, on the contrary, it pissed off anonymices. You had to develop a complete theological framework of “privilege" in order to extract power from a sense of grievance that you endlessly gin up.
DeleteYes, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision pissed-off us Left-wing anonymouses.
DeleteLOL.
Hitting the bootle early today, sir?
Anonymouse 8:53am, that came way before your machinations and it wasn’t good enough for you.
DeleteLike Joe Biden's lowest unemployment rate in over half a century, some things just aren't good enough for the whiners.
Delete...and it wasn’t good enough for you.
DeleteDamn, sister Cec, did you really write that right out in the open. Hood off and everything?
Anonymouse 10:02am, nope, anonymices couldn’t settle for anything less than race-baiting war.
Delete10:54,
DeleteSure the United States of America was built on slavery, but the Republican Party doesn't want you to know about it, but that doesn't mean anonymouses aren't race-baiters, or something like that.
Can I haz my Trump Cabinet position now?
Understood, sister Cec. After Brown v Board, the blahs started gettingh a little too uppity, if you know what I mean. Why couldn't they just shut up and be satisfied with Brown v Board?
DeleteToday, Trump said we can't afford to give immigrants trials. Bozo probably should have thought of that before he ran the economy into the ground.
ReplyDelete"...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..." if they don't cost us too much.
Delete@4:18 There are somewhere between 10 million and 30 million illegal immigrants in the country. We do not have anywhere near the number of judges and courts to handle this magnitude of cases. Not to mention the additional trials when they appeal.
DeleteIt is of course not necessary to arrest, try, and deport every single illegal immigrant. I seriously doubt Trump is actually going to follow through on his “mass deportations”.
DeleteThere are just more that 1 million asylum claims pending in immigration court. The problem is much smaller than you think.
DeleteDavid in Cal and Trump are correct. The USA just isn't that good. It's time to give-up the fantasy of American know-how, ingenuity, and brainpower, we deluded ourselves into believing we had during the Cold War.
DeleteTimes have changed. We need to move on, and be more realistic about who we really are.
There are somewhere between 10 million and 30 million illegal immigrants in the country.
DeleteYou're thinking that they will not fit into a single courtroom? You're probably correct.
Maybe we shouldn't be quite so "ambitious".
Quaker - As more migrants are deported, more of them will file asylum claims. And, all of them can demand hearings on whether or not they're here illegally. But, set that aside. How long does it take to get hearings for 1 million migrants?
DeleteI don't have the data needed, so let's make up some numbers.
Length of hearing plus appeal - 2 work days
Number of courts and judges available - 50
Number of work days in a year - 220.
Then total available hearings per year =
50*220/2 = 5,500
Number of years to handle a million migrant hearings
1,000,000/5,500 = 182
If Republicans and Trump supporters are concerned about asylum, they should revisit our immigration laws and change that part. This requires an act of congress, not an executive order. Ignoring laws because they are inconvenient or you disagree with them is incompatible with the president's oath of office. Giving asylum seekers the chance to present their case in a hearing is part of our law.
DeleteNot a rodent - you make some good points. I don't know how much leeway the President has in enforcing the law. Can he issue an executive order saying that applicants for asylum cannot come into the country until asylum is granted?
DeleteI agree that an act of Congress would be the best way to handle this. Sadly, the Dems' policy seems to be to automatically oppose anything Trump supports. I think they would filibuster a law making it easy to deport illegal immigrants. That may be good for winning the next election, but it's not good for the country IMO.
"Sadly, the Dems' policy seems to be to automatically oppose anything Trump supports."
DeleteYou might recall last year's proposed immigration bill--the one co-authored by a conservative Republican senator from Oklahoma. What became of that?
"I don't have the data needed, so let's make up some numbers."
DeleteNo. I do not assent to your suggestion to "make up some numbers." Dig up some data or stay quiet while better-informed people have a discussion.
Quaker - I do not know how to get the numbers. IMO the numbers I used show that whatever the real numbers are it's impossible to have hearings for most of these millions migrants. Any plausible change in the assumed numbers will produce an enormous number of years to give hearings to a million people.
DeleteI think the anti-Trump folks should need these numbers as much as I do. The anti-Trump position is to entirely ignore the question of whether the resources exist. They demand hearings even though such hearings are not possible for the large majority of these migrants. How can they favor a policy that's impossible to carry out?
P.S. the immigration law was negotiated by a group that included a couple of foolish Republicans. It was never supported by the leadership or the majority of Republicans.
It was a terrible bill IMO. It didn't do nearly enough to stop illegal immigration. And, it had a number of provisions that opposed Republican values.
Today, it's even clearer. The bill was never needed. Trump reduced illegal immigration over the border to nearly zero without any change in law.
If you can't run the country we have, move aside, and let someone else give it a try.
DeleteThrowing up your ands and crying "too hard!" isn't helping anyone.
Here's a much simpler idea on how to deal with 10-30 million of undocumented residents: leave them alone.
Delete
DeleteIf the Trump admin left them alone 10-30 million of undocumented persons alone, then you, 11:10 PM, would be ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth at the Trump admin for leaving them alone.
Because your TDS is controlling you 100%.
Dickhead in Cal is insane. Why would we want to deport millions of immigrants who have been here contributing to our economy for years or even decades. Does he have a suicide complex?
Delete"Because your TDS is controlling you 100%."
DeleteCope, Soros-bot.
David in Cal,
DeleteYou might want to back off of your hatred for the USA, now that your party of sexual predators is in charge.
"...all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..."
DeleteOne of those unalienable rights is the right to kick out intruders, who cross the border without getting an authorization from the locals.
11:01,
DeleteShow me in the United States Constitution where being afraid of the bogeyman is a protected right.
Someone hand 11:01 a hankie, so he can wipe away his tears.
Delete
DeleteSorry, 11:18-20 AM, you'll have to shit your pants and squeal about Donald Trump's horrors all on your own.
Does Somerby think the NY Times is "blue media", because Right-wingers can't even solve the Monday crosswords?
ReplyDeleteAnonymouse 4:25pm, everyone knows you stick to word searches.
DeleteThey aren't written with a corporate slant.
DeleteJust because Trump signed an Executive Order welcoming white South Africans into the USA, while disparaging immigrants from Latin America and Africa, doesn't man there is a shred of evidence that Trump is any more racist than anyone who voted for him..
ReplyDeleteTrump is more akin to George Wallace; just tipping his pinkie toe into the pool of white supremacy, when compared to his voters.
DeleteWe don't want any white MS-13 wife beater human traffickers in murder gangs from South Africa either.
Delete9:03 = RINO.
DeleteIs 9:03 Liz Chaney?
Delete"“Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome. We look forward to being there!”
ReplyDeleteonce again, President Sociopath utterly fails to give a normal human response to a situation."
"A respected immigration attorney expressed his shock and dismay on social media over the fate of a Venezuelan immigrant who disappeared after accidentally crossing into Canada and being detained by U.S. authorities.
ReplyDeleteAaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, wrote Tuesday, "This story from today is SHOCKING. The United States has disappeared a man. His last known whereabouts on March 15 was in the same place as others sent to El Salvador, but his name doesn't appear on the leaked list of people sent there. He is, for all intents and purposes, gone."
The story Reichlin-Melnick referred to was written by Miriam Jordan, national immigration correspondent for The New York Times.
Jordan wrote about Ricardo Prada Vásquez, who was working a delivery job in Detroit.
He was heading to the address to drop off a McDonald's order "when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake even for those who live in the Michigan border city. But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful," she wrote.
U.S. authorities took Prada into custody when he tried to re-enter the country, and he was ordered deported," Jordan wrote.
"That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world."
According to Jordan, Prada has not been heard from or seen since.
"He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads."
Jordan quoted a friend of Prada's saying, "He has simply disappeared."
"Mr. Prada’s disappearance has created concerns that more immigrants have been deported to El Salvador than previously known," Jordan wrote. "It also raises the question of whether some deportees may have been sent to other countries with no record of it. The U.S. authorities have confirmed that he was removed from the United States. But to where?" [Rawstory]
David in Cal has nothing to worry about. He's one of the good Jews.
ReplyDeleteLOL.
I do have something to worry about: being raped and murdered by a Tren de Aragua gangster
DeleteWell, maybe not raped...
Leave the raping to the pros. Republican politicians, and the Trump Cabinet.
DeleteDavid in Cal's Immigrant Derangement Syndrome seems to be getting worse.
DeleteTrump needs to stop dawdling, and get to the part where he sends the Jews to concentration camps.
DeleteEarly dementia is often accompanied by paranoia.
DeleteThe dead Palestinian children will pray for your safety.
DeleteI thought Netanyahu was an outlier, until DiC schooled me that bombing schools and hospitals to ethnically cleanse entire populations, is a major tenet of the Jewish faith.
ReplyDeleteNice bounce-back by David in Cal, after not being able to tell the difference between Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the "good people" on the Right.
DeleteDemocrats beloved LGBTQMS13 terrorist wife beater isn't coming back to rape and murder your children. Orange man to blame.
ReplyDelete"It might make your grocery prices go down", probably Bob Somerby's Blue Media.
DeleteEvery Republican voter knows you can't trust Democrats, because they think black people should have the same rights as white people.
Delete"they think" -- who, Democrats? You're funny.
Delete"For the record, we wouldn't say that he was "deported." His delivery to a foreign prison should make us stop using that word."
ReplyDeleteAgreed.