FRANK: We need to do better, Barney Frank said!

FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2026

Did Gutfeld get something right? During the last year of his life, Barney Frank was concerned with the possible loss of "our democracy."   

More specifically, and quite constructively, he was concerned with the possibility that members of his own political tribe might be contributing to the danger. For that reason, he wrote the book which will be published later this year, the book which carries this title:

The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy 

How constructive were Frank's critiques? There will be no way to know until the book appears—and when it does, no one will comment or care. 

But in the final few months of his life, he gave interviews to the New York Times and to the Atlantic. 

The Atlantic's James Kirchick has seen the book. It seems to us that he made an important point as he discussed Frank's views:

Barney Frank’s Second Coming Out

[...]

Many progressives believe their own hearts to be pure but cannot conceive that anyone to their right might have sincere reasons for opposing them on borders, crime, foreign policy, or any other issue. “Many of these zealots,” Frank writes, “are convinced that the source of their abandonment is some form of corruption.” 

So Frank writes, in his book.

Kirchick, a conservative-leaner, may have seemed like a strange choice for this assignment, but Rep. Frank signed on. Meanwhile, who are the "zealots" to whom Frank refers in that one quote? 

We can't tell you that. But it's completely natural for progressives, and for everyone else, to assume that their own motives are pure and that those who disagree simply must be corrupt.  

We human beings are wired that way. It's how we're inclined to react.

In fact, we Blues managed to find a very large number of ways to help President Trump return to the White House. As is natural, w Blues have often had trouble perceiving that fact. That makes it more likely that we the people will never be able to find a way out of the threat to "our democracy"—out of our current extremely dangerous societal mess.  

It's true! Much of the gruesome behavior which emanates from the Fox News Channel is built around legitimate complaints about Democratic Party governance and Blue American issue framing. If we had to compile a list of such triggers, we'd start with the (still unexplained) border policy conducted under President Biden, but then we'd continue from there.

Many complaints voiced on appalling programs like The Five are built upon a legitimate base. That doesn't make the pseudo-journalistic behavior less gruesome, but it helps explain why there's a large audience for the gruesome behavior displayed on such programs—an audience from which the corporate bosses at Fox are apparently happy to profit.  

How gruesome does that behavior get, even as our own tribe's journalistic stars and media orgs agree to look away? Simply put, there's no way to keep up with the ugly behavior, or with the attendant stupidity of the imitation of journalism persistently aired on the channel to which we've referred..

There's no way to keep up with the channel's childish, ugly "masculinism," or with its sick imitations of journalism—its imitations of human life. That brings us back to the questions with which we began this week's reports. 

We posted those questions in Monday's report. Those questions concerned conditions at the Delaney Hall Detention Center, an ICE facility in Newark.

Based on news reports from the previous week, our questions went like this:  

Have detainees at Delaney Hall been served food containing maggots? 

Also:

Last Wednesday, did three congressmen observe this unacceptable state of affairs as they toured the site?  

News reports by CBS News and the Associated Press made it seem that at least one congressman, or possibly three, had actually seen such food being served, but the writing in their news reports was perhaps a bit fuzzy. 

In this Facebook post, the Washington Post seemed to say the same thing, mentioning Rep. Jerry Nadler by name.

That said, how about it? Did the congressmen actually see such food being served? By now, we'd say the answer is tilting toward a possible no, although there's no way to be be sure.

We've seen no one pursue the three congressmen to nail down the question of what they saw at the detention center. Meanwhile, this very Wednesday, the editorial board at the Washington Post seemed to backslid on that question a bit, in the manner shown:

Alarming cruelty reported at Delaney Hall demands accountability

The state of New Jersey filed a lawsuit this week against the operator of a privately run immigration detention center in Newark, claiming that health inspectors were denied full access to the facility. It’s the latest reminder that the federal government’s immigration enforcement system desperately needs greater transparency and accountability.   

The facility, called Delaney Hall, has become a flash point in recent weeks. Reports of unsanitary and inhumane conditions, which have become disturbingly common among detention facilities nationwide, have resulted in violent clashes outside the building between protesters and police. The situation has gotten so bad that Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) imposed a curfew around the center, and Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) deployed state troopers to manage the crowds.  

[...]   

[T]he federal government has an obligation to ensure that detainees in its custody, even if they illegally entered the country, are not subject to cruel conditions. Immigration detention centers are not supposed to be punitive; their purpose is to temporarily house immigrants while courts review their cases.

For weeks, detainees and attorneys advocating for them have accused the Delaney facility of providing poor living conditions and inadequate medical care despite outbreaks of covid and the flu. Some prisoners have joined a hunger strike, alleging that they have been served expired food and even meals containing live worms. Others have said they were subjected to solitary confinement.  

The editorial continues from there—and for starters, good for the board! The editorial board correctly asserts that detainees must not be subjected to cruel conditions—but the board has slid away from the original claim about the three congressmen. 

"Maggots" have become "live worms;" we see no difference there. But the assertions about this matter are now being sourced to statements made by detainees. The notion that congressmen actually observed some such state of affairs have disappeared from this editorial. 

Elsewhere, Blue news orgs simply ignored this allegation, right from the start. No one seems to have asked Rep. Nadler to say what exactly he saw. Could it be that we Blues just plain simply perhaps don't especially care?   

The claim last week was horrendous enough, but behavior at the Fox News Channel was immeasurably worse. It was that behavior which led us to focus on this matter as the week began. 

It began last Thursday with ugly behavior, then slid downhill from there.   

It's as we noted on Monday. "Who cares if there are maggots?" the channel's grisly Greg Gutfeld histrionically asked, on last Thursday's edition of The Five.  

"Who cares if [detainees] don't like the food?" Gutfeld's sidekick, Jesse Watters, soon added. 

At Media Matters, a fuller (though incomplete) bit of transcript was supplied. The inanity continued from the point where this transcript stopped, but—with paragraph breaks added for a modicum of clarity—this is the Media Matters transcript of the bulk of what Gutfeld said on last Thursday's The Five:  

Greg Gutfeld on the federal detention center at Delaney Hall: “Maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved”
Gutfeld: “Who cares if there are maggots?

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): In terms of the complaints, there's no video, medical records, or public reports, but I have to admit Jerry Nadler went there. And you know what he said? The food comes in small portions.

JESSICA TARLOV (CO-HOST): And has maggots in it.

GUTFELD: Yeah, but it's in small portions.

TARLOV: I get you want to call him fat, but there's—

GUTFELD: No. Why would you say that? He has a medical condition, Jessica, my God! He's obese, not fat! 

But the conditions are roughly the same as where they came from. Messy johns, medical delays. But maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved. 

I don't see the maggots. Why aren't they documented? They get 24/7 medical access. But here's the key, and this is the only thing you need to remember:

When the opposition to immigration policy scales up, the complaints spike. They're aggregated, and they are amplified, designed to set the stage for this chaotic mess. But these people, you do not have to fear them, you do not have to listen to them, they created the problem, they have lost the privilege of input. 

You can complain all you want about the maggots. I don't believe you. Because I don't believe any Democrat about immigration. It's just like commenting on Trump's health after enabling Biden's cover-up. I don't have to listen to that anymore. 

You guys blew it. Trump sealed what you broke, the border. Now he's cleaning up the aftermath. You can't stand there and tell us how to clean up the mess. You lost that right.

DANA PERINO (CO-HOST): Jessica, I will go to you. Why does it have to go from—instead of saying, "Fix this problem"—if there are maggots in the food. Like again, I don't know—

GUTFELD: Who cares if there are maggots?  

Videotape is provided at the Media Matters link.

"Who cares if there are maggots?" he thoughtfully interjected. But an array of ugly and stupid comments preceded that question, and Watters hadn't yet had the chance to offer this thought:

"Who cares if they don't like the food?"  

Regarding the food, it's "dietitian approved," Gutfeld had mockingly said. Before that, he had engaged in one of his standard jibes on the theme that Rep. Nadler is just too BLEEPing fat. 

(There's a long, coarse backstory here, built around Gutfeld's endless, brain-damaged ruminations about Nadler's imagined bathroom behaviors. And yes, this is the kind of product the Fox News Channel provides in its primetime "cable news" coverage.)

Gutfeld had also said that "messy johns" are the norm where the detainees come from. And he had voiced the remarkable journalistic theory which he now routinely voices:

Because Democrats opened the border and misstated about President Biden's health, people within his own Red tribe no longer have to listen to any claim any liberal or Democrat makes!

We Blues can complain as much as we like. In a classic prescription for a failed state, Gutfeld persistently instructs Red American viewers that they should no longer listen or care.  

Also, of course, "Maggots or not, the food is dietitian approved!" So went this messaging agent's mocking reaction in the face of the claim about maggots.

The conversation got dumber from there, with Watters joining in. The next day, Watters performed the role of clown to perfection, reading "the whole monthly menu" for the center, desserts and all, as if a pudding is just as sweet if it arrives with live worms in it.   

The rest of the children sat around, laughing and pretending that this behavior made sense. This Monday, Delaney Hall was discussed again, with Watters recalling his reading of the menus: 

WATTERS (6/1/26): They were complaining they didn't have ethnic food. We looked at the menu, it looked like Taco Bell...Instead of talking about health care or high gas prices, they're worrying about what cereal we're feeding some maniac from Honduras! That's the problem with Democrats! 

Few detainees are maniacs. It isn't clear that many or most of the detainees should be detained at all, but this is the way this game is played on this ersatz "news channel."

It went downhill from there. By the end of Monday's segment, Gutfeld was deriding Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) as "a little douche."

"Little Kim—what a little douche," the 61-year-old "bad boy" said. 

Watters jumped in to improve the play. He and Gutfeld took turns deriding Senator Kim as "the real Lil' Kim," a wonderfully entertaining reference to the lady rapper.

Much of what gets said on this show is built upon reasonable complaints. From there, the reaction tends to move in the direction of ugly and the ginormously dumb. 

President Trumnp's bizarre behaviors and lunatic claims will simply never be mentioned.  In this way, the furious Gutfeld and the clowning clown Watters engineer an epistemic silent secession, in which Red Americans are allowed to retain spotless minds about President Trump while hearing endless insults aimed at the douchebags found in the other America.

Meanwhile, we Blues! Our big news orgs report none of this profoundly destructive behavior. The ugly insults aimed at women by Gutfeld's broken brained masculinism go unreported as well. 

Do we Blues sometimes give them the fuel from which this soul-draining conduct is launched? We leave you today with this one thought about the maggots:    

Gutfeld said he didn't believe that there were maggots. As far as we have ever learned from any Blue American news org, it could be that he was right!

Frank said we Blues need to step up our game. As a general matter, we agree with that assessment.

That said, do we Blues possess the skill to see where we may be proceeding in error? As humans, we Blues, like the Reds, aren't necessarily wired that way.

Based on our tribe's widespread self-assurance, we anticipate little improvement until a highly skilled leader appears.

Starting Monday: "When language goes on holiday!" (Reports on the Callais decision. Thoughts on what comes next.)