Thousands more children were separated!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2019

How much did "cable news" care?
In hard copy, the report appeared atop the front page of the New York Times.

It appeared two Fridays ago. Beneath a double headline, the news report by Miriam Jordan started like this:
JORDAN (1/18/19): Many Families Split at Border Went Untallied / Report Says Thousands More Children Taken

The Trump administration most likely separated thousands more children from their parents at the Southern border than was previously believed,
according to a report by government inspectors released on Thursday.

The federal government has reported that nearly 3,000 children were forcibly separated from their parents under last year’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which nearly all adults entering the country illegally were prosecuted, and any children accompanying them were put into shelters or foster care.

But even before the administration officially unveiled the zero-tolerance policy in the spring of 2018, staff of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees the care of children in federal custody, had noted a “sharp increase” in the number of children separated from a parent or guardian, according to the report from the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

As of December, the department had identified 2,737 children who were separated from their parents under the policy and required to be reunified by a federal court order issued in June 2018.

But that number does not represent the full scope of family separations. Thousands of children may have been separated during an influx that began in 2017, before the accounting required by the court, the report said.

Thus, the total number of children separated from a parent or guardian by immigration authorities is “unknown,” because of the lack of a coordinated formal tracking system between the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the arm of Health and Human Services that takes in the children, and the Department of Homeland Security, which separated them from their parents.
The same situation was reported on the front page of that day's Washington Post. "IG estimates thousands more were separated at the border," the hard-copy headline said atop Amy Goldstein's report.

Did we mention the fact that this was reported at the very top of the New York Times' front page? According to this new report, the policy of separating immigrant children from their parents had been underway earlier than had previously been acknowledged.

The practice had resulted in thousands more separations than had been reported. Due to "the lack of a coordinated formal tracking system," the skillful minions of Donald J. Trump weren't able to provide an accurate account of the total number of separations.

The report appeared atop the front page of the hard-copy Times. It concerned one of the most heinous policies enacted by the Trump administration.

That said, we were struck by how little attention our corporate cable news channels devoted to the report. Simply put, our big corporate cable entertainment centers don't care about topics like this.

On CNN, this front-page topic received no prime time treatment at all. On the evenings of Thursday, January 17; Friday, January 18; and Monday, January 21, the topic wasn't mentioned by Anderson Cooper, Chris Cuomo or Don Lemon, the hosts who handle CNN's lineup from 8 PM Eastern till midnight.

It topped the front page of the New York Times, but CNN gave it a pass. The topic received a bit more coverage at MSNBC:

At MSNBC, the topic was completely ignored, over the three nights in question, by the programs hosted by Ari Melber, Chris Matthews and Lawrence O'Donnell. If you get your news from one of those programs, you didn't hear squat about this.

On Thursday, January 17, an extremely short mini-report appeared on the program hosted by Brian Williams, with Ali Velshi guest hosting. That same night, Chris Hayes explored the topic with Senator Merkley during his program's final segment.

On Monday, January 21, Rachel Maddow did a full report on the topic at the end of her show with Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. As usual, Maddow seemed to go beyond some reported facts, making the story more thrilling. If only she had a telephone sex tape involving General Kelly!

Long ago and far away, Joe Scarborough said that this particular policy was so heinous that it stood to drive voters of various stripes away from Donald J. Trump. Despite this assessment, the general topic has been largely ignored by corporate anti-Trump cable.

Corporate cable likes to spend its evenings with familiar figures ("some of our favorite reporters and friends") speculating endlessly about who will have to go to prison and how soon they'll have to report there. Two weeks back, this topic topped the Times' front page, but that was the anthill it died on.

How many of the children in question will never see their parents again? On corporate cable, there's little sign that anyone actually cares about minor piddle like that. For ourselves, we think it's important that liberals develop a slightly more jaundiced view about the way corporate cable works.

By the way, how much do those cable hosts get paid by their corporate owners? For reasons which are blindingly obvious, you aren't encouraged to think about that, and you aren't permitted to know!

22 comments:

  1. "How many of the children in question will never see their parents again? "

    Separating innocent, helpless, little children from criminal border-crossing parents is the prime responsibility of any decent individual, Bob.

    Consequently: 'the more the better' is the correct answer, my dear.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Exactly. Give the kids free healthcare for life. After all, we can afford it, and (supposedly, despite the the Right-wing), we're not assholes.

      Delete
    2. There are probably 2 billion people on earth who would like to live in the US. We can't give free healthcare to all of them. They can'at all live here. How should we decide which ones to allow in? Well, we might try just following the laws we have passed. These generous laws allow around 1 million legal immigrants each year.

      Delete
    3. I remember before the fascists took over the US government seeking asylum from countries in turmoil after our CIA screwed them up every which way was a legal process, not criminal behavior.

      Delete
    4. "We can't give free healthcare to all of them. They can'at all live here."

      I'm in quite the conundrum. I'm not sure if i should believe the humble-rag rantings of an economic know-nothing troll, or my own lying eyes which just saw the USA, the richest nation in the history of mankind, give a huge tax break to businesses which were sitting on piles of cash.

      Delete
    5. Unauthorized border crossing has always been illegal, dembot.

      Just as illegal back when 'your' liberal-fascist CIA heroes were screwing 'them' up every which way.

      It's just that your liberal-fascist elite needed tens of millions of illegals, to screw up tens of millions of Murkans, American working people.

      Get it, dembot? And so this has been another installment of simple lessons of political economy for ignorant dembots. You're welcome.

      Delete
    6. Felons hire illegals? That's a new one to me, dembot.

      Btw, did you ask your dembot supervisor to run diagnostics on you yet?

      Delete
    7. No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

      AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
      or
      call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

      Delete
  2. Stay disciplined, my friends.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd sure like more of an explanation as to why Corporate Cable decides "who will go to jail" is more thrilling than "where are all the separated children". You can be cynical about Cable TV, but there some logic there that's not readily evident.

      Delete
    2. You have adopted Somerby’s terminology by characterizing MSNBC’s feeling about the Mueller investigation as “thrilling”. Perhaps they feel it is important. And it is. And they did extensive reporting on the border separation policy last spring that Somerby completely ignored.

      Somerby keeps telling us not to assume we know what is in the hearts and minds of others, but drops this when he assumes to know what motivates tv pundits.

      Delete
  3. Somerby completely ignored the near constant coverage by MSNBC of the family separation crisis last spring. He pretended they had barely mentioned it. So his track record of criticism on this topic is dismal. It was one of the most breathtakingly dishonest things he has ever done.

    On this current report, he complains that “cable news” doesn’t care, and to “prove” this he says “Chris Hayes explored the topic with Senator Merkley during his program's final segment.”

    And

    “Rachel Maddow did a full report on the topic at the end of her show with Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU. “

    But it was “completely ignored”...by some other programs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Somerby forgot to say that we need Trump's wall so that children won't be separated at the border. Why else would he finally be writing about this?

    ReplyDelete
  5. From today's Palmer Report:

    "If you ask Palmer Report’s longtime readers why they stick with us, most of them will say that it’s because we’re so far ahead of the mainstream media on so many important storylines. It’s not that we work with inside sources or that we have a crystal ball; we simply cover things when they first become important, rather than sitting on them until they become more ratings-friendly."

    Is Somerby accusing the cable shows of sitting on stories instead of reporting them, because of audience preferences and interest? Does that mean that it is viewers' fault that stories about children don't get produced?

    This sounds like more of his accusations that we viewers only want stories about sex and sexy time stuff, and that we don't care about children, at the border or elsewhere, especially in our schools.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is what a real president is like:

    "Former U.S. President Bill Clinton announced dozens of projects Tuesday aimed at helping Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands recover from a deadly 2017 hurricane season as part of a two-day conference in the U.S. territory organized by his foundation.

    The announcement comes as the region struggles to rebuild more than a year after hurricanes Irma and Maria caused billions of dollars in damage in Puerto Rico, Dominica, Antigua, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other spots.

    "Our work is far from over," Clinton said. "The work is not for those with short attention spans."

    More than 550 people representing over 400 organizations attended the conference of the Clinton Global Initiative, which Clinton created to help raise attention and money for causes worldwide.

    Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-clinton-unveils-projects-to-aid-puerto-rico-caribbean-in-wake-of-deadly-hurricanes/
    "

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whoa, Bubba needs mo' money, eh? But does he (or the 'wife') still have any political influence left to sell? I doubt it...

      Delete
    2. Who is paying the rent for the Clintons to live inside Mao's head?

      Delete
  7. No matter how old you are, family history is important. While you might not think so at the time, as you get older there will be things you and your grandchildren will want to know. Most of us don't realize it until the older generations are gone and you can't replace first hand comments. Don't just put in about the good times, add in the harder times and how you overcame those trials. Another thing to remember is what caused the deaths of those you loved. There are many things that have been found to continue into future generations that knowing it runs in the family can be helped with now or possible in the future. prevention starts with knowing where to start. I wish someone had taken the time to write these things down for mew to be able to go back to. My Grandmother and my mother told us many stories of what things happened in their lives and about the people in their lives. I now wish someone had written those things down since both have passed now. But I never thought at that busy point in my life that I would one day want to remember all those things. So much family history is lost when the older generations are gone. Please pass it on to your family while you can. You can even just do it digitally so it can be accessed by family later on.Family pictures are something to cherish also. Just be sure to write down who is pictured in them, where they are taken and when. I have found family pictures that no one now even knows who is in them.

    AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com
    or
    call/whatsapp:+2349057261346

    ReplyDelete
  8. I want to use this opportunity to say every big thanks to Dr Ekpen for restoring my relationship back to normal by casting a love spell on my partner to love me again. Contact Dr Ekpen today at (ekpentemple@gmail.com) or on whatsapp +2347050270218 if you want to be happy in your relationship again.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This testimony of Lord Krish Spiritual help for me is going to be declared all over the internet to publish his name to people and allow others who have relationship problems to be helped by him. Trust is the key to a successful spell. My name is Richard Becker and I am from Bucharest, Romania. I started writing this testimony on Wed 29th of July, 2020 and I purposefully put the date here so that I remember that it is just within 2 days of contacting Lord Krish Spiritual that my long lost relationship with my ex wife was finally over. I reconnected with my ex wife on the 28th of July after contacting Lord Krish on the 26th of July through his email lordkrishshrine@gmail.com and within 2 days, my ex wife came back to me after separating from her for over 8 years. It was a miracle because I never believed it would be possible. I am still surprised that as I am writing this testimony, she is still sleeping in our matrimonial bed. I am indeed happy sir. Thank you for helping me and I pray other wonderful people give wonderful testimonies too about you. Get in touch with Lord Krish Spiritual to save your relationship. Whatsapp message +2349060153379 and Email: lordkrishshrine@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  10. LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
    Hello all my viewers, I am very happy for sharing this great testimonies,The best thing that has ever happened in my life is how I win the lottery euro million mega jackpot. I am a Woman who believe that one day I will win the lottery. finally my dreams came through when I email believelovespelltemple@gmail.com and tell him I need the lottery numbers. I have spend so much money on ticket just to make sure I win. But I never know that winning was so easy until the day I meant the spell caster online which so many people has talked about that he is very great in casting lottery spell, . so I decide to give it a try.I contacted this great Dr Believe and he did a spell and he gave me the winning lottery numbers. But believe me when the draws were out I was among winners. I win 30,000 million Dollar. Dr Believe truly you are the best, all thanks to you forever

    ReplyDelete