MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2026
But also, Barney Frank: Are maggots frequently found in the food at the Delaney Hall Detention Center, right there on the outskirts of Newark?
Are they found in the food there at all? At this site, we can't necessarily tell you. That said:
Last Thursday, CBS News seemed to report that three United States congressmen had said that's what they saw:
Protests over inhumane conditions at ICE facility Delaney Hall in Newark become violent
[...]
A congressional delegation from New York and New Jersey Sen. Corey Booker visited Delaney Hall earlier Wednesday. They said they observed dire conditions, including a pregnant women not getting the proper medical care.
"This is a moral stain on who we hope to be and profess to be. It is a complete indictment of the president who lied to us about how he was going to conduct his immigration policies," Booker said.
Advocates say detainees inside have been on a hunger strike for almost a week. The Department of Homeland Security denies a strike is happening inside.
Maggots in the food?
Congressmen Adriano Espaillat, Dan Goldman, and Jerry Nadler say they observed a lack of medical treatment and small portions of food that very often contained maggots.
And so on from there.
According to CBS, three congressmen said they'd seen maggots in the food. In fairness, none of the three was directly quoted. But that's what it seemed they had said.
The congressional reps had inspected the detention center on Wednesday. The following day, on The Five, Greg Gutfeld said he doesn't care if maggots are found in the food.
"Who cares if there are maggots?" the gentleman thoughtfully said. "Who cares if [detainees] don't like the food?" Jesse Watters soon added.
Citizens, can we talk?
Presumably, some people do care if there are maggots in the food. Also, it seems that some others don't.
For now, let's stick to the factual question:
Are there maggots in the food at the Delaney Hall facility? And did the three congressmen actually say that that's what they actually saw?
Are there maggots in the food? And what was the source of that claim? In its own report about this matter, the Associated Press offered this:
Congress members say conditions dire at NJ detention center facing protests, reported hunger strike
Democratic members of Congress on Wednesday said they observed dire conditions within a federal immigration detention center in New Jersey where protesters have been demonstrating for days and asserting that detainees are on a hunger strike.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, said detainees at Delaney Hall in Newark are being given small portions of food that “very often” contain maggots and that the only medication they receive is Tylenol.
One woman, he said, had a lump in her breast but was still waiting on a mammogram more than a month into her detention. Another detainee was suffering from colon cancer but wasn’t receiving any treatment.
“The bottom line is, if you are human, if you are American, you cannot support what is going on here,” said U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, another Manhattan Democrat who toured the facility Wednesday. “They’re living in jail conditions, and none of these people are criminals.”
In this AP report, Rep. Nadler was cited as the lone source of the specific claim. And as with CBS, so too here:
Nadler wasn't directly quoted. Was he reporting his own observation, or had he merely been told? The AP didn't report the source of the congressman's claim.
What did congressmen actually see when they were inside the center? Gutfeld said he doesn't care if there are maggots in the food, but as of this morning, five days later, it isn't clear that major mainstream news orgs care about this either.
Using Google as well as the paper's search engine, we find no sign that the New York Times has ever reported this claim. In fact, we find no sign that the Times or the Wall Street Journal has ever reported last Wednesday's congressional visit at all.
Are there maggots in the food? Did one (or three) congressmen say as much? Did they observe this with their own eyes, or had they merely been told?
We start with this question today because of what we saw on The Five when the godforsaken ersatz news program pretended to discuss the maggots on two successive programs.
First on Thursday, then on Friday, the corporate buffoons who people this program offered their reactions to the report in question. Not long ago, the sheer stupidity put on display on Friday's program would have been hard to picture within the American news firmament.
In the next few days, we'll show you what Gutfeld and Watters said on Thursday, the again the next day. A key point:
According to the world's major experts, a nation which accepts such brain death as part of news culture has already become a failed state.
The garbage can sold by the Fox News Channel rarely fails to amaze. It's an artefact of Red American corporate messaging culture—and The Five, as you well know, boasts an audience which almost triples the size of the typical MS NOW prime time audience.
For a person who wants to leave a published record on How It Happened for the generations to follow, it's hard to avert one's gaze from the undermining of the culture which takes place on the Fox News Channel.
That said, there's also this:
On May 20, just twelve days ago, the New York Times reported the death of Barney Frank. We're going to show you the dual headline, plus part of the way the lengthy report began:
Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86
Often voted the “brainiest,” “funniest” and “most eloquent” member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office.
Barney Frank, the brassy, lightning-quick former Massachusetts representative who for decades was the most prominent gay politician in the country and who was an author of the most significant overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations since the Great Depression, died on Tuesday at his home in Ogunquit, Maine. He was 86.
His friend James Segel confirmed the death. Mr. Frank said last month that he had entered hospice care with congestive heart failure.
Mr. Frank, a liberal Democrat who represented a diverse suburban Boston district for 32 years, starting in 1981, was the first gay member of the House to come out voluntarily; others had been outed in scandals. His public declaration of his sexual orientation in 1987—spurred by a fear of being outed, by the death of a closeted colleague and by his own determination to show that homosexuality was nothing to be ashamed of—helped normalize being openly gay in public life.
He was "an author of the most significant overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations since the Great Depression." He was also the first gay member of the House to come out.
(
One commenter comments here: "He saved many lives of gay young people because of his honesty. It took courage and it saved lives.so rare these days.")
No one ever doubted that Rep. Frank was extremely sharp. The Times obit went on at great length. As it ended, it offered this recent point:
As Mr. Frank was entering hospice care in late April, he had just finished writing a book, “The Hard Path to Unity.” Its premise was that the political left, of which he was a member in good standing, had sometimes gone too far in pushing divisive causes...
Slow down, he advised, and find common ground. Rather than focusing on cultural flash points, build support with something practical; instead of demanding Medicare for all, for example, start by reducing the age of Medicare eligibility.
Too frail to travel, he nevertheless happily spoke with interviewers about what he had written, and said he was pleased that the book’s message was having some resonance.
“Frankly,” he told The Times, “if I weren’t dying, people wouldn’t be paying as much attention.”
That's what he'd recently said.
The inanity of Red American corporate messaging was on display again last week. Quite recently, Frank had been saying that we Blues have sometimes made extremely large mistakes.
He said we Blues have made large mistakes! What could this very important figure possibly have meant by that?
Tomorrow: Watters, equipped with the menus