Despite a plethora of photos depicting upset and anxious-looking children separated from their parents at the time the parents are apprehended crossing the border, homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen repeatedly stated to a tone-deaf White House press corps on Monday that of the 12,000 children currently housed in DHS detention centers, "[t]en thousand of those currently in custody were sent by their parents with strangers to undertake a completely dangerous and deadly travel alone." 

She was also asked why the Trump administration is abusing children, to which she replied that children detained by DHS are fed three meals a day; clothed; and provided education, entertainment, and medical care.  Hardly child abuse when you consider the parents of 10,000 unaccompanied children willingly gave their children away to a stranger, on the promise that the stranger would deliver his child to the border.  Furthermore, are we to assume that the media don't consider human-smuggling illegal and abusive?

To be sure, Secretary Nielsen's attempt to sort fact from fiction apparently riled up the usual suspects.  Some Democrats are now demanding her resignation.  According to Democratic logic, doing your job these days is worthy of admonishment and firing.

Unraveling the media fiction is not all that complicated.  One thing consumers of news in the U.S. are all too familiar with is the ability of the overtly partisan, biased media outlets to misrepresent the facts, tweak the numbers, Photoshop at will, and in general skew the news in order to sway public opinion.  Secretary Nielsen bravely confronted and consistently countered a snarling White House Press Corps by calling the U.S. a "country of compassion," attempting to explain the difference between parents who arrive at the border with their children and the flood of minors (now in DHS custody) who arrived at the border unaccompanied and without parents.  She further explained, "Somehow we've conflated everything.  But they are two separate issues."  Secretary Nielsen should know by now – "conflated" is an appropriate description of what the mendacious media do best.  Pushing propaganda is their job, and by whatever means necessary.  In the age of Hate Trump, the possibilities are endless.