Reality Ignored For Ratings

While the world burns, media chases clicks and Trump floods the zone, Americans’ real crises, Epstein files, Ukraine, affordability, die quietly off camera, ignored by the noise and spectacle machine

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Remember to follow him on Substack for more by clicking here. Michael just hit 500,000 subscribers on YouTube! Subscribe today for free here and let’s keep the momentum going!

MDC Brooklyn

Here’s the thing about lies: they don’t need to be good, they just need to be loud. And nobody does loud, lazy, and wrong quite like mainstream cable news when it decides a narrative is easier than the truth.

Case in point: for the past two days, cable news has repeatedly invoked the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — MDC — the federal hellhole where El Chapo once rotted, where Ghislaine Maxwell now waits, and where Nicolás Maduro is currently being held after his dramatic snatch-and-grab flight courtesy of Uncle Sam, while casually dragging my name into the conversation. Notable Inmates Held at MDC, they advertise.

For the record, and for the sake of accuracy: I have never been to MDC. Not briefly. Not for processing. Not ever. When I was unconstitutionally remanded back into custody in 2020, I was returned to FCI Otisville from the Tombs, located at 500 Pearl Street, Manhattan. That’s not spin. That’s fact.

And here’s the clever bit the media loves: they will throw every name they can — mine, yours, anyone remotely recognizable — into the mix, using high-profile people like bait to keep the Maduro story sizzling at the top of the news hour. Anything to keep the Maduro name going. It’s not reporting; it’s attention engineering.

But accuracy doesn’t trend. Distraction does.

And while cable producers are busy misplacing my past like a mislabeled file folder, the present is screaming for attention…and being deliberately ignored.

Because on Monday night, quietly and without fanfare, the Department of Justice filed a court letter that should have detonated across every chyron in America. The DOJ acknowledged that there are more than two million documents “potentially responsive” to the Epstein Files Transparency Act that are currently in various stages of review.

Two million documents.

Let that sit with you.

Congress set a clear deadline for disclosure: December 19. That deadline has come and gone. What has the public received so far? About 12,285 documents, totaling roughly 125,000 pages, uploaded to the DOJ’s Epstein Library. That’s not transparency. That’s a sample tray.

To deal with the remaining trove, the DOJ says it plans to enlist approximately 400 attorneys across Washington, D.C., New York, and Florida, many of whom will devote all or a substantial portion of their workday to reviewing Epstein-related materials. These lawyers are being pulled from the Criminal Division and the National Security Division. They’ll be joined by more than 100 FBI analysts experienced in handling sensitive victim materials.

Even then, the DOJ admits “substantial work remains.” There is no total page count. No firm timeline. No date for the next public release. The department also acknowledges that roughly one million newly identified FBI records may be duplicative, but still require processing and deduplication before anyone outside the government is allowed to see them.

Complicating matters further, the DOJ has received dozens of inquiries from alleged victims and their representatives requesting additional redactions to protect privacy interests, prompting the department to modify its disclosure procedures midstream.

All of this is happening while the clock keeps ticking and the public is told, once again, to wait.

But waiting doesn’t make for good television.

Neither does what’s happening overseas. While the Epstein files remain buried in bureaucratic molasses, Russia continues its assault on Ukraine. Overnight strikes killed civilians, knocked out power and heating systems as temperatures plunged below freezing, and forced doctors and nurses to evacuate wounded patients under fire. Medical facilities burned. Energy infrastructure was hit. One hundred sixty-five drones and at least nine missiles launched in a single night.

Fear, deployed deliberately.

European leaders are scrambling in Paris to revive diplomatic efforts, while Trump dispatches his usual cast of loyalists to play statesman for the cameras. On the ground, Ukrainians are burying their dead.

That, too, struggles to compete with spectacle at home.

Back home, Americans are facing an affordability crisis that barely survives a commercial break. Housing costs are crushing. Grocery prices punishing. Childcare unattainable. Healthcare rationed by bank balance. Wages lag while borrowing costs rise, forcing families to drain savings, delay care, and quietly slide backward. The strain is widespread, structural, and growing — but it doesn’t lend itself to shouting matches between paid commentators.

So instead, we get distraction.

Yes, MDC is a notorious facility. Overcrowded. Violent. Medically negligent. Judges have refused to send defendants there. Its roster of inmates reads like a rogues’ gallery: El Chapo, Martin Shkreli, R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, Ghislaine Maxwell, and now Nicolás Maduro. Even a former Honduran president passed through before receiving a Trump pardon in a grotesque display of selective mercy.

But obsessing over MDC trivia, or misusing familiar names to juice a segment, is precisely the point. It’s safe. It’s clickable. And it keeps attention away from questions that actually threaten power.

Because if you’re focused on noise, you’re not asking why millions of Epstein documents remain undisclosed. You’re not pressing the DOJ on missed deadlines. You’re not watching Ukraine bleed. And you’re not demanding answers about why life in America keeps getting more expensive while accountability keeps getting deferred.

This isn’t accidental. It’s profitable.

Trump floods the zone. Cable news cashes the checks. Meanwhile, the things Americans actually need bleed off camera, dying quietly while everyone is too busy staring at distractions.

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