PART ONE: Media compliance in advance
Let's begin with an essentially random image of headlines from my Google news aggregator regarding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador's CECOT death camp to the United States:
Here's what you notice immediately: the use of the transitive "to." Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the overwhelming majority of headlines tell us, is being returned TO the United States FOR THE PURPOSE OF facing criminal charges of human trafficking. (Do your own search if you don't believe me that this is the standard formulation.)
Pay attention to what is not said, either in the headlines or the body of an overwhelming majority of the stories, including that ... (1) the Trump administration denied vociferously that it would ever return Abrego Garcia to America; (2) that his return was a way to get around charges that the administration had been refusing to comply with a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling; and (3) that the narrative presented by Attorney General Pam Bondi regarding the investigation and charges does not hold water in even the slightest.
