A humanitarian and constitutional crisis is happening right now! Don’t be misled by muted media coverage of it.

When something truly terrible happens…especially when its aftermath is on-going…news media cover it relentlessly for days or even weeks. The story repeatedly shows up on the front page. Think of the twin towers falling. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or January 6.

Something equally terrible is happening right now.

And yet…as the story continues to develop…sustained front page coverage of it in most major media outlets (such as The New York Times) is missing.

I am talking about the “disappearing” of Kilmar Abrego García — and Trump’s open defiance to do anything about it, despite an order from the Supreme Court to “facilitate” his release.

This is a humanitarian disaster, a constitutional crisis and a five-alarm warning of the autocracy to which our country is careening — all rolled into one!

Until the matter is judiciously and satisfactorily resolved, it should remain a top of the front-page headline. That this is not the case is a sad testimony to the current state of much of our media.

This is not to say that mainstream coverage is completely absent. As developments occur, they do get reported in the “inside pages” of news media. For example, this recent New York Times article noted that: “Judge Rebukes U.S. Effort to Return Wrongly Deported Man.”

But given the gravity of the situation, the mainstream media need to do more. Much more. The time to act is now. Tomorrow may be too late.

At least someone at The New York Times understands the full gravity of the situation. That’s Ezra Klein. His latest podcast episode, “The Emergency is Here” lays out the horrendous and dangerous developments more clearly and effectively than anything else I have yet to read or hear. I’ll finish this entry with an excerpt from the opening of his podcast:

“The emergency is here.

The crisis is now. It is not six months away. It is not another Supreme Court ruling away from happening. It’s happening now. 

Perhaps not to you, not yet. But to others. Real people. We know their names. We know their stories.

The president of the United States is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. A prison known by its initials — CECOT. A prison built for disappearance. A prison where there is no education or remediation or recreation, because it is a prison that does not intend to release its inhabitants back out into the world. It is a prison where the only way out, in the words of El Salvador’s so-called justice minister, is a coffin.”

…

Trump has said it all plainly and publicly: He intends to send those he hates to foreign prisons beyond the reach of U.S. law. He does not care — he will not even seek to discover — if those he sends into these foreign hells are guilty of what he claims. Because this is not about their guilt — it is about his power.

And if he is capable of that, if he wants that, then what else is he capable of? What else does he want? And if the people who serve him are willing to give him that, to defend his right to do that, what else will they give him? What else will they defend?

This is the emergency. Like it or not, it’s here.