Whatever you do, don't mention the ...

Who had "oh, around 1 p.m. Eastern US on March 22" in the pool on how long it might take for President Brainspurs' unprovoked war of choice to fall out of the top 10 at the Fox homepage? Help yourself to another big orange while we review the media agenda that Fox is transferring to the public:

Our top story: "Far-left activist groups and personalities flocked to Havana, Cuba, this week in an effort to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump's administration." That's one way of getting around the question of whether a blockade amounts to an act of war (hint: yeah). Hypocrisy, as you might imagine, is not a normally distributed phenomenon at Fox.

No. 2: Former DHS official goes on "Fox & Friends Weekend" to point out that the next big terror threat is posed by taking our eye off the ball: "It’s just human nature that you're going to be worried about where that next paycheck is cut."

No. 3: OK, technically, the "live updates" feature is a frequently updated check-in on the latest in war news, but here, it's just reminding us how smart and funny the boss is. The story is built around a Trump post on Truth Social, sharing a clip from the premiere of "Saturday Night Live UK." (USA Today says he clipped out the part of the skit in which Starmer says "I know how badly you want to start World War III, and that's great.") 

No. 4: What could scare Fox News into writing favorably about a tenants union? A picture of Barack Obama!* Here, the local Fox station covers a meeting "earlier this month." 

No. 5: Online randos post videos complaining about what other people do, and hospitality experts agree that it happens sometimes.

No. 6: Republican candidate has the answer to California's redistricting plan: Seize the ballots and count them until we like the result. Sheriff Chad is generally running just behind a Fox contributor and former host in California's open primary, but Fox seems fairly fond of him; he was among the top 10 stories every few months in 2024-25 and was the lead story in June 2024 when he released a video endorsing Trump

No. 7: No need to may attention to Trump's Mueller comments when you can run a picture of Rachel Maddow, right? Active blasting at Fox is directional -- Maddow is allowed to blast in the active voice, but only to her left. Here's a bit of the blast in context: "That is because once his investigation and his report were concluded, he was just wildly outmaneuvered by a really serpentine attorney general named Bill Barr, who played really dirty pool when it came to the handling and release of the information from Mueller’s investigation."

No. 8: The only thing better than a celebrity story is a "California Leavin'" celebrity story: Hollywood celebrities pull up stakes and find life better on the farm, in the South, in the mountains, wherever. The actual hed "California Leaving" (or "Leavin'") shows up 10 times across the dataset, along with three cases of "California Fleeing" and assorted variants like California Scheming, Stealing and Screaming. 

No. 9: It's in Detroit, so you can probably write the comments yourself. (This is pegged to a Tuesday announcement, if you've been wondering about the value of time in the Fox equation.)

No. 10: Tom Brady is toward the virtuous end of the villains-victims-virtuous spectrum that many athletes and celebrities fall on. He's among the top stories 42 times in 2022 and 2023. Here, if only he was flaunting bikini snaps in an Instagram post, he'd be proving that age is just a number.

Without the distraction of a kinetic war, the top of the homepage is still a reliable guide to the dangers and delights of Planet Fox. Leftists are a menace everywhere, Trump sees the problems before we do, freeloaders, Obama, and (hem) Detroiters (kaff) are always ready to take advantage of hardworking Americans, and liberals eat their own. Fortunately, there are always a few celebrities and athletes who model the values that made America great. Quite a place, that Planet Fox.

* If only he'd een wearing a tan suit.