INDIGNITY MORNING PODCAST

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: If I were writing a news story about the president going to the Federal Reserve to put public pressure on the chairman and having the chairman point out with cameras rolling that the president's complaint was essentially a fabrication I would make that the top of the story, an official who the president is trying to push out, despite lacking the legal authority to do so openly fighting back against the president, when subjected to a staged struggle session, seems like the noteworthy aspect of what happened, and notably that was how the Times website played it, in the collection of live blog items and squibs from which the front page story was assembled online the headline is “Powell fact-checks Trump on cost of Fed renovations” and their dispute makes it into the third paragraph, after what's otherwise the same lead as the print story and a separate live blog entry has the headline “Face to face Powell told Trump He was wrong about a construction project.” Somebody needs to let the live blog editor into the page one meeting. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: In addition to being possibly the biggest superstar of professional wrestling, Hogan was also a racist and a fraud artist whose major legacy was his willingness to commit perjury as the plaintiff serving as the front person for Peter Thiel's successful campaign to abuse the legal system and the power differential, that comes with a reactionary billionaire class, to destroy Gawker, where I worked at the time, and to set the template for the Trump administration's current omnidirectional assault on the media, higher education, and pretty much everything else. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: These are Steve Bannon's own guests, telling him on his program that they're still upset about the Epstein question, and then Bannon turns around and tells the Times and everyone else that the movement is rallying around the president and the Times prints it. That's literally the opposite of NEWS ANALYSIS. It's a press release from the permanent campaign. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: “Zoran Mamdani,” the Times writes, “is unleashing a full-scale charm offensive of private meetings, phone calls, and public promises aimed at wooing top party leaders, donors, and activists,” and runs through a list of the meetings that he's taken with influence groups and elected officials. But underneath that, it's a story about the lack of sophistication on the side that considers itself more sophisticated. “In his meetings,” the Times writes, “Mr. Mamdani has surprised some Democrats with his affability and ability to listen to their concerns, perhaps hinting at his willingness to make some concessions.” If you're expressing surprise in July of 2025, that Zoran Mamdani is friendly and a good listener, what you're saying is that your understanding of New York City politics lags considerably behind that of the 573,000 people who voted for him. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Basically, if you can imagine the stupidest and most destructive ways to either spend more money or not spend money, the bill is going to hit all of them. Despite the fact that nobody but a handful of lunatics really wants this to happen, it's on its way to happening. The easy interpretation of this is that the country is in the hands of a malevolent dictator, and it is, but there's a strange hollowness at the center of that dictatorship. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Senate Republicans chose to embrace a fake accounting maneuver in which the $3.8 trillion expense of extending Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, past their expiration date, doesn't count as an expense since the tax cuts are in effect right now. This directly contradicts the accounting that was used to pass those tax cuts in the first place. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Nowhere in the paper is the news that 128 Democrats in the House of Representatives joined the Republicans to prevent Texas Representative Al Green from getting the House to vote on impeaching Donald Trump for his congressionally unauthorized attack on Iran. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: A big morning for newsworthy cuss words from the executive branch. I guess the job here on this podcast is to try to make sense of the news, but I gotta confess, I'm whipped. I know the potential smoldering fuse of World War III is a heck of a thing to throw up one's hands about, but it seems pretty clear that the people doing the war also have no idea what's really going on. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: the Times has a five-byline story narrating the process by which Donald Trump chose to send the bombers, and it essentially is not a story about military strategy at all. It was simply a child-minded and senescent president balancing his whims against the lobbying of his advisors and largely what he saw on television before deciding to do what seemed like the biggest most drastic and most satisfying thing. visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: “I don't reach out to persuade you,” Huckabee says, “only to encourage you. I believe you will hear from heaven. And that voice is far more important than mine or anyone else's.” And that is how the United States's current administration is approaching a military crisis precipitated by a nuclear-armed ally. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: “Today, the "Times writes, "while most Americans do not support political violence, a growing share have said in surveys that they view rival partisans as a threat to the country or even as inhuman. Mr. Trump,” the Times continues, “has had a hand in that. Since his 2016 candidacy, he has signaled at least his tacit approval of violence against his political opponents. He encouraged attendees at his rallies to ‘knock the hell' out of protesters, praised a lawmaker who body slammed a reporter, and defended the rioters on January 6th, 2021, who clamored to hang Mike Pence. One of his first acts in his second term as president was to pardon those rioters.” Yeah, I think the approval of violence is considerably more than tacit there. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Last term, people told him he couldn't have that military parade and that he couldn't send the troops to shoot protesters. But this time around, he's gotten rid of those people and with them the limits on his ability to play around with deadly force to make himself feel powerful. If you can't grasp that simple fact, you need not to be presenting yourself as an expert on defense policy or for that matter, as the editor of a major general interest magazine. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: This, it turns out, is how a violent fascist takeover manifests itself operating in the uncanny nexus between completely made up pretexts and complaints and genuine power and violence. Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth go on TV, done up like Bratz dolls of themselves and make flamboyantly idiotic and fantastic claims about reality, while somebody's real head bangs into a real curb, and they end up locked up and facing extravagant criminal punishment, in the real criminal justice system. Burning vehicles really feature prominently so far in the iconography of what's happening in LA. They make nice dramatic pictures, which is presumably a large part of why people set them on fire. And they're easier to get a nice composed shot of than the crowded, chaotic and fast moving spectacle of, say, police horses trampling protesters underfoot. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: The New York Times would not allow itself to write a news headline asserting that the president is abusing his power, but it's perfectly happy to go fishing for a quote that will say that. In this case, the fishing line is still visible, as what Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center and a former Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission says, specifically is, “and yes, this is an example of Trump publicly and improperly threatening,” etc. which points back to his having been asked by the reporter to affirm the proposition that Trump is abusing his power. So he got the quote, the quote goes in quotation marks, and the Times simply reports it, as a thing in the world that someone factually spoke. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: It seems like there would be several more salient reasons why someone would avoid publicly attaching their name to a story about defying the out-of-control authoritarian president, but journalistic conventions are journalistic conventions. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: It is June 4th, the date the tanks rolled in, drawing approval, at the time, from Donald Trump for the Chinese government's display of the "power of strength," as he told Playboy in an interview. But that was all very long ago and surely not relevant here in the 21st century. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: It wasn't just a demonstration of the capacity for military action. It was a military action. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: The whole gambit of snatching people out of immigration court completely contradicts the message of the Trump campaign and administration, that it is turning ICE loose to seize and deport the most dangerous criminal elements in the country because Trump's preferred arms of federal law enforcement are lazy and incompetent, and because the real point is to create a spectacle of brutality, instead of trying to track down hardened criminals, they are literally going after the most law-abiding immigrants they can lay their hands on by seizing them as they're in the middle of trying to abide by the law. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Driven by his subliterate vulgar Darwinian unto eugenicist belief system, Kennedy, in concert with Mehmet Oz, the Trump administration's head of Medicare and Medicaid, wants to import a diseased flock of birds to the United States and turn them loose on a ranch owned by Dr. Oz in Florida. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T. If you're a person who cares about Venezuelan babies, this may tug at your heartstrings. But given that the people who are running this country hate Venezuelan babies and want the worst for them, the story reads like a more literally constructed version of a triumphalist memo that the White House would put out. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: For an instructive contrast of approach, there is the lawsuit filed yesterday by Shira Perlmutter, on the question of who is in charge of the United States Copyright Office, in which the plaintiff identifies herself as Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, while naming the defendants Todd Blanche “in his capacity as the person claiming to be Acting Librarian of Congress” and Paul Perkins “in his capacity as the person claiming to be the Register of Copyrights.” Just because Donald Trump says he's taken a job away from someone and given it to someone else, that doesn't mean change is reportable as a fact in its own right. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: The president of the United States somehow becomes an adjective attached to a “broadside,” a broadside that then “embroils” the South African president. This generates a mood, a mood of “tension.” And then comes a little action, sharing a video, but the video is only "echoing false assertions over white genocide." “Over” is just a weird space-filler, wrong choice of preposition there. Apparently, “of” would have left the line too short. But what is this “echo” of an “assertion?” Where was the assertion coming from that the video that the president of the United States played only contained a reflection of its substance? Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: This all starts to sound a little bit like the episode where New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft handed Vladimir Putin one of his Super Bowl rings to show it off, and Putin tucked it in his pocket and declared it a gift. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Saying Trump cares about supposed Afrikaner persecution because he cares about DEI is just an incredibly tortured way of saying that the president is a racist crank. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: The Times carries on its recent welcome habit of writing direct and unmediated assessments of the president's shortcomings, “President's Opponents Getting Wise to His Ways / A Pattern of Blustering Negotiating Tactics Ending in Retreat.” Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: On the front of this morning's New York Times, four columns wide, is a picture of a greeting between the lawless strongman leader of a corrupt petrostate and Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, as the latter stretches out his hands to welcome Donald Trump. “During President Trump's first term,” the piece begins, “the idea that special interests and governments were buying meals and booking rooms at his hotels set off legal and ethical alarms about the potential for corruption. Mr. Trump's second term is making those concerns look trivial.” Or you could just say, during President Trump's first term, special interests and governments bought meals and booked rooms at his hotels. Mr. Trump's second term is making those dealings look trivial. See? Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: The story cites Trump telling Bob Woodward that he saved Mohammed bin Salman's ass by making the congressional hubbub over bin Salman's decision to murder Jamal Khashoggi of the Washington Post and chop his body up with a bone saw go away, and it recalls how the Saudi sovereign wealth fund gave Jared Kushner two billion dollars to play with, after Trump's first term was over, and how Trump used the Saudis upstart professional golf tour to enrich his own golf courses and hotels, and it brings up the real estate and crypto deals on top of that. It's a very nice roundup, but it's not clear why it should be a news analysis piece instead of just being inserted as standard boilerplate into every story about the president's Middle Eastern dealings. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: This is only about “dueling perspectives” in the same sense that New York City and Al-Qaeda had different ideas about the best use for the World Trade Center. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: One thing that is missing from this morning is your Indignity Morning Podcast's physical copy of the New York Times. There is neither a bagged one nor a soggy, unbagged one anywhere to be found, and so this edition is going to face the news with only minimal hierarchical guidance. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T. Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

EASY LISTENING DEP'T.: Please visit, read, and support INDIGNITY! https://www.indignity.net/

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