Good morning. It's September 6th. It is a cloudy morning for now in New York City. And this is your Indignity Morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Speaking of things that are cloudy for now in New York City, the lead news column in this morning's New York Times is “Federal agents search officials in New York City, inquiry basis unclear. Among targets, deputy mayors, school's chief and police leader.” I'll be honest here, when this story broke online yesterday, I couldn't even bring myself to click on it. As an informed citizen and a reader of the news, I hit my breaking point with the feds enacting Zeno's paradox with the investigation of Eric Adams. Or, sorry, the investigation of everyone as close as possible to Eric Adams who's not Eric Adams.

Reading the ongoing coverage of the investigative activities, as explained by what the Times calls “people with knowledge of the matter,” is like playing 20 questions with someone who thinks they've thought up a really clever edge case and is being as coy as possible about it. So we hear from the Times that the Fed seized the phones of the New York City Police Commissioner, the first Deputy Mayor, the school's Chancellor, and others. A bit later we learned that the others include the deputy mayor for public safety and a senior advisor to the mayor. The Feds seized the mayor's own devices some time ago, but nothing visibly came of it because so far nothing visibly comes from any of this. So what has been added to the pile of the things that the public doesn't know about? “The actions were unrelated,” the Times writes, “to a separate corruption inquiry focused on the mayor and his campaign fundraising, some of the people said.”

Then the Times fills in the factual void with some blah blah about how it further destabilizes the administration and the investigations raise questions about Mr. Adams's ability to continue managing the city and threaten to further weaken his political standing. But beyond those vibes about abstractions, what does any of this mean? “The nature of the investigations,” the Times writes, “is unclear, but it appears that one is focused on the senior city hall officials and the other touches on the police commissioner, people said.” Furthermore, or further-less, “none of the officials,” the Times writes, “has been accused of any crime,” and “the full scope of the fundraising investigation into the mayor also remains unclear,” and “Mr. Adams has consistently denied wrongdoing, and the federal authorities have not accused him of any crimes.” Great. So what are we doing here? This all manages to be agitating and incredibly boring at the same time.

If you're going to indict the mayor, indict the mayor. But the leaks and hints and fragments approach is just annoying. 

Next to that, on page one is a story where the Times does have something to say, but the headline writers went out of their way to cover up what it was. The headline is, “Trump backs federal panel on efficiency. Idea came from Musk, who'd lead a group.” Even within the conventions of headline-ese, the use of “backs” is essentially deceptive. Backing a proposal is what you do when someone has made the proposal and you're joining in to support an idea that meaningfully exists. The panel is just something Elon Musk pulled out of his ass that Trump decided to brandish around. As part of what the Times makes clear was a completely rambling and vacuous attempt at giving an economic policy speech at the Economic Club of New York. Even picking out “federal panel on efficiency” as the speech's signature policy idea represents the Times packaging people desperately trying to make Trump sound like a normal presidential candidate with serious ideas. The story itself pretty swiftly disabuses the reader of the impression that the headline tried to put over, describing Trump's performance as a “wide-ranging and sometimes meandering speech that lasted more than an hour, in which Trump recast his first -term record as an economic miracle and renewed his pitch for lowering taxes and raising tariffs on imports, often disregarding some of the potential implications of his new proposals. The trade wars that Mr. Trump started,” the times continues, “had painful consequences for American farmers, and the new tariffs that he called for would also likely trigger backlash and retaliation from other countries. Mr. Trump claimed that his new tax cuts would be paid for by spurring economic growth, but the 2017 tax cuts he enacted increased the national debt and his growth projections never panned out.” At this point, it's a little stunning to see a story that acknowledges that Donald Trump was already president, and evaluates his remarks and his promises in the light of what he actually did. The reporters covering Trump's bluffing and equivocation on abortion should really have a look at this one for a comparison. Anyway, in addition to putting a Nazi -sympathizing ketamine addict whose entire fortune depends on wasteful government spending in charge of cutting wasteful government spending, Trump also decided to take the standard goofball right -wing pledge to delete two federal regulations for every new one proposed, and jack it up to deleting 10 regulations. Since it's all nonsense anyway, why not make it the most flamboyant nonsense you can? He also promised to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, slash the corporate tax rate from 21 % to 15%, but only for companies that manufacture products in the US. Pushed his tariffs, said he'd declare a federal emergency to force more oil and gas production, and also the Times notes.

“Veered at times on Thursday to criticize the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, to accuse Kamala Harris of leftist policies on policing and immigration, and to stoke fear around migrants and crimes. In his speech,” the Times' writes “included some of his frequent false claims, including his assertion that all the job growth during the Biden presidency had gone to undocumented immigrants.” Times also notes that the crowd was “more sedate than the audience at a typical Trump rally.” And all that information about a jabbering ill -received appearance gets boiled down into Donald Trump, supporter of greater federal government efficiency. 

Down at the bottom of page one, “2023 tip on shooting suspect came up empty.” The Times reports that the accused school shooter was reported to the FBI for having threatened on Discord to shoot up his middle school, including posting pictures of guns. The sheriff came around and the kid told him somebody must have hacked into his Discord account and posted that stuff. And the sheriff shrugged and went away. If they tried comparing the guns in the household to the guns in the photos, nobody mentioned it. The kid's father reportedly bought him the AR-15 used in the shooting as a holiday present after the authorities had come around to ask about the school shooting threat. On top of the son's felony murder charges, the father was charged yesterday with “four counts of involuntary manslaughter” the Times writes, “two counts of felony murder, and eight counts of cruelty to children.” 

And down at the bottom of the page, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty on his tax charges yesterday without cutting any sort of deal, just to get the trial over with. His sentencing is scheduled for December. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. Game song composed and performed by Max Scocca-Ho. 

Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. Send us that money. And if all goes well, we will talk again on Monday.