Good morning. It is September 26th. It's getting kind of muggy here in New York City today. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. The morning New York Times showed up this morning, but who cares? It's a particularly useless day for the paper paper because the all -devouring news last night and into the morning is that the months -long drip, drip, drip of hints and leaks about federal investigations into New York City Mayor Eric Adams splashed out its ultimate leak, namely that there is, in fact, a sealed federal indictment against the mayor, which the feds plan to unseal in a news conference at 11:30 this morning. It's just as well the times couldn't fit it into the paper, because the existence of the indictment is the only information anybody really has, and the poor reporters were stuck on a live blog showing readers how they bash out vacuous Timesian boilerplate about how this raises questions and shakes up next year's mayor's race in real time. I guess also the feds raided Gracie Mansion last night, which is one more punchy, if non -illuminating detail. 

The New York Post is reporting that Brianna Suggs, the key fundraiser during Adams's 2021 mayoral campaign, and Winnie Greco, his direct revision affairs, are expected to be named in the indictment. That's a smaller morsel than it sounds like. As the Post continues, was unclear whether Suggs and Greco would be charged or just named. Mostly though, the post hits sniveling rock bottom in its sad decline from a nasty right-wing sensationalist tabloid to a pure partisan propaganda organ printing whatever mealy-mouthed nonsense will soothe Rupert Murdoch's feelings. 

The mayor of New York City is being busted by the feds. And rather than kick him when he's down, the gutless pukes put out a late city final edition with, “I am a target” as the wood and a headline of “Mayor indicted says it's payback for complaining about Biden's migrant crisis.” Trying to hump some non sequitur message about the perfidy of Joe Biden for the sake of advancing Donald Trump's anti-immigrant presidential campaign one soggy quarter inch further along. It's just pathetic. A gutless, gutless shell of what it used to be. 

And speaking of the sad and enfeebled state of formerly swaggering and tyrannical New York institutions, the DC Court of Appeals disbarred Rudy Giuliani this morning. At this rate, Bill de Blasio's era -adjusted mayoral stats are gonna turn him into a Fiorello LaGuardia in the record book. The most amazing news in all this may be that Adams is the first New York mayor ever to be indicted, with a big asterisk because nobody cared that Rudy Giuliani helped himself to diamond World Series rings and trunkloads of Yankees merchandise whenever he went to the ballpark. 

Hurricane Helene is closing in on Florida as an intensifying Category 2 storm expected to plunge deep inland in the southeast, bringing with it what the National Weather Service calls catastrophic and life -threatening flash and urban flooding into the Appalachians. The potential storm surge for Appalachia Bay, Florida, geographically distinct from the Appalachians but named after the same indigenous people, is described in official National Weather Service language as catastrophic and unsurvivable and a nightmare surge scenario. 

And speaking of making landfall, the New York Daily News, courts reporter Molly Crane Newman just posted on X, “Breaking: Mayor Eric Adams has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, federal program, bribery, and to receive campaign contributions by foreign nationals, wire fraud, solicitation of a contribution by a foreign national times two, and bribery.” And now the Times has it too. Reporting that the charges go back to before his term as mayor. “Federal prosecutors” the Times writes “said that Mr. Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits for at least a decade when he was then the Brooklyn borough president according to the indictment.” How this is all going to work under the Supreme Court's legalized bribery jurisprudence is a mystery, but they must think they have him. 

Anyway, if we keep watching the news roll in, this is going to be the Indignity morning, afternoon, and evening podcast, so a quick glance at the actual paper newspaper. 

Lead story is that Hezbollah shot a single missile toward Tel Aviv as Israel's bombardment of Lebanon killed 51 more people and wounded 223 according to the Lebanese health minister. 

Next to that, and a little bit down the page, speaking of bribery, fraud, and soliciting illegal foreign donations, the headline is “Kushner Fund Fees in a Lot, Profits Out Zero Dollars.” As Eric Lipton takes another look at how Donald Trump's son-in-law and central advisor, Jared Kushner, has spent his time since leaving the White House collecting $3 billion in foreign investment money, including 2 billion from the Saudis, personally approved by Mohammed bin Salman, over the objections of the people who manage the Saudi Wealth Fund, without so far generating any financial return on their investment, while collecting at least $112 million in investment management fees. It's possible the investments will simply pay out later, say in January 2025. 

And down the bottom of page, the Times is reporting that when you write a message to your doctor on the ubiquitous MyChart portal, you now stand a good chance of getting a slop reply written back by an artificial intelligence program. Coincidentally, the prescription refill I put in through MyChart on Monday has not been filled. Truly, the AI revolution is transforming everything about the way we live. 

That is the news, or as much of the news as we can grab for now. Thank you for listening.

The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. And if all goes well, we will talk again tomorrow.