Good morning. It is November 18th. It is sunny again and dry still 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. 

Residents of 165 homes on the New York side of the New York-New Jersey border were asked to evacuate yesterday as the still uncontrolled Jennings Creek wildfire blew through a containment line. A falling tree killed an 18 year old firefighter a week and a half ago and smoke continues spreading over the region. The forecast says that there should be heavy rain Arriving on Thursday, which would be the first substantial rainfall since late September.

In the Philippines Super typhoon Man-yi passed through over the weekend, displacing half a million people, in what CNN reports is an unprecedented fourth typhoon to hit the Philippines in less than two weeks.

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the lead news column is ÒBiden allowing Ukraine to use top U.S. missilesÓ now that North Korean forces have showed up to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Joe Biden is authorizing the use of long range missiles, which the Times reports are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of Western Russia. Mr. Biden's decision, the Times writes, Òis a major change in U.S. policy. The choice has divided his advisors and his shift comes two months before president-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.Ó On the Jump page, the compliment to that story is, ÒAs Trump's return nears, Russia launches one of war's largest attacks.Ó The chronological juxtaposition, rather than cause and effect language, is probably the right way to go, since everyone involved, including the current US president, is just trying to guess what the presidential administration change will mean and what measures might influence it. Donald Trump, as the Times writes, Òhas vowed to bring the war to a quick end without saying how.Ó 

Back on the front page, the next story over is the New York Times getting results. ÒLabor regulators open inquiry into Shen Yun Dance Company, tiring global tours and arduous training for little or no pay.Ó It's a follow up to an investigative story that the Times did in August, on a weekend when I was traveling, so I missed it, dedicated to the not exactly startling, but worthwhile revelation that there are sketchy things about the operations of the ubiquitous music and dance extravaganzas put on by a political religious cult that advertises the shows as cultural spectaculars and then feeds the audience intense propaganda about their movement. For years, the Times writes, ÒNew York labor regulators stood by while a prominent dance company headquartered in the state relied on children and teenagers to stage shows worldwide earning tens of millions of dollars per season, but offering little or no pay to the underage performers.Ó Again, not exactly a world-spinning revelation. If you've ever had a child carrying a music case on the subway, be approached by these people, but there it is. The Times continues. ÒThat changed in recent months when the State Department of Labor opened an inquiry into the group Shen Yun Performing Arts. The agency, which is tasked with enforcing laws on child labor, overtime, and the minimum wage, declined to specify what it was examining. But the inquiry was opened following questions from the New York Times, which in August documented numerous instances of what legal experts and former performers describe as questionable labor practices.Ó

Shen Yun, the Times goes on, Òwhich is operated by the Falun Gong Religious Movement from a guarded 400 acre campus in Orange County, northwest of New York City, requires its performers to keep grueling tour schedules and train under abusive conditions, former performers have said.Ó Hitting them on wages and hours feels a little bit like our old inescapable cliche of getting Al Capone on income tax violations. If Al Capone were also being persecuted by the Chinese government, and using that persecution as a reason to commit even more bootlegging. Now that the regulators are at work on the dance troupe, who's going to take a look at their demented, conspiracist right-wing media empire under the Epoch Times umbrella? 

Next to that, ÒHow Harris's campaign spent $1.5 billion in just 15 weeks.Ó Pretty ineffectually. 

Next, news analysis. ÒTrump swings wrecking ball at status quo. Startling picks seen as government stress test.Ó Peter Baker the, spearhead of the TimesÕs extremely belated thrust at the question of Donald Trump's comprehensive unfitness for the presidency late in the campaign season, is is really trying to do his best here, but the TimesÕs entire framework for understanding and writing about politics means that it can only describe the damage and devastation that Donald Trump is preparing to wreak on the basic operations of our Democratic Republic in precisely the terms that Donald Trump's followers would be excited about. ÒWashington. Somehow, disruption doesn't begin to cover it. Upheaval might be closer. Revolution, maybe. In less than two weeks since being elected again, Donald J. Trump has embarked on a new campaign to shatter the institutions of Washington as no incoming president has in his lifetime. He has rolled a giant grenade,Ó Baker continues, Òinto the middle of the nation's capital and watched with mischievous glee to see who runs away and who throws themselves on it. Suffice it to say, so far there have been more of the former than the latter. Mr. Trump has said that real power is the ability to engender fear, and he seems to have achieved that.Ó Not wrong, but there are certainly ways to write that that don't sound quite that much like Steve Bannon. Baker continues, ÒMr. Trump's early transition moves amount to a generational stress test for the system. If Republicans bow to his demand to recess the Senate so that he can install appointees without confirmation, it would rewrite the balance of power established by the founders more than two centuries ago. And if he gets his way on selections for some of the most important posts in government, he would put in place loyalists intent on blowing up the very departments they would lead.Ó 

There's a more or less identical story to that on page A15, only instead of going to one of the papers lead political reporters, the Times sent three reporters out to talk to Trump fans about how they feel about his ridiculous and monstrous cabinet picks to bring back the astonishing and revelatory news that they think he's doing great. They will never ever stop writing these stories, no matter how tautological it gets. ÒTo his detractors, the Times writes, President-elect Donald J. Trump's cabinet looks like a rogueÕs gallery of people with dubious credentials and questionable judgment. His supporters see something different.Ó Just one circularity after another. Is ÒDonald Trump's detractorsÓ a stable category of people? Or does anyone who notices the objective facts about the people that Donald Trump is appointing to the cabinet, namely that they're degenerates and wackos, who you wouldn't leave alone with your children, let alone put in charge of a government department, a detractor? And what are Trump supporters going to do but support? ÒÕIt's a masterpiece,Õ says a 58-year-old who lives in Western Florida and owns a tattoo business. ÔI think it's so crazy and I love it,Õ says a 60-year-old from Bozeman, Montana. ÔThe number one thing to me and a lot of Trump voters is getting rid of the swamp,Õ says a 40-year-old lawyer in Orlando. ÔThis is what is shocking some people. It may actually be happening.Õ A quick internet search suggests that that lawyer is in the business of helping companies defeat construction defect litigation, and construction payment disputes. A natural Trump fan right there. But the Times was good enough to track him down in case you thought maybe he would be disappointed by the first two weeks of the transition. 

And above that on A15, ÒKennedy would lead with mistrust of longstanding health policies.Ó A story with a perfect formulation of news writing theory. As the Times first writes that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the nation's chief critic of vaccines, a public health intervention that has saved millions of lives, and then goes on to say, ÒMr. Kennedy calls himself a vaccine safety activist. The press calls him a vaccine skeptic. His detractors call him an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.Ó There are those detractors again. RFK Jr. is absolutely an anti-vaxxer. He denies the safety and efficacy of vaccines and discourages their use. He subscribes to completely unhinged conspiracy theories.

Including that the Covid-19 virus is engineered to attack black and white people, specifically he used the word ÒCaucasiansÓ and to spare Asians and Jews if the press calls him a vaccine skeptic That's because the press would rather tell a polite lie than a rude truth. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. The theme song is composed and performed by Mack Scocca-Ho. Our podcasting work is sustained by money from you, listeners via subscriptions and tips at indignity.net. So please do keep those coming if you can. And barring something unforeseen, we will talk again tomorrow.