Good morning and happy new year. It is January 29th. It is all too aptly the year of the snake now. Nothing against actual snakes who've always been perfectly pleasant to me. But the snake of folkloric imagination is all too ascendant at the moment. It is a mild and gusty morning 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. 

This is a very large world and things are happening all around it. In Prayagraj, India, at least 30 people are dead in a trampling crowd crush among people trying to bathe in the waters of the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in the Kumbh Maha festival. The New York Times reports that the government of the state of Uttar Pradesh, where Prayagraj is, estimated that around 400 million people in total would attend the six-week festival. That is more people than the population of any country on earth other than China and India. “Although there are a number of days considered auspicious for bathing during the event,” the Times writes “the period starting late January 28th and heading into the morning of January 29th was seen as especially favorable. Government officials had said they expected around 100 million people to come to the rivers then. The festival rotates every three years among four cities. The last time it was held in Prayagraj in 2013,” the Times writes, “42 people were killed and 45 injured in a crowd crush on a train platform.” 

A rebel group supported by Rwanda has taken control of the city of Goma on the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Washington Post writes “the M23 rebel movement seized Goma after a lightning offensive that began late last week, taking control of the city's airport, key government buildings, and a public radio station. Goma,” the post continues, “is the capital of Congo's mineral-rich North Kivu region, a longtime tinderbox for ethnic violence, and home to one of Africa's most protracted conflicts.” 

Al Jazeera reports that protesters in Kinshasa have attacked the embassies of Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, France, Belgium, and the United States, accusing those countries of variously backing the rebel attack or of inaction in the face of it. Speaking of non-engagement, the dateline on the Washington Post story is Nairobi, more than 500 miles away from Goma. The New York Times' coverage is datelined Dakar, some 3,400 miles away. 

Speaking of lives abroad, the Trump administration has apparently unfrozen at least part of the total freeze it had put on the President's emergency plan for AIDS relief as part of its wholesale shutdown of all foreign aid for the millions of people who depend on the program. The Times reports “the waiver, announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to allow for the distribution of HIV medications. But whether the waiver extended to preventive drugs or other services offered by the program was not immediately clear.” 

In the print edition of Today's Times, the lead news story is about the other freeze. The one on all government grants that leaked out Monday night. “MEDICAID ALARM PROMPTS JUDGE TO BLOCK FREEZE / AID CUTOFF IS PAUSED / President’s Order Causes Fear and Confusion
— 22 States Sue.” It's a bit of a narrow aperture on the giant story of what Donald Trump is up to. 

A little lower down. The Times writes “Mr. Trump's plan to purge the government of what he calls a ‘woke’ ideology, already had upended the work of federal agencies and groups that receive federal funding from the government. Federal health researchers, nonprofits, and programs for early childhood education reported that their usual access to federal funds had gone down, raising alarms about whether the order meant people would lose access to jobs, health care services, reduced price meals, and more.” 

In the tangle of deliberate misrule, it's hard to comb out exactly which parts of what's represent malice versus indifference versus incompetence, and where the government communication is ignorant as opposed to outright lying. The Times writes, “In California, Oregon, Illinois and other states, an online portal where state Medicaid departments receive federal funding stopped working hours after the memo was sent, according to state officials, though it was not clear that medical services to individuals had been interrupted. The portal, Payment Management Services, had a red banner on it Tuesday afternoon warning of delays because of “executive orders regarding potentially unallowable grant payments.’ Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary,” the Times continues, “said in a social media post Tuesday afternoon that the administration was aware of the Medicaid website portal outage and promised that it would be back online shortly. Officials with the budget office said the portal outage was unrelated to the president's order despite the banner specifically citing Mr. Trump's directives.”

Next to that story on page one is “Trump Threats Promise Tariffs For Any Cause / His Strategy Has Little to Do With Trade.” One thing that might encourage Donald Trump's promiscuous use of tariffs as an all purpose threat is that, as this story illustrates, the New York Times has no interest in clearing up the record of the White House lying about what happened in Trump's weekend showdown with Colombia. Yesterday, it was possible to blame print deadlines for them not having figured out that the Trump administration in fact withdrew the military flights that the Colombian president had demanded it withdraw. But now 24 hours later, the Times is still parroting uncontested the White House line that Colombia had agreed to all of its terms. 

Next to that, a Kash Patel story. “Doubts Over F.B.I. Independence Stoked by Fealty of Trump’s Pick.” A dizzyingly circuitous way, as usual, of talking about how FBI Director nominee Kash Patel is unequivocally committed to the president's self-interest rather than the law. Rather than saying that Kash Patel has indicated he won't be independent, you get “doubts over independence stoked by fealty.” Anyway, that jumps to a two-page spread about how manifestly unqualified Patel is, including a story with the headline, “Peddler of Falsehoods About Agency is Poised to Lead It.” A more direct treatment there. In the main story, the Times writes, “some Republicans in the Senate have quietly made it clear that they want Mr. Trump to surround Mr. Patel with more conventional officials to offset his shortcomings.” Surely the president will take that into deep consideration, lest the Senate withhold its consent. Ta-ha. 

Speaking of which, it's hearing day for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. So far, he's acknowledged under questioning that he probably did refer to Lyme disease as a “militarily engineered bio weapon.” For a curtain raiser, the Times inside the paper gives a half page to the people who are excited to see a lying conspiracist dullard put forward to sabotage the nation's health system. “Homeschooling and crunchy mothers see Kennedy as a truth teller.” Not only do we hear from these dipshits themselves, but Rod Dreher, the deranged white nationalist closet case, shows up as an expert source on the subject of crunchy conservatism with no acknowledgement of the fact that he is a white nationalist. For counterpoint to this showcase of the views of superstitious reactionaries, the headline on the facing page is “Governor Blames Kennedy for measles deaths” in which Hawaii's governor, Josh Green, recounts what he saw as a doctor on Samoa when RFK Jr. helped encourage a measles outbreak that killed, the Times writes, 83 people, mostly babies and children. 

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. You, the listeners, keep our podcasting going through your subscription dollars and tip money, please do keep those coming. And if nothing too unexpected happens, we will talk again tomorrow.