Good morning. It is January 31st. It is a gray and intermittently rainy morning in New York City. A, and this is your indignity morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The Washington Post writes this morning, “The highest ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems. According to three people, with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.” This appears to be the latest of Musk's moves, by which the drug-crazed billionaire is aiming to seize complete operational control of the federal government, while the elderly Donald Trump, whose election relied on nine figures' worth of spending and possibly more than that in in-kind contributions from Musk, sits in the Oval Office and puts big signatures on whatever they hand him to sign. Here, the Post reports that “officials affiliated with Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have been asking since after the election for access to the government's payment system. Typically,” the Post writes, “only a small number of career officials control Treasury's payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses, and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients, and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.” While various agencies appear to be continuing to enforce Trump's illegal and unconstitutional freeze on grant spending, despite a judge's order lifting the freeze, Musk appears to be demanding the access that would allow him to shut off payments however he might choose.” 

The Post writes “the possibility that government officials might try to use the federal payments system — which essentially functions as the nation’s ‘checking book’ — to enact a political agenda is unprecedented, said Mark Mazur, who served in senior treasury roles during the Obama and Biden administrations. ‘This is a mechanical job — they pay Social Security benefits, they pay vendors, whatever. It’s not one where there’s a role for nonmechanical things, at least from the career standpoint. Your whole job is to pay the bills as they’re due,’ Mazur said. ‘It’s never been used in a way to execute a partisan agenda. … You have to really put bad intentions in place for that to be the case.’” 

But now they've forced out the guy who was controlling the checking account. So whether you get your tax refund is going to depend on whether someone who works for Elon Musk is willing to let you get your tax refund.

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the big story, four columns wide, is “MIDAIR COLLISION LEAVES 67 DEAD; WORST U.S. CRASH IN TWO DECADES / FIREBALL OVER CAPITAL / Early Investigation Looks at Staffing of Tower at Reagan Airport.” The story narrates what happened in the crash, then moves to the official communications. “Even though accident investigators had barely collected any information,” the Times writes “President Trump quickly began assigning fault. In a news conference, he blamed the helicopter pilots and his political adversaries. And in comments that most likely pleased many of his supporters and offended many other Americans, he blamed diversity.” That last bit, the president's immediate turn to racism, gets a story of its own at the bottom of the page. “Blaming Diversity Hiring, Trump Turns Accident Into Grievance.” After describing how Trump delivered some standardish presidential remarks about the victims being in the warm embrace of a loving God, The Times writes, “but then, as Navy divers continued their search for bodies in the Potomac, the president transitioned into some of the most extraordinary public statements he has ever made, among them equating diversity with incompetence. For the next 30 minutes, citing no evidence, Mr. Trump blamed diversity efforts at the Federal Aviation Administration for lowering standards for air traffic controllers. He blamed the Obama administration, claiming it had determined that the FAA workforce was too white. He blamed the Biden administration, too, and its Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. But,” the Times writes “mostly the President of the United States, who was consulting prepared remarks, blamed diversity.” The story notes that Vice President JD Vance followed up by amplifying the President's racist remarks. It ends on the note later in the day in the Oval office when the President was asked if he planned to visit the crash site. Mr. Trump, the Times writes, was unequivocal. “I have a plan to visit not the site, he said. You tell me what's the site, the water? You want me to go swimming?”

Right next to that in the jump of the story on page A19 is the story, “Skating Stars from Russia Were on Jet,” about how Yevgeniya Shishkova and Vadim Naumov, gold medalists in pair skating at the World Skating Championships in Japan in 1994, who were now coaches in the United States, were killed in the crash. 

The main story in the jump on the facing page has more news about the victims. “Three young figure skaters and six parents from Fairfax County, Virginia were killed, the school superintendent said. Two Boston area skaters also died on the plane. Spencer Lane, 16, of Barrington, Rhode Island, and Jinna Han, 13, of Mansfield, Massachusetts, and their mothers, Christine Lane and Jin Han. That story also reports that “staffing at the air traffic control tower was not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic. According to an internal preliminary FAA safety report about the collision that was reviewed by the New York Times, the controller who was handling helicopters in the airport's vicinity was also instructing planes that were landing and departing from its runways. Those jobs typically are assigned to two controllers rather than one.” 

Back on page one, the next story over on the top of the page is a congressional memo. “Trump Elbows Past Congress; G.O.P. Shrugs / White House Bypasses Checks on Power. The new administration,” the Times writes, “is quickly demonstrating that it does not intend to be bound by legal niceties.”—That means laws—“or traditional checks and balances in its relationship with Congress. That has alarmed Democrats, but drawn shrugs in approval from Republicans, who say that Mr. Trump is delivering what he promised, even if it comes at the expense of Congress's authority and constitutional status as a co-equal branch of government.” Then comes a strange but incredibly suggestive and appropriate typographical error. “President Trump clearly ran for office to be a disruptor, and he's going to continue to do that, said Senator [blank space, blank space continues], of Wyoming, the number two Republican.” Congress has so abandoned the commitments that are supposed to define its existence that if you try to put one of their names in the newspaper, it's like holding a mirror up to a vampire.

And speaking of the Senate not doing its job, the next column is “”PATEL WON’T SAY IF HE’D USE F.B.I. TO HUNT HIS FOES / SNUBBING DEMOCRATS / Nominee Suggests That He Doesn’t Approve of Jan. 6 Pardons. Kash Patel,” the Times writes, “President Trump's pick to run the FBI, repeatedly evaded the question of whether he would investigate officials on a published list of his perceived enemies, during his confirmation hearing on Thursday, as he sought to allay fears about his fitness to serve and his fealty to President Trump. In trying to distance himself from far-right associates and his own statements, Mr. Patel, a cocky and confrontational Trump loyalist, suggested he disagreed with Mr. Trump's decision to pardon January 6th rioters who attacked law enforcement officials. It was a rare divergence from a president who selected him to run the nation's most powerful law enforcement agency.” Then the story runs through Pedal's conspiracism, his shameless lying about his affiliations, including the part where he claimed not to have heard of the far right podcaster, Stew Peters, and had to be reminded that he'd made eight appearances on Peters' podcast, and his pleading the fifth to investigators looking into Trump's mishandling of classified documents, and it ends on the usual nihilistic note. “Heading into the hearing, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, one of the most senior Republicans in the chamber, predicted that Mr. Patel would eventually be confirmed, after some sparring, on a party line vote. But in private, many Republicans have expressed reservations about his temperament, and pressed for assurances he would act responsibly and independently if confirmed.” That's very nice. Looks like, though, once again, the Times somehow wasn't able to get the names of those senators to print in the paper. 

And on the subject of pure impotence in the face of Donald Trump, down at the bottom of page A20, the headline is, “Trump Crackdown on Anti-Semitism Targets Foreign Students,” Possibly the most deranged example Yet of the Times' Treatment of Anti-Semitism and Gaza Protest as interchangeable. Here the context is a Trump executive order which the Times writes, “directed several agencies including the state and education departments to guide colleges to report activities by alien students and staff that could be considered anti-semitic or supportive of terrorism, so that those students or staff members could be investigated or deported as non-citizens.” 

Well, that sounds pretty bad, but on page A21 the headline is “As Trump targets universities, schools plan a counteroffensive. Before President Trump even returned to office,” the story says “many of the nation's well-known universities were already preparing to fight back. While few college presidents,” the Times writes, “are especially eager to spar with Mr. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in public, schools have been marshaling behind-the-scenes counteroffenses against promises of an onslaught of taxes, funding cuts, and regulations. Some universities have hired powerhouse Republican lobbying firms. Others are strengthening or rebuilding their presences in Washington. Many are quietly adjusting their messaging and policies, hoping to deter policymakers who know it can be good politics to attack higher education, even when they themselves are products of the schools they castigate on cable television. Rutgers University, for example, announced last week that it would cancel a conference on diversity, equity, and inclusion, a focus of the new administration.” This is fighting back. Hiring Republican lobbyists, and canceling a DEI conference. What exactly would the schools be doing if they were capitulating? 

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, make our podcasting work possible through your paid subscriptions and tips. Please keep those coming. Try to unwind a little over the weekend, though the news isn't going to stop, and if nothing too unexpected happens, we will talk again on Monday.