Good morning. It is March 6th. It is still warm and humid in New York City for the moment. Before all of that is supposed to go swiftly away later on. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Reuters reports that the Trump administration is planning to revoke temporary legal status for some 240,000 Ukrainians who fled the conflict with Russia.

The story continues, “it is part of a broader Trump administration effort to strip legal status from more than 1.8 million migrants allowed to enter the U.S. under temporary humanitarian parole programs launched under the Biden administration.” Story continues, “the administration plans to revoke parole for about 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans as soon as this month, a Trump official and one source familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.”

The Washington Post reports that Ed Martin, the “stop the steal” organizer who Donald Trump appointed to be the interim US attorney for Washington DC added to his pile of facially illegal overtly political and abusive threats and demands, a new one, the Post writes that “the Dean of Georgetown law school and all diversity equity and inclusion efforts at the school. Asserting in a letter that his office will not consider hiring anyone affiliated with the university that utilizes DEI. The warning was delivered in a letter dated February 17th to William M. Treanor, a constitutional law scholar and one of the longest serving deans of the largest law school in the nation's capital. The first letter was misaddressed,” the Post writes, “but it was resent Monday.” 

California Governor Gavin Newsom trying to swing like a weathervane toward where he thinks the wind might be, launched the first episode of his new podcast by bringing on right-wing hate monger Charlie Kirk, and agreeing with him that there's just too many trans kids in sports and it's not fair. Politico listened to the podcast. “I revere sports. So the issue of fairness is completely legit, Newsom said” in Politico's account. “‘And I saw that the last couple of years, boy, did I see how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.’ Kirk challenged Newsom,” Politico writes, “over his use of the word ‘weaponize’ and Newsom replaced it with ‘highlight.’” The write-up goes on to say Newsom in the podcast also was self-deprecating joking that he only eats meals, including grabbing takeout at the famed three Michelin star French Laundry, where he got considerable heat for attending a friend's party during COVID lockdowns and conceding that he should have been celebrating at the Everyman Eatery Applebee's. See, the joke is hmm. The joke is, right, the joke the joke is that Gavin Newsom really does love to eat fancy food with the rich people, but he is aware that there exist people who eat at chain restaurants too, regular people, The kind of people who want to hear you talk about how trans kids shouldn't be allowed to play sports. This is apparently how you audition for a spot in the vanguard of the anti-Trump movement. 

In a similar vein on the front of this morning's New York Times, down above the fold on the left is a news analysis piece with the headline stack, “Party Divided On Resistance / Stand Up to Trump, or Try to Court the Center.” The setup is a contrast between Elissa Slotkin, the Democrats' official responder to Donald Trump's joint address to Congress, and Representative Al Green, stood up and waved his cane at the president during the speech and was escorted from the chamber. “Courting the center,” apparently means praising Ronald Reagan and pledging fealty to a never fading imperial war machine, whereas it’s niche unproductive behavior to forcefully protest the administration's plans to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

“Under pressure from a restive progressive base,” the Times writes, “some want to position themselves as a party of aggressive resistance to Mr. Trump. Others see a political center that can be peeled away through a sober appeal to center leaning voters feeling adverse impacts from the president's policies. The competing strategies,” the Times writes, “were on display as congressional Democrats faced critical decisions in the coming days over how much to obstruct Mr. Trump's agenda as he tramples over the power of the legislative branch. Most immediately, with government funding set to expire on March 14th, Democrats must decide whether they will vote for legislation to avert a shutdown or refuse to do so at a moment when Mr. Trump is defunding and dismantling federal programs all on his own. But the people who are planning to sit back and keep quiet and let the damage of Trump's policies sink in with the electorate are the very same ones who want to be seen as acting responsible by stepping up to prevent a congressional-side government shutdown, thereby blunting the impact of Republican extremism.” The fear of committing to any strategy is not a strategy. 

Up in the lead news column, the story is the Supreme Court decision we covered yesterday, in which the court, by a single vote, denied Donald Trump the ability to withhold appropriated and contractually obligated funding. The story takes a decidedly glass half full view of the outcome.

“Its bottom line,” the Times writes, “was that a bare majority of the court ruled against Mr. Trump on one of his signature projects. The president's plans to remake American government, the order indicated, will have to face a court more skeptical than its composition, with six Republican appointees, might suggest.” That's one way of looking at it. The other way is that four justices see no limit whatsoever on what the president can do, and they only need to bring one of two other justices along with them on any slightly less outrageous controversies in the future. 

Next to that, a report from the House Oversight Committee's struggle session yesterday against big city democratic mayors. “Mayors rebut fiery criticism over migrants.” Excellent accurate use of the word “rebut” rather than one of the grab bag of more question-loading words that tend to show up in news writing. “In hearing GOP digs into sanctuary cities,” is the subhead.

“Under fiery and angry questioning from Republicans on the House Oversight Committee,” the Times writes, “the mayors defended their policies and their city's efforts to house and feed migrants, tens of thousands of whom were bussed to their communities by Republican governors. The mayors rejected the notion that the local police should help in the administration's deportation efforts. ‘We do not have the capacity for our law enforcement to be doing federal immigration enforcement,’ Mayor Mike Johnson of Denver told lawmakers, ‘but we want to be partners in making sure we are pulling violent criminals off the streets.’”

Right after that, the Times goes from reporting what happened to its big thinking about it, resorting to clownish reactionary cliches. “The hearings,” the Times writes, “seem to capture the political moment” because they are what happened in politics that day. the hearings seem to capture the political moment. It was a “clash of the law and order Republican party led by president Trump and liberal politicians running cities, broadly known as sanctuary cities that have large populations of immigrants.” The opposition here is between “having large populations of immigrants” and “law and order.” Excellent work from the New York Times. And yes, for generations now, “law and order” has been political shorthand for ground level authoritarianism and police unaccountability. Even so, the idea that Donald Trump's immigration policies, which depend on violating the clear provisions of the United States and international law and which are designed to sow disorder, constitute the “law and order” side of things is a heck of a thing for a newspaper to put forward. 

Next to that, the Times' front page coverage of the trade war is about vibes. “Canadians steel themselves for economic pain.” 

“Steel,” right? “Fearing recession and feeling betrayed by Trump's tariffs,” it starts by trucks carrying about $300 million worth of auto parts each day over the bridge from Windsor, Ontario to Detroit. But then immediately talked about how the mood in Windsor, like all of Canada, was transformed. “Mr. Trump's move,” the Times writes, “ignited a sense of economic anxiety and anger among Canadians about how they are being treated by their neighbor, ally, and best customer.” Someone from a Canadian auto parts trade group says he feels betrayed and, oh, look, here are some parentheses. What's inside the parentheses? “Wednesday brought a slight reprieve as Mr. Trump said he would pause a 25 % tariff on cars coming from Canada and Mexico under a trade pact for one month while other levies stayed in place.” And then below that is a little reference line to a story inside the paper. “On pause, tariffs on cars from Canada and Mexico will be delayed for one month. Page A10.” If you are interested in covering the events of the trade war, you would probably put the fact that Donald Trump backpedaled within a day on a major part of it on page one and the mood in Windsor, Ontario inside the paper, but the people who put together the front page of the Times seem to be focused on doing something else. 

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 us going, with your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Please continue to send those along if you can. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.