Good morning. It is December 30th and the shapeless calendar of holiday time seems to have resolved itself into a Monday, which means this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

A three-judge panel rejected Donald Trump's appeal of the verdict in his first civil trial for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll. Politico reports that the “judges ruled unanimously Monday that the trial judge did not violate Trump's rights when he allowed Carroll to present evidence suggesting Trump had committed other sexual assaults. That evidence included Trump's comments on the infamous Access Hollywood tape, as well as testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual assault.” That was the first judgment, the one for $5 million, the defamation judgment for $83.3 million for continued defamation of Carroll, is still on its first appeal.

On the front page of this morning's New York Times are the blue and somewhat aged bloodshot eyes of former President Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday not quite two years after he entered hospice care. Despite all the lead time, one of the two bylines on the story, Roy Reed has been dead since 2017, the event finally happening on a Sunday In the thick of the holidays left the Times to give him only a two-page interior spread with the promise of a do-over on the full-size obituary in a separate section later on. After 44 years of a virtuous and distinguished career as an ex-president, Carter seems to be drawing some support for the notion that he was an underrated president. But as with Joe Biden, he failed critically at the part of his job that involved not being a loser.

Charged with clearing the White House of the stench of Richard Nixon and his corruptly appointed successor Gerald Ford, Carter set a benchmark for honesty and integrity in the post-Watergate presidency, but was unable to secure that benchmark, leaving it to be submerged in a rising tide of corruption, deceit, and criminality that would stain all of American politics in the 21st century. 

He was the last president to have refused to grotesquely cash in on his position and the last person of his stature to denounce Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The people of El Salvador wish that he might have had that kind of clarity when he was making American foreign policy, but at least he carried himself afterward as if he understood that serving as the avatar of Imperial American military power is a gravely, corrosively sinful position for a human being to occupy.

He was the wrong person at the wrong time, or the right person at the wrong time, or the right person at the right time for the wrong country. 

If he'd been president when Bill Clinton was president, we might have world peace, national high-speed rail, and a space station in Mars orbit. As is, at least a lot of people got a new house to sleep in, and he all but eradicated the Guinea worm. Most people in his position have done worse. 

Elsewhere on page one, the lead news column once again goes vibes over facts with “Anger and agony over a fiery crash of Korean plane. 179 dead, two survivors. Pilots were warned of a possible bird strike on the approach.” 

Having two people survive the crash of a 737 is good for the people, but it's more horrible to contemplate than a crash with all souls lost. “Footage of the accident”, the Times writes, “showed a white and orange plane speeding down a runway on its belly until it rammed into a barrier at the end of the runway, exploding into a fireball.” 

Follow-up coverage online today is speculating about a cascade of hydraulic failures after birds apparently destroyed the engines that may have left the plane unable to extend its wing flaps to slow down and unable to lower its landing gear. 

Next to that, on page one, “Hope Is Fading In Cuba as U.S. Hardens Policy. Obama-Era Progress Is Cut by White House.” This is one where the headline takes a sharper point of view than the story, which argues that “a financial implosion caused by a cascade of factors, the tightening of U.S. policy by the Trump administration, Cuba's mismanagement of its economy, the crushing effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, has kept visitors away and launched an immigration exodus of epic proportions. President Barack Obama,” the story writes, “eased U.S. policy toward the island, allowing American cruise ships to dock in Cuba, more U.S. airlines to fly there and more Americans to visit. Then President Trump reversed course. In 2018, after mysterious illnesses befell U.S. embassy employees, which some believed to be an attack by a hostile nation, he sent so many workers home that it effectively closed the embassy. The Biden administration reopened it in 2023. In his last days in office, Mr. Trump also returned Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation severely limiting its ability to do business globally and that President Biden kept in place.” Nice work, everyone. 

Down below the fold, “Venturesome Tourists Disregard Risks as Afghanistan Beckons.” One destination closes, another destination opens up. 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 kept going through the subscription dollars and tip dollars of you, our faithful listeners. So please keep those flowing. And if nothing unexpected happens, we will talk again tomorrow.