Good morning. It's December 16th. It is a rainy and warming morning in New York City. Pretty gross out, and this is your indignity morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The City is reporting that in New York, police car chases are completely out of control. “The number of car crashes,” they write, “following police chases has skyrocketed under Mayor Eric Adams, with more than one collision per day recorded on average this year, according to an analysis of NYPD data by The City. In the first 11 months of 2024, an unprecedented 398 vehicle crashes were preceded by police pursuits, resulting in at least 315 people injured, up 47 % from the 215 people injured over the same period last year, according to motor vehicle collision data made public by the police department.” Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the average was 84 crashes a year. 

Canada's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, resigned this morning. She was, Bloomberg writes, “the point person in developing a strategy on how to counter US President-elect Donald Trump's threat to impose 25 % tariffs. In her resignation letter, she wrote that ‘Canada needs to take the threat extremely seriously, which means,’ she wrote, ‘assuring costly political gimmicks which we can ill afford and which make Canadians doubt that we recognize the gravity of the moment.’ The ‘political gimmicks’ comment,” Bloomberg writes, “is likely a reference to the government's announcement last month that it plans to implement a two-month sales tax holiday on certain items, such as toys and Christmas trees, and send Canadian $250 checks to millions of Canadians.” The tax holiday came into force on December 14th, but so far the government doesn't appear to have the votes necessary to pass the rebate checks. 

On the front of this morning's New York Times, which arrived nicely dry inside its blue bag, there's not a lot of news that broke yesterday. So there's mostly analysis and features. The lead news story is “past holds clue to ruling style of Syrian rebels. Pragmatic, but strict in province it controlled taxes, stability and jailed critics.” It opens by describing the Syrian salvation government created by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, standing by to collect a 5 % share of the olive oil produced at harvest time, as a tax on the crops. “The government,” the Times writes, “taxed goods entering its territory and generated revenue by selling fuel and running a telecom company. It also controlled the local economy through licensing regulation programs that looked a lot like a conventional government's and proved that it was fairly adept at managing those finances to build up its military operations and provide civil services.” The Times writes, “Since 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its affiliated organizations, driven by a hunger for broader power, created a certain level of stability in Idlib, governing with pragmatism and discipline.” 

“Hunger for a broader power” here, meaning they wanted to govern and administer more of the country, as groups at war with a despotic central government generally do. 

Next to that on page one is a big, long, supremely depressing feature by Eli Saslow, profiling a resident of Rome, Georgia named Jaimie, not Jaime, Cachua, who entered the country without documentation at the age of one, is now 33 years old, and is grappling with the fact that the people around him, including his father-in-law, enthusiastically voted for an incoming presidential administration that has declared that it wants to deport people like him. The father-in-law is a real piece of work, Saslow writes. “In the last few years, as he sensed the country becoming more polarized and volatile, he'd built up a small collection of firearms and a cache of emergency supplies. He'd been anticipating a moment when the government might rise up against his family. But this particular crisis was one he'd helped to create.” 

Now he's just hanging out, telling the father of his grandchildren that “it's not about you,” and “I’m not going to let anything happen that puts your family at risk.” The father-in-law's name is Sky Atkins. “All those criminals that Trump's been talking about, the rapists, the gang members, that's not you, Skye said.”

He had heard Trump say that he would deport the bad guys first and possibly show leniency to immigrants who had been brought to the country as children. Just a guy lost in fantasy land voting to make those fantasies come true and undermining his own life in the process. Nowhere, Saslow writes, “could he sense the country's political tensions escalating like inside his own family. He shared a house with his father, but they hadn't spoken for 13 months ever since his father accused Skye of being a radical foot soldier for Trump. His sister-in-law was transgender, but Sky refused to use new pronouns or change the way he talked because, he said, ‘he didn't believe in that PC crap.’ His wife, a Democrat, had briefly considered moving out a few days after the election, accusing Sky of betraying their Hispanic grandchildren with his vote.” And there's your winning side of the American electorate. 

Elsewhere on page one, “Civilian Militias Backfire in War In Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso,” the Times writes, “a nation that once prided itself on tolerance and peaceful inter-ethnic relations is now home to one of the deadliest conflicts in West Africa. Since the current military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, seized power in a coup in 2022, he has escalated a war against Islamist insurgents that has now killed tens of thousands of people and displaced nearly three million others.” Part of that effort is turning loose civilian militias, which has yielded the usual result you get from turning loose citizen militias.

Next to that, “Kennedy aide filed to revoke shot for polio. The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. That campaign,” the Times adds, “is just one front in the war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds. Later on,” the story says, “After this article was published online, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a survivor of childhood polio, said in a statement: ‘Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous. Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,’ he said.” That's almost as tough as he sounded about Donald Trump after January 6th. 

On page A-19, the headline is, “Grand Jury is Said to Hear Evidence on Adams Aid.” It's the first draft of a story that's been deepening online. Manhattan prosecutors, the Times writes, “investigating corruption allegations against Ingrid Lewis Martin, the chief advisor to Mayor Eric Adams have presented evidence to a grand jury and could seek an indictment as soon as this week, people with knowledge of the matter said. Ms. Louis Martin, 63, abruptly resigned from city government on Sunday”. The online version of story goes into more detail about who else seems to be involved in the investigation. Among them is Gina Argento, who the Times describes as “the chief executive of a soundstage business that controls a number of large properties around the city. A lawyer for Ms. Argento,” the Times writes, “her husband, John J. Ciafone, said she had absolutely not engaged in any wrongdoing and suggested that the scrutiny was related to her well-known opposition to street use changes along McGuinness Boulevard in Brooklyn.” If the Adams administration managed to commit corruption in the course of trying to kill a bike lane, then they really are squeezing people too hard. Preventing bike lanes from interfering with business is just the agenda. You're only supposed to charge for the agenda at campaign time. 

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 work is sustained by the subscription dollars and tip dollars of you, the listeners. So please do keep those coming. 

Find a waterproof but not too warm configuration of layers. And if nothing unforeseen happens, we will talk again tomorrow.