Good morning. It is July 24th. The heat is already starting to restore its hold on New York City after a brief but amazing respite. And this is your Indignity Morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. And this one really is gonna be short. I swear the piano tuner is gonna be here. And even with our open-minded approach to background noise, that would be a little much. 
[BREAKING NEWS]
We have some breaking news so breaking that the tuning of the piano can't get in its way. Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, is dead at the age of 71, reportedly of cardiac arrest. In addition to being possibly the biggest superstar of professional wrestling, Hogan was also a racist and a fraud artist whose major legacy was his willingness to commit perjury as the plaintiff serving as the front person for Peter Thiel's successful campaign to abuse the legal system and the power differential, that comes with a reactionary billionaire class, to destroy Gawker, where I worked at the time, and to set the template for the Trump administration's current omnidirectional assault on the media, higher education, and pretty much everything else. He was a bad person who lived a vile life, and now he's dead, but the damage that he was party to will outlast him and quite possibly the American Republic.
[END BREAKING NEWS]
Columbia University capitulated to the Trump administration yesterday, after the day's print deadlines. I was going to say that it completed its surrender to the Trump administration, but, if there is one thing everyone except the people running the institution of higher learning have learned from the spectacle of Columbia, it's that there is no end to the surrender, just an ongoing relationship of subjugation.

The New York Times, despite its leadership role in the assault on higher education in America, absolutely got its clock cleaned by other outlets on Google News penetration on the story. The number one hit I get is the BBC. “Columbia University to pay Trump admin 200 million to settle dispute.” And there's CNN. “Columbia agrees to pay over 220 million and deal with Trump administration to restore federal funding.” The Hill: “Columbia to pay 221M to restore funding cut by Trump administration.” USA Today, “Columbia University to pay $200 million fine to federal government in New Deal.” CBS News, “Columbia University to pay $200 million settlement to federal government,” takes one to know one, there, from CBS News. “Columbia University, “resolution of federal investigations and restoration of the university's research funding.” Dear members of the Columbia community, et cetera.” The Guardian. “Columbia announces deal to pay Trump administration more than 220M. Columbia University. ABC News. Again, an expert on being extorted by the Trump administration. “Columbia University to pay 200M in settlement with Trump administration.” Politico. “Columbia University settles its costly battle with Trump administration.” Fox News. “Trump secures 221M Columbia University settlement over alleged civil rights violations.” And that's the whole first page.

Then page two is Al Jazeera, AP News, Axios, Reuters, NBC News, the Columbia Daily Spectator. And then at last, there is the New York Times right before the Chronicle of Higher Education. Let's just go with the Spectator then. “Columbia has agreed to pay $220 million to the federal government,” the student newspaper writes, “to settle its civil rights investigations and restore a vast majority of federal grants terminated in March by President Donald Trump's administration, the university announced Wednesday. The university agreed to reveal the admissions data of both rejected and admitted students, including their race, GPA, and standardized test performance to the federal government. The university also agreed to provide the federal government with all disciplinary actions involving student visa holders, resulting in expulsions or suspensions.” The piece goes on to say, “in addition to releasing its admissions data, the university must ensure that its hiring processes and its admissions policies are merit-based. The university may not use personal statements, diversity narratives, or any applicant reference to racial identity as a means to introduce or justify discriminatory practices in both admission and hiring, according to the deal. The university also agreed to ensure that international applicants are asked questions designed to elicit their reasons for wishing to study in the United States. Additionally, the university will develop training materials to socialize all students to campus norms and values more broadly, and processes will be established to ensure all students are committed to the long-standing traditions of American universities, including civil discourse, free inquiry, open debate, and the fundamental values of equality and respect.” 

To mark this victory for open discourse and respect, the Education Secretary and accused sex trafficker of teens, Linda McMahon, went on Fox Business and called it “a monumental victory for conservatives who wanted to do things on these elite campuses for a long time, because we had such far left-leaning professors.” 

The city is reporting that New York Mayor Eric Adams, liberated from his federal indictment for straw donor fraud, thanks to the intervention of Donald Trump, has rounded up a new batch of donors for his re-election campaign, who fit the profile of his old donors. The story says “two individuals listed by the campaign as making donations eligible for matching funds told the city they are unemployed and did not give to Adams or any other candidate. Another contribution for which Adams sought a match was paid for by a credit card linked to the donor's employer. Three donors listed addresses where they do not appear to live.” The 17 donations that the city flagged as suspicious were made in early May, and the story says “all the donations were for the maximum amount allowed, $2,100, and all were paid by credit card. Many of the donors contacted by the city do not speak English, but their donations were made through the city's online donation system, contribute.nycvotes.org, which is posted in English only. 10 of these donations are connected to one company, All Star Home Care Agency in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, including several made by All Star employees and their relatives. In fact, most of the contributions were from people of modest means. Two reported on contribution forms they were unemployed. There were seven home health aides who typically earn about $20 per hour, a front desk clerk, a secretary, a preschool teacher, a hairstylist, and a laundromat worker. 16 of the 17 donors had not donated to any New York City politician in the last two decades.” Eric Adams. The man allegedly steals public matching funds the way that one guy used to steal MTA trains. It's just his thing. He loves it. And just picture him rolling stats for his imaginary supporters like it's his favorite role-playing game. 

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the lead news column is, “U.S. trade deal puts 15 % tariff on Japan's goods. Two allies ease tensions. Trump says Tokyo is set to invest $550 billion into America.” 

“The deal,” the Times reports, “cuts the current tariff on Japanese automobiles and automobile parts,” which Bloomberg notes, make up most of the US's trade deficit with Japan, which was the thing that Trump's trade war was ostensibly supposed to make up for. 

In even more incoherent presidential action, the second news column is “Trump intends to unleash AI to spur boom, cutting red tape, but demanding no bias.”

“President Trump,” the Times writes, “said on Wednesday that he planned to speed the advance of artificial intelligence in the United States, opening the door for companies to develop the technology unfettered from oversight and safeguards, but added that AI needed to be free of partisan bias.” Yes, that is the kind of bias that the AI systems really seem to struggle with, isn't it? Partisan bias. Anyway, the all-scam government rolls on. 

And in the administration's support for even more overt forms of criminality, down below the fold, the Times reports, “Freed by Trump from Venezuela, American convicted in three killings. When the State Department secured the release of 10 Americans and permanent legal residents from a Venezuela prison last week Secretary of State Marco Rubio,” the Times writes, “hailed the action as part of an effort to safeguard the well-being of Americans unjustly held abroad. But,” the Times writes “one of the men released from the prison an American Venezuelan dual national named Dahud Hanid Ortiz, had been convicted in Venezuela for the murder of three people in Spain in 2016, according to an official at the prosecutor's office in Madrid and Venezuelan court records reviewed by the New York Times.” The story goes on to say, “court records say that Mr. Hanid Ortiz had planned to murder a lawyer in Madrid who had a relationship with his wife. But on the June day in 2016 when he arrived at the lawyer's office and did not find his target, he killed two women there as well as a man who he mistakenly believed was the lawyer.” Citing details from an extradition request from the Spanish government, the Times writes, “One of the women, Elisa Consuegra, was killed with a large knife or machete. The second woman, Maritza Osorio, and the man were likely killed with an iron bar. Afterward, Mr. Hamid Ortiz lit the office on fire in an attempt to cover up his crime, then fled to Germany and eventually to Venezuela. 

And in the middle of the front page above the fold, the headline is, “No Refuge for Trans Clinics, Even in Blue States. California Centers are Latest to Close Amid Trump Pressure.” The Dateline is Los Angeles. “In Texas, Tennessee and other Republican-led states,” the Times writes, “legislators have passed scores of laws restricting the lives of transgender people. They have made it illegal for transgender minors to get certain medical treatments and have threatened to have their parents investigated. It made Jesse Thorne, the father of two transgender daughters, angry and sad,” the story continues, “but he was never afraid. His family lives in California.” Then the story goes on to say, “The clinic where Mr. Thorne's family has received treatment for years is closing. It is one of three prominent health care providers in California that are sharply cutting back gender related treatments for transgender youths under pressure from the Trump administration. The moves have sent shockwaves through LGBTQ communities in a democratic-controlled state long known for its trans friendly politics and culture.” As it goes on to say, “the Trump administration has succeeded in thwarting transgender treatment for minors in some of the most heavily democratic places in the country by adopting an aggressive approach threatening to eliminate federal funding and individual hospitals, and sending providers subpoenas seeking confidential patient information.” All of that is terrible, but it is certainly remarkable to read it on the middle of the front page of the New York Times, in more or less the same spot from which the paper launched its own sustained attack on medical and even social transitioning for young people. The New York Times gets results.

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 Max Scocca-Ho. You, the listeners, keep us going with your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips. Keep sending those along if you are able. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.