Good morning. It is August 27th. It is a bright and warm morning in New York City, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

France remains without a prime minister. As President Emmanuel Macron yesterday, after two days of negotiations, refused to take the candidate from the left-wing coalition that won the most seats in the National Assembly while helping to turn back the threat of a far-right victory in July's snap election. In Macron's estimation, giving political power to the parties that won the election, would, the Guardian wrote, “lead to an immediate vote of no confidence and a collapse of the government.” The story quotes Macron as saying, “such a government would immediately have a majority of more than 350 MPs against it,” and the institutional stability of our country means that this option should not be pursued. This seems like a strangely detached, if not dissociated, way of talking about the political alignment, given that Macron's figure of more than 350 obstructionists means that he's saying that his own supporters would be among those doing the obstruction of the allies who saved them in the second round of voting. The Guardian also reports that Macron called on all political leaders to rise to the occasion by demonstrating a spirit of responsibility. Macron plans to resume negotiations among those political leaders, maybe he can find some way to get someone to take responsibility. 

On the front of the New York Times this morning, the lead headline is a classic bit of Times ponderousness. “Russian air raid reminds Ukraine of enemy's might,” subordinating the actual news that Russia did a big air raid in Ukraine to a weird gassy abstract claim about the Ukrainian collective consciousness. “Oh,” said Ukraine, “this superpower that we've been trying to push out of our country unsuccessfully for two and a half years is a mighty military force. That had almost slipped our mind, but now that they've bombed our energy grid, we are reminded anew that this is serious.” Just write the dang news in the headline. Nobody's gonna forget you're the New York Times. If you drop the self-importance.   It still says The New York Times in big letters right across the top of the page, even though the subscription delivery sticker on this copy really only leaves it saying THE NEW NEZ. The idea still comes through. 

Elsewhere on page one, there's a look at our armed forces wounded warrior games and how they're a feeder for the Paralympics. A story I realized would be coming 20 years ago, though it seemed rude at the time to say so. Congratulations to the American empire for finding a silver lining. 

To the left of that, spatially, if not politically, “one million cheat bus fare daily, foiling MTA. Every weekday in New York City,” the Times writes, “close to 1 million bus riders, roughly one out of every two passengers, board without paying.” Then there are those of us who did pay the fare on the downtown bus yesterday, and then ended up paying a taxi fare on top of that, because the connecting Crosstown bus was like 15 minutes away. Subway turnstile jumpers get all the attention, the Times notes, but the bus fares are a bigger chunk of missing revenue than the subway ones. In 2022, the paper writes, “the MTA lost $315 million because of bus fare evasion and $285 million as a result of subway fare beaters.” It's terrible that people think they can just rob the transit system and not face any consequences. $315 million dollars. If you press on to the 20th paragraph, you get, “in June, the MTA lost at least $15 billion in expected funding when Governor Kathy Hochul abruptly canceled a congestion pricing program for Manhattan weeks before it was scheduled to begin. The revenue from the tolls would have paid for urgent repairs to the subway's century -old tunnels and crumbling tracks. Without the funding, the authority is on the brink of crisis.” 

Down in the bottom left corner of the page, there's a story about how Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been reading Latino political organizers, including showing up at 6 a.m. to ransack the house of an 87 -year -old civil rights worker. 

On the Jump page, there's also a story about a Democratic lawsuit against the Republican -controlled Georgia State Election Board, trying to make sure that the board's new rules don't allow local officials to monkey with the certification of votes on election day. Down toward the bottom, there's a little passage saying, “the lawsuit lands months after right -wing election activists obtained a 3 -2 majority on the state election board and began passing a host of rules and regulations that aligned with conservative goals.” The horse has long since left the barn on the question of whether people who identify as conservatives politically are trying to conserve anything. But there's still something about seeing “a host of rules and regulations” described as “aligned with conservative goals.” Even if that does just mean partisan goals. 

And speaking of partisanship, in this case the partisanship of non -partisanship, page A17 offers “Harris and Trump feud over rules and a host for the September 10th debate.” What rules are the two sides feuding about exactly? Well, on the one hand, “former President Donald J. Trump blasted ABC in a social media post, suggesting that the network's anchors and executives were biased against him and threatening, not for the first time, to pull out of the event.” Meanwhile, on Kamala Harris' side, “her campaign went public with an effort to change one of the agreed -upon conditions for the debate, that the microphones will be muted when it isn't a candidate's turn to speak.” There you have it. Both sides are making trouble about the debate plans.

Unfortunately, this delicate balancing act was blown up by none other than Donald Trump, who said on the question of whether the microphones should be muted that it “doesn't matter to me and I'd rather have it probably on.” So much for the feud. 

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. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going, and if all goes well, we will talk again tomorrow.