Good morning. It is November 21st. It is raining in New York City. Raindrops are falling from a cloudy sky. Water is moving from the atmosphere into the soil instead of the other way around, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, along with one for a former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, charging them with crimes against humanity. The AP writes that the warrants focus on allegations Israel has used food as a weapon in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza, a charge Israeli officials deny. The court also put out a warrant for Mohammed Deif, Hamas's military leader, while withdrawing requests for warrants for Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh. Sinwar and Haniyeh are both dead, and Deif may or may not be. The AP writes, “Israel says it also killed Deif in an airstrike, but Hamas has never confirmed his death.” Theoretically Netanyahu and Gallant would face arrest if they travel to a member country of the International Criminal Court. 

In practice, the AP notes, the court has no way to enforce that. In a concise preview of how everything is going to be for the next four years, Politico is reporting, “Donald Trump is looking to revive the Keystone XL oil pipeline on his first day back in the White House. According to three people familiar with the president-elect's plan, even though no companies are trying to build it anymore, Trump believes,” Politico continues, “declaring the 1200-mile Canada to Nebraska crude project back on the table would drive the pro-oil message he delivered in his campaign, said people involved in the transition team discussions about the idea.” Trump also wants to show he can defy President Joe Biden, who reversed Trump's initial 2017 approval of the project, which was strongly opposed by the climate movement. The story goes on to say that “the pipeline's developer, Calgary-based TC Energy, no longer owns the pipeline system that the Keystone XL was intended to complement, and the portions of the pipeline that TC Energy had put in the ground in both Canada and the United States in anticipation of the cross-border permit approval have been dug up. Replacing that pipe would require any company that wants to rebuild it to again obtain local permits for the project.” A completely impotent gesture that will somehow still manage to be destructive. 

On the front of the morning New York Times, the lead news story is, “Inquiry Showed Gaetz Payments Went To Women: Money Flow Charted, Document Obtained by Panel Bolsters Claims of Sex for Hire. Federal investigators established a trail of payments from Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice to be attorney general,” the Times writes, “to women, including some who testified that Mr. Gaetz hired them for sex, according to a document obtained by The New York Times and a lawyer representing some of the women.” 

BREAKING NEWS
We have a breaking news update in the middle of podcast production. Would-be attorney general Matt Gaetz posted on x.com that his confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump Vance transition and that he is withdrawing as the nominee, to avoid what he calls a “needlessly protracted Washington scuffle.” CNN reports that he withdrew after being approached for comment on a report in progress that he was accused of not one, but two sexual acts, i.e. statutory rapes, of a 17-year-old girl.
END BREAKING NEWS

“The document, assembled by investigators during a three-year sex trafficking inquiry into Mr. Gates, is a chart that shows a web of thousands of dollars in Venmo payments between Mr. Gates and a group of his friends, associates, and women who had drug-fueled sex parties between 2017 and 2020. According to testimony, the participants are said to have given to federal and congressional investigators.” 

The document leak for the time being will have to stand in for the actual ethics report into Gates, as on A 16, the Times reports, House Republicans voted on Wednesday to block the release of an ethics committee report about sexual misconduct and illicit drug use allegations against former representative Matt Gates, the Florida Republican who is president-elect Donald J. Trump's choice for attorney general, setting up a possible constitutional clash between the House and the Senate. The vote of the ethics committee was a party line split, according to the story. And according to all expectations of how this would play out, the Times writes, “Speaker Mike Johnson pressured the committee last week not to release its findings on Mr. Gates, arguing that it would constitute a terrible breach of protocol to do so after a member had resigned, putting him beyond the panel's jurisdiction.” A message cribbed more or less directly from Mitch McConnell's argument in Trump's impeachment trial over the January 6th attack on the Capitol, that despite admitting Trump's guilt, he had no power to vote to convict once Trump had left office. The Senate, meanwhile, wants to see the report. Some Republican lawmakers, the Times writes, “like Senator John Cornyn of Texas, have suggested that the Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over Justice Department nominees, could subpoena the House Committee if it did not willingly hand over the file.” Surely the Senate Republicans won't back down if Trump presses them on that. Or the House Democratic Ethics Committee members could just leak the thing if any of them believed that the norms and rules against leaking a report were less important than the norms and rules against having an accused statutory rapist running the Justice Department? Do any of believe that? We'll find out. 

Back on page one, the number two news column is, “Debating role of trans rights in Harris' loss. Trump attack ad has Democrats bickering.” Once again, the recriminations among Democrats for losing the election take precedence over the actual bad things that Republicans are doing having won the election. As the Times gives page one to Democrats chewing over whether they should have fought back against Donald Trump's trans-bashing campaign ads or should have loudly capitulated to them instead of taking a meek middle course of half-heartedly asserting that the law supports trans rights. 

You have to go inside the paper to page A-15 to read about how Mike Johnson, fresh off trying to suppress evidence around the accusations of statutory rape against Matt Gaetz, teamed up with the worst women in the Republican conference to pass a restroom rule designed to personally harass the newly elected Delaware representative Sarah McBride, who's trans, and in the process barring any other trans person on Capitol Hill from using their gender-appropriate toilet facilities. McBride caved to the rule immediately. Its biggest proponents, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene, kept on saying odious things about trans people because they think it's good politics. 

And on the left-hand side of page one, despite the rain, “Wildfire risk only growing for Northeast. Climate change raises chance of dry spells.” Next to it is a three-column photograph of the parched and bathtub-ringed edge of New York's Ashokan Reservoir. New York has, the Times reports, “roughly an eight-inch deficit from the rainfall usually seen at this time of year which today's rain is only going to shave into a little bit. Before today, the last meaningful rainfall in the region,” the Times writes “was more than 90 days ago. Since October 1st, the New York City area has received about a quarter inch. The city's reservoirs, which typically at this time of year would be at close to 80 % capacity, are down to about 60%. In central New Jersey, one reservoir that serves over a million residents is more than half empty. Currently,” the story adds “more than two thirds of the United States is experiencing abnormally dry conditions and about 40 % of the country, over 149 million acres, is in a drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.”

And below the jump for that, on page A19, Mayor Eric Adams has named his fourth New York Police Department commissioner, moving the Sanitation Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, over to take the job. Ms. Tisch, The Times writes, “who is part of the New York family that owns the Lowe's Corporation conglomerate and co-owns the New York Giants, will be the second female commissioner.” Maybe the money means she won't need to take bribes. 

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 is sustained through the financial support of you, the listeners. So please subscribe or tip if you can, and assuming nothing too terrible happens, we will talk again tomorrow.