Good morning. It is Wednesday, only Wednesday, December the 18th. It's a sunny morning in New York with drizzle allegedly on its way by evening., and this is your indignity morning podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

House Republicans yesterday issued a report calling for Liz Cheney to be criminally investigated for witness tampering for her work on the January 6th committee.

ABC News, meanwhile, is reporting that Democrats are planning a strategy of “attempting constructive cooperation” with the incoming Republican administration and majorities. They have said, ABC writes, “that they'll oppose President-elect Donald Trump and his allies when their values collide, but are open to cooperation on a range of issues, including immigration, federal spending, and entitlements. The strategy,” the story continues, “marks a turnaround from 2017, when resistance to Trump was Democrats rally and cry. But some lawmakers and operatives said it also marks a challenge to Republicans for bipartisanship at a time when narrow GOP congressional majorities will likely mandate some level of cooperation. Representative Suzanne DelBene, who was just reelected to be chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told ABC, ‘we're going to hold Republicans accountable for whether they're willing to help move things forward for the American people.’”

This morning's New York Times on page A17 has the twin headlines, “Party Shun's Ocasio-Cortez for top oversight panel post,” and “Harris implores young voters to stay engaged.” And really for once, the headlines are doing all the work they need to do. 

On the front of the paper, the lead story is “Russian general is assassinated in Moscow blast. Ukraine claims strike, accused by Kiev of using chemical weapons on the battlefield.” Next to that, four columns wide is a photograph of two dead bodies lying in the bloody snow with blast damage nearby along the side of a street. The Times, which made a point of not publishing the text of Luigi Mangione's statement about why he allegedly shot the CEO of United Healthcare's insurance division, and which discouraged its newsroom from publishing images of Mangione's face when it could be avoided received a video of the bombing, which killed General Igor Kirillov from the Ukrainian security service and has online, a breakdown of the contents of the video featuring frames of the men walking toward a car, and then the scene going white, as explosives planted on a nearby scooter detonate. 

Underneath the bombing photo is a news analysis piece. “Economic pain made Germans sour on leader.” Whereas Americans supposedly returned Donald Trump to office because they were upset about inflation in a growing post-pandemic economy. Germans kicked out Chancellor Olaf Scholz because they were unhappy about the lack of economic growth. Weird how the same output keeps coming from different inputs. 

Next to that is a vague headline and a very specific subhead. “Addled by combat, allayed by psychedelic trips” is the headline. “U.S. veterans take risk crossing border for toad poison drug” is the subhead. The toad poison, the story writes, “is taken after the distressed Navy SEALs crossing over into Tijuana from San Diego, first take Ibogaine. Navy Special Warfare, the command that oversees the SEALs,” the Times writes, “said it was aware that active duty SEALs were using Ibogaine to treat brain injuries. While initial research shows some positive results, Ibogaine remains a schedule one substance, making its use illegal under US law, a spokeswoman for the command said in a statement, ‘the Navy has zero tolerance for drug abuse’ the spokeswoman said and SEALs should instead seek care through approved medical channels.’” 

Speaking of people who take drugs when they're not supposed to, at the top left of page one is “Musk flouted security rules, faces reviews SpaceX laxity is said to risk state secrets. Elon Musk and his rocket company SpaceX,” the Times writes, “have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting state secrets, including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders, according to people with knowledge of the company and internal documents. Concerns about the reporting practices, and particularly about Mr. Musk, who is SpaceX's chief executive,” the Times writes, “have triggered at least three federal reviews, eight people with knowledge of the efforts said.” It's hard to know what to do with this reporting, given that it's about to become entirely moot. Yes, Elon Musk controls large chunks of critical American infrastructure. Yes, Elon Musk is financially dependent on foreign powers. Yes, Elon Musk has, as the Times delicately puts it, “long blown past norms and conventions that do not suit him or his companies.” To say nothing of laws. But Donald Trump doesn't care about any of that, and Donald Trump is going to be the president. And this line of reporting about a pattern of facts that has been well known for much more than a year, is basically just testimony to the impotence of the law and investigative journalism alike. Or, as the Times puts it, “whether the federal reviews will affect Mr. Musk or SpaceX is unclear. Some of the SpaceX employees who complained about the privately held companies reporting practices have been fired or forced out, the people with knowledge of the rocket maker said, two defense officials said senior Pentagon leaders had given directives to avoid discussing the matter, so they would not become targets of Mr. Musk, who has promised to cut government workers and budgets in his new role in Washington.” Another aspect of the overall impotence, is the Times's extremely limited way of discussing Musk's drug use. “In August 2023,” the Times writes, “Mr. Musk wrote on X that he took ketamine, an anesthetic with psychedelic properties, when his brain chemistry sometimes goes super negative. He has said he has a prescription for the drug. Any drug use is supposed to be disclosed to the Defense Department, but SpaceX and Mr. Musk did not report it at the time, three people with knowledge of the company said.” This story also notes that he smoked pot on camera on Joe Rogan's podcast, but that falls pretty far short of the Wall Street Journal's reporting from the beginning of this year that “the world's wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign non-disclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.” That story continued, “2018, for example, he took multiple tabs of acid at a party he hosted in Los Angeles. The next year, he partied on magic mushrooms at an event in Mexico. In 2021, he took ketamine recreationally with his brother, Kimball Musk, in Miami. He has taken illegal drugs with current SpaceX and former Tesla board member, Steve Jurvetson. People close to Musk,” the Journal reported, “said his drug use is ongoing, especially his consumption of ketamine, and that they are concerned it could cause a health crisis.” Back to the Times, “Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Musk, like anyone with a security clearance, must honor the rules. ‘He doesn't get a bye just because he's the world's richest man,’ Mr. Himes said. But Representative Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado on the House Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Musk was ‘obviously a patriotic American and I don't think would ever knowingly give aid or comfort to an adversary of the United States.’” That's an almost unsustainable amount of work for the word “knowingly” to do there. But, the keywords are “obviously” and “patriotic.” 

In other patriotic non-accountability news on page A15 the headline at the top is “Kennedy tries to ease concerns on Capitol Hill Down below is consistent history of casting doubt on polio vaccine.” as the Times digs in and documents that despite his current dissembling about it to try to ease his confirmation as secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is passionately opposed to the polio vaccine and has spread various crazy lies about it. The highlight of the story up top, about how he is getting Republicans to agree to go along with his pretense, deals with Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. “In some of the most revealing comments about Mr. Kennedy's tour of Capitol Hill,” The Times writes, “Mr. Hawley said in social media posts that the two had discussed an anti-abortion agenda that Mr. Kennedy had vowed to implement as secretary, despite positions he outlined during his presidential campaign that supported abortion rights. ‘He told me he believes there are far too many abortions in the U.S. and that we cannot be the moral leader of the free world with abortion rates so high,’ Mr. Hawley wrote.” Kennedy doesn't care about abortion rights. He doesn't care about his own family. He doesn't care about the environmental causes that he built his previous career around advocating for. He's there to get rid of vaccines and he'll say anything to get the chance to make it happen. 

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 efforts are sustained by the subscription dollars. and tip dollars of you, our dedicated listeners. So please send some more of those our way. And if nothing unforeseen happens, we'll talk again tomorrow.