Good morning. It is May 20th. It's a sunny morning in New York City. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Skoka, taking a look at the day and the news. President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran is dead, along with the country's foreign minister and six other people in a helicopter crash. Reuters is reporting that the charred wreckage of the helicopter, which went down yesterday in the mountains near Iran's border with Azerbaijan, was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions. The front page of the Times has a picture of the helicopter as it took off, courtesy of the Islamic Republic News Agency. It's an extremely modest -looking Bell 212 helicopter. Wikipedia, citing Jane's helicopter markets and systems, says that the last newly -built Bell 212 was shipped in 1998.

Reuters writes that decades of sanctions have made it hard for Iran to obtain parts or upgrade its aircraft. In other breaking news, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Kareem Khan, told CNN's Christiane Alhambour that he's seeking arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar of Hamas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, along with the Israeli defense minister and two other Hamas leaders.

The Hamas leaders would be charged with the crimes of the October 7th attacks. The Israeli leaders would be charged with all the crimes of the subsequent attack on Gaza. On the front of this morning's New York Times, to go with the helicopter picture, there's a two -column lead story about the helicopter crash, written and published before the crash had a known outcome. So the lead is about how the crash was deepening the turmoil that has gripped the nation on both the international and domestic fronts in recent months. That's the time -honored technique of using the voice of omniscience to vamp your way through the fact that you don't know what happened. Elsewhere on page one, threats and fear are transforming U .S. politics. Violence is a risk from City Hall to Congress. It begins with an anecdote about Representative Jamie Raskin getting a protective order against someone who showed up at his house to scream at him. The instance for Time's Rights goes with about 50 menacing calls, emails, and letters every month that Raskin receives. Mr. Raskin, the Times' rights was far from the only government official staring down the uglier side of public service in America in recent weeks. The examples that follow are bomb threats against libraries, an activist protesting the war in Gaza who told the Bakersfield City Council, we'll see you at your house, we'll murder you. A Florida man who left a voicemail message promising to come kill Chief Justice John Roberts, and Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, refused to rule out violence if he were to lose in November. You don't say. Well, actually, you kind of don't say. At least, you have to go 20 paragraphs into this story before, despite the Gaza activist and the person threatening John Roberts, at the top of the piece, The Times does write, there's little research on the political views of those behind the onslaught of abuse.

Some surveys show that Republican officeholders are more likely to report being targeted, often from members of their own party. Research does show, however, that recent acts of political violence are more likely to be carried out by perpetrators aligned with right -wing causes and beliefs. Yeah, what was however doing in that sentence? Republicans report being threatened because violence is now the language of Republican party discipline.

The Trump movement endorses and promotes violence. It has all along. Well before January 6th, the 2020 Trump campaign reveled in confrontation and violence. Marco Rubio gloated on stage about Trump supporters causing a car accident while trying to run a Biden campaign bus off the road. Even further down in the story, the Times writes, Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican from Utah, who is retiring at the end of this year. told a biographer that some GOP lawmakers voted not to impeach and convict Mr. Trump after the January 6th attack because they were afraid for their safety if they crossed his supporters. Mr. Romney did not identify the legislators by name and declined an interview for this article. And this is a guy who's reportedly paying $5 ,000 a day for security and he still won't lay it all out there. Meanwhile, on page A18, Dateline Dallas,

Former President Donald J. Trump, accepting the endorsement of the National Rifle Association on Saturday, cast himself as a powerful ally for gun owners and gun businesses, contending that under President Biden, the right to bear arms was under siege. If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns, Mr. Trump said in Dallas, where he headlined the NRA's annual meeting. Where, where is this culture of political violence coming from? And speaking of political violence,

On page A8, Congo says Americans were part of foiled coup, Dateline Nairobi, Kenya. That's 1 ,500 miles away from Kinshasa, if we're counting. The military of the Democratic Republic of Congo said on Sunday that it had foiled a coup attempt involving foreigners, hours after a gunfight near the presidential palace in which at least three people were killed. An army spokesperson told the Associated Press, that three Americans were among the perpetrators, the Times writes, and the United States Ambassador to Congo, Lucy Tamlin, acknowledged publicly that American citizens may have been involved. After a gunfight outside a legislator's house at 430 on Saturday morning, the Times writes, the assailants then moved toward the presidential palace, the Congolese news media reported. At the same time, Christian Molanga, an exiled opponent of the Congolese government who runs a minor opposition party, posted a livestream video in which he appeared to be leading the attack. The video, which the Times could not verify independently, showed Mr. Malanga surrounded by men in military uniforms, some with American flags affixed to their vests. Malanga apparently ended up dead. The Army spokesperson told the AP that he had been killed while resisting arrest. Videos also showed the Times reports a bloodied white man on the ground sitting beside someone identified as Mr. Malanga's son, an American. And there are also images of the passport of another American, Benjamin Ruben Zamenpollin, said to be involved in the episode. News reports previously identified him as a cannabis entrepreneur involved in gold mining with Mr. Malanga. I don't know. That seems like more interesting page one news than "Biden message at Morehouse, I'm with you," "As Trump's trial nears its end, prosecutors seem to have edge," "A victory in the ring boosts the morale of a war -weary Ukraine," or "A time -honored political tactic: throw your wife under the bus." 

Although that last one notably does treat Samuel Alito as a politician, which he is. That is the news. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. And if all goes well, we'll talk again tomorrow.