Good morning. It is October 28th. It is pleasant and cool again in New York City, albeit with a few more clouds this time around. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the United States has escalated its slaughter of unarmed vessels in the Pacific yesterday with what he said were three strikes hitting four different boats and killing 14 people, leaving one survivor. The media reports on the strike appear to be finally giving up in the face of the increasing volume of killings and just describing the total volume of deaths in the unprovoked attacks across the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific as more than 50.

Wikipedia, which is still trying to keep a running tally, has the body count at 57. That means seven murders by the US military, seven legally unjustified killings of civilians are now a rounding error. The scope of the crimes has expanded beyond conventional media coverage's ability to measure it.

Hurricane Melissa is just about to make landfall in Jamaica after a day spent moving slowly and getting stronger. The Weather Channel reports that its top winds are now at 185 miles an hour. Its sustained winds are at 175. By barometric pressure, the Weather Channel says it's the third most intense Atlantic hurricane of all time, tied with the Labor Day 1935 storm. And only Hurricane Allen in 1980 has had stronger winds. 

The Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, in his chosen role as far right enforcer and sycophant, filed a lawsuit against Johnson and Johnson and its over-the-counter products spin-off, Kenview, based on the made-up allegations by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that acetaminophen, and specifically brand-name Tylenol, thanks to the fact that the president is unable to reliably pronounce the word acetaminophen, causes autism and other neurological conditions. The Texas lawsuit, the New York Times writes, “claims that the company's knowingly withheld evidence from consumers about Tylenol's links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The suit also claims that Kenview was created to shield Johnson & Johnson from liability over Tylenol.” 

Bloomberg is reporting that Trump Media, the social media company owned by President Trump, the single person with the greatest power to personally cause events to happen in the world is going to start selling gambling contracts on prediction markets. “Trump Media and Technology Group Corp.” Bloomberg writes “plans to make prediction contracts available on its truth social network, allowing users to bet on events ranging from political elections to inflation rate changes, according to a statement on Tuesday.” Not sure that range of two different aggregates of public behavior is a real range. But with Donald Trump making drastic policy changes that affect consumer prices, while also exerting pressure on the people who report economic data, the opportunities for trading on insider information seem abundant. 

Reuters, meanwhile, has a special report. “Inside the Trump family's global crypto cash machine,” it opens with Eric Trump in Dubai telling a Chinese investor at a crypto conference to get a piece of his family's world liberty financial, despite the company's operations only notionally existing at the time, and being rewarded with a $100 million token purchase by a company co-founded by that businessman, Gurren Babi Zhao, who Reuters writes “has executive roles in multiple businesses and who is under investigation in Britain for money laundering. According to that nation's national crime agency and a document filed in an immigration case at London's Royal Courts of Justice.” That transaction is not the tentpole scandal of the story, but merely an illustrative example of what the Trump brothers have been up to, touring the world and soliciting money for their crypto operations. “In the first half of this year,” Reuters writes “the Trump organization's income soared 17-fold to $684 million from $51 million a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on the president's official disclosures, property records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade information, and other sources. Of the first half total, $802 million, more than 90%, came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of World Liberty tokens. That $864 million payday, the story continues, represents actual income, cash flowing, free and clear into Trump family coffers.” Later, the story says the “Trump's first half crypto income dwarfed with the family earned from its traditional businesses. Thirty three million dollars from the president's golf clubs and resorts and twenty three million dollars for licensing his name to overseas real estate developers, according to the Reuters estimates. More than half the Trump's income, four hundred sixty three million dollars, came from sales of world liberty tokens alone.” 

Meanwhile, on the front of this morning's print edition of The New York Times, there's the headline, “Trump's son is poised to profit from drone plans, advising manufacturer that one contract from the army. It is a bold plan,” the Times writes. “A team of defense industry startups envisions a new fleet of miniaturized, unmanned aircraft carriers stuffed with autonomous killer drones, anti-aircraft missiles and torpedoes that will take on just about any enemy at sea. And this group pitching the Pentagon comes with an unusual sweetener. Close financial ties to President Trump's oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is positioned to profit considerably if this ambitious but unproven venture succeeds. The proposal by the companies, Puerto Rico-based Red Cat, with drone parts supplied by Unusual Machines, based in Orlando, Florida, reflects the unprecedented role the president's sons are playing not only as supporters of their father's policies, but also as investors in ventures selling to agencies their father controls. Unusual Machines gave Donald Trump Jr. 200,000 shares of its stock late last year in return for his help as an advisor. The shares are now worth about $2.6 million. Though officials at the company and the Pentagon say Mr. Trump's son has not reached out to the Defense Department on their behalf, he has relationships with some high-level figures there. Donald Trump Jr.,” the story continues, “helped screen candidates for top jobs at the Pentagon on behalf of his father after the election. He is also an important and unusually vocal ally of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appearing at events with him at least twice this year.” And in case anyone was concerned that this was just the appearance of a conflict of interest, the story goes on to say “in a recent podcast, Donald Trump Jr. acknowledged that as he helped screen candidates for Pentagon positions, he pushed to find someone open to investing more money in drones.” 

Next to that, running from the top left-hand side of the page, is a story with the headline, “Workers Seek Ways to Stretch A $0 Paycheck / Shutdown Is Squeezing Federal Employees.” 

On the right, in the lead news column, is an unusually blunt headline on a NEWS ANALYSIS piece. Trump Seeks End of Crisis He Initiated / Trade Pact May Bring China Ties Full Circle” is the subhead. The point here is to contextualize Trump's trade talks with China. “Trump administration officials,” the Times writes, “have hailed the makings of a potential trade deal that could have China buy American soybeans and pause the introduction of its new licensing system on rare earth minerals while the United States pauses or removes some of its tariffs. But” the Times goes on to write, “those and the other measures that US officials have mentioned appear to largely restore the relationship to a status quo from earlier this year before Mr. Trump began his latest trade war with Beijing.” 

Next to that, under a four-column photo of Trump strolling down a red carpet from Air Force One, accompanied by Malaysia's Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, is another NEWS ANALYSIS piece. On Asia Tour, Agenda Short On U.S. Ideals. During Mr. Trump's latest trip abroad,” the Times writes “on a six day sojourn through Asia, he has launched fists pumping onto the world stage, chasing a trade deal with China and compelling several other Asian governments to sign economic agreements. Several of the leaders he will encounter this week are autocrats or are presiding over vulnerable democracies. And some are open fans of his bulldozing approach to governing. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim praised Mr. Trump's willingness to skirt security protocols by letting him ride along in the American presidential limousine shortly after Mr. Trump landed in Kuala Lumpur. ‘We admire your tenacity and courage because the world needs leaders who promote peace strongly,’ Mr. Anwar told the president when the pair appeared together on Sunday in observance of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia. ‘And to achieve that, you have to break some rules, as you did today.’” Then the story runs through some of Trump's abuses of democracy and the rule of law at home and says, “unlike his American predecessors, Mr. Trump is not even pretending to tout the benefits of democracy as he travels in Asia. Nor does Mr. Trump see the U.S. relationship with China as representative of an existential battle between the ideals of democracy and the specter of growing global authoritarianism.” That's all true as far as it goes. And It's nice to see the times say it outright, but a tour of Asia, particularly starting off in Southeast Asia, is maybe less than the perfect setting for regretting how American foreign policy has fallen from its ideals of the past. 

The president's performance with reporters on Air Force One yesterday, in which, as we discussed yesterday, he described as difficult what sounded like a cognitive impairment exam he'd taken. and in which he also, when asked about a third term, said he would love to do it, lands on page A16. Next to it is a story about Vice President JD Vance. “Vance is defending positions he once opposed, supporting strikes on Iran and in Caribbean after warning of undefined missions.” Startlingly, the man who sold out his own family in the service of a commercially successful memoir seems to be operating without fixed principles. “Mr. Vance,” the Times writes, “has shifted his positions and defended or promoted views he once opposed, even as recently as the 2024 presidential campaign. On issues like foreign entanglements, free speech and the Jeffrey Epstein files, Mr. Vance has had to backtrack on or simply ignore a string of flip flops.” The story then says “some of his shifts have risked putting him at odds with members of Mr. Trump's MAGA base who liked his original defenses of military restraint and free speech. They've also helped focus new attention on a question that has hung over him during his rise from author who disparaged Mr. Trump as America's Hitler to the Senate to number two in the White House. What does JD Vance believe?” All the accumulated evidence points to the answer that he believes in nothing and that he in fact, affirmatively believes in nothing that he has extrapolated from his own hollowness as a human being. The premise that the whole world is hollow and nothing he says can possibly matter.

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. If you stayed up to watch the Dodgers 6-5 victory of the Blue Jays in 18 innings in Game 3 of the World Series, treat yourself to a nap today. And if nothing unexpected gets in the way, we will talk again tomorrow.