Good morning. It is July 3rd. It is briefly fleetingly beautiful in New York City for one, brilliant, comfortable slice of morning before the bright, friendly sun quickly cranks the temperature up to a forecast 88 degrees, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

The schedule is tight again, your Indignity Morning Podcast is part of a busier than usual slate of assignments to juggle. And so, in the spirit of the fleetingly pleasant morning, we're going to try knocking this one out as briskly as possible, more like the way we used to do it back in the beginning, so let's start by mercifully getting off of this planet. Scientists report that there is a new interstellar object zooming through the solar system. The third such object ever found, this one, according to the New York Times, was picked up on a telescope in Chile, part of the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System, which monitors space for new things that might crash into the Earth. It is, the Times writes, “currently located between the orbits of the asteroid belt and Jupiter, but heading toward the inner solar system. Relative to the Sun,” the Times writes, “it is currently moving at about 130,000 miles per hour, and it will continue to accelerate as the Sun's gravity pulls on it.” The “relative to the Sun” criterion is pretty great. A nice reminder that space is space. And maybe from this thing's perspective, it was sitting still and our solar system came hurtling into it. This one is brighter than the previous two recorded interstellar objects. Most likely, scientists think, because it is a comet, and the surrounding plume that comes off it under the influence of the Sun is reflecting extra light, they expect it to be visible to astronomers for months to come, and current trajectory calculations have its closest approach to Earth in December, when it will still be 160 million miles away. Isn't it nice to pause and pay a little attention to an object out there in the distance, brought to our attention strictly through the actions of chance and physics? 

Meanwhile, down here on the sweaty rock full of human beings, what does appear bound for an apocalyptic impact is President Trump's asinine and destructive budget bill. As House Speaker Mike Johnson won an overnight endurance contest against the handful of Republicans in his chamber who didn't want to accelerate the growth of the national debt to economy-wrecking proportions. When the vote totals showed that a procedural measure to advance the bill was going to lose, Johnson simply left the vote open, so he and President Trump could spend hours pressuring the Republican “no” votes to change their votes to yes. In a triumph of representative democracy, eventually enough of them gave up and flipped, that the bill can now be voted on today. If it passes, as it now seems set up to do, it will strip Medicaid funding from more than 11 million people. According to analysts, it will once again cut taxes on the rich, and will make ICE the most lavishly funded federal law enforcement agency. Basically, if you can imagine the stupidest and most destructive ways to either spend more money or not spend money, the bill is going to hit all of them. Despite the fact that nobody but a handful of lunatics really wants this to happen, it's on its way to happening. The easy interpretation of this is that the country is in the hands of a malevolent dictator, and it is, but there's a strange hollowness at the center of that dictatorship. 

The news site Notice reported yesterday that in a meeting with Republican members of Congress, Trump told them that if they want to win elections, they should not touch Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. “‘But we're touching Medicaid in this bill, one member responded to Trump.’” That's attributed to three sources with direct knowledge of the comments. As happened in the great proletarian cultural revolution under the paranoid and decrepit Chairman Mao, the will of the leader and his command are absolute, but they seem to be emanating from somewhere not exactly inside his person. 

On the front of this morning's New York Times, we're just going to take a quick look at the whole thing because time is short. The lead news spot is one column on the budget bill, the state of play as of yesterday evening. “JOHNSON STRAINS FOR A FINAL VOTE ON TRUMP’S BILL / RESISTANCE IN HOUSE / G.O.P. Rift Over Senate’s Changes to Domestic Policy Measure.” That's where it was when the paper went to bed. 

The column on the left-hand side of the page is the Sean Combs verdict. “Combs Avoids Life in Prison In Split Verdict / Guilty of Less Severe Prostitution Charges.” The, I guess the word is always going to be mogul, yep, the Times has “the hip hop mogul who crafted a business empire around his personal brand,” managed not to be found guilty on conspiracy and racketeering charges in what testimony described as brutal and non-consensual sex orgies. But the jury did find him guilty under the Mann Act of transporting people across state lines for prostitution. Conspiracy always seemed like the easiest bag for prosecutors to shove someone's misconduct into, but, if you can afford good enough lawyers, apparently not. 

Between these two columns of news is a triptych of pictures from Europe's devastating heat wave, lone figure sitting in a tiny patch of shade on a Barcelona beach, a polar bear splayed out on a bed of synthetic snow or ice at a zoo in Prague, and people flinching and sweltering at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. 

Down on and below the fold, on the left, “Paramount Agrees to Pay Trump $16 Million in Settlement of Suit / Deal Over ‘60 Minutes’ Interview May Clear Way for Sale.” 

“Paramount,” the Times writes, “said that it has agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over the editing of an interview on the CBS News program, 60 Minutes, an extraordinary concession to a sitting president by a major media organization. Paramount said late Tuesday that its payment included Mr. Trump's legal fees and costs, and that the money, minus the legal fees, would be paid to Mr. Trump's future presidential library. As part of the settlement, Paramount said, it agreed to release written transcripts of future 60 Minutes interviews with presidential candidates. The company said the settlement did not include an apology.” That lack of an apology is basically the last vestige of the concept that the media are free to report on the news. The interview in question was an interview with Kamala Harris, which left Trump convinced that the segment had been manipulated to make his opponent look better. And now that paranoid fantasy has been deemed worth $16 million. Or, more directly, Paramount's ability to sell itself to another company and make its owner Shari Redstone even richer than she is, without being obstructed by the Trump administration, is worth $16 million to the Paramount board. In the absence of any sort of confession of journalistic wrongdoing, the deal stands even more nakedly than it did at the proposal stage as a straightforward, uncomplicated bribe. If you did the exact same transaction overseas with a minor provincial official paying someone off because you needed their approval for a business transaction, you could end up in prison under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. But domestic corrupt practices are just how this country does business now.

Down at the bottom of page, on the left, the headline is “Education in Limbo as Trump Freezes $7 Billion / After-School Programs Among Those at Risk.” 

“The Trump administration,” the Times writes, “has declined to release nearly $7 billion in federal funding that helps pay for after-school and summer programs, support for students learning English, teacher training, and other services.” The administration simply notified school districts that were expecting the money, that it wasn't going to be coming. “Then,” the Times writes, “the administration offered little explanation, saying only that the funds were under review. It gave no timeline for when or if the money would be released, saying instead that it was committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the president's priorities.” After the jump, the story gets into anecdotal detail, including saying “Heidi Sipe, the superintendent in Umatilla, Oregon, a low-income rural district, said her district's after-school program has traditionally gone until 4.45 or 5.30 p.m. and was fully funded through federal dollars. She recently sent a note to parents urging them to make backup plans, though few exist in her community, where she said there is no YMCA or similar alternatives.” According to results, the county posted online, in November, the voters there cast 20,422 votes for Donald Trump and JD Vance, against 8,947 for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. That's not even really point of recrimination. It's just Donald Trump has completely abandoned any pretense of taking care of even his own supporters. 

Last, at the bottom of the page, “U.S. and Vietnam Strike Trade Deal, Trump Says / 20 Percent Tariffs and a Swipe at China.” Six months ago, a 20 % tariff on Vietnamese goods would have been received, correctly, as a catastrophic act of trade war against against one of the United States's leading trading partners, which it still is, but now it's also Donald Trump coming in below his previous Vietnamese tariff proposal of 46 % 

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. You, the listeners, keep us going through your paid subscriptions to Indignity and your tips, please keep those coming in. 

Enjoy the holiday weekend. And if the morning juggling of work responsibilities sorts itself out, we should talk again on Monday.