Good morning. It is September 2nd. Labor Day is gone, but it's another fine sunny morning in New York City as the schoolchildren enjoy their last two days of liberty, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

An earthquake in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border on Sunday night has killed at least 1,400 people, according to the Afghan government. The earthquake measured 6.0 on the Richter scale. And the AP writes, “flattened villages and trapped people under the rubble of homes constructed mostly of mud, bricks and wood that were unable to withstand the shock. The UN is warning that it expects the casualty figures to go higher.” 

A federal judge in California this morning ruled that the Trump administration in deploying military forces to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act willfully. Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California enjoined the administration from deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using the National Guard currently deployed in California and any military troops heretofore deployed in California to execute the laws, including but not limited to engaging in arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants. He then stayed the injunction for 10 days.

Breyer wrote, “Congress spoke clearly in 1878 when it passed the Posse Comitatus Act prohibiting the use of the US military to execute domestic law. Nearly 140 years later, defendants, President Trump, Secretary of Defense Hegseth, and the Department of Defense, deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, ostensibly to quell a rebellion and ensure that federal immigration law was enforced. There were indeed protests in Los Angeles and some individuals engaged in violence, yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”

People online spent the holiday weekend speculating about Donald Trump's empty schedule and lack of public appearances in recent days, a matter of public interest that major news organizations have not touched, which Wikipedia has so far deemed worth covering. The relevant paragraph in the 2025 section of the age and health concerns about Donald Trump page currently reads “large bruises appeared on Trump's hands in August 2025 and on August 27th vice president JD Vance stated that he was ready to become president.” This led to a widespread speculation that Trump was seriously ill or dead on August 30th. The phrase Trump is dead trended on Twitter. That day. He was seen leaving for golf, but a photo which Trump shared of himself golfing with John Gruden on August 31st was determined to have potentially been taken on August 23rd, fueling further speculation of ongoing health concerns. August additionally saw increased discussions about his mental health. A photograph of Trump leaving the White House on September 1st confirmed he was still alive, but led to even more speculation about his health due to seeming changes in his appearance.” The footnotes to that section lead to stories in the Economic Times, Times Now, The Houston Chronicle;”social media speculated that President Trump was dead. It's not true.” Forbes; “Is Trump dead? Rumors debunked as Trump seen leaving for golf.” Newsweek; “Trump pictured heading to play golf after a baseless viral death speculation”. The SEO-dominating Hindustan Times; “When did Trump play golf with John Gruden? Photo sparks row amid health speculations.” And Newsweek again, this is the weird cult-run zombie Newsweek, “Donald Trump posting week-old photo raises eyebrows amid health speculation.” So that's where the speculation has percolated so far. Is Donald Trump dying? Well, all of us are dying at our own individual paces. Is Donald Trump debilitated? Yes, he was debilitated in his first term. Although for some reason, despite presidential fitness being an important issue on one side of the contest, in the 2024 election, the term “executive time,” which started filling up Trump's first term presidential schedule when he was no longer able to meet the daily demands of the job, stayed out of the discourse. 

The presidential schedule for today contains an early afternoon announcement, which people allowed themselves to get very excited about. But the AP is reporting that what Trump plans to announce is that the U.S. Space Command will move to Alabama from its current location in Colorado. 

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the lead news spot is a two-column headline over two one-column stories. “In Blitz on Science, Experts Warn of an Autocratic Tilt” On the right, the headline is, “Are Research Cuts
Fighting Red Tape or Free Inquiry?” On the left, “C.D.C. Left Battling
for Its Survival.” Of those two stories, the one on the left is the one that gets a NEWS ANALYSIS tag. On the right, the non-analytic straight news story begins. “The war on science began four centuries ago when the Roman Catholic Church outlawed books that reimagined the heavens. Subsequent regimes shot or jailed thousands of scientists. Today, in such places as China and Hungary, a less fearsome type of strongman relies on budget cuts, intimidation, and high-tech surveillance to cow scientists into submission. Then there is President Trump. Voters last year decisively returned to the White House.” 

Hmm, speaking of rational analysis, what is “decisively” supposed to mean there? It was literally decisive in the sense that the election results came in, the winner was straightforward to identify, and there was no complicating contradiction between the popular and electoral college results, but it was a pretty narrow victory backed by an almost vanishingly small margin in the House of Representatives. Anyway, regardless of what the story is trying to say about Trump's popular mandate, it goes on to describe him smashing the research apparatus of the US to such an extent that it then has to pull back a little and say, “few, if any, analysts see Mr. Trump as a Stalin who crushed science or even as a direct analog to this era's strongman leaders but his assault on researchers and their institutions is so deep that historians and other experts see similarities to the playbook employed by autocratic regimes to curb science. For instance,” this story that is, again, not news analysis, continues, “despots over the ages devised a lopsided way of funding science that punished blue sky thinkers and promoted gadget makers. Mr. Trump's science policies, experts say, follow that approach. He hails Silicon Valley's wizards of tech but undermines the basic research that thrives on free thought and sows the seeds of not only Nobel prizes, but trillion dollar industries.” 

The story that is NEWS ANALYSIS, meanwhile, seems pretty much fact based. “In the six months since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office as the health secretary,” the Times writes, “the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has withered, losing thousands of employees, about half of its budget and contracts, and much of its authority over the nation's vaccine policies. Last week, as Mr. Kennedy ousted the agency's new director and precipitated the resignation of four other leaders,” sloppy news writing there, there don't seem to be any reports over the weekend that Susan Manares, the director of the CDC, has recanted her argument that only the president himself has the authority to fire her, nor has Donald Trump in his previously discussed condition of inactivity and unavailability, delivered any direct personal announcement that he is firing her. Anyway, back to the sentence. “Experts in public health,” the Times writes “began asking questions unthinkable just a few months ago. Is the CDC dying? And if so, what does that mean for Americans? In interviews, a dozen public health experts, along with seven former high ranking officials, described the CDC as badly wounded and fast losing its legitimacy. It can still be salvaged, they said but only if Mr. Kennedy listens to scientists and restores some of its crucial functions.” Again, if focusing reporting on future speculation is what makes a story NEWS ANALYSIS, seems like that tag would belong on every politics story the paper ever writes. 

On the left-hand side of the page, the Times ponders the incredibly straightforward paradox of authoritarianism. “Gun Seizures In Washington Create Duality / Crackdown as Trump Eases Arms Policies.” How can a president who enjoys the support of the pro-gun movement, send federal troops to invade an American city and confiscate guns? The question answers itself, the pro-gun movement was never about making sure everyone had a gun Just making sure that the right people had unlimited access.  This is why after decades of claiming to see a liberal
big government violation of the Posse Comitatus Act lurking around every corner. The militia movement kept its powder dry when the federal government actually did launch a military occupation of Los Angeles. 

And speaking of which threats do and don't matter and who gets impunity, down below the fold in that left-hand column, the headline is “Jan. 6 Rioters, 
Given Pardons, Now Seek More.” “The rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, 2021,” the Times writes, “secured a shocking double victory this year. President Trump granted them clemency for their crimes on his first day back in the White House. And in the months that followed, he allowed his Justice Department to purge many of the federal agents and prosecutors who sought to hold them accountable.” Not bad, but it's actually a triple victory in that because their violent coup attempt proved to be more than the defenders of normalcy and institutions could bring themselves to directly confront, they also belatedly restored Donald Trump to the presidency, which was the point all along. That aside, the story continues, “but even though the president has given the rioters their freedom and has taken steps towards satisfying their desire for retribution, they are asking for more. In the past several weeks, the rioters and their lawyers have pushed the Trump administration to pay them restitution for what they believe were unfair prosecutions.” And once they get that, they will demand something else because what they've learned in the past four years and eight months is that nobody is going to stop them. 

The picture slot at the top of the front page is a nine part grid of colorful and picturesque homemade explosive devices. Over the headline, “Cartels Wield Arsenal of War / Mexican Drug Gangs Adapt With Drones and Land Mines.” It opens with a classic pointless feature story fake-out lead. El Guyabo, Mexico is the dateline. And then it's, “the explosions began before dawn, shaking the ground and rattling windows in the darkness. With them, residents said, came the telltale buzz of drones.” Blah, blah, blah, landmines, spent 50 caliber shells. “The clash was not in a war zone of Ukraine or the Middle East, and the combatants did not belong to any army,” The Times writes “they were criminal groups armed with military-grade weapons and fighting just a few hundred miles from the US border in Mexico's western state of Michoacán.” Wow, didn't see that twist coming, except from the headline and the dateline. “Despite some protestations to the contrary and the occasional nod to the Mexican government's perspective, while the cartels are manufacturing IEDs out of plastic bottles, cut drain pipes and even fire extinguishers,” according to the Times. The US government is trying to manufacture consent for military incursions against our southern neighbor. The Times writes, “‘we cannot continue to just treat these guys as local street gangs,’ Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month in an interview with EWTN, a Catholic television network, they have weaponry that looks like what terrorists, in some cases armies, have.’”

And if their weapons look like the weapons of terrorists and armies, well then, shouldn't the government treat them that way? Anyway, it's shocking and frightening that the cartels are now using explosives. 

Meanwhile, off an extremely perfunctory newspapers.com search, here's a story in the Brainerd, Minnesota, Daily Dispatch of November 11th, 1929. “Federal boat destroyed by bootleggers. Raiders hurled dynamite into it near Memphis, Tennessee. Marks renewal of war between bootleggers and agents on Mississippi.” Memphis, Tennessee, November 11th, UP. “A federal boat was destroyed by raiding bootleggers who hurled dynamite into it early today in a renewal of open war between bootleggers on the Mississippi and federal agents. The bombers slipped into the government dock, planted their bomb, and escaped in the heavy fog that lay over the river in the early morning hours. The boat destroyed had been used by agents in making raids. The destroyed boat,” the story goes on to say, “was a 30-foot cruiser powered by a six-cylinder Pierce-Arrow motor.” 

That is the news reverberating back through history. 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. Keep sending those along if you are able and if nothing unexpected gets in the way. We will talk again, tomorrow.