Good morning. It is September 17th. Rain is supposed to be on its way to New York City, but it's not here yet, and this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. 

Al Jazeera has footage of an Israeli airstrike destroying the 13th century Al-Aybaki Mosque in Gaza City. One shot low down on the minaret, and it's yet another pile of rubble. Yesterday's UN Commissioned report on the matter of genocide in Gaza notes, Importantly, “the destruction of cultural and religious sites is relevant to infer genocidal intent, even though such acts do not necessarily constitute an underlying act of genocide under Article 2 of the Genocide Convention. The Commission has found, in a previous report, that the damage to historical buildings, monuments, and other tangible heritage in Gaza signified a clear disregard for the Palestinian people's religious beliefs, culture, and heritage, the commission has found that these acts constitute war crimes, including, intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion and education and historic monuments, and two, intentionally directing acts against civilian objects that are not military objectives or justified by military necessity or not imperatively demanded by the necessities of the conflict.” 

Major U.S. outlets don't seem to have picked up on the mosque bombing, but the Wikipedia page for the mosque has been moved to the past tense. 

The assault on Gaza City does dominate the top of this morning's print edition of the New York Times. The headline in the lead slot, two columns wide, is “Israeli Ground Forces Push Into Gaza City, Forcing Many to Flee / Assault Deepens a Humanitarian Crisis.” Next to that is a four-column photo of a road packed with fleeing Palestinian people. The caption notes “about half a million people are still believed to be sheltering in the city.” 

Inside the paper, below the jump from the lead story, there's an article about that UN genocide report yesterday. “UN commission says Israel commits genocide in Gaza and targets children.” 

The next page leads with a NEWS ANALYSIS piece. “Trump's inaction gives Netanyahu a license to escalate in Gaza,” which contrasts Donald Trump's indifference to Gaza with what happened on the way to the assault on Rafa under Joe Biden, in which the story says Biden administration officials tried to shape the operation, threatening to block the shipment of American weapons unless Israel developed a credible and executable plan to protect civilian lives. That plan didn't stop Israel from bombing civilian safe zones in Rafa, but the Trump administration does seem dedicated to the premise that things can in fact always be worse. “Casting himself as a global peacemaker,” the Times writes, “Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for a stop to the nearly two year Gaza war, but where he once publicly pressed Israel to end the conflict, he now appears content to look on as it escalates.” 

Below that one, the headline is, some Israelis are critics of Gaza City offensive. The story doesn't get to those Israelis till the second column, after it's aired, the opinions of a group of reserve soldiers who call themselves the Victory Generation and support the continuation of the war, saying, “we won't leave a single terrorist alive anywhere in the Gaza Strip.” And Defense Minister Israel Katz saying Gaza City is the main symbol today of Hamas's governance and saying its conquest is necessary to bring down Hamas. 

Actually, the objectors do make it to the very last line of the first column. “‘It's unfortunate that the prime minister’”—“minister” is on the column break—“‘says there is no choice,’ said Danny Elgarat, the brother of a hostage, Itzik Elgarat, who was killed in captivity. ‘We say there is a choice,’ Mr. Elgarat added. ‘Move aside and let's bring in another prime minister who will end the war and bring the hostages home.’” 

And down at the bottom of that page, the story is many who won't or can't flee end up stranded on streets or under rubble. “Palestinians in Gaza City described scenes of panic on Tuesday,” the Times writes, “as Israel launched a new ground operation, sending in troops and tanks while pounding the area with heavy airstrikes. The city streets were filled with people who could not find anywhere to shelter, witnesses told the New York Times. Others sought safety in buildings that were filled with smoke from nearby Israeli strikes or fires. Nesreen Joudeh said in a telephone interview that she was sheltering with her husband and four children in an apartment whose heavily cracked walls seemed to be crumbling around them. She said she was afraid they would all soon die. ‘with every single strike, pieces of concrete fall on our heads and I scream all the time,’ Ms. Joudeh said.” 

And on the page before that, the entire page is devoted to “In wartime Gaza, children fight to survive famine. Acute malnutrition deprives the body of energy to eat,” complete with graphics showing how a child's body proceeds from fat stores are burned, to muscles become fuel, to systems start to collapse, to organs fail. 

Also on page one, picking up more of yesterday morning's breaking news, there's a Robert Redford obituary, “Screen Idol Who Made Serious Topics Resonate,” and the news about the New York State terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione being dropped. 

On the left-hand side of the page, it's “Utah to Seek Death Penalty In Kirk Killing. Utah prosecutors said on Tuesday that they would seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing the prominent conservative activist, Charlie Kirk, and that the man had told his partner that he shot Mr. Kirk because he ‘had enough of his hatred.’” Story then says “the killing of Mr. Kirk, 31, while he spoke at a Utah college on September 10th continued to reverberate through national politics. President Trump and his top advisors have threatened to punish what they claim to be a left-wing network that supports violence, and Attorney General Pam Bondi promised a crackdown on hate speech. After she was criticized for potentially criminalizing speech protected by the First Amendment, she clarified her remarks, saying on social media that she was referring to hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence.” So far, none of those things that the administration was grandstanding about appear to have anything to do with Tyler Robinson, who on the basis of the claims law enforcement is currently making about him, appears to have acted alone and to have not been embedded in any particular networks except buddies who like video gaming. 

On the right hand side of the bottom of the page, a single column reports, “Patrols in D.C. Keeping Agents From Casework. As President Trump's deployment of federal agents in Washington to crack down on street crime enters its second month” the Times writes, “the effects are becoming clear. While crime keeps falling, the other investigative work of the FBI is being delayed, frustrating law enforcement officials and leading some to quit. At the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, a handful of veteran lawyers stepped down recently. The moves quickened the erosion of experience in the office, which was understaffed before Mr. Trump ordered National Guard troops and hundreds of additional federal law enforcement officers to patrol the Capitol streets. At the FBI,” the story continues, “many agents focused on financial fraud and public corruption, now spend two or three nights a week patrolling, significantly slowing the progress of their regular work, including witness interviews, search warrants, and planning meetings, according to people familiar with the Bureau's priorities. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal staffing challenges. Similar delays are also affecting counterintelligence work, these people said.” 

Hamstringing the FBI's ability to investigate financial fraud doesn't seem like things backfiring for the Trump administration exactly. Seems more like one of their more successful integrated policy initiatives. 

In a similar vein, or not, wouldn't want to speculate, the Wall Street Journal reports that between the Trump administration's obsessive hostility toward fentanyl smuggling cartels and its reallocation of border enforcement resources toward hunting down immigrants in the United States, cocaine trafficking into the country is flourishing and the prices are low, low, low. “Columbia,” the Journal writes, “is producing record amounts of cocaine and the volume of the drug arriving in the US is driving down prices, the people familiar with cartel operations said. ‘Cocaine prices have fallen by nearly half to around 60 to $75 a gram compared with five years ago,’ said Morgan Godvin, a researcher with the community organization Drug Checking Los Angeles. ‘The price of pure cocaine has plummeted, Godvin said.’” 

This is all in the course of a long look at the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and how it has overtaken the Sinaloa Cartel helped along by what the interim chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration tells the Journal is “a pivot to much more cocaine distribution in America.” Here too, in passing, the story notes the murderous nonsense of Donald Trump's massacres of people on boats in the Caribbean. “U.S. forces in the Caribbean,” the Journal writes, “recently blew up two speedboats, including one this week, that President Trump alleged were ferrying cocaine and fentanyl from Venezuela to the U.S. Fentanyl is largely produced in Mexico, and most cocaine ships through the Pacific. All those aboard the two vessels were killed.” 

Back in the New York Times, inside the paper on page A-15, “Park Service is ordered to take down materials on slavery and tribes. The president's executive order demanding the removal of materials that ‘inappropriately disparage Americans,’ has meant,” according to news that the Times credits the Washington Post for breaking, that, “At Fort Pulaski National Monument in Georgia, Trump officials have directed Park Service staff to remove a reproduction of ‘The Scourged Back,’ the famous photo that depicts the formerly enslaved man, who was known as both Peter and Gordon, exposing severe scars on his back from whippings.” The story also describes how the administration has purged a passage from a children's booklet at Robert E. Lee's formal home, which said that Lee broke his promise and fought for slavery. 

That is the news. Thank you for listening. The Indignity Morning Podcast is edited by Joe MacLeod. That 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.