Good morning. It is June 28th, a mild, dry and beautiful morning here on the island of Manhattan. And this is your Indignity Morning Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Scocca, taking a look at the day and the news. The only news story anymore is that there was a presidential debate last night between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Biden came in with a cold, which made him sound even more feeble and tentative than usual and liberal pundits immediately freaked each other out into demanding that he somehow drop out of the race. Donald Trump was a gibbering lunatic, but no Republicans, let alone centrist pundits, seemed to have written columns calling for him to drop out. The whole thing was a terrible spectacle. What it most felt like was watching something like the Conor McGregor -Floyd Mayweather fight, in which it was obvious that McGregor, who's Donald Trump in this scenario, would have been killed in the ring by a real boxer who was trying to hurt him, but Floyd Mayweather was not there to be that guy. The resulting commentary to switch sports analogies is as if the pundit class have just watched the bullpen blow a game and they're all calling up the FAN to scream about how the manager needs to be fired. There's nothing to really say about the substance of the debate because there wasn't any substance to it. What would the news have been if not for the big TV show?

On the front of this morning's New York Times, the lead news story is, or should I say was, the Supreme Court's decision that the billionaire opioid pushers of the Sackler family could not get away with a settlement with the victims of their company Purdue Pharma while protecting their own personal fortunes from civil liability. It's a big development in the ongoing opioid saga, and it was a 5 -4 decision in which the usual court factions were scrambled up.

But as Supreme Court news from yesterday goes, it seems like once again the Times picked the third or fourth most important judgment. You got to turn to page 814 to learn that they basically shut down the SEC's power to regulate securities fraud, requiring a jury trial for the regulators to issue any fines, a ruling that seems likely to extend to other federal regulatory agencies in principle and which is completely beyond the capacity of the federal court system to execute. Also, the court blocked the EPA from being able to prevent power plants in one state from polluting the air in another, and they allowed the temporary suspension of Idaho's ban on emergency abortions. Meanwhile, Israel continued chasing Palestinians back and forth across the Gulf of Gaza.

Now the armed forces are assaulting Gaza City again. That gets a picture on page one and a story on A9. Below that picture, Oklahoma's state superintendent on Thursday directed all public schools to teach the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, in an extraordinary move that blurs the lines between religious instruction and public education, the Times wrote. Blurs doesn't really seem like the word for that. On page A7, there's an update from Kenya. The death toll from police attacking protesters, reached 23. President William Ruto reversed the tax bill that the protesters were protesting, but now protesters are calling for him to resign. And on page A8, extreme heat in the Gulf threatens the ambitions of the wealthiest states. That would be the Persian Gulf. And where exactly did these countries endangered by runaway global warming get that wealth from?

And in other news about people trying to inflict environmental catastrophes, a piece on page A18 reports that Republicans are now polarized against wind and solar power. Their approval of clean energy, the story says, started to fall sharply after President Biden took office in 2021. Majorities are still in favor of it, but the latest Pew survey says 64 % of Republicans said they favor more solar farms, down from 84 % the year Mr. Biden was elected. Similarly, 56 % of Republicans said they support more wind turbine farms, down from 75 % in 2020. Further down, the story gets into a little more detail about exactly who's against clean power. Two -thirds of Republicans, ages 18 to 29, the story says, said the nation should prioritize the expansion of renewable energy, while 76 % of Republicans, ages 65 and older, said the priority should be more oil, coal, and natural gas. Right -wing baby boomers are genuinely trying to take the planet with them to the grave. That is the news. Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to Indignity to keep us going. For real. There aren't that many jobs left in media criticism. And whether or not you click that little button to send some money determines whether or not the Indignity Morning Podcast counts as one of those jobs. Anyway, where were we? right. Thanks again. And it all goes well, we will talk again on Monday.